I Come to Praise Work

accordingtohoyt

Oct 5

I'll start by admitting that I'm broken. I'm one of those people who has to work. Mostly because when I don't, I get bored.

I remember the lovely Summer vacations that were three months and sometimes six during revolutionary times when teachers went on strike or the school flooded and there was no money to fix it. (A couple of years I was still on vacation during my birthday, in November.)

The first two or three weeks -- I scheduled -- were for re-reading old favorites and reading all the new books I could cajole out of friends or their parents. (Borrow. No one gave them to me. Sigh.) And then tedium would set in. I quite literally wouldn't know what to do with myself.

I usually consumed a week or two making my room really clean, and moving stuff around. (The number of times I shifted furniture!)

And then... I had to give myself work. Either real work for which someone paid me. (Rare. I more often found work during the school year, since mostly I tutored.) Or work I imposed on myself. "This summer I'm going to write x poems a week." Or "I'm going to study Romantic Poetry." Or "I'm going to study Roman history within the limits of books I can borrow plus the public library." (Harder, because it wasn't a lending library.)

Or I'd research for a novel I was more or less sure I'd never write, but it gave me work. Or invented a whole universe (I have those littering my brain still.)

Because I'm broken.

I realized how broken when I was once fantasizing about winning the lottery, and realized the sum total of my lifestyle change would be "I'll get someone to do the housework, so I can do more writing work."

Broken.

If tomorrow I became unable to write or at least to sell (could happen. The market is a tight funnel.) I would probably start a craft business, for the money, and continue writing on the side, to get the stories out of my head.

All of which amounts to, work gives shape to life. At least my life.

And I believe there's immense dignity in paying your own way. In fact, I've often said the sum total of my ambition for my boys has always been "Grown up, pays own way."

When I first heard of the anti-work movement, my mind blew up. What the heck does that even mean? Who do they think will do the necessary for society to work, and for them to eat and have a roof over their heads.

I'm not sympathizing with those people.

Except... Except I can see where they're responding to just as crazy an extreme.

My generation by and large (there are always exceptions) went to work out of high-school or college, and got told there were any number of others to take our job. If we didn't want it.

We wanted it. Or at least we wanted to survive. So we worked crazy hours. We worked crazy hours with no overtime, and always being told we fell short. (Yes, even as a free lance writer.)

Now by and large this wasn't work digging ditches. But I almost want to say it was worse, because we had to be intellectually alert and push and push and push, when the mind and the body rebelled, and you just wanted to sit there and do nothing, for a day or two.

It's easier to push just the body. The mind has a way of throwing a heck of a rebellion, trust me on this

And we were always short on time and short on money.

Now there are other alternatives, and we can work from home, but we're exhausted, and we have no energy.

And working from home, as was mentioned here yesterday means you're always on. I swear my husband works far more than he bills, because he doesn't count the time he's eating while trying to figure out some problem, or when he gets home in the middle of the night to "fix one thing."

Meanwhile work places haven't got more reasonable. Now I could point out that part of this is a lot of illegal workers cutting the bottom out of starter jobs, and the crazy inflation we're caught in, but all the same: I know people in retail. I know administrative assistants... I know people.

Since Obamacare made hiring people more expensive, companies are reluctant to add to pay roll. It's more effective to work the people you have half to death.

The other side of this is not giving people more hours than for part time, so you don't have to pay health care.

I know it's fashionable to pile on millenials, but all those I know work hard, and often in indivious positions.

And part of all this is that the attitude of the companies is "Do exactly as we say, or else." Yes, even now with the so called labor shortage. And even when what they want is patently impossible.

And so.... So we see silent quitting. We see a lot of people, mostly women, (particularly those with kids) choosing to stay home, which is probably a wash even on medium paying jobs. We see people who are so tired and burned out they can barely function.

And none of this, none of it, amounts to the best productivity.

The truth is the culture has gone poisonous. Squeezed by the government, businesses squeeze employees. Convince that millenials are slackers, we demand the impossible of them.

And then we're shocked the "no work" movement appears. As stupid as it is, so is what they're reacting against.

And we wonder why millenials aren't marrying and having kids. Most of them don't have the time for a social life, and the married ones often lack energy for their spouses.

Let's give the kids the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not one for collective action, and I'm not going to suggest a general strike. That's what we'll get if we don't do something about it.

First, let's stopped the macho culture of "I work all hours of the day, and barely see my family" is a good thing. (And women are often more macho than men.) Work is work and necessary, but there is life outside work.

Second, let's agitate to get government's foot off business's neck. Because yeah, businesses can be asses, but government mandates don't help anything.

Third, let's figure out alternatives, and create alternative work pathways. Indie. Job sharing. Whatever.

Let's dispense with the idea that a company making unreasonable demands is better than a government making unreasonable demands.

Can your boss demand you work the occasional weekend? Sure. It happens. Should your boss demand you work seven days a week and hem and haw at giving you Christmas off? Oh, heck no. (My husband ran into this when we were thirty.)

All the movies, everything picturing a "career" as the most important thing in your life are wrong.

Most jobs aren't a career. They're just work. (Like if I made crafts. Just work.)

Work is dignified, and it's important. It gives shape to life. And paying your own way makes you an adult.

But life isn't work. There is more to life than that. And until we start seeing that people should have a life beyond and beside work, we'll see the reaction of trying to say all work is bad, or of "silent quitting."

Yes, in the days ahead a lot of work might be required of us in order to survive. But there is a difference between that and make-work pushed at us because someone in charge can do it. And most people do know the difference.

Don't lie flat. Build your own escape route and fight back.

Build under, build over, build around, and get ready to take the weight.

Because what can't go on, won't go on.