What makes a job meaningful?
October 17, 2021 12:35 PM Subscribe
Hint: it’s not the money.
In a 2020 working paper, Milena Nikolova and Femke Cnossen claim to be “the first to explore the determinants of work meaningfulness.” Their research shows that autonomy, competence, and relatedness explain about 60 percent of the variation in work meaningfulness perceptions. Meanwhile, extrinsic factors, such as income, benefits, and performance pay, are relatively unimportant. The authors discuss how the COVID pandemic has affected the number one determinant of job meaningfulness: relatedness, ie. relationships with co-workers.
An earlier paper corroborates the greater importance of meaningfulness over remuneration.
Absent from the discussion of job meaningfulness is explicit consideration of the ethics of work. Many supposedly “evil” employers rate highly in meaningfulness. This may changing, however, as more workers, particularly among the Precariat, seek work environments that conform to their social and biophilic goals.
In a 2020 working paper, Milena Nikolova and Femke Cnossen claim to be “the first to explore the determinants of work meaningfulness.” Their research shows that autonomy, competence, and relatedness explain about 60 percent of the variation in work meaningfulness perceptions. Meanwhile, extrinsic factors, such as income, benefits, and performance pay, are relatively unimportant. The authors discuss how the COVID pandemic has affected the number one determinant of job meaningfulness: relatedness, ie. relationships with co-workers.
An earlier paper corroborates the greater importance of meaningfulness over remuneration.
Absent from the discussion of job meaningfulness is explicit consideration of the ethics of work. Many supposedly “evil” employers rate highly in meaningfulness. This may changing, however, as more workers, particularly among the Precariat, seek work environments that conform to their social and biophilic goals.
Isn't this just the Japanese concept of ikigai, which has been around since the 60's?
posted by fight or flight at 12:46 PM on October 17, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by fight or flight at 12:46 PM on October 17, 2021 [7 favorites]
Many supposedly “evil” employers rate highly in meaningfulness.
This right here is the most important takeaway, in my opinion. Who decides what is meaningful? The individual.
There is nothing here that says the "meaningful work" can't be "eradicating everything except the white race."
That's... fucking scary, because a lot of those Trump people are really emotionally dedicated to their antisocial bullshit.
Republicans and conservatives in general are really good at this in group dynamic of creating meaning out of nothing for the sake of banding together.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [23 favorites]
This right here is the most important takeaway, in my opinion. Who decides what is meaningful? The individual.
There is nothing here that says the "meaningful work" can't be "eradicating everything except the white race."
That's... fucking scary, because a lot of those Trump people are really emotionally dedicated to their antisocial bullshit.
Republicans and conservatives in general are really good at this in group dynamic of creating meaning out of nothing for the sake of banding together.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [23 favorites]
Maybe that’s what makes jobs feel meaningful, but that is different than explaining what motivates people to work their jobs…
Would you like to work this difficult and underpaid but meaningful job, or this overpaid and easy but less meaningful one?
Meaning can be had outside of work. See the whole “I don’t dream of labor” meme.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:49 PM on October 17, 2021 [38 favorites]
Would you like to work this difficult and underpaid but meaningful job, or this overpaid and easy but less meaningful one?
Meaning can be had outside of work. See the whole “I don’t dream of labor” meme.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:49 PM on October 17, 2021 [38 favorites]
While concepts like ikigai have been around for quite a long time, having some science to back up such an assertion is certainly helpful.
Also, let's not discount social pressure to live up to ikigai as a confounding factor.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:51 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also, let's not discount social pressure to live up to ikigai as a confounding factor.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:51 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Whenever these kinds of conversations come up, it makes me feel like I must be living on another planet. To begin with, "meaningfulness" is not really something I ever consciously think about. If I were asked to rate things that are important in my work, relationships, or life in general, the word "meaningfulness" or "fulfillment" would never come up. These are just foreign concepts to me, or maybe I do care about them but the way I think of them is so different that it's hard for me to connect to the common vocabulary for it.
But beyond that, I've never felt that I need or really even want my work to provide something beyond a means to live the rest of my life (so, money and insurance). Decoupling everything except money and insurance from my job allows me to change the things I do for everything else in my life on a whim. If this week I am enjoying making music, next week I want to try writing a book, and the week after that is all about social connection, that's great. I can turn my life on a dime and do what I need to for who I am in that exact moment. But if I am getting these things from my work, I am kind of trapped. I can't change jobs every time my mood changes.
So maybe I am just too fickle in my needs to be able to get anything beyond money and insurance from work. Or maybe I don't care about what people normally calling "meaningfulness." But either way, I generally couldn't care less if my job is meaningful.
posted by primethyme at 1:01 PM on October 17, 2021 [13 favorites]
But beyond that, I've never felt that I need or really even want my work to provide something beyond a means to live the rest of my life (so, money and insurance). Decoupling everything except money and insurance from my job allows me to change the things I do for everything else in my life on a whim. If this week I am enjoying making music, next week I want to try writing a book, and the week after that is all about social connection, that's great. I can turn my life on a dime and do what I need to for who I am in that exact moment. But if I am getting these things from my work, I am kind of trapped. I can't change jobs every time my mood changes.
So maybe I am just too fickle in my needs to be able to get anything beyond money and insurance from work. Or maybe I don't care about what people normally calling "meaningfulness." But either way, I generally couldn't care less if my job is meaningful.
posted by primethyme at 1:01 PM on October 17, 2021 [13 favorites]
Would you like to work this difficult and underpaid but meaningful job, or this overpaid and easy but less meaningful one?
Right, plenty of people might say, enjoy whatever volunteer work they do for free, but would pass if offered to do that same very work full-time at a minimum wage salary.
I also find the concept of "meaningfulness" a bit murky - like, I wouldn't say I've ever gotten "meaning" from relationships with co-workers, though I've certainly gotten enjoyment from them.
posted by coffeecat at 1:18 PM on October 17, 2021
Right, plenty of people might say, enjoy whatever volunteer work they do for free, but would pass if offered to do that same very work full-time at a minimum wage salary.
I also find the concept of "meaningfulness" a bit murky - like, I wouldn't say I've ever gotten "meaning" from relationships with co-workers, though I've certainly gotten enjoyment from them.
posted by coffeecat at 1:18 PM on October 17, 2021
Your job being considered "meaningful" seems to have a directly inverse relationship to how you're paid, so no, it isn't the money. But also I can't pay my rent in meaning, so pay me anyway. I promise I can sort it out.
posted by Grim Fridge at 1:23 PM on October 17, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by Grim Fridge at 1:23 PM on October 17, 2021 [12 favorites]
Isn't this just the Japanese concept of ikigai, which has been around since the 60's?
Or even earlier. In 1853 Thoreau wrote,
Or even earlier. In 1853 Thoreau wrote,
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:23 PM on October 17, 2021 [22 favorites]
I'd hazard a guess that most people don't have the luxury of deciding whether to take a job (or career) based on its potential meaningfulness. And although one might be able to derive some sense of meaningfulness from their work once they're in a position, even then I doubt that's possible for a majority of folks.
I don't trust the notion that a search for meaningfulness is what drives most people to take or keep a given job - or to have a job at all, for that matter. To me it seems more likely that looking for meaningfulness in one's employment is an attempt to claw some plausible incentive out of thin air that will help us continue coping with the unavoidable obligation of working for a living in jobs we'd rather not be doing, that helps it feel a teensy bit less hopeless and grim.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:24 PM on October 17, 2021 [31 favorites]
I don't trust the notion that a search for meaningfulness is what drives most people to take or keep a given job - or to have a job at all, for that matter. To me it seems more likely that looking for meaningfulness in one's employment is an attempt to claw some plausible incentive out of thin air that will help us continue coping with the unavoidable obligation of working for a living in jobs we'd rather not be doing, that helps it feel a teensy bit less hopeless and grim.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:24 PM on October 17, 2021 [31 favorites]
I think some of the comments here are actually orthogonal to the point. It's not whyyou have a job or even whether you think a job should be meaningful to you, or whether you'd quit your job and live a dissipated lifestyle if you had the means. It's "what makes a job meaningful?" And for most people, for whatever job they have (and for whatever reason they have it), money isn't the primary way people find it meaningful (or not).
