Do our jobs define us? Some thoughts on labor
Posted
Sep 03 2008, 03:36 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to earn money -- and not just so I could buy penny candy. Working was a sign of being grown-up. I wanted badly to be a grownup.
That's why in elementary school I would pick and sell flowers and strawberries. It's why I rejoiced when it snowed -- the local doctor would pay a buck to have his sidewalk shoveled. It's why I started baby-sitting at age 11, when I was barely older than some of my charges.
It's the only possible reason I could have enjoyed my first "real" job, the summer of my 13th year: picking tomatoes inside an explosively hot greenhouse. It was a two-mile bike ride to get there, and I'd come home slimed with sap from being constantly brushed by tomato leaves. When I washed my hair, the shampoo bubbled green.
But I was making big money, baby: $1.35 an hour.
Other jobs I've held: housecleaner, glass factory worker, clerk at a big-city newspaper, pet-sitter, secretary, freelance writer, apartment house manager, produce stand salesgirl, typesetter-proofreader, doughnut seller and newspaper reporter. I've mystery-shopped, participated in medical research, typed term papers, sold my blood, and even baked cakes for a chicken farmer in exchange for free eggs.
When I graduated from high school in 1976, college was not a given. Going straight to work in a factory or a supermarket was not a fallback position -- it was proof that you were now an adult. It was still acceptable to finish high school, get a job, marry young and raise a family.
These days, it's considered financial suicide. Maybe social suicide, too.
A career, or just a job?
It's darned tough to make it on a service-industry wage. The phrase "working poor" doesn't begin to cover it. But it's more complicated than that. In this allegedly class-free country, one's job choice does make a difference.
Recently a woman I know was talking about her parents' work lives. Her father cooked hamburgers and her mother baked pies at the same restaurant. (The woman estimated that her mom baked about 250,000 pies in her lifetime.)
Fry cook and pie baker. Imagine admitting you were doing jobs like those today. You'd be derided as lacking ambition. You'd be told to go to school and make something of yourself. You'd be pitied.
But fry cook or pie baker isn’t what her parents were. It’s what they did. They did these jobs to support themselves and their children, and they did them with dignity.
Their daughter noted that we ask our kids, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" rather than "What do you want to do?" We may think we're asking them about their hopes and dreams, but in a sense we're asking them to have the right ambitions.
If your kid said, "I want to work at McDonald’s," you'd laugh it off as youthful immaturity plus one too many Happy Meals. After all, what's the job everyone scorns? Flipping burgers.
As though people who cook burgers are invariably stupid or slow. As though doctor, lawyer or entrepreneur were the only right answers.
As though work were only about the way others see us.
Work to live, or live to work?
It's true that job choice may mean the difference between financial security and chronic insolvency. It can also reflect what we feel we can offer others. A teacher loves helping students learn. A doctor takes pride in healing the sick. A lawyer finds joy in defending the underdog.
But a drywaller can, and should, feel proud of his role in building homes. A skilled and engaging waiter can make diners feel welcomed. A janitor leaves an office building clean and orderly and ready for the next day's business.
And yes, a fry cook can take pride in giving an honest day's work for his pay. Besides, what would we do without the guy who serves up Adam and Eve on a raft? Suppose we had to, heaven forbid, clean our own apartments instead of relying on once-a-week maid service? How would we manage without the guys and gals who install our sinks, fix our cars, haul our luggage at the airport, stock our favorite cereal on the supermarket shelves?
I spent part of Labor Day thinking about how the concept of work has changed. In my lifetime I've seen work morph from something everyone wanted into something that's to be minimized, if not avoided. Why else would book titles like "The 4-Hour Workweek" be so popular?
According to bumper stickers, work is either a four-letter word or it's for people who don't know how to fish. Today it's a given that people will steal every possible minute from the job to surf the Internet, send and answer e-mail, talk on the telephone, update their Facebook pages. Of course, they don't think of it as "stealing" time -- they think of it as a survival strategy.
I've got a radical notion for these folks: The people who sign your paychecks are entitled to eight hours of your day for every eight hours of pay. It doesn't matter whether you like the job or not. If you're accepting the check, then play by the rules and work for it.
That's why they call it 'work'
And if you loathe your job? By all means try to find one that suits you better. It may not be possible right away due to our uncertain economy or to your personal situation. For example, I'm pretty sure that my mother, with four kids of her own by age 24, didn't like watching up to four other tots at a time back in the days before disposable diapers. But she did it, because she had to do it. There were no other options.
She never stopped trying to improve herself, though, and in time she did. By word and example, both she and my dad impressed upon us the importance of striving for a better life. The secret ingredient: work. Lots of work.
Seem hard to you? Well, of course it's hard. As my dad says, "That's why they call it 'work.' If it were fun, they'd call it 'fun.'" A thankless or low-paying job can be especially bitter when we see other people who seem to have had everything handed to them.
Guess what? Some people do have everything handed to them. If that's you, well, congratulations -- I think. It's my opinion that the only things we can claim are the ones we have worked to achieve. The trust-fund babies of the world may never have to soil their hands. But they may also never know the satisfaction of an honest day's work.
