If it hasn’t become apparent by now, here it is: I love The Simpsons. No way around it. As a teenager, I had a huge The Simpsons poster on my wall which many of my friends thought was pretty lame and off-brand for me, but to me, The Simpsons are an infinite source of laughter and insanely clever gags.
I was reminded of the scene on the right where Krusty the Clown reads his slightly poorly cut cue cards to a live audience when I was sighing about something or other related to work. ‘Tonight I’m going to SUUUCK!’ when something wasn’t going quite the way I wanted it to. Around this time I was also hanging around the virtual workplace longer, operating with the false assumption that if I just grind a bit more today, tomorrow there’ll be less work to do. Ha.
But I am lucky to have experienced a different kind of a ‘work sucks’ situation: one where it sucks me in, and I am on fire. My most vivid memory of this is actually from university, my head buried in ancient books in the even more ancient Maughan Library nestled in the heart of London; of finally looking up, surprised to notice I was still in that library bathing in sunset, its stone walls exuding a chill in the echoing hallways. I had been so immersed in the abstract world of International Relations’ Theory that I found it disorienting to get up for a glass of water. What a wonderful feeling to lose oneself in wonder.
Sometimes work sucks you in At other times, it sucks, and you choose to take it as it comes. Let’s explore the world of sucking with different punctuations.
I – Work sucks you in
One of the reasons for starting this blog is that I actually like working. What is it about work that sucks you in?
For one thing, a (false) sense of accomplishment. I like ticking off a task completed, sending out the email I’ve been fretting for a week, getting ‘good grades’ in the performance evaluation. The problem with the tick-that-off approach is that there will never be a last item on your list. There’s always more work.
Beyond the task-oriented mindset, I like puzzles. I like challenges. I like identifying problems and coming up with solutions, implementing them and checking that they work. The project approach which encompasses a multitude of tasks is perhaps better at giving work meaning when your individual actions don’t. I would imagine a customer service agent is well-positioned to feel a sense of meaning in an isolated task – I answered the customer’s question, and they are now happy. Whether the employee feels satisfied, rewarded, or acknowledged as a result, is a different matter.
I think most of us like to think that what we do is important, or that we should do important things. It’s easy to get sucked in your work, both when enjoying it and when not. I suppose many also like to give their work their all because they are ambitious or because they know it’s what keeps their paychecks coming. That leads us to punctuation number two.
II – Work sucks. You in?
Sometimes, work just sucks. Period. ‘Ain’t nothin’ you can do about it,’ we shrug, and keep going, hoping it’ll get better or that another job crops up somewhere, somehow.
Some time ago I came across a LinkedIn thread by an entrepreneur who was asking others to share what they think about being an entrepreneur vs. a salaried employee. ‘Never again!’ said many entrepreneurs. ‘I am my own boss, I work whenever I want, and no-one can tell me what to do.’ Someone else said, ‘What I do has meaning.’
I found the general tone of the thread to be belittling towards salaried employees, the corporate junkies who want nothing more than to perfect PowerPoint presentations and attend endless Teams meetings. What’s wrong with liking nice slides and breakout rooms? Nothing, in my opinion. But I do understand the frustrations of the 9-5 life. And that’s why I think that ‘Work sucks. You in?’ is a deal: you know it’s going to suck, sometimes. But you also know that there’s a lot to like and to be grateful for, perhaps primarily the steady income, but also your colleagues, learning opportunities, professional growth, and if you’re lucky, genuine fun. So, yes, this is the deal. You in?
I know several couples where one person is either an entrepreneur or works in a small company, and the other is either a mid-level or senior manager in a behemoth of a corporation. ‘I could never do it,’ says the non-corporate party, ‘but they seem to like it. I think they don’t mind the same things that I mind.’ I think many people forget that your own source of annoyance may not be one for someone else. I also feel that we should respect the corporate cogs for the work they do, even if their input doesn’t amount to dollar-signs every day. If every single on of us had our own enterprise, the economy couldn’t grow. There’s often more merit to someone brining to life an idea or concept had by someone else; you can shine as a project member, too, not only as the lead.
There is so much we can do to make work life better. The final punctuation is where this is more evident than anywhere else.
III – Work sucks.
Sometimes, work simply just sucks, and there is no ‘you in?’ part at the end. Sometimes, you don’t have a choice of different workplaces, to shop around, or to start your own company. Not throwing oneself to the arms of the dole office is not really a tacit ‘I’m in.’
When you work, no matter how small it may be in the grand scheme of things, it can become everything. ‘It’s just a job,’ people tell each other, agree, and go back to stressing out about it. In my experience, the stress comes from poor organization, inadequate training, and unfortunately on occasion, individuals who make work suck.
How to prevent work from sucking? That’s the million-dollar question – quite literally, too, for hiring people is not cheap, and losing your best people even less so. I’ll pick this up with concrete examples another time – my actual work is beckoning to me to come and get sucked in. Hope it won’t suck.
Sidetracked 