I'm extremely fortunate in that, for the most part, I find my job incredibly meaningful and fulfilling. But even still, if I won the lottery, I'd probably quit.
posted by tclark at 1:26 PM on October 17, 2021 [21 favorites]
I'm extremely fortunate in that, for the most part, I find my job incredibly meaningful and fulfilling. But even still, if I won the lottery, I'd probably quit.
posted by tclark at 1:26 PM on October 17, 2021 [21 favorites]
I worked for a while in a jewelry production house. Making a ton of really gaudy overpriced baubles, but getting to play with gemstones and precious metals, and being a part of a really dynamic group of co-workers who were excitedly feeding off each other's energy and being creating alone and in various combinations outside of the workplace. I was paid well, and working a ton of overtime, so I had really good pay and a really amazing workplace, but was my work "meaningful"? No, not really.
I also worked in an elementary school for several years as a teachers' aide. Teaching kids to read, helping kids struggling to read, working on literacy skills of all kinds.. Very meaningful work, horrible pay, VERY HIGH STRESS.
I've worked a ton of blue collar jobs. Warehouse, delivery, manufacturing... At the end of the day, I'm just done and I walk away and I have my mental energy for the rest of my life. It's physically taxing, but I'm not paying for a gym membership. The work is necessary, but not really meaningful.
There's a wide range in there, and none of them are business style desk jobs. I don't know what those are like. But what makes work meaningful and what makes work worthwhile?
I'd go back to that first job in a moment if I could. I'd still be there today if the boss hadn't developed a coke habit and snorted the whole thing up his nose. Everyone I'm still in touch with from those lifetimes ago feels the same. I guess that job was the one that was really meaningful.
posted by hippybear at 1:35 PM on October 17, 2021 [25 favorites]
I also worked in an elementary school for several years as a teachers' aide. Teaching kids to read, helping kids struggling to read, working on literacy skills of all kinds.. Very meaningful work, horrible pay, VERY HIGH STRESS.
I've worked a ton of blue collar jobs. Warehouse, delivery, manufacturing... At the end of the day, I'm just done and I walk away and I have my mental energy for the rest of my life. It's physically taxing, but I'm not paying for a gym membership. The work is necessary, but not really meaningful.
There's a wide range in there, and none of them are business style desk jobs. I don't know what those are like. But what makes work meaningful and what makes work worthwhile?
I'd go back to that first job in a moment if I could. I'd still be there today if the boss hadn't developed a coke habit and snorted the whole thing up his nose. Everyone I'm still in touch with from those lifetimes ago feels the same. I guess that job was the one that was really meaningful.
posted by hippybear at 1:35 PM on October 17, 2021 [25 favorites]
My work was meaningful in that it was what I studied for and enjoyed doing... Metalsmithing and jewelry design. I hooked up with a woman designer thru happenstance really. This was the mid 70s in NYC. Times were tight for sure. I was washing dishes in a artists cafe in soho....5 bucks an hour...cash in my hand. Coworker told me about a woman looking for a person experienced in jewelry fabrication. She had some money to back her thru her husband who was in industrial real estate. We hit it off immediatly and worked out of her apartment for a year and a half before moving to a real work space on 38th street. The pay wasnt great but it did include health insurance.... My pay steadily went up over the years. Lots of perks...attending designer runway shows...cocktail parties, with food... My rent was 350.00 a month for a studio in upper Manhatten. It was fun and I got to work with some name designers in the fashion industry. I was and am single so I didnt have to worry about providing for a family. I feel quite fortunate how my work life turned out.
posted by Czjewel at 1:41 PM on October 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 1:41 PM on October 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have wondered what would happen if you paid someone a good salary + benefits - not great, say $75k/year and hold the "Cadillac"" health plan (the one that covers both kidneys AND the spleen), to perform an entirely repetitive and pointless task like sorting colored balls into piles, in an office setting. Nothing Orwellian! You wouldn't be locked in a white room or something like that; there'd be Keurig coffee and you could have a nice lunch and there would sometimes be sheet cake in the break room. How long would people be able to stand this? What if you bumped up the salary by a lot, how long then?
posted by thelonius at 1:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 1:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
"Meaningfulness" and "fulfillment" are also buzzwords that companies use to keep their workers underpaid. See also: nearly every non-profit in existence. Also seems highly correlated with pink collar work. Early childhood education is so meaningful! Nursing home care, so fulfilling!
I am really damn lucky that I have a job that I do actually find meaningful (at least, 95% of the time) and that also pays me well enough to meet all my obligations and save for retirement. And yeah, autonomy, competence, and relationality does factor strongly into this. But I also find more meaning and fulfillment in things that are wholly unrelated to my job, except that my job affords me the time and money to accomplish said things.
My own take-away is that once your income exceeds your required expenses (taxes, rent/mortgage, food, etc), the rest is gravy and doesn't appreciably contribute to "meaningfulness." But it's also ludicrous to talk about finding meaning and purpose when you aren't even being paid a living wage.
posted by basalganglia at 1:53 PM on October 17, 2021 [11 favorites]
I am really damn lucky that I have a job that I do actually find meaningful (at least, 95% of the time) and that also pays me well enough to meet all my obligations and save for retirement. And yeah, autonomy, competence, and relationality does factor strongly into this. But I also find more meaning and fulfillment in things that are wholly unrelated to my job, except that my job affords me the time and money to accomplish said things.
My own take-away is that once your income exceeds your required expenses (taxes, rent/mortgage, food, etc), the rest is gravy and doesn't appreciably contribute to "meaningfulness." But it's also ludicrous to talk about finding meaning and purpose when you aren't even being paid a living wage.
posted by basalganglia at 1:53 PM on October 17, 2021 [11 favorites]
Money is what let's us buy the safety and security to have meaningfulness in our daily lives.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:57 PM on October 17, 2021 [22 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:57 PM on October 17, 2021 [22 favorites]
ca. 1965: "That's the job! I give you money, you give me ideas."
'But you never say Thank You!!'
"That's what the MONEY is For!"
posted by bartleby at 2:08 PM on October 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
'But you never say Thank You!!'
"That's what the MONEY is For!"
posted by bartleby at 2:08 PM on October 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
My own take-away is that once your income exceeds your required expenses (taxes, rent/mortgage, food, etc), the rest is gravy and doesn't appreciably contribute to "meaningfulness."
I have quite a resume of things I spend money on. Concerts, museums, travel, art, music... That is not the gravy, that is the meaning generally.
posted by hippybear at 2:09 PM on October 17, 2021 [19 favorites]
I have quite a resume of things I spend money on. Concerts, museums, travel, art, music... That is not the gravy, that is the meaning generally.
posted by hippybear at 2:09 PM on October 17, 2021 [19 favorites]
A job is for getting money to buy the crypto that will let you quit your job
posted by moorooka at 2:20 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by moorooka at 2:20 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
thelonius: a good salary + benefits - not great, say $75k/year
I think you'll find most people here have a very different definition of "great" than you do.
posted by tzikeh at 2:21 PM on October 17, 2021 [29 favorites]
I think you'll find most people here have a very different definition of "great" than you do.
posted by tzikeh at 2:21 PM on October 17, 2021 [29 favorites]
I have quite a resume of things I spend money on. Concerts, museums, travel, art, music... That is not the gravy, that is the meaning generally.
Right, me too. But having more discretionary spending does not increase the meaningfulness of your job; it's the meaningfulness of your life that matters. The job is a just way to pay for the things that a person actually cares about. Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation.
posted by basalganglia at 2:39 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Right, me too. But having more discretionary spending does not increase the meaningfulness of your job; it's the meaningfulness of your life that matters. The job is a just way to pay for the things that a person actually cares about. Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation.
posted by basalganglia at 2:39 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
thelonius, to quote Douglas Adams, "There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
Hypothesis: a ball-sorter who likes their coworkers and/or themself will come up with fairytales that make the ball-sorting seem interesting. Less fortunate ball-sorters will get depressed.
posted by clew at 2:43 PM on October 17, 2021 [22 favorites]
Hypothesis: a ball-sorter who likes their coworkers and/or themself will come up with fairytales that make the ball-sorting seem interesting. Less fortunate ball-sorters will get depressed.
posted by clew at 2:43 PM on October 17, 2021 [22 favorites]
a good salary + benefits - not great, say $75k/year
$75k/year is about where I am now and it is the "greatest" salary I've ever had. I've worked at more "meaningful" jobs for way less.
....I kind of get what the paper is getting at and I both agree and disagree; but mainly I wonder if "meaningful" is the wrong word. Not everyone necessarily needs to do work that is emotionally fulfilling - but I think that at least people would like to feel like the overall work that the COMPANY is doing fulfills some purpose, and would also like to feel like their coworkers notice and/or care about the work that they do.
