Work is no place for your ‘whole self’

One of the few things I have learned in this life is that Dante Alighieri was wrong. In the Inferno portion of The Divine Comedy (the only part most people read), the great Florentine poet describes hell as having just nine circles. Whereas whenever I survey matters it has always seemed me that this figure is on the low side. In fact I would go further. I would say that if you look down there is always a circle below every circle.

The other week I wrote about our nation’s ambassador to the Ukraine — a woman who seems to think that expressions of vulnerability and not-quite-coping are somehow helpful public attributes in her job. What I did not get into is that Melinda Simmons is not alone. She is part of a movement. A way of approaching the working world which constitutes a whole new circle of hell. It can be summed up in a phrase now working itself outwards from every HR department in the land.