Does Work Work — and what would we do without it?
He had asked his mother once what made his father so mad, and she had answered that she really didn’t know.
“I think perhaps he doesn’t like his job,” she said.
Lionel said, “Why doesn’t he get another job?”
“Perhaps he can’t think of one he’d like.”Alice Munro, Post and Beam
I am lucky — I like my job. It’s satisfying and pays okay. I learn something every day and I have the privilege to call some of the people I work with not just colleagues, but friends. But if I didn’t have to earn a living, I would never set foot in the office again. That’s quite an about-face for a guy who just a few years ago defined himself through work. The doubt started bugging me last year, shortly after I moved countries for a new job. On the surface, everything was working out. I was an engaged employee and I quickly earned the respect of managers and peers. And still, I couldn’t shake the realization that if I could walk away without consequences, I wouldn’t even bat an eye.
I sound like an ungrateful shit. I see a lot of fellow millennials work ridiculous hours, toil at shitty jobs, or struggle to find any employment at all. I am neither smarter nor more resourceful than them. They just weren’t lucky enough to land a cushy job in tech. But it’s me complaining about having to go to work on interesting projects in a spacious office with bean bags and drawers full of candy. The horror.
I eventually realized I am not dissatisfied with my job. I am dissatisfied with work. As a society we elevated it to the very top of human aspiration. Do what you love is almost as celebrated as find someone you love, even though we know relationships make people much happier than jobs. Society also demands you get a job or else you will starve. Doesn’t matter what you do — as long as there’s a salary involved, you can live. Even if you live off horseshit like telemarketing or investment banking.
If I’m going to do what I love, I’d much prefer it wasn’t at gunpoint. But we can’t have that. Our lives are predicated on our ability to collect a paycheck. From a young age we’re told we need to study to get a good job. Then most of us find jobs that are not so good. If you’re one of the lucky few, congrats — you won the lottery. Thousands of people who hate their jobs envy you, while they anxiously wait to clock out on a Friday afternoon.
It’s a truism to say there is no correlation between effort and reward. Compare the wages of executives, software developers, and warehouse workers at Amazon and tell me I’m wrong. You could say it’s the market that dictates we pay corporate lawyers more than teachers, but I don’t buy it. Market is an idea. We made it up. You can believe in the market, in socialism, in God, or in a hundred other abstracts but they are only what we make them be. So why, out of all the things, have we chosen salaried work to be this one activity that defines our lives? I don’t get it.
Recently I asked a bunch of friends why do we work? I mostly got polite smiles and shrugs. Someone replied: would you rather we just sat around? Damn, man. Wouldn’t you?
This is how I came up with Does Work Work. I wanted to understand why work occupies the central role in society and what it means to people. The effect of almost a year of searching for answers is eight interviews with people from different backgrounds.The first conversation is about the past, present, and future of work. I asked James Livingston, a professor of history at Rutgers University and the author of No More Work, how did we get where we are and where do we go from here? What follows are interviews with three people looking for solutions: from public-private partnerships, to full automation, to universal basic income. I also wanted to discuss the working lives of people who comprise a large and important part of the workforce but are often left out of the debate. I interviewed an escort and an Uber driver. In the last two interviews we look at the workplace — how it can be an environment where you thrive or, conversely, how it can lead you towards addiction and detachment.
Does Work Work was a side project I assumed I’d wrap in a couple of weeks over the summer of 2017. I was silly. Labor is a topic as large as society itself and no number of conversations is sufficient to understand it in full. I decided to limit the scope of Does Work Work because I, too, have a day job that takes up most of my time. I left out some important topics: diversity and inclusion in the workplace, a technical take on labor automation, work landscape outside of the Western society, art as work, digital nomadism, and much more. One day I might pick up where I left off, but I hope the interviews I completed so far will broaden your perspective and maybe inspire you to research those topics on your own. Hopefully, we will all think deeper about what work means to us so we can, indeed, make it work.
Thank you for reading. Thanks to Jess for the illustrations and for keeping my spirits up when I was thinking about shelving the project. Thanks to Mark for his support and ideas. And thank you to the eight people who shared their time, thoughts, and stories with me.
Interviews
- I: Does work work?
- II: The American Dream
- III: Crisis of Work
- IV: How Universal is Universal Basic Income
- V: Body of Work/Work of a Body
- VI: Side Hustlin’ in the Gig Economy
- VII: No Manager’s Land
- VIII: Addicted to Work
Interviews: Wojtek Borowicz
Illustrations: Jess Anderson
P.S. If you like Does Work Work, check my other collection of interviews, Inner Worlds: building a universe in 11 conversations.
And if you like the visual style, you should look at other works from Jess Anderson.