Pretty much every job I've had has been some kind of clerical/secretarial work. I've done that in banks, in nonprofit NGOs, in mortgage brokers, in a TV company, in a construction company, and now I'm doing it in a tech/manufacturing firm. In all cases, the places where I felt most fulfilled were when I felt like the work that the company was doing overall was generally benefitting society in some way, and when I felt like people appreciated what I did, and that they would at least feel sad if I got hit by a jeep or something. And I kind of think that's what this is getting at - "meaningful" doesn't always necessarily mean that your work is meaningful to the world or to you personally, sometimes "meaningful" means "Meaningful to your co-workers Sid or Chuck or Tony, because you're the best widget-filer in their team and they appreciate having you around." What you don't want is to feel like you're interchangeable with any random yutz, and that if you just vanished from the planet, your office wouldn't just shrug and say "okay, let's get a temp in here, it'll be just as good."
The finale of the musical Working is a song called Something to Point To, that kind of gets at what what I mean - everyone in the ensemble "points at" the same office building, each one singing about how they contributed to it - one sings that he did the design, another guy ran the crane during construction, another guy sings he made the bricks, another one sings that he made the doors - and you hear from the security guards, the cleaners, the payroll clerk in one of the offices, the mailroom guy in another, even the guy who runs the coffee stand in the lobby - each one speaking up to say how they contribute to this building, before ending with this:
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [16 favorites]
$75k/year is about where I am now and it is the "greatest" salary I've ever had. I've worked at more "meaningful" jobs for way less.
....I kind of get what the paper is getting at and I both agree and disagree; but mainly I wonder if "meaningful" is the wrong word. Not everyone necessarily needs to do work that is emotionally fulfilling - but I think that at least people would like to feel like the overall work that the COMPANY is doing fulfills some purpose, and would also like to feel like their coworkers notice and/or care about the work that they do.
Pretty much every job I've had has been some kind of clerical/secretarial work. I've done that in banks, in nonprofit NGOs, in mortgage brokers, in a TV company, in a construction company, and now I'm doing it in a tech/manufacturing firm. In all cases, the places where I felt most fulfilled were when I felt like the work that the company was doing overall was generally benefitting society in some way, and when I felt like people appreciated what I did, and that they would at least feel sad if I got hit by a jeep or something. And I kind of think that's what this is getting at - "meaningful" doesn't always necessarily mean that your work is meaningful to the world or to you personally, sometimes "meaningful" means "Meaningful to your co-workers Sid or Chuck or Tony, because you're the best widget-filer in their team and they appreciate having you around." What you don't want is to feel like you're interchangeable with any random yutz, and that if you just vanished from the planet, your office wouldn't just shrug and say "okay, let's get a temp in here, it'll be just as good."
The finale of the musical Working is a song called Something to Point To, that kind of gets at what what I mean - everyone in the ensemble "points at" the same office building, each one singing about how they contributed to it - one sings that he did the design, another guy ran the crane during construction, another guy sings he made the bricks, another one sings that he made the doors - and you hear from the security guards, the cleaners, the payroll clerk in one of the offices, the mailroom guy in another, even the guy who runs the coffee stand in the lobby - each one speaking up to say how they contribute to this building, before ending with this:
Everyone should have something to point to, something to be proud ofInstead of "people need meaningful work" I think "everyone should have something to point to" is a better way to think of it.
Look what I did, see what I've done
I did the job, I was the one
Everyone should have something to point to, some way to be tall in the crowd...
[...] See that building
That's where I put the food on our plates
That's where I've lived a piece of my life
Where I can bring my kids and say
See that building
The lumber was cut, decisions were made
See that building
The windows are washed, the site was surveyed
The memos are typed, the concrete was laid
The records are kept, the office is run
The coffee is sold, the digging was done
The building was built, for all eyes to see...by me!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [16 favorites]
“Meaningfulness” and the like are terms used by corporations to pay their employees less and to provide their employees with fewer or no benefits. Studies may be be done with the sincere goal of determining what makes work meaningful, but anyone would be naive to think that these studies are not immediately co-opted for the master’s ends. At the dumbest, corporate-flunkie level, this kind of sleight of hand occurs when you’re told, “Hey, we’re like a family here at GloboChem.”
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:58 PM on October 17, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:58 PM on October 17, 2021 [17 favorites]
As a career freelancer in show biz, I am thrilled to tiny bits that productions want to hire me, pay my top-of the-line day rate, and that I can choose what I want to work on— that’s meaningful to me.
I’m glad IATSE’s not going to strike, too. (My union would have backed them up.)
posted by Ideefixe at 3:17 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’m glad IATSE’s not going to strike, too. (My union would have backed them up.)
posted by Ideefixe at 3:17 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
What you don't want is to feel like you're interchangeable with any random yutz, and that if you just vanished from the planet, your office wouldn't just shrug and say "okay, let's get a temp in here, it'll be just as good."
That sums it up. If you want meaning, if you want "I made a difference in someone's life," if you want "I wanna help people," which most people claim is their life goal, my clerical worker job definitely does that. I probably help at least 10,000 people a year just by processing their paperwork, especially when someone screams at me that it's an emergency. Tons of people got help! Because of me! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay help! You got help! Yay helping people!
But: who the fuck cares? I'm just another cog in the wheel. Nobody's going to remember me that I helped them do X, because X is expected of clerical workers. They do remember you if you can't get X done in a timely manner and rip you a new asshole, though. You ain't special.
As a clerical worker, you are just a warm body and if you drop, a temp will be brought in and while sure, they won't have the 20 years worth of institutional knowledge you have, somehow they'll manage as long as a warm body is there to answer a phone, even if the warm body is thrown into the deep end of the ocean and has no idea how to answer anything. I assume why I haven't been fired from here yet is that nobody has been super motivated to do so as yet and hiring a replacement here is effing excruciating (literally we haven't been able to maintain a full team for years and this point one entire section of my unit has NO adult permanent employees left). I mean, it could be institutional knowledge as well, but they'd live if I dropped dead tomorrow. They'd figure it out.
What I guess I'm trying to say here is that sure, my job has meaning. It's just not meaning that I personally care about At All. It doesn't mean anything to me. It's not what I want(ed) to accomplish in life. But what I would like to do is expendable and useless and not going to give me money to live on, so. All that matters is that you have warm bodies there saying "Can I help you?"
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:25 PM on October 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
That sums it up. If you want meaning, if you want "I made a difference in someone's life," if you want "I wanna help people," which most people claim is their life goal, my clerical worker job definitely does that. I probably help at least 10,000 people a year just by processing their paperwork, especially when someone screams at me that it's an emergency. Tons of people got help! Because of me! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay help! You got help! Yay helping people!
But: who the fuck cares? I'm just another cog in the wheel. Nobody's going to remember me that I helped them do X, because X is expected of clerical workers. They do remember you if you can't get X done in a timely manner and rip you a new asshole, though. You ain't special.
As a clerical worker, you are just a warm body and if you drop, a temp will be brought in and while sure, they won't have the 20 years worth of institutional knowledge you have, somehow they'll manage as long as a warm body is there to answer a phone, even if the warm body is thrown into the deep end of the ocean and has no idea how to answer anything. I assume why I haven't been fired from here yet is that nobody has been super motivated to do so as yet and hiring a replacement here is effing excruciating (literally we haven't been able to maintain a full team for years and this point one entire section of my unit has NO adult permanent employees left). I mean, it could be institutional knowledge as well, but they'd live if I dropped dead tomorrow. They'd figure it out.
What I guess I'm trying to say here is that sure, my job has meaning. It's just not meaning that I personally care about At All. It doesn't mean anything to me. It's not what I want(ed) to accomplish in life. But what I would like to do is expendable and useless and not going to give me money to live on, so. All that matters is that you have warm bodies there saying "Can I help you?"
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:25 PM on October 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
wow I laughed out loud at being informed at the start of the thread that the concept of “a life worth living” was invented in Japan in the 1960s, and that this ancient wisdom of the exotic orient has its own Wikipedia page
it feels like someone mentioning an untranslatable color known to the French as “vert”
(I’ve never encountered a native speaker in Japan using the word “ikigai” in the past thirteen years, but on the other hand -gai is used routinely as a suffix to basically just mean “worth ___ing,” like a job worth doing or a place that’s worth the trip)
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:47 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
it feels like someone mentioning an untranslatable color known to the French as “vert”
(I’ve never encountered a native speaker in Japan using the word “ikigai” in the past thirteen years, but on the other hand -gai is used routinely as a suffix to basically just mean “worth ___ing,” like a job worth doing or a place that’s worth the trip)
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:47 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
$75k is a fuck of a lot of money in most of the US. You could live very nicely on $75k almost anywhere except maybe New York and Los Angeles. The ball sorting job sounds like most office work. I'd be extremely tempted.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:04 PM on October 17, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:04 PM on October 17, 2021 [14 favorites]
Them: "Why do you want to work for us?"
