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Business skills online training
Aug. 1st, 2012 11:19 amThe company just contracted with a vendor of online business skills training courses. Subjects offered are as diverse as PivotTables in Excel and anger management.
I have no problem with the hard skills courses, but I feel ambivalent about the soft skills courses. On one hand, I am grateful that such courses exist because their existence implicitly acknowledges that nobody automatically knows how to manage anger effectively, for example. On the other hand, I have deep philosophical discomfort with the way that emotional labor -- i.e., soft skills -- is demanded by corporate culture, but coded as feminine, demeaned and undervalued in this society.
There's also the philosophical discomfort created by knowing that the corporations are trying to control what employees feel and how they feel it.
I have no easily summarizable thoughts on these subjects.
I have no problem with the hard skills courses, but I feel ambivalent about the soft skills courses. On one hand, I am grateful that such courses exist because their existence implicitly acknowledges that nobody automatically knows how to manage anger effectively, for example. On the other hand, I have deep philosophical discomfort with the way that emotional labor -- i.e., soft skills -- is demanded by corporate culture, but coded as feminine, demeaned and undervalued in this society.
There's also the philosophical discomfort created by knowing that the corporations are trying to control what employees feel and how they feel it.
I have no easily summarizable thoughts on these subjects.