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Let's get together and talk about how much work sucks. I know there are some people who enjoy what they do or have cool workmates, and that's great. But for most people, I imagine, work is the bullshit you have to get through to get to your day off where maybe you can do something fun. So if most people don't like work, shouldn't we change something? I'm not exactly sure how to direct the discussion so I'll just pose some questions and throw my two cents in. - What is the moral value of work, if any exists? Is there some kind of character-building aspect of work that is unavailable with any other activity? Work in this case I will narrow to activities performed in the pursuit of monetary benefit. In other words, your 9-to-5 or whatever. If character building is gained from doing things you don't want to because it is necessary or beneficial, then can't mowing the yard or changing your oil be character building? Or exercise? Or taking a class? Sounds like a joke, but wouldn't there be other activities to have a sense of accomplishment or "getting the job done" other than ringing up people's groceries? - What is it about the culture/society that the idea of diminishing the need for work isn't discussed often today, even when guys from like a hundred years ago were saying it was technically possible in their time? - What would a world with more leisure time for everyone really look like? This is something that I thought about recently. I don't mind working weekends because I don't go out much. Part of the reason I don't like going out much on weekends is that everyone is out on the weekends because it's their day off. Now imagine everyone with every day of the week to do whatever they wanted. I have this vision of everything that you wanna do would be near impossible. You want to go rafting? Where would you find a river not jammed with people? Wanna go to the movies? Better buy your tickets the week before and get to the theater 2 hours before showtime. I even thought that maybe there is something to exclusivity, and tangentially, work and the pursuit of money. But I think that kind of thinking is selfish, and maybe even a product of social conditioning. What do you guys think? - Do you enjoy your work? What specifically do you love or hate about it? Would you quit if you hit the lotto? I have never had a job where I couldn't wait to get there in the morning? I am definitely in the crowd of people who go to work because it pays the bills. I think it's weird when people say that if they were suddenly millionaires they would keep working. It's either they have no identity outside of their job or they have no dreams.
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Oct 17, 2014 22:53
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crack mayor posted:I have never had a job where I couldn't wait to get there in the morning? I am definitely in the crowd of people who go to work because it pays the bills. I think it's weird when people say that if they were suddenly millionaires they would keep working. It's either they have no identity outside of their job or they have no dreams. I work an absolute poo poo job that I'd leave with all of 9 seconds notice if something remotely better came along, but if I came into money I'd eventually keep working. I'd go back to school and get a degree then go do something I actually enjoy. Or if I was really rich maybe set up a foundation and help run that.
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Oct 17, 2014 23:17
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crack mayor posted:- What is the moral value of work, if any exists? Is there some kind of character-building aspect of work that is unavailable with any other activity? I think other activities (like volunteering or exercising or hobbies) could provide the same kind of character-building as working-for-money, but many people won't choose to engage in those things to the extent that they would get such a benefit, whereas work is obviously required for most people.
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Oct 17, 2014 23:27
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Amused to Death posted:I work an absolute poo poo job that I'd leave with all of 9 seconds notice if something remotely better came along, but if I came into money I'd eventually keep working. I'd go back to school and get a degree then go do something I actually enjoy. Or if I was really rich maybe set up a foundation and help run that. I think that's a great idea, and something I would think about doing too. But I would say that work that is something you enjoy or are passionate about is different than selling your labor for wages. Cicero posted:Let me play amateur psychologist, and suggest that what work does is create the expectation, in general, that you don't get something for nothing. That getting what you want from the world requires effort, sacrifice, and compromise on your part. I think the reason why people who do not work (people mooching off their parents indefinitely, or living off trust funds) can be so spoiled in their attitude with others is precisely that they're used to getting the basic necessities of life for free, so they automatically expect the same thing interpersonally (that others should treat them well with no effort on their part). I think that the people who need work to teach them that effort, sacrifice, and compromise form the foundation of human relationships and society are probably the people who aren't learning the lesson now anyways. If someone wouldn't use their free time, at least in part, to better themselves, they also are probably a drain on the workplace. But yea, I see where you're coming from. The idea of earning you keep. This sounds like it could steer us towards minimum basic income discussion. I think there is a thread somewhere in the back about it. There is a bit of overlap between the two, I admit.
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Oct 18, 2014 00:03
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I definitely don't have any inherent need to work. If I was rich I would spend my days traveling and educating myself, most likely. It's not like I'd ever run out of interesting places to visit/new things to learn/new people to meet. I'd give money to charity to alleviate the guilt of doing that stuff while others have to do something they don't like just to subsist, though. But schedules, someone telling me what to do, etc. can kiss my rear end. I could see myself financing a foundation but I'm way too lazy to run it. Some work does have a lot of value beyond money. Public service in the few cases someone actually wants to benefit the country, doctors, firefighters, police, teachers, etc. But most things we do to earn money could be replaced by robots without any moral loss.
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Oct 18, 2014 00:12
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No. Next questionDarkCrawler posted:Some work does have a lot of value beyond money. Public service in the few cases someone actually wants to benefit the country, doctors, firefighters, police, teachers, etc. But most things we do to earn money could be replaced by robots without any moral loss. With the exception of teaching robots doing those jobs things would also be better, or at least not any worse than things are currently some plague rats fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 00:12
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You might enjoy an old essay on the subject, OP. Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness" "I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached."
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Oct 18, 2014 14:31
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I always found it interesting that the people who don't need to work (the wealthy) are the ones that work the hardest and seem to enjoy it the most. Those Forbes lists of the wealthiest americans or whatever are almost entirely composed of people still working full time at the thing that made them rich, or some new pursuit (philanthropy).
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Oct 18, 2014 16:08
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A lot of people like having a schedule or routine. I've been on multi week vacations before and after about 8-10 days you get the feeling of "this is okay, but I just want to be back home (read: doing my normal routine)". It's also not just a "I want to be physically home" thing because I've done the "summer break playing video games/watching Netflix" thing before and it just tires me out. A lot of people like to feel productive in some way, and at the same time a lot of people are really bad at time management. A job offers both of those (at least in theory) and so a lot of people would still probably want to work instead of just laying around all day.
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Oct 18, 2014 16:18
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I spam that Russell essay at every opportunity, work is a scam. However! Everyone who is dissatisfied with work should try doing something very hard but meaningful that improves people's lives. You may just be flatlining emotionally for want of a challenge.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:04
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For anyone who likes to read about idleness and work, there's a couple of good periodicals on the subject: The Idler and The New Escapologist.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:15
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SKELETONS posted:I always found it interesting that the people who don't need to work (the wealthy) are the ones that work the hardest and seem to enjoy it the most. Those Forbes lists of the wealthiest americans or whatever are almost entirely composed of people still working full time at the thing that made them rich, or some new pursuit (philanthropy). This is true for some, but there are plenty of others who come into fortunes, spend them frivolously, and are left with next to nothing. It's also important to remember that what you are calling "working the hardest" is either glad handing or sitting at a desk, not engaging in manual labor.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:19
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SedanChair posted:I spam that Russell essay at every opportunity, work is a scam. However! Everyone who is dissatisfied with work should try doing something very hard but meaningful that improves people's lives. You may just be flatlining emotionally for want of a challenge. Careful what you choose to do though. I used to teach in inner-city schools until it completely burnt me out. I knew it was good work, but the abuse I experienced every day just ended up being too much.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:27
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It's actually fairly difficult and unusual to spend yourself out of real wealth. If you grew up in a wealthy family with managed funds, you're going to be strongly conditioned against diminishing your principal.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:28
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SedanChair posted:It's actually fairly difficult and unusual to spend yourself out of real wealth. If you grew up in a wealthy family with managed funds, you're going to be strongly conditioned against diminishing your principal. Plus a significant portion of the wealth are in trusts, businesses and other illiquid assets so (for the most part) they can't blow all the cash on booze, blow and hookers even if they wanted to.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:31
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One thing that is curious question to me is how much work is actually necessary? On top of that how much work is actually meaningful? I am a process server and a legal courier, but the majority of my job could be and has been replaced by digital means. Morally that is also better because as the job becomes more digital less paper is used as mail between law firms. Its important to talk about what "work" is because a farmer going to work on his own farm that he's owned the majority of his life is different than a person who goes to work at an office for an employer. The same thing can be said for meaningful jobs that provide something to society itself and just busy work type jobs that keep things going, but don't really add anything meaningful.