Me: "I'm really passionate about not starving to death."
posted by WhyamIhereagain at 4:19 PM on October 17, 2021 [30 favorites]
Me: "I'm really passionate about not starving to death."
posted by WhyamIhereagain at 4:19 PM on October 17, 2021 [30 favorites]
Meaning is complex. It's not just 'helping people', or just 'make a lot of money'. A lot of it is social, feeling that what you do is valued. A lot of it is personal, related to your biography, interests, insecurities, etc.
Money can be meaningful, of course–it's a form of validation and ultimately a kind of affection. People who value your work pay you, those who don't, don't. Ask any freelancer and/or creative worker about this.
I run a small web-dev agency and love it, and even though websites come and go, it's certainly meaningful to my clients, and I like making my clients happy, so it's meaningful to me, as well.
I also teach at a University for very little money and not that much recognition, but the times an ex-student comes up to me and says how I changed their life, or when I my former TAs tell me about their successes, that packs a hell of a lot of meaning, right there.
posted by signal at 4:24 PM on October 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
Money can be meaningful, of course–it's a form of validation and ultimately a kind of affection. People who value your work pay you, those who don't, don't. Ask any freelancer and/or creative worker about this.
I run a small web-dev agency and love it, and even though websites come and go, it's certainly meaningful to my clients, and I like making my clients happy, so it's meaningful to me, as well.
I also teach at a University for very little money and not that much recognition, but the times an ex-student comes up to me and says how I changed their life, or when I my former TAs tell me about their successes, that packs a hell of a lot of meaning, right there.
posted by signal at 4:24 PM on October 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
A job is for getting money to buy the crypto that will let you quit your job
That's just trading one scam for another!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:11 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
That's just trading one scam for another!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:11 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
Lol I’ve never made 75k in my life and I’m getting by in NYC. But I’m not inclined to look for a job that pays that much because it probably would involve too many fucking emails and meetings and not being able to turn off work mode. My current job feels pretty meaningful in that I get to see a kid ride off on their new bike and what’s better than that?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:28 PM on October 17, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 5:28 PM on October 17, 2021 [7 favorites]
The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a woman's heart. One must imagine the interns happy.
posted by flabdablet at 6:31 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 6:31 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
The idea that there's something grubby and materialistic about wanting to get paid so you can survive, and that you should find a way of being useful to gross rapacious tycoons that you find 'meaningful', is just one of the many insulting things about present-day indentured servitude.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:34 PM on October 17, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:34 PM on October 17, 2021 [16 favorites]
I love my night security job. Come in at midnight, work on my own freelance digital art projects for 6 hours, then 2 hours doing grunt work. The place is nestled in a green valley surrounded by trees and a river. Only deal with a few people. Low pay but low stress. Live simply. It's working for now.
posted by Chronorin at 7:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by Chronorin at 7:48 PM on October 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
Many years ago, back when I worked in an office, I went to one of those corporate culture seminars. The moderator asked the audience if they thought that money was the most important thing in job satisfaction. Most of the audience agreed with that. The moderator went on to say that that the most important thing in job satisfaction is for an employee having input in the way that their work flow is structured. Personally I'd agree with that. With exceptions.
posted by ovvl at 8:20 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 8:20 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
From the link flabdablet posted:
Bubble Shooter Tipps
I can only imagine someone named Bubbles "Shooter" Tipps would derive immense satisfaction (and be stood quite a few shots of rotgut) from telling uproarious stories about his blue-collar job to his regular pals at the local biker bar.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:29 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Bubble Shooter Tipps
I can only imagine someone named Bubbles "Shooter" Tipps would derive immense satisfaction (and be stood quite a few shots of rotgut) from telling uproarious stories about his blue-collar job to his regular pals at the local biker bar.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:29 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
His parents let him name himself at the age of 3. It was a problem in school until he got good with a rubber band, and later with a spitball. Hence his nickname. He hasn't been really bothered much (or addressed by his given name) since that one time in 1988. But don't ask him about that.
posted by hippybear at 8:38 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 8:38 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
'Bubble Shooter Tipps'
An Elmore Leonard Potter Fanfic
posted by clavdivs at 8:50 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
An Elmore Leonard Potter Fanfic
posted by clavdivs at 8:50 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
ca. 1965: "That's the job! I give you money, you give me ideas."
eponysterical?
The meaning of meaningful work limns a huge spectrum. I recently worked at - IMHO, one of those "evil employers" - a very large company with worldwide popularity. I think many - or most - of the full-time employees there were proud of being associated with the brand. The perks were just icing on the cake. In December a person wheeled a bar cart through the cubicle farm, pouring hot chocolate for you - spiked or not - and served it to you at your desk.
I assert that renumeration can be meaningful. My best definition for meaningful work would be helping people with homelessness, wealth inequity, criminal justice and similar social crimes in the US. Selfishly, I don't want to work at a nonprofit for less money, so I work for more money and donate as much of it as I'm comfortable with. In that sense it feels meaningful in the big picture and also because I get a lot of enjoyment from what I do.
I read a few articles today about "The Great Resignation"/"The Great Reassessment," and it seems to me like workers in the US are holding out for more meaningful work - whether that means income or health insurance security, basic respect from their employers, safety in the workplace, a better life for their families and so on.
The "precariat" is an excellent definition of the US' current economy. It's going to be a really interesting shift in the lives of American workers - fingers crossed there will be huge improvements. "Leverage" is the keyword.
During the ‘Great Resignation,’ workers refuse to accept the unacceptable [non-paywalled WaPo]
Strikes are sweeping the labor market as workers wield new leverage [non-paywalled WaPo]
posted by bendy at 8:53 PM on October 17, 2021 [4 favorites]
eponysterical?
The meaning of meaningful work limns a huge spectrum. I recently worked at - IMHO, one of those "evil employers" - a very large company with worldwide popularity. I think many - or most - of the full-time employees there were proud of being associated with the brand. The perks were just icing on the cake. In December a person wheeled a bar cart through the cubicle farm, pouring hot chocolate for you - spiked or not - and served it to you at your desk.
I assert that renumeration can be meaningful. My best definition for meaningful work would be helping people with homelessness, wealth inequity, criminal justice and similar social crimes in the US. Selfishly, I don't want to work at a nonprofit for less money, so I work for more money and donate as much of it as I'm comfortable with. In that sense it feels meaningful in the big picture and also because I get a lot of enjoyment from what I do.
I read a few articles today about "The Great Resignation"/"The Great Reassessment," and it seems to me like workers in the US are holding out for more meaningful work - whether that means income or health insurance security, basic respect from their employers, safety in the workplace, a better life for their families and so on.
The "precariat" is an excellent definition of the US' current economy. It's going to be a really interesting shift in the lives of American workers - fingers crossed there will be huge improvements. "Leverage" is the keyword.
During the ‘Great Resignation,’ workers refuse to accept the unacceptable [non-paywalled WaPo]
Strikes are sweeping the labor market as workers wield new leverage [non-paywalled WaPo]
posted by bendy at 8:53 PM on October 17, 2021 [4 favorites]
What you don't want is to feel like you're interchangeable with any random yutz, and that if you just vanished from the planet, your office wouldn't just shrug and say "okay, let's get a temp in here, it'll be just as good."
Maybe I'm just more transactional about this stuff than most, but I don't care about that either. I only care about being valued to the extent that it prevents me from being fired or laid off. I effectively do disappear from the planet when I quit a job, and I'd be fine if they replaced me with a temp or no one at all. It's just part of the transaction, and I give it no thought.
At the risk of sounding like a Bizarro World Lloyd Dobler, I don't care if the work I do helps people, improves the world, is valued, or brings me personal growth. As long as it's not actively making the world worse (I'm not going to work in the tobacco industry), I truly do not care what the work is as long as I keep getting paid, it allows me adequate free time, and I am not being abused. So yeah, if someone told me they were going to pay me [insert whatever you consider a high salary here — the derail over a specific figure seem pointless] to sort colored balls, adding no value whatsoever to the world, and knowing that I could be instantly replaced by any other human being, I would be totally fine with that (except for the firing/layoff concern).
Whatever work I do by definition makes my world better because it enables me to do the things I actually want to be doing. And that, truly, is all I care about.
posted by primethyme at 9:24 PM on October 17, 2021 [11 favorites]
Maybe I'm just more transactional about this stuff than most, but I don't care about that either. I only care about being valued to the extent that it prevents me from being fired or laid off. I effectively do disappear from the planet when I quit a job, and I'd be fine if they replaced me with a temp or no one at all. It's just part of the transaction, and I give it no thought.
