We are experiencing an unusually high volume of bureaucracy

I have a hunch why people in late middle age are abandoning the workforce: their jobs, as they once knew them, no longer exist. I don’t mean that there is no longer pay for what they do; it’s simply that corporate bureaucracy has eliminated many of the perks which made work enjoyable in the first place.

Doctors hired for their expertise must defer to people with no medical knowledge at all

A legal-financial-HR-procurement-managerial commissariat, by ratcheting itself ever deeper into organisations, has eliminated the patronage, autonomy and exercise of knowledge which once came hand-in-hand with professional ability. Regardless of your experience, your every action now requires approval from number- crunchers who understand nothing of your job, using only data and metrics they define. By writing its own rules, this bureaucratic caste has seized control of day-to-day decisions from people who do the actual work, effectively infantilising them.

The result is that jobs that used to feel like driving a car now feel like flying on a low-cost airline, where you are endlessly subject to petty rules and restrictions, or forced to undergo needless humiliations so some accountant can squeeze another three seats on the plane.