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Oct 18, 2014 17:38
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I'm flirting with becoming Baha'i so my attitude towards work has changed with it. Bahai's are forbidden from becoming ascetics and are expected to be industrious and hold work done in the service of mankind as equal to prayer. It helps though that I'm actually beginning to enjoy my GIS work and look forward to using it for the benefit of humanity. 
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Oct 18, 2014 17:43
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Work for me is very spirtually fufilling but that is now in large part because I now work in the public sector and my excess productivity is charity to the commons and public good. When I have time off I lean toward escapist entertainment because my regular everyday activities feel like they have a sense of purpose. I think a lot of the issues with work come from a lack of worker appreciation for work done caused at least in part in the US by that "puritan work ethic" nonsense. Work is a virtue of having meaning and when employers base line behavior is to treat you as meaningless they're undermining their own value as well. Lawman 0 posted:I'm flirting with becoming Baha'i so my attitude towards work has changed with it. Database the planet! 
RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 17:49
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Sure, doing something you like is very rewarding. "Flow" experiences are incredibly cool things to have. Both my partner and I do "creative" type work, and have experienced that state where you look at the metaphorical block of marble and know exactly which parts don't look like a statue and how you're going to get it done. Now, that's not to say that the things that our current society defines as "work" are the only things that qualify for that. You can get a flow experience playing video games/e-sports at a high competitive level too, but unlike real-life sports no one is going to write a check to pay an e-athlete a livable salary. If you spend your life kicking a football in a meaningless game you're one of our society's heros, if you're sitting in front of a TV/computer playing a meaningless game you're just a loser. Chess players probably fall somewhere in between I guess. And some jobs just suck period. For example sanitation work isn't really fun for the vast majority of people. And again, our society has totally skewed reward systems. Fun, rewarding creative work is really highly paid, and menial and filthy jobs tend to be very low-paid and filled with additional bullshit on top of being unrewarding. In an ideal world those jobs should be made as pleasant as possible (excellent compensation and lots of time off). Even if I won the lotto, I would keep doing that work (or something else I enjoy), I would just have a lot more freedom to pick my ideal work environment and balance my work and home life. Some of the rewarding things that I can't make a living at would probably gain greater prominence in my life. Stuff like traveling, photography, flying, or scuba diving. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 17:58
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Reason posted:One thing that is curious question to me is how much work is actually necessary? On top of that how much work is actually meaningful? I am a process server and a legal courier, but the majority of my job could be and has been replaced by digital means. Morally that is also better because as the job becomes more digital less paper is used as mail between law firms. Your definition of necessary and meaningful seem to be the following: Necessary - is impossible to be carried out by anything but a human. Meaningful - advances the general cause of society, whatever that may be. I'm going to discuss being meaningful first. Most jobs under that definition are not meaningful, regardless of whether they are "necessary" or not. A social worker that only works in Chicago is not doing "meaningful" work because it doesn't effect people in LA, and likewise a state senator is not "meaningful" because they have little to no impact with things outside of their state. You could divide it down into different levels of meaningful (so national, regional, local, etc), but at a certain point every job becomes meaningful. A busy work type job is meaningful for a local community if the employer is the major one in town and supplies a well paying job to support the community, but it would not be meaningful from a national scale (but rarely anything is). You can also argue that "the general cause of society" is a vague term which could mean many things (for example, if "capitalism" is what society strives towards, then busy work jobs that still generate profit are themselves advancing the general cause of society). As for "necessary", that's usually a function of economics. If cost wasn't an issue you could get rid of lots of jobs. If cost wasn't an issue you could also keep all of those jobs and pay the workers a lot more. Or you could train everyone to get a college degree and still work those same menial jobs (we do this today). Just because a job *can* theoretically be automated doesn't mean it will be or that it should be, or that because it can be it's suddenly not necessary.