At the risk of sounding like a Bizarro World Lloyd Dobler, I don't care if the work I do helps people, improves the world, is valued, or brings me personal growth. As long as it's not actively making the world worse (I'm not going to work in the tobacco industry), I truly do not care what the work is as long as I keep getting paid, it allows me adequate free time, and I am not being abused. So yeah, if someone told me they were going to pay me [insert whatever you consider a high salary here — the derail over a specific figure seem pointless] to sort colored balls, adding no value whatsoever to the world, and knowing that I could be instantly replaced by any other human being, I would be totally fine with that (except for the firing/layoff concern).
Whatever work I do by definition makes my world better because it enables me to do the things I actually want to be doing. And that, truly, is all I care about.
posted by primethyme at 9:24 PM on October 17, 2021 [11 favorites]
As one who entered the workforce at pretty much the same time that personal computers were first becoming a thing, I've been lucky enough to have spent my entire working life getting paid to play with the toys I'd have been playing with anyway, and the sheer time-efficiency of that has been very pleasing.
posted by flabdablet at 9:46 PM on October 17, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 9:46 PM on October 17, 2021 [4 favorites]
primethyme: I mostly agree with you, I'd just need security that I wouldn't be laid off, that I'd be paid a "high+" salary and not work in an ugly industry - tobacco, guns, ad infinitum.
Boredom - especially at a remote job - wouldn't be a big deal. Sort balls for an hour, read for two hours, sort balls for an hour - whatever works. I work for a company in a time zone three hours earlier than mine. Currently I can nap for about as much of the day I want. I have to go to a daily 6:30 am meeting, but I don't really get productive until 1 or 2 PM. I'm not important enough yet that anyone notices.
posted by bendy at 9:51 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
Boredom - especially at a remote job - wouldn't be a big deal. Sort balls for an hour, read for two hours, sort balls for an hour - whatever works. I work for a company in a time zone three hours earlier than mine. Currently I can nap for about as much of the day I want. I have to go to a daily 6:30 am meeting, but I don't really get productive until 1 or 2 PM. I'm not important enough yet that anyone notices.
posted by bendy at 9:51 PM on October 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
I've contrasted the article to an extent of my own experience working at a radio station in the late 80s.
At the ground floor, you have your weekend engineers. glorified title for someone who just pushs buttons, wrote on charts, cleaned machines, etc. The most important thing you had to do is switch power at dawn. if that power wasn't switched theoretically you could get a $10,000 fine and if you did not have that power switched within a minute you were fired. So one winter, I forgot to set my alarm. I woke thinking I forgot to set my alarm and I had to be there in 9 minutes. my car wouldn't start. so I eyed my uncle's new Riviera. dressed in jeans, boots, a bowler hat and a Holiday inn bathroom I grabbed my wallet, smokes, and a fake Colt 38 pistol with holster. the Colt was for a co-worker. I left a note effectively stealing my uncles Buick, we're talking a brand new Buick.
Had one of those cigarette holders, was out the door by the time I get to the corner of Dort highway by The donut shop this cop I usually saw on the way to work pulls up alongside at the red. it was foggy, he said where'd you get the new car and I said I have to be to work in 6 minutes or I'm fired. what's with the old Colt. it's admin George, got a for him last week, should have thought about a box. all right I have to check the junk yards on Atlas Road, anyways follow me. in like 20 seconds I'm doing 70 down dort there's freaking half mile visibility and by the time I get to work and pull down the lane, coworker Kurt had set up his video cam by the front door to film my frantic Chase to the button. so I pull up in the parking space get out of the car as I'm running towards the door I pause to put on the pistol belt and light my smoke. Kurt is pointing silently towards the door so I pull the pistol walk through the shot towards the door put out m smoke at the same time. from then I had approximately 43 seconds to push the button which by second 12 said button was done pushed. realizing I had no shirt but the robe on I knocked on the big glass window unholstered the pistol but kept the pistol and went after Kurt. couldn't find him outside and the camera is gone so I went to his Booth since there was two radio stations in one building he had the door locked and I'm tapping on the window with the pistol which is fake tap tap tap. and asked if he want a coffee. paperwork can wait so I went outside contemplating the joint in my cigarette pack... To get high but not too hig high? I borrowed a Pat benatar t-shirt did some minor paperwork took a few readings made sure the backup generator worked brought Curtis coffee put on the pistol belt I went back outside with a cup of coffee. I walked about 375 yards, open up a back gate walked as noisily as I could until I reached the barn in which Mr Frederick's been out for about an hour and a half and that means good cheer though he didn't inquire about the bowler cap. I told him I was late he said go now but take off the cap. after a good morning and tying my robe with a bowler cap on the bench outside the stall, all I had to do is really just adjust the cinch. So I rode down a bit about oh 2 miles back and forth and Mr Frederick's always on about the horse we talked for about 5 minutes and I went back to work. going back inside Kurt had the footage up, it I went to the garage which was just another glorified name for the workshop where we kept all the cart and tools cannot find 17 pages of our zombie/radio station cheap film was gone. apparently blue binders count them three were out and red binders were in.
it was 5:50 a.m. on a Saturday and my day just become.
posted by clavdivs at 10:46 PM on October 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
At the ground floor, you have your weekend engineers. glorified title for someone who just pushs buttons, wrote on charts, cleaned machines, etc. The most important thing you had to do is switch power at dawn. if that power wasn't switched theoretically you could get a $10,000 fine and if you did not have that power switched within a minute you were fired. So one winter, I forgot to set my alarm. I woke thinking I forgot to set my alarm and I had to be there in 9 minutes. my car wouldn't start. so I eyed my uncle's new Riviera. dressed in jeans, boots, a bowler hat and a Holiday inn bathroom I grabbed my wallet, smokes, and a fake Colt 38 pistol with holster. the Colt was for a co-worker. I left a note effectively stealing my uncles Buick, we're talking a brand new Buick.
Had one of those cigarette holders, was out the door by the time I get to the corner of Dort highway by The donut shop this cop I usually saw on the way to work pulls up alongside at the red. it was foggy, he said where'd you get the new car and I said I have to be to work in 6 minutes or I'm fired. what's with the old Colt. it's admin George, got a for him last week, should have thought about a box. all right I have to check the junk yards on Atlas Road, anyways follow me. in like 20 seconds I'm doing 70 down dort there's freaking half mile visibility and by the time I get to work and pull down the lane, coworker Kurt had set up his video cam by the front door to film my frantic Chase to the button. so I pull up in the parking space get out of the car as I'm running towards the door I pause to put on the pistol belt and light my smoke. Kurt is pointing silently towards the door so I pull the pistol walk through the shot towards the door put out m smoke at the same time. from then I had approximately 43 seconds to push the button which by second 12 said button was done pushed. realizing I had no shirt but the robe on I knocked on the big glass window unholstered the pistol but kept the pistol and went after Kurt. couldn't find him outside and the camera is gone so I went to his Booth since there was two radio stations in one building he had the door locked and I'm tapping on the window with the pistol which is fake tap tap tap. and asked if he want a coffee. paperwork can wait so I went outside contemplating the joint in my cigarette pack... To get high but not too hig high? I borrowed a Pat benatar t-shirt did some minor paperwork took a few readings made sure the backup generator worked brought Curtis coffee put on the pistol belt I went back outside with a cup of coffee. I walked about 375 yards, open up a back gate walked as noisily as I could until I reached the barn in which Mr Frederick's been out for about an hour and a half and that means good cheer though he didn't inquire about the bowler cap. I told him I was late he said go now but take off the cap. after a good morning and tying my robe with a bowler cap on the bench outside the stall, all I had to do is really just adjust the cinch. So I rode down a bit about oh 2 miles back and forth and Mr Frederick's always on about the horse we talked for about 5 minutes and I went back to work. going back inside Kurt had the footage up, it I went to the garage which was just another glorified name for the workshop where we kept all the cart and tools cannot find 17 pages of our zombie/radio station cheap film was gone. apparently blue binders count them three were out and red binders were in.
it was 5:50 a.m. on a Saturday and my day just become.
posted by clavdivs at 10:46 PM on October 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
clavdivs you seem to have fantastic stories but I can't make sense of anything you type here.
posted by bendy at 10:52 PM on October 17, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by bendy at 10:52 PM on October 17, 2021 [18 favorites]
I was told about this research by my employer, but I was not told that the "money doesn't matter" line for my city was about 80,000 EUR. I wasn't making anything near that. Honestly my job is pretty great and I have all the workplace autonomy, purpose, and mastery that I will ever need in my lifetime. So I make it a point to argue for more salary and fewer working hours, because at this point the only thing I'd like more in life is to do less of my job.
posted by sixohsix at 12:41 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by sixohsix at 12:41 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
Working for myself, largely on my own, working on [the] Earth - repairing, that's meaning enough for me. I'll never be wealthy, I'm not competive enough or very interested in owning things; time to wander, to dream is nice tho', seeing new places, how people live, what grows where.
