Hating Your Job

Oh, we all hate work, don’t we? Just can’t stand it. Did I ever tell you about the time I called in sick for a week because I couldn’t stand looking at my boss for one more moment? Or mention the time I cut my own arm off so there was no way they could make me take minutes in the meeting that day? If you were in any doubt about just how much we loathe employment, you could take a look at lifelong.disappointment.com, a website for those wanting to vent their spleen about workplace miscreants. One infuriated contributor writes about their boss: “Working in a factory can be dull job at the best of times, but Mark managed the quite amazing feat of being both dull and infuriating at the same time. I’d find myself grinding my teeth into anger-powder at his banal and bigoted comments, while simultaneously berating myself for letting such a degraded Hobbit get to me in the first place.” And that is one of the more restrained entries. The site is funny, of course. You’d have to be slightly weird never to wonder if there was a way to make your boss disappear. Nor can there be a person on the planet, relying on a computer for some essential and urgent piece of work, who hasn’t within five minutes wanted to hurl the thing off the nearest cliff. No one could deny that a day in the office is a feast of irritation, frustation and sheer wonderment at the ridiculous things that your fellow human beings can say and do with, apparently, no sense of shame. But is that a problemwith work - or with life? If you spent all day, everyday in your own house, you’d be Googling for a website where you could record rants about home life before lunch on day one. Why does the postman always have to make such a racket? Who is this lobotomised streak of inanity who has somehow got a job presenting a national radio programme? Most things in life are just annoying, especially if you don’t have much choice about them, if they are repetitive, and if they require interaction with people you haven’t personally selected for the purpose beforehand. It’s just that we spend more time at work than anywhere else, so we think it’s the fault of the job when it fact it’s just the fault of, well, the world in general. Can modern work be all that bad? We aren’t compelled to do it, after all, apart from in the material sense. But as with admitting to liking Vic Damone records, you can’t say you like work. Try it tonight, at a mamak joint. Try forming the words: “Actually, my job gives me financial security, a role and purpose, a sense of self-esteem, intellectual stimulation and social interaction and a warm place to sit during the day. I love it!” But don’t worry: you can gripe and moan about it, while carrying your clandestine affection for gainful employment deep within your secret heart. Perhaps one day you’ll be able to shout it from the highest hill, but for now it must be like this: the love that dare not speak its name.