This is another photo I took just after Suzanne dropped me off this morning. The picture doesn't do reality justice. The sun and water on all this shaggy, stubborn grass was dazzling. It was like someone had dumped a bucket of diamonds in the yard.
I've been thinking about work and happiness lately, wondering how often those two go together. William Faulkner said, "It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work." (Actually, I think Faulkner himself disproved the "can't drink for eight hours" claim but that's neither here nor there.)
It's rare that I meet someone who really loves what they do for work. Most people I know are on their way to something else -- a different career, a different degree, a promotion, more recognition, retirement, etc. I mean, I know it may not come up in every day conversation necessarily but I don't often hear people express that the thing that occupies the bulk of their waking hours and pays their bills is the best, most correct thing for them to be doing with their lives.
When I was growing up, my dad hated his job. He wouldn't come right out and say so but for most of my childhood, everything about Dad more or less screamed misery. He worked constantly. Many mornings he was gone to the bank before any of us were up for school and invariably he didn't make it home until 6 or sometimes later. He worked on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, during family reunions, etc. And when he was home, it was clear the day's efforts took a lot out of him. He'd get a plate of dinner, head downstairs for the recliner, eat, and fall asleep while watching MASH. Jason and I would sit down there with him and watch TV. We'd be obnoxious and try to get a reaction out of him. Some nights he'd think we were funny and he'd play along, other nights he was too tired and had no patience for two hyperactive, spastic boys.
Looking back as an adult and a parent myself, I see now how weighed down he was, how drained from the stresses of the day. Particularly when he was working for First Security Bank, it seemed work took from my dad.
Interestingly, even people who are doing exactly what they want seem to complain more than they celebrate. I know tenured professors who never wanted anything more than to be exactly that and yet, they focus on ungraded papers, unresponsive students, and administrative bureaucracy. Lucky Tony is the director of therapy at a facility that he partially owns. In his own words, he is "The Man" and yet his days are filled with needy parents, runaway kids, and the constant ebb and flow of money for the facility.
I'm far from being the most ambitious guy in the universe. My professional goals are pretty modest considering the field I'm in. I want to return to teaching at the junior/community college level and live out my life getting good benefits and the yearly increase awarded to people who stick around. I have no interest in even attempting life at a first or second tier school and academic publication interests me about as much as Sudoku (which means not much at all.) I just want to teach and get paid.
But here's the thing: I do teach and I am being paid. Just not as much as I'd like. In a building that's too hot. Teaching students who sometimes come to school hungover or buzzed. With bosses that don't start or end anything on time or plan much of anything more than a day or two in advance if that. In a building surrounded by homeless guys. In a city plagued with violent crime. In a state with one of the worst economies in the country. In a country that's at war. And on and on.
Obviously, I'm exaggerating to make a bit of a point. No job is ideal -- partly because it's work and work, by it's nature, is hard. (That's why it's called "work" and not "prancing freely with ponies made from cotton candy and licorice.") But if I have a job and can live on what I make, what's the difference between me and Bill Gates? He has a 74 million dollar roof over his head and I rent but is he more dry than I am when it rains? He has thousands of employees and I have 30-some odd students -- does he have fewer bad days at work than I do?
I don't know. Enjoying work, like everything else in life, is largely a matter of personal choice. We are agents put here to act rather than to be acted upon and we live life according to the choices we make. I doubt I can choose to take the same, sublime joy in grading barely legible essays on guns in Detroit that I take in snuggling with my daughters or eating warm chocolate chip cookies but I can probably choose to think to myself, "I'm doing something that I like, something I'm trained to to. This is pretty good."
Kinda Pollyanna, I know.
The worst jobs I've ever had:
1. Washing dishes at Golden Corral in Rexburg, Idaho when I was 15 years old. Wet, covered in half-chewed food and garbage, yelled at by frustrated middle managers, too young to date any of the superhot waitresses who were all seniors and thought of me as a cute, harmless mascot.
2. Cleaning hotel rooms in Jackson Hole, Wyoming when I was 16. Far away from home, had to live in a windowless basement room with exposed pipes in the ceiling and soggy carpet, tedious monkey work, foul co-workers (not you, Tony).
3. All temp work in Boise. Boxed Power Bars for 8 hours at a stretch, moved junk around as a Sears was renovating. Temp work: worst. jobs. ever.
4. AV maintenance for Boise School District. Spent an entire summer cleaning overhead projectors in grade schools all over Boise. 10 hour work days. Diana, the evil boss who took the job far too seriously.
What were your worst jobs ever? Are you happy in your current job?
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