Before (1990) I worked some real doozies, most companies were more like criminal enterprises than businesses. NZ, or at least that part of industrial sector was awash with drugs and guns, and violence, so glad to be away from that.Watch, Once We're Warriors, it's a good representation of that time, I used to work where it was set. It was 'meaningful' alright.
posted by unearthed at 1:52 AM on October 18, 2021
Before (1990) I worked some real doozies, most companies were more like criminal enterprises than businesses. NZ, or at least that part of industrial sector was awash with drugs and guns, and violence, so glad to be away from that.Watch, Once We're Warriors, it's a good representation of that time, I used to work where it was set. It was 'meaningful' alright.
posted by unearthed at 1:52 AM on October 18, 2021
sorting colored balls into piles, in an office setting
It's not a big leap to get from this to a postal service. Having a functioning postal service is one of the markers as to whether we're a civilized society or not.
Also, I would totally apply for this job, please tell me where to send my CV.
posted by gimonca at 3:24 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
It's not a big leap to get from this to a postal service. Having a functioning postal service is one of the markers as to whether we're a civilized society or not.
Also, I would totally apply for this job, please tell me where to send my CV.
posted by gimonca at 3:24 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
If I was allowed headphones at this ball-sorting job I would seriously consider quitting my extremely meaningful job for it (therapy). Getting paid to listen to audiobooks while doing something mindless with my hands? Honestly the only thing holding me back is how selfish it would seem to take the job. It sounds like pure bliss.
posted by brook horse at 5:51 AM on October 18, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 5:51 AM on October 18, 2021 [11 favorites]
I sort of feel like if you survey someone and ask if their work is "meaningful" you are implying a category that is different than "job satisfaction" or "do you get paid enough". Most people are going to see "meaningful" on the survey and think that it is about something different than job satisfaction and compensation. Especially if you just asked them about satisfaction and compensation. I don't see anything in the article (I just skimmed it) that addresses this especially since they used an existing dateset and didn't design the data collection themselves.
(disclaimer: I'm under compensated at a non-profit and stay due to meaning)
posted by bdc34 at 6:04 AM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
(disclaimer: I'm under compensated at a non-profit and stay due to meaning)
posted by bdc34 at 6:04 AM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
I thought that due to the way that the market is allowed to generate positions, it was taken as a given by most workers that most jobs are going to be pretty silly and that the stakes are high only because we require the money for survival, whether we're talking about the poorly compensated manufacture or the well remunerated marketing of widgets. That being said, has it been proven that people with more meaningful jobs by objective or subjective measures are actually happier?
posted by Selena777 at 6:35 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Selena777 at 6:35 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Right now I have a job with lots of "meaning" in the sense of working on important societal issues, but without a lot of meaning in the sense of having positive day-to-day control over your working environment. I have recently been fantasizing about shifting to a lower-paid but lower-stress, lower-stakes job -- more or less in the same general field, but trading salary for work/life balance. That's easier said than done, since so many lower paid jobs are also incredibly stressful and precarious, and all of the big picture stress about saving for retirement and so on.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:04 AM on October 18, 2021
posted by Dip Flash at 7:04 AM on October 18, 2021
Yes I too would like to throw my hat into the ring for the ball-sorting gig--my current job is both mentally taxing AND extremely boring, and if you think mindless boring work is tough try boring work that takes 100% of your brain, 12 hours a day.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:06 AM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:06 AM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
Sometimes I feel like MetaFilter lives in bizarroland. Or I do.
I left a good job for a job with what I perceived to be more meaning, which included less sexism and yelling. I was privileged by my Gen-X life. And all the times I've quit a job, it's been related to either a directly bad boss, or a bad boss's boss with a danger of promotion. So the idea that our decisions about work, once our basic needs are met, are not sheerly economic definitely fits my anecdotal experience.
Would I keep working at my current job if I won the lottery? No. Is it still stressful? I find it more stressful at times because, for example, if the busses don't run I have kids standing outside their school waiting. I have to train people to clean toilets, clean toilets myself, and have endless discussions about...toilets. Which I hate.
But I still wanted to put my life energy into work that I thought was connective in my community and for me. And - it is more meaningful for me. I actually do find that a bunch of kids needing a clean bathroom is more meaningful to me than 3% more engagement on social media posts, even if I am so. tired. of. poo. And Covid. And potentially Covid Poo.
I don't think that is a scam. Is my workplace as pure as the driven snow or as meaningful as an ER nurse? No, it is not.
In my case I may reach a point where I'm so tired of the toilets and frankly discussions about the toilets, and other stressors, that I leave and flee back to a white collar office where I never had to touch a trash can. I can tell that nostalgia is taking over a bit there, but there it is. I have hired a number of people who wanted to do something radically different and I would say it works out about 50% of the time.
That's because the fantasy of a job is often way, way different than the reality of a job.
I used to work with a job developer at a social service agency who would do job workshops with youth and he would start his talk with "who here just wants a job?" A lot of hands would go up and he would say, true, that he could get anyone a job immediately at 1.5X the minimum wage at the time at the recycling plant at the bottom of the street but they would be shovelling wet cardboard onto a conveyor belt for 8 hours starting at 6 am. He only had one person take him up on that offer.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:13 AM on October 18, 2021 [7 favorites]
I left a good job for a job with what I perceived to be more meaning, which included less sexism and yelling. I was privileged by my Gen-X life. And all the times I've quit a job, it's been related to either a directly bad boss, or a bad boss's boss with a danger of promotion. So the idea that our decisions about work, once our basic needs are met, are not sheerly economic definitely fits my anecdotal experience.
Would I keep working at my current job if I won the lottery? No. Is it still stressful? I find it more stressful at times because, for example, if the busses don't run I have kids standing outside their school waiting. I have to train people to clean toilets, clean toilets myself, and have endless discussions about...toilets. Which I hate.
But I still wanted to put my life energy into work that I thought was connective in my community and for me. And - it is more meaningful for me. I actually do find that a bunch of kids needing a clean bathroom is more meaningful to me than 3% more engagement on social media posts, even if I am so. tired. of. poo. And Covid. And potentially Covid Poo.
I don't think that is a scam. Is my workplace as pure as the driven snow or as meaningful as an ER nurse? No, it is not.
In my case I may reach a point where I'm so tired of the toilets and frankly discussions about the toilets, and other stressors, that I leave and flee back to a white collar office where I never had to touch a trash can. I can tell that nostalgia is taking over a bit there, but there it is. I have hired a number of people who wanted to do something radically different and I would say it works out about 50% of the time.
That's because the fantasy of a job is often way, way different than the reality of a job.
I used to work with a job developer at a social service agency who would do job workshops with youth and he would start his talk with "who here just wants a job?" A lot of hands would go up and he would say, true, that he could get anyone a job immediately at 1.5X the minimum wage at the time at the recycling plant at the bottom of the street but they would be shovelling wet cardboard onto a conveyor belt for 8 hours starting at 6 am. He only had one person take him up on that offer.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:13 AM on October 18, 2021 [7 favorites]
My mental health and happiness improved a fair bit when I got past the idea that either of them should hinge on having a "meaningful" job. I also realized that many aspects of my idealized meaningful job had more to do with the imagined status that job would bring (i.e. how I thought I would be perceived by others) than any satisfaction it might give me, which is an ego trip and only leads to misery. As it stands I wound up in a non-evil job which pays the bills, has benefits and doesn't infringe *at all* upon my free time outside of working hours, which these days is a rare and valuable thing indeed.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:19 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:19 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Status is really interesting. I went from a higher status job (editor of a nationally know magazine site) to back office lady in a corporate polo shirt. I have Stories. (It’s been good for me.)
posted by warriorqueen at 7:29 AM on October 18, 2021
posted by warriorqueen at 7:29 AM on October 18, 2021
$75k is a fuck of a lot of money in most of the US. You could live very nicely on $75k almost anywhere except maybe New York and Los Angeles.
No it's not. That's about $10k more than the median household income across the US (NYC is actually slightly lower than the US median). There are about 100 cities (population greater than 100k) where the median income for the city is higher than $75k.
