Smiling Our Way Through Austerity

In the aftermath of mass layoffs and ongoing budget cuts, the Faculty of Arts and Science has been running resiliency workshops for those employees who remain. Designed to show workers “how they can thrive under pressure,” the one-hour virtual sessions are led by certified mental health clinicians with Telus Health, the outfit with whom Queen’s contracts to provide employee assistance.  

At a recent session, a quote from Maya Angelou was used to open the conversation: “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive, and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style,” read the slide. More decontextualized excerpts followed, including a Charles Darwin quote about survival and adaptation, and another that was attributed to Ray Charles, whose life emerged as a recurring theme in the workshop:

As a five-year old, I watched helplessly as my younger brother drowned. The same year, I was struck by glaucoma and my family was too poor to buy the medical help that could have saved my sight. As a result, I became blind. My parents died when I was a teenager, and I ended up in a state institution for the blind. As an African American I was not allowed to access many activities at the institution. This prevented me from enjoying my one true passion – music.

Glossing over—and appropriating–the structural racism and ableism described by Charles, the moderator referred instead to “difficult times”—a term they returned to repeatedly as participants voiced concerns about being inundated with email, navigating uncertainty, and maintaining their mental health, all while managing increased workload.

For participants looking for ways to cope with poor working conditions, the message, imprinted on consecutive slides, was clear: If Ray Charles didn’t let his vision loss stop him, then that missed deadline should not create negative thoughts or stress for you! This particular example culminated in a comparison between Ray Charles’ success in beating the odds to become a legendary musician and employees turning their increased workloads into the possibility of a promotion.

With no space made for consideration of systemic or collective transformation, participants were told that they needed to learn to control their amygdala—the almond-shaped structure in the brain responsible for processing emotions. Unsubstantiated and reductionist biological thinking also underpinned some of the data provided, including the dubious claim that 50% of people are born with a “higher set point of happiness.” Participants were reassured that even those with innate unhappiness can overcome their inborn disadvantage, however, by focusing on their strengths.

The concept of happiness meritocracy, which suggests that happiness is solely a result of personal effort and mindset, is often used in workplaces to encourage productivity. However, framing unhappiness as a personal failing ignores the complex interplay of genetic, environmental, and societal factors that influence well-being. This perspective can lead employees to internalize blame for their struggles, increasing stress and anxiety. The push for constant positivity and resilience underestimates the importance of addressing systemic issues and providing comprehensive mental health support.

The Telus workshop epitomized this approach. With the words “lemons into lemonade” emblazoned on the screen, participants were instructed to “smile more.” Other strategies included getting down on the ground for a set of push-ups to stop the train of negative thoughts and keeping a rubber band on one’s wrist to be snapped in moments of difficulty. 

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A large critical literature on the neoliberal love affair with resilience, in which an employee’s ability to withstand adversity is demanded and celebrated, helps shed light on the Telus workshops. Julian Reid (2013) argues that “the resilient subject” must permanently struggle to accommodate itself to the world” (p. 355) rather than seeing itself as capable of acting upon the world to transform it. Resilience discourse is a strategy for ensuring compliance, in other words, making individuals responsible for managing their suffering and discouraging them from questioning austerity measures or other systemic forces at the root of their hardship.

Renowned feminist thinker, Sara Ahmed (2017), has written about what happens when people snap. She writes:

A snap is not the starting point….If you find something problematic, you have a problem. If you find something problematic, you become a problem. So, you respond quietly, perhaps. You might be speaking quietly, or you might be getting wound up, recognizing with frustration that you are being wound up by someone who is winding you up. Being wound up: you become tighter, and tighter, the more you are provoked. Tight, tighter, tighter still, gasp, there is no air left: until, snap….A snap can tell us when it is too much…

Queen’s is aware that people might snap. But snapping is inconvenient. It exposes problems. It is more efficient from an institutional perspective to offload responsibility for managing untenable workloads to individual employees. If employees can be taught to expand their pre-snap zones, if they can be encouraged simply to change their perspectives, then there’s no need to address the lack of control and faith that workshop participants expressed.

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How resilient does Queen’s expect its workers to be? How much are employees supposed to bear before they snap? Who among us is required to be the most resilient? Is Provost Evans also being advised to do push-ups, snap rubber bands on his wrist, and keep a big smile on his face?

It would be shocking if anyone left that workshop feeling more resilient or better about their job at Queen’s. Reflecting on their experience, one participant said: “If I employ what I learned in order to change my perspective and look for the positive: We received a masterclass on how to use famous quotes out of context.”