Why work can make us ugly

So, I've started my new job almost 6 weeks ago. I was so eager about it and happy to stop wasting my time and my youth on doing nothing, and now finally the change has come. I can be the protagonist of my own career, I interact with people daily and I can even go to work by foot, which is a gift from heaven in a large city like Rome. I am even lucky to have found a good job with good perspectives, and all this after only one week of job hunting.
This is not meant to be a complain, nor is it a pessimistic thought. You might think (and you are probably right) that this is a personal battle between Raluca-child and Raluca-grown-up. And in this moment, Raluca-child is definitely winning.
In my attempt to explain how I feel, I could only be satisfied by this statement: work makes us ugly. I'm not able to perfectly defend this "thesis", but I simply have the impression every day that regular schedules are fastening our growing old and that, in almost every type of work, there is a boring part which tends to form our brain according to certain patterns which are totally wrong and  harmful on the long term. So when I say ugly, I think I mean with no brightness and deprived of our youthful ideals. Luckily, I haven't got that far yet and I will hold on to my ideals, I think that even Raluca the grown-up will. But I still don't get why people get suddenly jealous in the work environment, why some act as rivals even when there is no competition at all and why we have to always write down the "bla bla", even if it's become a given fact by now. I will think of this tomorrow at work and hopefully come up with some soothing answers.