I question the motive of people who say “I love my job”.
If they truly loved their job, why do they need to say it?
I guess there are two main reasons: 1.
They don’t love doing their job, but instead like the benefits it brings, for example,
money; 2.
They’re not trying to convince me that they love their job, but instead trying to convince
themselves.
That is, they don’t want to admit that something they spend most of their waking hours doing
is a waste of their life.
If people truly loved their job, surely they would be getting paid to do one of their hobbies.
For example, somebody whose job is to go hiking with their family.
Or somebody who gets paid to lie on the beach drinking Piña coladas all day.
Of course, there are a few people who at least outwardly have a fun job.
For example, some people get paid to play video games full-time (especially in Korea
and Japan).
Although lots of people would call this their dream job, I’d guess that even these professional
gamers would be under a lot of stress, that is, they’re only able to make a living from
it as long as they continue winning in the video game competitions.
It’s not quite the same as lying down on your couch and playing a game on the Xbox.
Daily Grind
I’ve worked about five full-time jobs in my life.
The first three involved teaching English in Japan and China.
The fourth was working for the police.
And my latest one, which I quit a couple of years ago, was working as a computer programmer
for an insurance company.
All of these jobs I quit after two years or less.
I did not like any of them, not that I didn’t have fleeting moments of enjoyment, but in
general, I found them tedious and boring.
I didn’t like dealing with all of the office politics.
I didn’t like the fact that I had to go to work.
The only option of not going was if I lied and said I was sick.
Why Work?
People go to work everyday to do the most tedious work.
From all the people that I’ve spoken to, the main reason they do this is to pay off
the mortgage.
Let’s face it, food is cheap nowadays (see my other rant Growing Peanuts).
We don’t work to live any more.
If the only reason I worked was to put food on the table, then I would only have to work
a few hours a week.
The main reason people go to work is to pay off debt.
The whole system has been designed to keep the bulk of people performing menial work.
If you want to live in a house, even a simple house, you have to work full-time.
The banks simply will not allow you to get a mortgage without gainful employment.
Once you have a mortgage, you must continue working, or else lose your home.
From society’s point of view, the following proverb is most appropriate – Idle hands
are the devil’s playthings.
That is, people who have nothing to do are more likely to get up to no good.
I think it’s a bit of an antiquated notion.
I’d agree with it if people don’t have access to any resources.
That is, if everyone around you works and has a nice house and car, but you are stuck
in a cheap apartment with little food and money, then yes, you’re probably more likely
to go out and commit crime.
However, if we lived in a society where work was not a priority, and everyone had access
to all the necessities of life, then people would be much less likely to go out and cause
trouble.
Greed would no longer be an issue and people would be free to pursue things they are truly
interested in, such as art and music (currently professions that often receive very little
salary).
Child Care
Nowadays, there are many families where both parents work.
They feel that it’s the only way to give their family a decent upbringing.
The whole idea of your wife staying at home to look after the children has been lost in
the annals of history.
Even governments now are encouraging mothers to get back to work as soon as possible.
Of course, this results in children being stuck in daycares all day.
Having two children myself, I have spoken with lots of midwives and nurses who told
me they were against day care.
They believe that it is not good for the children and instils a sense of abandonment in them
at an early age.
Luckily, I’ve modified my working life to suit my family.
It wasn’t always this way, though.
When I was working full-time as a programmer, I would leave home before my son woke up,
and then I would get back close to his bedtime.
I started to feel guilty that I wasn’t seeing my boy grow up, so I decided to quit.
Work-life Balance
Recently, there has been a growing popularity with the concept of work-life balance.
I think it’s a bit of a ridiculous notion used mainly by companies to convince employees
that their company is good to work for.
My last company insisted that they offered good work-life balance.
But in actuality, they were like every other company I had worked for, except that they
forced us to go to meetings to talk about work-life balance.
In the end, I found it silly and tried to nap as much as possible when forced to go
to such a meeting.
Companies like to convince us that they care about us, but we all know that this is untrue.
There’s one thing and one thing only that companies care about in this modern capitalist
age – money.
If they don’t make a profit, their company fails.
If they pay too many wages, or give too many holidays, their company fails.
It is not in a company’s interest to give their workers too much free time.
They give us just enough to make us feel that they care about us and that we are part of
the corporate family.
Lies, lies and more lies.
Full-time Work?
What does full-time work entail?
Some might say, you go to work, work eight hours, then come home.
But in reality, we know this to be simply untrue.
For me, it involved getting up at least an hour before work.
It took me 30 minutes to get ready, and then 30 minutes to travel to work (I lived relatively
close to the office in Brisbane).
Now, this was a bare minimum.
Some of my colleagues were travelling up to two hours one-way.
They had to fight traffic, or stand in crowded public transport.
Everyone I knew complained about it.
Not only was there travel time, there was also the extra hours at home thinking about
work.
Nobody can simply “turn off” after work and forget about everything that happened
during the day.
If you add up all the time travelling, thinking and actually doing work, it’s more like
12-13 hours of work per day.
When we are at work, are we really working?
Most people I saw don’t actually work for eight hours a day – far from it.
I’d estimate that most people would only actually work about half of that – so, four
hours a day.
I was guilty of that, too.
After lunch, I would start to feel tired and have little motivation to continue working
on the big project.
We had at least two meetings a day, if not four or five.
Most involved trivial matters such as How to keep our workplace clean and tidy, or How
to welcome the new Chinese staff.
Some days literally felt like one big meeting.
I would go home thinking, “I haven’t achieved a single thing today – why did I go to work?”.
Of course, full-time work is a misnomer.
It really should be called full-time attendance.
As long as you are at work for eight hours a day, you’ll generally get your paycheck.
This was especially true in Japan.
I found most teachers simply sat at work, some even sleeping at their desks!
But as long as they were at work, nobody questioned them.
Actually in Japan, when 5:00 pm came around, it was a battle of wills to determine who
would be the first person to leave.
It’s seen as a little bit shameful in Japan to leave everyone else at work while you go
off and “relax”.
So often teachers would hang about until 7:00 pm waiting for others to leave.
They usually waited until the vice-principal left as he was seated at the head of the staffroom,
much like a teacher at the head of a classroom.
After working in that environment for a couple of years, I soon realised how teachers made
excuses to leave.
For example, they would schedule an actual meeting or doctor’s appointment at say 4:00
pm that would allow them to leave the office.
Of course, after the meeting or appointment they would go straight home.
I don’t blame them.
The working hours over there are atrocious.
Future of Work
I envisage a time where we get over the whole idea of full-time work.
It’s an exercise in futility.
Actually, some guys at work made a programming utility that they aptly titled the “fUtility”.
Some say they were referring to the futility of their work.
Others say they were trying to imply “Fuck-You-Tility).
Either way it wasn’t a good meaning.
Technology is becoming so advanced that soon we simply will not need as many workers thanks
to automation (see Technological Unemployment and Free Pizza).
As a society, we could easily get by with workers only working 15 hours a week or less.
The whole idea of full-time work does not fit in with a society that should ideally
spend more time with their families and friends.
Or spend more time volunteering.
We need to stop forcing people to work long hours just so they can buy a house.
The problem is our economy needs debt to function.
The best debt (in the banker’s eyes) is the mortgage.
It traps people into 30 or 40 years of payments, and consequently years of wage slavery.
I’m trying my best to make things work on a part-time salary.
Hopefully the rest of society will wake up and realise that this is what we should be
striving for.
Sitting at a desk all day is boring and a waste of everyone’s time.
Let’s enjoy life and create a society where our kids can grow up without being forced
to do a job they hate.