As someone who is living in a house with two yards (front and back) I oftentimes have to resort to using pesticides to control the population of ants in the yards and prevent them from spreading into the house.
Have you ever used pesticides yourself? Have you witnessed firsthand their effect on the insects? Within seconds of spraying, you will see them trembling, losing focus, getting disoriented – it’s not a pretty sight.
I never gave much thought into it, until I noticed this by pure chance – Up to that point, I was just spraying and then coming back half an hour later to… dispose of the corpses. But when I did notice the suffering that I was causing, I felt so much guilt that ever since then I am staying around just to quickly finish the affected insects off and not let them suffer.
This week, some horrible reports came out of Activision-Blizzard, shining light on the suffering of “weaker” (mostly female) employees. Instead of acknowledging the issue, apologizing and trying to fix it, the management decided to go on the offensive, which spurred further backlash from employees.
To me, it’s undeniable that managers have a near life-and-death power over their employees: A bad manager can make an employee’s life “unlivable” (just like it happened at Activision-Blizzard). Ironically, some managers don’t have the slightest idea of the suffering they may be causing to their employees – They are absent when the work gets done, inspecting only the result. Just like me with the pesticides: I only started caring about the ants, when I saw with my own eyes the pesticide taking hold of the poor creatures.
There is countless advice out there about what a good manager should do, but at the end of the day, it boils down to just one thing for me: A good manager has to be present and see their employees – literally and figuratively.