Job Satisfaction

Stanley Aronowitz, the Green Party’s choice for Governor of New York in the first years of this decade, once informed my class at Bard that we should not – could not, in fact – live our lives through our jobs. He told us that the day’s labors hadn’t always crept so deeply into home lives as they did now. As a nation, he said, we’d forgotten that we work so that we can come home and be with our families, practice our hobbies and pursue our dreams. In short, we work to live, and not vice versa. In the anti-establishment atmosphere of our tiny (emphasis on) liberal arts college, his words resonated strongly.

On reflection, though, I’m less moved. Should we not derive satisfaction from our work? If we are to enjoy our jobs, if they are to enrich us spiritually as well as monetarily, how can we draw Aronowitz’s line between labor and love? Have we devoted ourselves too fully to our jobs when we arrive late for dinner? When we skip a lunch hour? When we go out more often than not with our friends from work? When we talk shop rather than sports or politics with our colleagues? Is there any opportunity that shouldn’t trump an office obligation?

Or should we look to merge our jobs seamlessly with our lives, each twined around and through the other until we find ourselves asleep every so often on the keyboard at the office? Do we live to succeed?

If so, how can we find time for love? How much can we really be there for our children when we’ve committed ourselves to what is, after all, a righteous and necessary cause that would fall without us? (Is it possible to commit oneself body and soul to a job without convincing oneself that it is a righteous and necessary cause?)

It’s also worth considering whether occupants of different places in the economy might give different answers to these questions of commitment, value and priority. Are there jobs that, by their natures, must be abandoned without compunction when the proverbial whistle blows? Examples include most service jobs – plumber, janitor, bus driver, physical therapist, scribe. There’s a strong argument to be made that the “elite” levels of American culture are composed of jobs that don’t permit such detachment – vocations that cannot be left at work. Perhaps those of us who yearn for labors of love rather than labors of lucre that enable lives of love are tacitly admitting our place in the overworked aristocracy. (Was there ever such a glib phrase as “working Americans”, used largely to refer to the blue-collar middle-class?)

Should that divide exist?

Too, is there not a divide between what we want from our jobs at age 25 and what we’ll want when we hit 60 or 75? Shall we dive in now and live our labors to the exclusion of all else, planning to come up for air in our fertile years to make a family and then, gradually, to relinquish our yoke to the coming generation in favor of creature comforts and membership in our communities? Or would those years dedicated so heavily to vocational work have too high an opportunity cost in neighbors, friends and lovers, in books and in art?

If we decide, as many of us have, to go all-in during the sunniest days of our lives with an eye toward reining in our horses when the evening comes, can we really understand the sacrifice we’re making?

Finally -- and with a tip of the hat to Zac, who kindly reminds me that not all things in life are black and white – is this dichotomy an oversimplification? Surely there is middle ground between a menial job to bring home the bacon and a back-breaker of a job to satisfy even the most sweat-thirsty brow. I don’t doubt that I sold janitorial jobs short by describing them as mindless nine-to-fives, and in fact, I’ve spent some time with mops myself and have taken much pride in a floor well-scrubbed. But the question remains: How much of ourselves shall we invest in our occupation, and how much shall we lay in reserve for after the whistle blows?

Thoughts?