Beware the Dead Sea Effect at Companies

For a while, my significant other worked at Google. She’s a hard worker at every job she holds (and definitely puts in more work than I do, most days), but her stories about Google make me envious. I won’t go into details, but the company provides stellar perks. Even though she was working in a contractor position, rather than as a permanent employee, she regaled me with tales of their cafeteria offerings, their fitness equipment, and other perks. Even beyond the employee perks, Google was a great place for people to work. It offers excellent pay, recognizes and acknowledges its employee contributions, and it tackles a lot of complex, real-world problems. Another friend of mine works on YouTube, helping build better methods to automatically remove hate and banned content. That’s something that has a real impact. But even the best perks sometimes don’t make up for the people and the attitude of the workplace. Many of us can probably recall a time when we worked at a place with a toxic coworker or boss. And what happens over time, at a workplace with a toxic culture? We see two closely related business principles applied: the Peter principle, and the Dead Sea Effect. <a href="https://medium.com/@westwise/beware-the-dead-sea-effect-at-companies-1552f0411074">Learn More</a>