There’s a famous book by David Graeber called Bullshit Jobs. It outlines the way the corporate world has evolved in recent decades, with the growth of massive companies of tens of thousands of staff, most of them fulfilling roles that are painfully detached from meaning.

Work is a strange thing.

There’s a great short story by the writer Denis Johnson, called “Work”.

It’s about two guys who have been down on their luck for some time, who one day get a “job”: stripping copper wire from an abandoned house, and selling it for a handful of dollars that fills their pockets for today at least. There’s a short passage towards the end of that story that reads:

“We had money. We were grimy and tired. Usually we felt guilty and frightened, because there was something wrong with us and we didn’t know what it was, but today we had the feeling of men who had worked.”

This is a common feeling for all of us.

The feeling of a good day’s work.

Where does this feeling come from?

Is it somehow internal to us, an innate sense through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution that by working we get our just rewards? Or is it rather handed down by culture, a learned behaviour manipulated by those who have more to get those who have less to put in the hard labour?

I don’t know.

The complexity of this relationship between human beings and work found its most tragic expression in the sign that greeted arrivals to the Auschwitz concentration camp: “Arbeit macht frei”, or “Work sets you free”.

What I do know — and what Marge Piercy declares in this poem — is that to give us the warm feeling that we recognise, work must have some greater utility and value.

Work that serves others, work that makes a tangible contribution, that is work worth doing.

Work for the sake of work is not worth anything good at all.

Celebrates the fulfillment found in meaningful work and service

You can read the poem here

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Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onsound.eu/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com