Work

On this transition into a new year, those thoughts that I do have about resolutions or change circle around how I view my job, how it fits into my life and values now, and whether there's a better version of this fit requiring either a change of job or a change in my outlook. That's been an undercurrent to 2006 for me. Today I happened on this snippet, a mid-discussion excerpt form a longer dialog about the joys of doing what you like (as it happens in this forum, work centered around bikes):

"Pensioners have typically even had a certain
personality stereotype, along with those going for a pension."

Sorry but that is such an incredibly condescending and elitist thought!!

Let's look at a few things made possible by those people who don't get to do
what they love and instead pursue a pension:
1) Roads (good luck riding without them!)
2) Clean water (good luck living without that!)
3) Plumbing (got a shovel?)
4) Telecommunications (good luck reading this without all those wires strung
around the planet!)
5) Electricity (what internet?)
6) Ships, trucks and railroads (say adios to all that merchandise you're
trying to sell!)

These and many more things are made possible by people who work really hard
at really miserable jobs all in the hopes of someday getting a pension.

Reality is if everyone only did what they wanted to do we'd all be supremely
screwed as a society! You think UPS and Postal Service people grow up
wanting to do that for a living? Ditto for sanitation workers, plumbers,
laborers, agriculture workers, truck drivers, etc., etc, etc. Imagine how
great the world would be if all these people woke up tomorrow and said "Gee,
I'm going to quit my job and do what I want to do!"

Reality is the idea of a secure retirement is a very necessary incentive for
advanced societies so that people like you can go out and do what you want
while they do the dirty work that makes it all possible in the first place.

Articulate response. This post has stayed with me today. I'm chewing on the thought that work can/should be compartmentalized as a pure means to an end. But my internal voice thorns me over the last two paragraphs - must these be characterized as miserable jobs? I know folk who do them who are no more miserable than those doing "elite" work. I'd rather focus on what would make jobs generally less miserable, and have folk be more justly compensated for them.