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Oct 18, 2014 18:03
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Hello Sailor posted:You might enjoy an old essay on the subject, OP. I know of it, but I never actually got around to reading it haha. I was kinda referencing Russell and Fuller when saying guys from a hundred years ago thought they had the technology to abolish work then. Is it worth a read, or does it contain the arguments I expect? computer parts posted:A lot of people like having a schedule or routine. I've been on multi week vacations before and after about 8-10 days you get the feeling of "this is okay, but I just want to be back home (read: doing my normal routine)". It's also not just a "I want to be physically home" thing because I've done the "summer break playing video games/watching Netflix" thing before and it just tires me out. I have definitely felt the same after a few days off. I sometimes even think work would be easier if there were no vacation days. Vacation's can seem like a tease to me haha. But there are other ways to feel productive and useful. Service to others comes to mind. Volunteering at the food bank or Habitat for Humanity. Dreylad posted:For anyone who likes to read about idleness and work, there's a couple of good periodicals on the subject: The Idler and The New Escapologist. I checked out these links. Thanks for them. The Idler at least seems like it has a few good reads online. The New Escapologist seems cool, but it looks like you have to order a magazine. If I were in London, the Idler Cafe would be on my list of places to visit. Nevvy Z posted:This is true for some, but there are plenty of others who come into fortunes, spend them frivolously, and are left with next to nothing. I think that the fact that most of the people selling their labor are doing it at the expense of their health and well-being is the most compelling argument for the abolition of work. We know how cheap human labor is in the third world, but even in the first world with things like Presenteeism, it's insane how people are compelled to sacrifice their bodies for access to food and shelter. Reason posted:One thing that is curious question to me is how much work is actually necessary? On top of that how much work is actually meaningful? I am a process server and a legal courier, but the majority of my job could be and has been replaced by digital means. Morally that is also better because as the job becomes more digital less paper is used as mail between law firms. I was leaning towards the side of keeping the discussion casual and figuring there would be a general understanding of what is meant without having to set any parameters. That being said, you raise a good question. Off the top of my head, any kind of job that is basically a middleman seems unnecessary. Retail jobs, sports and talent agents, etc. The farmer example to me is work that has no middleman. He is providing for his family and possibly his community in the most basic way possible. We live in a large world, but how necessary are distributors and wholesalers if everyone works together in their local community? Lawman 0 posted:I'm flirting with becoming Baha'i so my attitude towards work has changed with it. I didn't know that about the Baha'i faith. That is interesting. I know of no other religion that doesn't praise asceticism to some extent. Is GIS work google image search? Like SEO stuff?
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Oct 18, 2014 18:13
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Paul MaudDib posted:You can get a flow experience playing video games/e-sports at a high competitive level too, but unlike real-life sports no one is going to write a check to pay an e-athlete a livable salary. South Korea does, though (with Starcraft tournaments, etc)? 
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Oct 18, 2014 18:21
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ThirdPartyView posted:South Korea does, though (with Starcraft tournaments, etc)? True, but most of us don't live in South Korea and our societies tend not to regard videogames as a socially significant pasttime on the level of say, football. If you ask an average person if a person who spends all day training to play football is doing "work" they'll say yes, if you ask them if a someone who spends all day practicing video games is doing "work" they'll probably say no. My point there is our definitions of what constitutes "work" are socially constructed, not universal constants. Kicking a ball around a field or producing artworks aren't really necessary for society to function, yet they can be considered work, and in fact can be some of the most highly-compensated forms of work. CEOs do very little work (30 hours per week) and yet are at the apex of society. Similarly the absolutely necessary social functions tend to be the shittiest work environments with the worst pay. An ideal society would correct that. I think the reason it's like that tends to be just-worldism. If you're working a lovely job it's because you're a bad, lazy person who needs a whip cracked constantly in the form of social pressure, hostile work environments, financial strain, etc, with the underlying idea being that work is a social good and you're failing society. The less charitable view is that it's just straight up taking advantage of disadvantaged people because it's cheaper than training or properly compensating them. Or nowadays, cheaper than automating their job. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 18:26
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crack mayor posted:Is GIS work google image search? Like SEO stuff? GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems. Its central to datafying the world so we have information tied to spacial reference. Its really under appreciated and really important. GIS is about where system admins were about 15 years ago in terms of appropriate recognition but its really the technology which will transform the social sciences, city planning and just about any tech you can think of. To sum it, we have data now GIS makes all this data we're generating MEAN something. It really is Gods work.
