Why are people shocked with the transactional nature of work?

Question

I guess the job market has been so good for so long but those of us who lived through y2k aftermath, dot com bust, housing market crash, etc realize that yes you should enjoy your work but no you should not expect loyalty from a company. Maybe from people in your network but work is a transaction. Both sides should make it as pleasant and productive as possible but a company is not your family and is not looking out for your best interests. Do all you can to find one that is decent, has work you enjoy and aligns with your values. But always be prepared for the worst and don't emotionally invest. It's hard seeing all the devastated people on LinkedIn.

MountainMan1312 · Accepted Answer

It's divorced from the reasons we do work in the first place. The way work is now is just meaningless. It's nothing but making a parasite richer. We go "to work" (a place separate from the rest of life) instead of doing work wherever it's needed. We expect compensation for work because it's not for us.
I don't think it should be like that. I think we should work on things that need working on to solve problems and make life easier. Pumping out 10k plastic toys a day or a million plastic bags or putting this screw in that hole is mindless useless labor, designed only to make it seem as though we actually need all this shit.
Than there's the alienation of the labor. That's the thing where you do the work but you don't get credit for it. You work for company XYZ, you do the work, XYZ gets the credit and the profit. You don't get to make decisions. You're a robot. A mindless wage slave whose only purpose is to shift resources you acquire to the people who already have more than you.
People getting invested in their workplace like a family is a natural consequence of the atomized and isolated world we live in: the world of capitalism. Car-centric infrastructure. The atomic family. Everything is designed to drive us farther and farther apart, and it only makes things better for one group: the ruling class, who would actually stand to lose something from a global sense of community and friendship. So of course we treat work like a family. It's all we've got anymore.

kaskakokos · Answer

Wilhelm von Humboldt who inspired Stuart Mill, both liberalist (tradition that prompted the labour or land transaction) explained it before:
"Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness …we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."
So here we are, selling our work and who knows what else.