The Want for Work
Nobody dreams of labor. That has been a common sentiment going around the internet, with people my age, about entering the workforce for the first time. Nobody wants to spend the rest of their lives as a cog in the well-oiled machine that is capitalism. Nobody wants to sit behind a desk and send emails for eight hours straight, or, even worse, be on your feet all day to provide a service to customers that don’t give you a second thought. I absolutely get it. Despite that, at the end of the day, somebody has to do it. We can’t have the great jobs, those dream jobs, without the truly terrible ones lifting the rest up.
Having now spent a whopping two months as a full-time cog in the machine, it’s becoming a little more clear to me that what makes a “good” or “bad” job is fairly relative. You are comparing your current work to work you’ve done before and seeing how it all adds up. Maybe, if this job is better than your last one, you will stay working this one for years. But if it’s worse, you immediately begin seeking a different one, a “better” one, because you know it’s out there. Somebody has it and you want it too.
The latter is what I’m currently facing. I do not dream of the labor I am laboring over. It keeps me up at night, actually. What I’m realizing, as I get to know my co-workers, is that not everyone feels that way. Some people enjoy the job, and some people even want to rise through the ranks and settle down for the long haul. It makes me wonder if this is their “best” job. Because dream jobs are scarce — scarcer than we can admit — and I’m starting to think all anyone is striving for is their “best” job. Certainly not everyone can obtain such a job or career, but that is what we’re after. You grow up dreaming of being an astronaut or novelist or doctor or actor. You get your first job as a grocery store cashier to pay your way toward becoming an astronaut. You get job after job to pay the bills, to get closer to being an astronaut, but eventually that dream fades from view. You realize all you really want is a job that doesn’t make your body ache, that stimulates your mind, that is managed by a good boss. Now your career options have significantly expanded to more than just astronaut.
There’s a way to look at that fact as gut-wrenchingly depressing. There’s another way to look at it as a fact of life, the way we sustain ourselves and each other. One man’s “best” job is another man’s dream job. The aim is to find a job that doesn’t make you want to blow your brains out and gives you time to do other kinds of work — time to feel like a human instead of a cog. That will look different for everyone and who are we to pass judgment?
I, personally, believe that everyone dreams of some kind of labor. Perhaps “labor” is the wrong word to use in this scenario because it conjures images of factories, fields, and scrubbing floors. “Productivity” or “utility” might be better. Even then, I don’t mean to insinuate that humans must always be useful or perpetually striving for greater efficiency. I just mean that we all want to do something. We want to fill our days with at least a little bit of meaning. It’s in our blood; it’s all our ancestors ever did. The cavemen picked berries to stave off starvation for another day. The pilgrims made their own clothes so they wouldn’t freeze during winter. We all want to do something, whether it’s sending emails, making coffee, or performing open-heart surgery.
I want to write. That’s what I have and always will dream of. Nonetheless, I’m beginning to accept the possibility that writing may never be my full-time, cog-in-the-machine job. In that case, one of the qualifiers for my “best” job is that it gives me the ability to write on my own time. And I know the job I currently have is not my “best” job because it makes me too exhausted to think, let alone write. Therefore, my search continues. I suspect it will end no time soon. I can wait.
For those older than me reading this, I assume none of this is news to you. Is it amusing or sad to watch younger people come to terms with what you already know? I hope it’s amusing. I don’t want it to be sad. If it is, I’ll go back to discussing soap operas.