One thing I've been thinking a lot about while watching the NFL especially is the constant talk about "sacrifice" and "hard work" and countless other "manly" and "strong" values that are repeated ad nauseam and the mindset this feeds into. There's very much a strong association with the NFL and the blue-collar working man, but that has been completely done away with since the 70s. The days of NFL players having two jobs because they used to be paid nothing is long-gone, and in as much as these athletes work hard, they're going into practice a handful of times a week, getting paid millions and millions of dollars, breaking covid procedures with literally no consequences (missing games doesn't mean not getting paid for most of them), and having one hard day of actual work / game-time a week.

What furthers this is the idea that they *should* be out there sacrificing their bodies for the entertainment of the masses and that somehow this makes them, and by extension the "blue collar worker" tougher than everyone else. As a result, the person putting in 60-80 hours a week or breaking their backs is somehow the better person in society. This plays into the corporate idea that people are there to be cogs and should give everything they have to a company that gives an absolute rat fuck about them. If we're not out there "sacrificing" and not having a strong work-ethic, we're clearly not walking the company line.

What we should be doing is taking the approach of professional sports through the idea of only having to work or "practice" for just a few hours a day, and have one day a week to really burn through some of it. You'll get better performance out of people, have less churn, and have people who are excited to come to work because they're not being ham-fisted into a way of existing that quite frankly doesn't suit them.

Fuck your ping pong tables and pizza parties.