On Culture: Work Has Entered Its Situationship Era

Myste Wylde
5 days ago
5 min read

Updated: 9 minutes ago

Dear Culturati Insider,

Work has entered its situationship era.

Once reserved for Cosmopolitan relationship quizzes and TikTok confessionals, a situationship describes a relationship sustained by effort and familiarity even though the long-term future remains unclear. It turns out the term now fits how many employees describe work. New Glassdoor data shows that 93% of workers remain in roles they don't love for stability, 63% call their relationship with work complicated, and 74% question whether loving a job feels realistic today.

Meanwhile, leaders continue to ask for passion. (More passion. More passion. More energy.) Steve Jobs argued that loving your work is what carries you through boredom, criticism, and setbacks. This is true. Endurance requires genuine enjoyment of the craft. The tension is that many organizations now pair that expectation with urgency culture, recurring reorgs, and AI-driven reinvention that resets progress before mastery has time to compound. We ask people to invest deeply while signaling that the structure around them may shift next quarter.

And if you are fortunate enough to truly love your work, you may be at risk of financial tradeoffs. Employees who feel deep loyalty often accept unpaid overtime, delay compensation conversations, and remain below market value for extended periods, sometimes sacrificing tens of thousands of dollars over a career. Passion fuels discretionary effort. But when commitment runs deeper than the structure supporting it, burnout usually follows.

There is one shining truth that acts as counterweight. In the immortal words of Bad Bunny (and MLK Jr.) "The only thing stronger than hate is love." Leaning into ancient wisdom, the Buddha described love as a discipline built on loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. Practiced daily through how leaders listen, respond to pressure, celebrate progress, and hold steady through volatility, these skills build trust and create the stability people need to invest fully in their work. In a moment when so much about work feels provisional, love expressed through disciplined care may be the closest thing organizations have to building something that lasts.

For what we love,

Myste Wylde, COO

Steve Jobs Said This 1 Mindset Is the Difference Between Loving Your Work and Burning Out

Inc.

By Marcel Schwantes

Summary: Steve Jobs argued that passion is endurance. Building anything meaningful requires sustained energy through boredom, setbacks, and criticism. The differentiator between loving your work and burning out is long-term enjoyment and emotional investment in the craft. Urgency culture erodes that energy. Always-on schedules, back-to-back meetings, and chronic pressure drain creativity and accelerate burnout. Leaders who last create margin for reflection, experimentation, and recalibration. They reconnect work to human impact by reinforcing who benefits and how, since visible meaning fuels intrinsic motivation. Teams that experience psychological safety and shared wins recover from stress faster and retain talent longer. When leaders feel exhausted or detached, disengagement spreads and attrition follows. Sustainable performance comes from designing roles and cultures that preserve curiosity, agency, and purpose over time. Grit sustains effort. Enjoyment sustains excellence.

READ ARTICLE IN FULL

Work is a ‘Situationship’ and Your Manager is a Millennial: Welcome to the Economy Where Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Fortune

By Nick Lichtenberg

Summary: Glassdoor research shows the 2026 labor market increasingly resembles a “job situationship,” where employees stay for stability while emotional and professional commitment declines. Data shows 93% of workers remain in roles they do not love for financial security, 63% describe their relationship with work as complicated or nearing exit, and 74% believe loving any job feels unrealistic in the current environment. Hiring slowdowns and economic pressure have created a low-hire, low-fire market that reduces mobility and increases disengagement. Leadership quality remains a primary driver of whether roles deteriorate or improve, with workload intensity and burnout accelerating dissatisfaction. Some employees attempt to reinvest in existing roles, with 28% reporting improved perceptions of employers within two years, signaling that culture and management still influence retention. When job mobility declines, engagement, trust, and discretionary effort often decline alongside it, creating performance drag and cultural volatility across organizations.

READ ARTICLE IN FULL

Workers Should Watch Out for the Invisible Financial Risk of Loving Their Jobs

Market Watch

By Venessa Wong

Summary: Loving your job can strengthen engagement and discretionary effort, yet emotional attachment to work often carries hidden financial tradeoffs. Career research shows employees who feel deep loyalty to their roles frequently accept unpaid overtime, delay compensation negotiations, and remain in positions below market value for extended periods, which can reduce lifetime earnings by tens of thousands of dollars. The shift from industrial employment to knowledge and service economies elevated purpose and identity as central drivers of work, while workplace perks and flexible environments increased time investment and psychological reliance on employers. Rising cost of living, economic volatility, and AI-driven job disruption have pushed many professionals to prioritize stability alongside meaning. Sustainable career growth requires maintaining skill development, market awareness, and professional mobility so passion strengthens performance while preserving long-term economic leverage.

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The Worst Part of Work Today is that Nothing Feels Built to Last

Fast Company

By Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza

Summary: The hardest part of modern work is the growing sense that effort rarely carries forward. Employees build skills, adapt to new systems, and adjust to shifting leadership, only to face another reorganization, technology shift, or strategic reset that erases prior progress. Research reinforces the cost. A 2024 study of more than 50,000 workers found repeated organizational change increases fatigue, anxiety, and depression, with each additional change compounding the impact. Separate research shows frequent restructuring increases resistance to future change and weakens trust in leadership, reducing execution success. Automation and AI accelerate this cycle by reshaping roles faster than mastery can develop, leaving many employees feeling productive yet unfulfilled. When work feels temporary and accomplishments feel disposable, motivation and commitment decline. Organizations that preserve continuity and help employees see lasting impact strengthen engagement, trust, and long-term performance.

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What the Buddha Taught About Love

Psychology Today

By Debra M. Kawahara Ph.D.

Summary: The Buddha described love as a daily discipline built on four skills that shape how people lead and relate. Loving-kindness begins with a simple practice of goodwill, offering warmth in conversations, assuming positive intent, and giving others space to grow. Compassion trains attention toward suffering, asking what pressure or fear may sit beneath behavior and responding with steadiness rather than reaction. Appreciative joy counters comparison by celebrating others’ success, strengthening collaboration and reducing internal rivalry. Equanimity builds emotional balance, allowing leaders to stay grounded amid praise, criticism, volatility, and change. Together, these four practices create relational stability, reduce conflict, and support trust. Love in this framework becomes cultural infrastructure, influencing how organizations handle conflict, change, and human complexity over time.

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