Ep. 5 The Ideal Worker

Aparna and Lars are joined by organizational consultant Valarie Williams to dismantle the "Ideal Worker" myth. A set of persistent corporate beliefs that the perfect employee has no life, no caregiving responsibilities, and zero physical or mental health needs. We dive into the "Anxious Achiever" phenomenon, the rise of zero-employee startup goals in Silicon Valley, and why the tech industry treats 2-hour shuttle commutes as on-the-job time. This conversation goes beyond work-life balance to interrogate of how capitalism is modeling the "ideal" after a robot and what happens to our humanity when we try to compete with an algorithm.