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Oct 18, 2014 18:34
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At its best work can give you a sense of purpose or allow you to face and overcome challenges and obstacles, which is immensely satisfying. This is really what humans thrive on: something that is achievable but still challenging enough to engage your full capabilities. Work isn't the only way to find that balance, but sometimes it's the best option available in our modern society. On the other hand, I think that many people who choose to work constantly are not necessarily happy at work, but simply less unhappy than they are anywhere else. In my experience many of the hardest workers I know are people who have underlying insecurities that they manage by becoming workaholics. So while it is true that work can often be enjoyable, I also think it's overly simplistic to assume that wealthy people who work long hours are necessarily happy at work - it may be that they are simply driven by a compulsion to repeatedly 'prove' themselves. Also when we're discussing why some people really enjoy working I don't think we can separate that enjoyment from the way society at large views work. People want to do something that think is prestigious and dignified. So when society makes 'work' an important value and ascribes great respect to people in important jobs who work long hours this is going to increase the attraction of work, regardless of how enjoyable or tedious the underlying 'labour' involved is. That banking exec who works 70 hour weeks and doesn't spend much time with his family might be working overtime because he loves the sense of validation he gets rather than because he actually enjoys spending all that time in the office rather than with his kids. In addition to this, many jobs in the corporate sector come with an institutional culture that encourages overwork. I recall hearing an anecdote about a friend of a friend in the banking industry. He was looked down on by his colleagues because he chose to take weekends off to be with his family. Or, in another case, I remember being told about a conversation my sister had with the wife of a corporate lawyer. This woman marvelled at how one of her husband's colleagues took so much time off when he was 'only' making a couple hundred thousand a year, with the implication that he could have better spent his time working and making yet more money. I don't think we can under estimate the extent to which these kinds of cultural assumptions might filter into individual consciousness and push people to work greater hours even when they don't really 'want' to. My point here is that our relationship with work is a social relationship and its heavily conditioned by the values that society at large instils in us. Another thing to consider may be that our society has a severely impoverished social life outside of work. For instance, when somebody makes a statement like this one: computer parts posted:I've done the "summer break playing video games/watching Netflix" thing before and it just tires me out. I wonder if part of what's happening here is that Netflix and video games are actually just kind of dull and empty when they are all that you are doing. (Apologies if it seems like I'm singling you out computer parts, I've also spent many hours lazing around watching TV or playing video games, I'm not implying there's anything wrong with that!) Our reflexive assumption is usually that people are the best judges of what will make them happy. Maybe we're simply wrong about that? Maybe the things we choose to do when we aren't working are more a reflection of habit, inertia and laziness, meaning that if we do them for too long we become unhappy. We usually think of our home lives as an escape and refuge from work, but what if for many people work is a refuge and escape from their home life? And, on a final note (and one that is mostly unrelated to everything I've written above): I think that in any discussion of work we also have to talk about the way that work these days is heavily stratified between cognitively challenging and therefore "interesting" jobs and very dull and boring ones. We often talk about the growing inequality in income but we should also be thinking about how 'interesting' tasks and 'boring' tasks are very unevenly divided. This may be another explanation for why investment bankers and lawyers choose to put in long hours whereas cashiers and baristas are often desperate to finish their shift.