You could not buy the median home at $269k in the US at $75k without spending about 4X your income.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:39 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
No it's not. That's about $10k more than the median household income across the US (NYC is actually slightly lower than the US median). There are about 100 cities (population greater than 100k) where the median income for the city is higher than $75k.
You could not buy the median home at $269k in the US at $75k without spending about 4X your income.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:39 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
So the idea that our decisions about work, once our basic needs are met, are not sheerly economic definitely fits my anecdotal experience.
I think for me there is ultimately no paying job I'll actually enjoy, and no worthwhile job I can afford to have (since i am my own sole support and supporting my elderly parent), so I'm just out to suck as much money out of the capitalists as I can until I die.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:42 AM on October 18, 2021 [8 favorites]
I think for me there is ultimately no paying job I'll actually enjoy, and no worthwhile job I can afford to have (since i am my own sole support and supporting my elderly parent), so I'm just out to suck as much money out of the capitalists as I can until I die.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:42 AM on October 18, 2021 [8 favorites]
(the sad part is just how little money I am able to suck out of them, even trying as hard as I can, lol.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:42 AM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:42 AM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
I do not want money. I want the things I need to survive and to do the work that is in front of me.
I am no longer a young person (I mean duh, am ghost obvs) and have known for some time the work I must do. I don't need a "boss" to decide for me what I need be doing. I don't need anyone working cows for me.
I know the meaning and value of me work. Most to whom I describe it don't understand it. That's fine. It's not their work but mine. If and when I accomplish it, this work will improve others' lives without their knowledge.
People need to work. They will invent work if they haven't got any to do. No one needs "jobs" or "money", those are things individuals and gangs use to control those weaker than they in order to increase that power differential.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 7:44 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am no longer a young person (I mean duh, am ghost obvs) and have known for some time the work I must do. I don't need a "boss" to decide for me what I need be doing. I don't need anyone working cows for me.
I know the meaning and value of me work. Most to whom I describe it don't understand it. That's fine. It's not their work but mine. If and when I accomplish it, this work will improve others' lives without their knowledge.
People need to work. They will invent work if they haven't got any to do. No one needs "jobs" or "money", those are things individuals and gangs use to control those weaker than they in order to increase that power differential.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 7:44 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
the_vegetables, Median income per individual earner is about 35k or so, which makes 75k for one person pretty high.
posted by Selena777 at 7:48 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 7:48 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
$75k is a fuck of a lot of money in most of the US. You could live very nicely on $75k almost anywhere except maybe New York and Los Angeles.
No it's not. That's about $10k more than the median household income across the US (NYC is actually slightly lower than the US median). There are about 100 cities (population greater than 100k) where the median income for the city is higher than $75k.
The fact that $75k is >10% more than the US median does not make it not "a fuck of a lot of money". Median skews even more in the presence of outliers than other averages do, and the presence of one Bezo the Clown skews that particular median quite a bit... and there are several more like-but-less-so.
Others in the thread have indicated that living comfortably in NYC is possible on <$75k, and I submit to you that median income for notoriously expensive cities is, in fact, a fuck of a lot of money.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 7:52 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
Median skews even more in the presence of outliers than other averages do, and the presence of one Bezo the Clown skews that particular median quite a bit... and there are several more like-but-less-so.
I think you're mistaken here. Averages get distorted this way more than medians. If you took a population and kept everything the same except multiplying the income of the highest earner by 1000x, the median would stay exactly the same while the average might cease to reflect any actual person.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:56 AM on October 18, 2021 [16 favorites]
I think you're mistaken here. Averages get distorted this way more than medians. If you took a population and kept everything the same except multiplying the income of the highest earner by 1000x, the median would stay exactly the same while the average might cease to reflect any actual person.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:56 AM on October 18, 2021 [16 favorites]
I am the closest I've ever been to the ball- sorting job-- paid the most I've ever been (not 75k but a comfortable amount), good benefits, but also feel interchangable and disconnected from meaningful, challenging work and my coworkers.
I hate it but I also intellectually know that it's a good deal that allows me to focus my energy on other stuff. I'm not sure how long I'll last, I'm constantly talking myself out of quiting.
I've had jobs that actively were terrible, and of course I feel lucky to not be working one of those. But that doesn't make me feel connected to the job, and 8 hours a day is a lot of time.
posted by geegollygosh at 8:20 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
I hate it but I also intellectually know that it's a good deal that allows me to focus my energy on other stuff. I'm not sure how long I'll last, I'm constantly talking myself out of quiting.
I've had jobs that actively were terrible, and of course I feel lucky to not be working one of those. But that doesn't make me feel connected to the job, and 8 hours a day is a lot of time.
posted by geegollygosh at 8:20 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's the Freuds we meet along the way.
posted by srboisvert at 8:26 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 8:26 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
So to expound on my on job history and the meaning therein:
The actual nuts-and-bolts of my job have changed very little depending on where I worked, and I didn't always have that much hands-on involvement with the actual work the company was doing. I even flat-out told one boss during a job interview that "Look, I don't know anything about cement or construction, but I DO know about completing expense reports, so I can take care of that so the people that DO know about cement and construction don't have to."
What changes the "meaningfulness" of each job for me is a whole miasma of different factors - money is part of it, but only a small part. Because I was making good money when I was working as a secretary on the securities trading floor of a bank, but not enough to offset the oogy feeling that I was working for guys who openly talked smack against Obamacare.
By contrast, a company that worked on the side of the angels can't always offset not being paid a lot (I really valued the work that the International Rescue Committee was doing, but I just plain wasn't making enough to sustain a job there).
But the sweet spot also includes whether or not the people you work for and with value your work. Not only did the IRC not pay me enough to meet my expenses, but in my last role there, a couple of my co-workers were kind of not very cooperative and one was downright antagonistic towards me. At the bank, people occasionally told me they appreciated my work (one boss gushed during a performance review that I did expense reports "like a machine!"), but I rarely heard that outside of the performance reviews, and no one fought to keep me when one of the rounds of layoffs happened.
The mortgage broker could have been okay if the boss had been trying to focus on working with first-time homeowners instead of pitching to guys trying to flip houses. But not enough to offset everyone there just being plain mean.
Where I am now is a sweet spot - they produce something that in turn supports manufacturing quality control nationwide, they started another business that responds to the COVID crisis, and just about everyone here is actively and demonstrably happy with my work, even though it's exactly the same work I was doing at all of those other jobs. The difference is they tell me they are pleased with me, and after years of hearing no feedback at all except for once a year, that is like manna, and that is what makes it meaningful for me. The pay was just fine when they hired me and the raise was gravy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:54 AM on October 18, 2021 [5 favorites]
The actual nuts-and-bolts of my job have changed very little depending on where I worked, and I didn't always have that much hands-on involvement with the actual work the company was doing. I even flat-out told one boss during a job interview that "Look, I don't know anything about cement or construction, but I DO know about completing expense reports, so I can take care of that so the people that DO know about cement and construction don't have to."
What changes the "meaningfulness" of each job for me is a whole miasma of different factors - money is part of it, but only a small part. Because I was making good money when I was working as a secretary on the securities trading floor of a bank, but not enough to offset the oogy feeling that I was working for guys who openly talked smack against Obamacare.
By contrast, a company that worked on the side of the angels can't always offset not being paid a lot (I really valued the work that the International Rescue Committee was doing, but I just plain wasn't making enough to sustain a job there).
But the sweet spot also includes whether or not the people you work for and with value your work. Not only did the IRC not pay me enough to meet my expenses, but in my last role there, a couple of my co-workers were kind of not very cooperative and one was downright antagonistic towards me. At the bank, people occasionally told me they appreciated my work (one boss gushed during a performance review that I did expense reports "like a machine!"), but I rarely heard that outside of the performance reviews, and no one fought to keep me when one of the rounds of layoffs happened.
The mortgage broker could have been okay if the boss had been trying to focus on working with first-time homeowners instead of pitching to guys trying to flip houses. But not enough to offset everyone there just being plain mean.
Where I am now is a sweet spot - they produce something that in turn supports manufacturing quality control nationwide, they started another business that responds to the COVID crisis, and just about everyone here is actively and demonstrably happy with my work, even though it's exactly the same work I was doing at all of those other jobs. The difference is they tell me they are pleased with me, and after years of hearing no feedback at all except for once a year, that is like manna, and that is what makes it meaningful for me. The pay was just fine when they hired me and the raise was gravy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:54 AM on October 18, 2021 [5 favorites]
I have wondered what would happen if you paid someone a good salary + benefits - not great, say $75k/year and hold the "Cadillac"" health plan (the one that covers both kidneys AND the spleen), to perform an entirely repetitive and pointless task like sorting colored balls into piles, in an office setting. Nothing Orwellian! You wouldn't be locked in a white room or something like that; there'd be Keurig coffee and you could have a nice lunch and there would sometimes be sheet cake in the break room. How long would people be able to stand this? What if you bumped up the salary by a lot, how long then?
