Meaningful Work
So if your job is just a job, not a calling, what if your job stinks? What if you hate it and it brings you down? Is there a bar under which a job is marked meaningless and should not be available?
I wish those jobs could be mechanized. But then, all the people who would be out of work would need another job. I’d like to see an election promise state full employment for everyone who wants it. We look at the jobs rates now, and say they are the lowest in ten years, but there are still many people unemployed or underemployed. (I’m one of them!)
The new jobs would need to meaningful jobs, and I guess the rub is who defines meaningful? I guess each person would. When’s the last time the employee got asked how they want to do their job?
I’ve heard someone talk about the irony of our North American workplace mindset. As kids grow up we encourage them to make choices: what clothes to wear, what to ear, where to go to school, and so on. When we become adults and get a job, we are told what to wear, how to do our jobs, when to come to work and when to leave.
I think most of us would like to work in a company that values our intelligence, respects our decision making, and holds us accountable for our mistakes. That would be a meaningful place to work, and the company would prosper in whatever they would do.