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Oct 18, 2014 18:44
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RuanGacho posted:GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems. Its central to datafying the world so we have information tied to spacial reference. Its really under appreciated and really important. GIS is about where system admins were about 15 years ago in terms of appropriate recognition but its really the technology which will transform the social sciences, city planning and just about any tech you can think of. To sum it, we have data now GIS makes all this data we're generating MEAN something. This is the first I am hearing about this. It sounds really cool. Some quick searching tells me that it is still kind of a new science because there are not many post-secondary programs about it. Are you working in the GIS field now RuanGacho? Edit: Looking more into this. If I hit the lotto, I am going to pursue a career in GIS haha. crack mayor fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 18:56
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Helsing posted:Also when we're discussing why some people really enjoy working I don't think we can separate that enjoyment from the way society at large views work. People want to do something that think is prestigious and dignified. So when society makes 'work' an important value and ascribes great respect to people in important jobs who work long hours this is going to increase the attraction of work, regardless of how enjoyable or tedious the underlying 'labour' involved is. That banking exec who works 70 hour weeks and doesn't spend much time with his family might be working overtime because he loves the sense of validation he gets rather than because he actually enjoys spending all that time in the office rather than with his kids. One interesting thesis I've heard is that time is a good with increasing marginal utility. It takes a minimum amount of involvement in your work, day after day, to be really good at it. The more you work, the better your "social output per hour". If you're a pilot, the more you fly the better you are at it, the safer you are. If you fly less, you're rusty and at elevated risk for making a dumb mistake. If you're an engineer on a project, you need constant exposure to the project to understand how all the parts fit together and so on. If you don't have that constant exposure, you're at an increased risk for making some change that will have unintended consequences. 40 people doing 1 hour each do not have equivalent output to 1 person doing 40 hours a week in many, many fields. Now that said, executives are actually some of the people that work the least in our society. For example here's an average of CEO schedules from 2009:  There's 30 hours of "real" work there in a week. The rest is personal stuff that they're billing to the company: lunches, personal errands and appointments, workouts, commute time, etc. And in fact I think that generally holds true, the "better" your job the less actual work you're doing. Landscaping is way more draining than being a programmer, and there's very few breaks. If a programmer needs to take a break and bounce around their company's ballpit, go for it! And at the CEO level, you can go right ahead and bill your commute, your errands, and your doctor appointment. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 19:03
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crack mayor posted:This is the first I am hearing about this. It sounds really cool. Some quick searching tells me that it is still kind of a new science because there are not many post-secondary programs about it. Are you working in the GIS field now RuanGacho? No I'm just part of an IT team in local government that has a GIS Analyst on it, and I have family whom have a degree in Geology now has certificates in it. There are actually programs for it, at least in the Seattle area. A good example of the practice of GIS is google maps, and the information on it. But there could be literally thousands of layers of information on google maps, and that data has to come from somewhere, it comes from local GIS people. The thing is, like much of the IT field its something really important that schools aren't really catching onto yet, for example when the local highschool did a Storm Water Management project they thought the City Engineer did all the data collection, mapping and presentation that was given to them, our poor GIS guy didn't get any credit  If you want to talk about if work has purpose, being in government and working on process improvement as IT like myself or GIS like my co-worker you're entire point of existence in your job is to try to make the world a better more efficient place with less costs for anyone. We as human beings need purpose and everyone in my department is formally private sector, some of them don't want to stay in it forever because they get tired of all the onerous requirements that are put on us to accomplish what should be simple tasks.
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Oct 18, 2014 19:06
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crack mayor posted:I was leaning towards the side of keeping the discussion casual and figuring there would be a general understanding of what is meant without having to set any parameters. That being said, you raise a good question. Off the top of my head, any kind of job that is basically a middleman seems unnecessary. Retail jobs, sports and talent agents, etc. This doesn't mean all middle positions are useful or necessary, but sometimes the path from source to endpoint needs massaging on the way. quote:The farmer example to me is work that has no middleman. He is providing for his family and possibly his community in the most basic way possible. We live in a large world, but how necessary are distributors and wholesalers if everyone works together in their local community?
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Oct 18, 2014 19:10
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crack mayor posted:I have never had a job where I couldn't wait to get there in the morning? I am definitely in the crowd of people who go to work because it pays the bills. I think it's weird when people say that if they were suddenly millionaires they would keep working. It's either they have no identity outside of their job or they have no dreams. Part of the problem is that, as a society, we've decided to bind the ideas of "work" and "employment" together so tightly that there's almost no distinction between them. If I hit the lotto, I would absolutely continue working because I'd absolutely want to continue feeling productive and useful, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be employed. As it is, I would love to donate my time and skills to charity organizations and non-profits, but then when would I find time to have an actual income and do anything else with my life? I think Helsing's comment on video games and Netflix is actually pretty relevant here. We tend to see time outside of work as time for socializing or free time for sitting around doing nothing, but there's no reason that has to be the case. You can learn new skills, take classes, pick up hobbies, pursue personal projects, and do any number of other things that I suspect most people would find more fulfilling and productive than their actual jobs. Zachack posted:Sales positions and other middlemen can (although don't necessarily) act as filters, feelers and buffers. Even a Best Buy TV salesperson can be useful if they can act as a buffer between the buyer and the manufacturer simply by saying "we've had a lot of returns on that model". I'd say it's questionable whether this actually provides any value in modern society. It'd be much better to simply have information on things like returns readily available from the manufacturer/retailer, as a number that's required by law rather than something that a salesperson may or may not be telling the truth about. In fact, there's very little (probably nothing) that a salesperson can tell me that couldn't be better and more clearly understood by things like customer reviews or purchasing data.
