My job pays me to be a brainiac. I'm the person staff look to when they attempt to "synthesize" ideas into a coherent document. People nod in agreement when I speak and stare at me with an intensity that's almost searching for a sort of revelation about the topic at hand. How did it get to be like this?
Before I landed my current job, I was enthralled with the idea of actual "work." The work I'm talking about is the kind where you get your hands dirty, literally. I felt, and still feel, that unless you're breaking a real sweat, you're not really "working." Instead, you're just pushing things around, talking a lot, and generally being disposable and easily replaceable.
Maybe it's my sociology background talking, but the whole idea of capitalism, and to a a greater extent, the idea of America, was based on the work ethic of the highly religious Protestants. Their notion that you had to work to make a living as a successful adult male must have really took its toll on me. I sometimes feel that I'm not really working when comparing my occupation to something more laborious like a ditch digger, construction, etc.
I like to work hard, but not work a lot. Maybe it's because my job comes easy for me. Maybe I long to feel the backbreaking aspect of my "work."
What a thing to be complaining about, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment