Caring about work, with cautions
Among the rampant commentary recently about how work fits into our lives and how this has changed under the conditions of an evolving global pandemic, one voice caught my ear for being quite important and also off the mark. It is perhaps a cautionary tale for how assessments get trapped in clever rhetoric. When labor journalist Sarah Jaffe says “work won’t love you back” (also the title of her book) she is encouraging us to protect ourselves. She doesn’t want us seduced by the call to engage passionately and purposefully in work because those hearts will be broken, and unnecessarily so. Limits to work won’t be set by companies in your favor, and the ones that exist may not be honored. Your life may become swallowed up. Oh, and yes, some of you will lose your jobs.
Jaffe rightly points out in her own way that not all work requires passionate engagement. Some work can be quite ordinary, and not everything in your life needs to be personally fulfilling. I agree. Jaffe no doubt would agree with me that the world needs better jobs and more human conditions and she’s all for workers securing more power to negotiate for better deals. Yet her cautions are trapped in “jobs,” as if all of our work in life takes that form, with a controlling employer, complete with fine print, such as “this is not to be construed as a contract” and required submission of grievances to company controlled arbitration). Rather than saying work won’t love you, she really seems to be saying employers won’t love you back. Not unconditionally. And as many know, the terms of employment are so highly skewed as to leave the employed in precarious places, ones that mock sayings such as “people as our greatest asset” or please to trust the corporation or a boss because somehow they are like family.
If your employer’s commitment to you is quite limited and not forever, then perhaps the approach should be not withholding meaningful commitments to work but redefining them and taking responsibility for them differently. Think bigger: Locate any job within a larger category, one I call “your life’s work.” This includes whatever you take responsibility for in this world, a portfolio that, yes, needs to be sufficiently funded. Not all of your work needs to generate revenue, but enough of it does.
The portfolio of your life’s work—within and beyond jobs—can include many things: stewarding a household and raising a family, joining in mutual aid for communities, acting as a citizen to shape our common life, and more. Your portfolio will need to adapt over time, as you and the world change. Keeping up with that—really, catching up with yourself and the world—is its own kind of activity. Make room for it, with time to explore and reflect. Even in small increments, so that you will be more ready as things change. When you sense you are at an inflection point, when life is in transition, a seasonal sabbatical can enable you to find your way to what’s next. Even that simply is re-enlisting in your current work on updated, renewed terms.