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Oct 18, 2014 19:18
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Helsing posted:Also when we're discussing why some people really enjoy working I don't think we can separate that enjoyment from the way society at large views work. People want to do something that think is prestigious and dignified. So when society makes 'work' an important value and ascribes great respect to people in important jobs who work long hours this is going to increase the attraction of work, regardless of how enjoyable or tedious the underlying 'labour' involved is. That banking exec who works 70 hour weeks and doesn't spend much time with his family might be working overtime because he loves the sense of validation he gets rather than because he actually enjoys spending all that time in the office rather than with his kids. I think its a sense of accomplishment and having a set goal in mind, I don't know about bankers, but when you're working as a barista there is no overall goal to your job, its the same every day all day. There is no goal besides to make the next coffee and get through the day and that means there is never any sense of accomplishment beyond getting to go home at the end of your shift. My experience with working with people is that the ones that work really long hours don't enjoy their work any more than anyone else, they just don't have anything to go home to or anything that they want to go home to. This is just my own experience, but so far in life I have never had a job that gave me a sense of accomplishment, the work I have to do for the job never ends, there are no projects that are finished. Money is not a good enough reward to provide a sense of accomplishment because its too far abstracted. On the other hand I've done plenty of work that I didn't receive any money for that I had a huge sense of accomplishment when finishing because at the end there was a tangible thing that I could look at and go, wow I'm really happy that is done because now I've grown a pumpkin for Halloween or food that I get to eat, or a website that I can put up on the internet. There's also the third idea that people are more driven by a sense of purpose regardless of what that purpose might for the banker it might be to make money, for the farmer to have a good harvest that provides good nourishing food for his or her community. Giving people a sense of purpose and then the means (a job) to carry out that purpose might be more important than validating and providing status to a job. Teachers and social workers are the lowest paid jobs with almost no social reward, but there are still teachers and social workers that go home at the end of the day satisfied with their work. quote:Another thing to consider may be that our society has a severely impoverished social life outside of work. For instance, when somebody makes a statement like this one: I also want to respond to this because I kind of agree with what you're saying, I don't think that people need social interaction to feel fulfilled, but when your entire interaction with people in general is having to smile and pretend you're someone's best friend as a barista thats super loving exhausting and that can be applied to a lot of customer facing jobs, having to be fake in social situations is absolutely one of the most emotionally tiring and least rewarding things you can do. It can also lead to the other actions where you just don't want to deal with people so you play video games or watch netflix when you get home because dealing with other human beings has become the last thing you want to do with your free time. Doorknob Slobber fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 19:29
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Zachack posted:Sales positions and other middlemen can (although don't necessarily) act as filters, feelers and buffers. Even a Best Buy TV salesperson can be useful if they can act as a buffer between the buyer and the manufacturer simply by saying "we've had a lot of returns on that model". At the sports/talent agent level, ignoring all the idiotic poo poo you're paying someone to do a better job of finding you a job than you can and arguing for/protecting you during negotiations. People with desirable skills and knowledge are often terrible at recognizing that value and convincing others of it. You bring up good points. But if middlemen type jobs are at best facilitators, I think it's a failing of at least the industry, if not capitalism as a whole. The basketball player may find value in a sports agent dealing with the front office or sponsors so that he can concentrate on his game. But if the Knicks or Adidas dealt with their athletes in an honest manner, would the agent be out of a job? Does the farm supply store in Agraria really give Old MacDonald a better deal on a tractor than if he just dealt with the tractor maker directly?
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Oct 18, 2014 19:31
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Ollu posted:Careful what you choose to do though. I used to teach in inner-city schools until it completely burnt me out. I knew it was good work, but the abuse I experienced every day just ended up being too much. Not everyone is cut out for working with people directly, I burnt out the first couple of times myself. But I also mean all kinds of jobs and volunteering that deals with people's access to services.
