ihatemyjob

I am currently ‘unemployed’ and working only for myself. This year I lost two jobs, compared to losing no jobs for the 55 years that came before this year. At first, I took my unemployment quite personally and spent several weeks beating myself up. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I fit in? Why can’t I handle the simplest crap job? Why do I keep screwing up? Oh yeah, and, what’s wrong with me?

Then I began to notice that millions of Americans are losing their jobs right now. Americans have been losing jobs for the past year at the rate of about half a million per month.  All economic indicators suggest that in 2009 this trend will strengthen, as business after business goes belly up or lays off huge segments of their workforce.

2009 is going to be painful. There’s just no warm fuzzy way to say it.

Lately, as the reality of my own personal situation has begun to sink in, I’ve been asking myself some less practical and more philosophical questions. What is ‘work’ anyway? Is money the best way to draw a line between what constitutes work and what constitutes recreation? Shouldn’t work have some intrinsic value?

I spent 7 years in call centers, and I can tell you for sure that call center work has no intrinsic value. We were not there to provide ‘customer service’, we were there to shield the corporate overlords from the consequences of their greedy, exploitive decisions, tell lies, and make people go away. We provided the illusion of customer service. If we could get more money out of our callers in the process, all the better. No one likes customer service jobs or customer service workers. Everyone knows ‘customer service’ is a misnomer, especially customers.

‘Customer abuse’ might be more apt.

So many jobs are like this now though–devoid of purpose or respect. They serve no respectable purpose at all. The only reason we call them ‘work’ is because they require effort and are rewarded with pay, but beyond that, there is no good reason why anyone should be doing them. If you do these jobs well, you feel bad about yourself because you’ve helped  greedy management types to harm to ordinary people who don’t deserve it. If you do these jobs poorly, you feel bad about yourself because your performance sucks and the greedy management types are all over your ass about it. You can’t win. You’re miserable if you succeed and miserable if you fail.

When the world of work comes to this point of complete absurdity, maybe its time for it to be flushed.

I look around and see lots of other work that badly needs to be done, work that might not even be profitable but definitely is necessary. Local food banks are crying for help. Vacant lots that right now are filled with litter and indigent wanderers are crying out to be planted with vegetables and flowers. The few residents who remain in these blighted neighborhoods could use the work, the companionship, and the food. How much more useful is that kind of ‘work’ than the paid kind that enriches CEOs who are already richer than any human being needs to be?

What about the many kinds of work that shares individual talents and abilities? Artists, poets, musicians, craftsmen, writers–these people make life more beautiful and more meaningful, but rarely turn much of a profit. Are they therefore not ‘working’. Are they somehow less valuable to society than people who annoy others for a living but have 401ks and health care policies?

As the American economy circles the drain, we might want to ask ourselves some hard philosophical questions about what kind of society we really want, and what kind of work we want to do within it. Then, having thought those big thoughts, we might want to get out there and get busy.

There’s plenty of work. We’re just a little short on money.

Maybe if we get busy with what’s real, the money will follow.