I get paid hourly (an excellent rate), not salaried, to do projects that are slightly more complicated than that, but are at heart basically sorting. I find turning chaos into order kind of soothing, and I am good at it. I can say one other factor that matters (at least to me) is competent management. Right now I am stuck with managers who give feedback like, "Eight months ago you made a mistake on a project that someone else had to go back and fix. We're not going to give you any details about what that mistake was, and neither you nor anyone else remembers the details of that project, but you'd better not do it again." They've also told us about 12 different things about the remote work policy, many of the completely contradictory, and never acknowledging that they said something different last week. In all of these discussions about return to work/remote work, they have never given us important information about what changes (if any) have been made to the ventilation systems, for example. So I have to do my own workplace safety research to figure out whether the ventilation system is likely to kill me.
I could do the work itself until I retire. I'm not sure I can live with the management that long.
posted by creepygirl at 1:32 PM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
I get paid hourly (an excellent rate), not salaried, to do projects that are slightly more complicated than that, but are at heart basically sorting. I find turning chaos into order kind of soothing, and I am good at it. I can say one other factor that matters (at least to me) is competent management. Right now I am stuck with managers who give feedback like, "Eight months ago you made a mistake on a project that someone else had to go back and fix. We're not going to give you any details about what that mistake was, and neither you nor anyone else remembers the details of that project, but you'd better not do it again." They've also told us about 12 different things about the remote work policy, many of the completely contradictory, and never acknowledging that they said something different last week. In all of these discussions about return to work/remote work, they have never given us important information about what changes (if any) have been made to the ventilation systems, for example. So I have to do my own workplace safety research to figure out whether the ventilation system is likely to kill me.
I could do the work itself until I retire. I'm not sure I can live with the management that long.
posted by creepygirl at 1:32 PM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
No it's not. That's about $10k more than the median household income across the US
That's *household* income, and many households reflect at least two adults' income.
I would like the ball-sorting job, please.
posted by momus_window at 3:03 PM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
That's *household* income, and many households reflect at least two adults' income.
I would like the ball-sorting job, please.
posted by momus_window at 3:03 PM on October 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
I just quit a long-term and sporadically fascinating job to do less interesting work full time. Similar pay, hours, commute, benefit to society, et cetera. I was actively looking for a ball-sorting job, I would be so amazing at sorting balls.
Autonomy was the critical difference - my current job requires me to 'manage my desk' but gives me no tools to do so, and takes away every tool I invent. That got much better when I worked from home during the pandemic, but we were ordered back to the office at the beginning of the Delta spike, and I was not interested in that return to normalcy. The new work may be more tedious, but the job itself doesn't seem like a no-win situation.
posted by mersen at 4:28 PM on October 18, 2021
Autonomy was the critical difference - my current job requires me to 'manage my desk' but gives me no tools to do so, and takes away every tool I invent. That got much better when I worked from home during the pandemic, but we were ordered back to the office at the beginning of the Delta spike, and I was not interested in that return to normalcy. The new work may be more tedious, but the job itself doesn't seem like a no-win situation.
posted by mersen at 4:28 PM on October 18, 2021
If I got paid 75k, I would feel rich as hell. Heck, my share of the mortgage is $400/month + $200 for utilities, $300 car payment. That's 11k for basic bills, not including food and Disney plus.
posted by Chronorin at 1:13 AM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Chronorin at 1:13 AM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I submit that if you do not believe $75k is a lot of money then you have too much money.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:50 AM on October 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:50 AM on October 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I submit that if you do not believe $75k is a lot of money then you have too much money.
Or a child in daycare.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:32 AM on October 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Or a child in daycare.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:32 AM on October 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I submit that if you do not believe $75k is a lot of money then you have too much money.
Again statistically about 44% of US households have more than $75k in income, yes maybe that's between two people but it's doesn't change $75k being the number described as a 'fuck load', and again, you couldn't buy the median priced house anywhere in the US at the income at current prices without a serious stretch.
And yes daycare for a child: $20k a year. So if $75k is the number that makes people happy, darn near 1/2 the people in the US are economically happy.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:46 AM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Again statistically about 44% of US households have more than $75k in income, yes maybe that's between two people but it's doesn't change $75k being the number described as a 'fuck load', and again, you couldn't buy the median priced house anywhere in the US at the income at current prices without a serious stretch.
And yes daycare for a child: $20k a year. So if $75k is the number that makes people happy, darn near 1/2 the people in the US are economically happy.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:46 AM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
The happiness study you’re referencing cites 75k per person, so household would be even higher for happy people if they’re paired up with another worker. If double the average isn’t a fuckload, what would be, to you?
posted by Selena777 at 7:54 AM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 7:54 AM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
daycare for a child: $20k a year
You can get that a lot cheaper.
posted by flabdablet at 7:55 AM on October 19, 2021
You can get that a lot cheaper.
posted by flabdablet at 7:55 AM on October 19, 2021
Perhaps we ought to table the whole tangent about whether $75K is "a fuckload" of money or not, because everyone's circumstances are different insofar as expenses, cost of living, etc., and not all of those things are as easily-alterable and I reallysuperplus don't want us to spin off into yet another go-round of the "bUt WhY dOn'T yOu PeOpLe In NeW yOrK oR sAn FrAnCiScO jUsT mOvE sOmEwHeRe ChEaPeR" derail. Let's just leave it as "people should be able to live where they WANT to live AND not go broke in the process, and sufficient pay for them to be able to do that is always good."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:23 AM on October 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:23 AM on October 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Well, I think it's fine; MeFi is the kind of site where the poverty line is $100k, good to know, lol.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:20 AM on October 19, 2021
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:20 AM on October 19, 2021
MeFi is the kind of site where the poverty line is $100k, good to know, lol.
That is not what people are saying and you know it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:57 AM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
That is not what people are saying and you know it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:57 AM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Lol no definitely we should continue to rip each other to pieces over an imaginary salary quoted for an imaginary job that was presented as mildly nightmarish but which actually basically everyone on this thread would take in an absolute heartbeat.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:50 AM on October 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:50 AM on October 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
(I mean we have to, because if we stop arguing about specific imaginary numbers we have to confront that our lives are a daily, grinding, endless hell with no respite in sight oh whoops I meant to say, probably you're doing daycare wrong)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:51 AM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
feedback like, "Eight months ago you made a mistake on a project that someone else had to go back and fix. We're not going to give you any details about what that mistake was, and neither you nor anyone else remembers the details of that project, but you'd better not do it again."
Ahaha someone attempted to give almost exactly that feedback to my current manager last week in a nearly-successful attempt to make him stop asking their team why the work we're waiting for isn't done.
posted by bashing rocks together at 12:49 PM on October 19, 2021
Ahaha someone attempted to give almost exactly that feedback to my current manager last week in a nearly-successful attempt to make him stop asking their team why the work we're waiting for isn't done.
posted by bashing rocks together at 12:49 PM on October 19, 2021
MeFi is the kind of site where the poverty line is $100k, good to know, lol
I think the general rule is that the poverty line is just a bit less than I make and that a shitload of money is about twice what I make regardless of the actual amount of money I make.
posted by srboisvert at 8:50 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
I think the general rule is that the poverty line is just a bit less than I make and that a shitload of money is about twice what I make regardless of the actual amount of money I make.
posted by srboisvert at 8:50 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
From an international perspective, most of y'all are absolutely richer and relatively poorer than me, I think.
I summation, land of contrasts, hugs all around.
posted by signal at 9:38 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
I summation, land of contrasts, hugs all around.
posted by signal at 9:38 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
It may not be so relative. If I were to keep making what I am making and stay where I am I would be literally dooming myself. I must earn more, or I must go as soon as my parents no longer need me.
“Absolutely” richer doesn’t mean much unless it’s the absolute value of the difference between cost of living and income. Or, put differently, income is not wealth.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:06 PM on October 23, 2021
“Absolutely” richer doesn’t mean much unless it’s the absolute value of the difference between cost of living and income. Or, put differently, income is not wealth.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:06 PM on October 23, 2021
If you want to do some reading on this that has a real bite to it, I recommend Bullshit Jobs: A Theory from David Graeber. He suggests that more than half of jobs are bullshit jobs and suggests that they are psychologically harmful and harmful for society.
posted by vitabellosi at 3:14 AM on October 25, 2021
posted by vitabellosi at 3:14 AM on October 25, 2021
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