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Oct 18, 2014 20:11
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DarkCrawler posted:If I was rich I would spend my days traveling and educating myself, most likely. It's not like I'd ever run out of interesting places to visit/new things to learn/new people to meet. Traveling definitely gets boring and you would run out of interesting places to visit. The difference between places isn't really that big, especially the more places you go to, and the impact of a place on you becomes increasingly minimal. To that you'd have to add the fact that you're visiting these places in the context of leisure travel (which is a very limited context) and meeting people there in the context of being a leisure traveler (which is also very limited). You would be fundamentally unable to connect to anyone other than other rich permanent travelers seeing as you can't even relate to the most basic thing that almost everyone shares: doing work. Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 20:18
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Jobs are different from any other activity only in that you get paid for them. It seems absurd that you would feel a need for a job if money is not a motivation. "I need an activity I get paid for though I don't need to get paid." Surely pay is incidental. What I hear a lot is that people don't know what they would do without a job. Even if they win the lottery they are still certain they would work. That's not really surprising in that we have been conditioned throughout our lives to have places to go where we are told what to do - from elementary school to college to a job. We have become so accostumed to this that many can't imagine life without it. It's really a perversion of the human condition. Pedro De Heredia posted:Traveling definitely gets boring and you would run out of interesting places to visit. The difference between places isn't really that big, especially the more places you go to, and the impact of a place on you becomes increasingly minimal. Not really though. I mean if you check into a hotel and then take a tour of the local monuments then yes but there are more sensible ways to experience places and people. Bates fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Oct 18, 2014 |
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Oct 18, 2014 20:45
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Anosmoman posted:Jobs are different from any other activity only in that you get paid for them. It seems absurd that you would feel a need for a job if money is not a motivation. "I need an activity I get paid for though I don't need to get paid." Surely pay is incidental. No, I know exactly what I'd do, anyone here who has had ever taken a vacation of been unemployed knows what they'd do. However many people feel doing whatever you want all day with no real purpose or obligations actually does get kind of old after a while.
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Oct 18, 2014 21:01
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Amused to Death posted:No, I know exactly what I'd do, anyone here who has had ever taken a vacation of been unemployed knows what they'd do. However many people feel doing whatever you want all day with no real purpose or obligations actually does get kind of old after a while. Being unemployed doesn't mean having no obligations or purpose, though, at least not inherently. And I'd also argue that there are a huge number of people who do work and don't feel any purpose or obligation associated with their job, aside from being present so they can receive a paycheck. It's a cultural thing that we associate not working with sitting around doing nothing.
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Oct 18, 2014 21:28
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Paradoxish posted:And I'd also argue that there are a huge number of people who do work and don't feel any purpose or obligation associated with their job, aside from being present so they can receive a paycheck. Aye, that would be me.
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Oct 18, 2014 21:36
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Paradoxish posted:I think Helsing's comment on video games and Netflix is actually pretty relevant here. We tend to see time outside of work as time for socializing or free time for sitting around doing nothing, but there's no reason that has to be the case. You can learn new skills, take classes, pick up hobbies, pursue personal projects, and do any number of other things that I suspect most people would find more fulfilling and productive than their actual jobs. I think that often the value of things like hobbies, personal projects, vacations, travel, etc. is in how they contrast from the rest of our lives, i.e. the tasks we have to do even though we don't necessarily want to. Without tasks that you have to do even though you don't want to (like 'a job' or 'all the tasks involved in taking care of a family'), then these other things become a lot less interesting. The way people spend their time outside of work has to do with what they need after having worked (rest, contact with people they like, etc.). The way people spend their time when they don't have to work anymore isn't the same, because the needs aren't the same, which is why people say that they start getting bored after being unemployed too long or having a vacation that's too long. I also think that for a lot of people, hobbies, personal projects, and taking classes aren't really important and don't really bring a lot of satisfaction, they do those things to pass the time or to socialize.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:41
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Pedro De Heredia posted:I also think that for a lot of people, hobbies, personal projects, and taking classes aren't really important and don't really bring a lot of satisfaction, they do those things to pass the time or to socialize. Counterpoint: I think most people are not emotional and personality hulks and have legitimate interests they enjoy taking part in.
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Oct 18, 2014 22:47
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