Something that's been on my mind recently is this: What does "hard work" look like? Seems that I've heard it a lot on the news. "Dave, a hard working American..." "I've been working hard all my life and now this is what happens to me?" etc.. but what IS hard work? Is it the doctor? Years of training, long hours of work, taking people's lives into their hands? Is it the coal miner? Working in poor conditions, long hours, physical, exhausting work? The soldier? The server at Bob Evans? The homemaker? I mean who has the right to say they work harder than someone else? Perhaps within the same profession you could compare two colleagues and distinguish a difference. One may work longer hours, get more accomplished and produce a higher standard of work. However, what if the under achieving individual finds the job very difficult? Surely then it is THEY who are working harder.
There is a great saying that if you find a job you love then you will never work another day in your life. With that in mind, I hope none of you are hard "workers" and instead just enjoy what you are doing with the majority of your time.
11 comments:
The answer is in the hands.
I did the chained to a desk thing and that's hard work...as far as your soul is concerned. But it took doing real work to make me not want to kill people anymore and make me a happier (and better!) person. And by real work I mean physical, demanding work.. you know the kind that puts calluses on yer hands.
And I'll save Chris James the trouble and nominate myself as the hardest working man in the Blogosphere.
Good post AC!
Good post. And I vote coal miners.
Jackie: Working "HARD" and "working hard" are two separate things.
Yer, I'd hate to be out there cutting down those trees or fishing in the baring sea.
FG: Or down a mine for that matter!
I vote for anyone that Lou Dobbs has ever hated on.
Well, I do love my job. . . .
Actually as a union man with socialist tendencies- my answer would be that there are two kinds of people: people who work to live, people who live off the work of others. "Hard" really has little to do with it.
In other words, there shouldn't be any competition between the restaurant server, the coal miner, the office filing clerk, the truck driver, the bank teller, the police officer, the teacher, etc. We are the good guys.
The opposition to the good guys are the owners, the bureaucrats, the CEOs and the people who decide who is worth what and get big fat bonuses for laying people off, cutting jobs, and pushing the extra work onto the people still employed. They are the ones shipping American jobs off to places like Indonesia and Honduras to save a buck. Technically, these may work "hard"- but they ought to be stuffed into wooden crates and shipped off to the same counties where they're moving all our jobs with "Do Not Return" painted on the side of the box.
And if you want to know how I really feel, just ask.
That should read: "people who work to live and people who live off the work of others." I don't know where the need to stick that comma in there came from. Maybe it's just the thought of what a dismal failure our free market capitalist system is turning out to be that makes me get all disoriented and shit.
Well, there's hard physical work and hard mental work. I'm sure the accountant and the ditch-digger both work hard, but as you said, if you like what you do it isn't hard work.
I really don't think things are as black and white as Elvis suggests, though. Every CEO I've known works harder than I ever have (or would ever want to), and they got where they are because of it.
I suppose you could solely blame those CEOs for outsourcing or job/benefit cuts. Or you could also take into account all the people who shop at Wal-mart to "save a buck" rather than buying American-made goods at other stores, thereby forcing those CEOs to cut costs in order to compete. Or you could also include the unions (gasp!) whose all-or-nothing mentality sometimes contributes to rising product costs and/or plant closings.
Methinks there is plenty of blame to go around.
Sure, Paul. If we could just let our companies operate like they do in Malaysia and Pakistan we could cut costs and make America competitive again. But those damn "all or nothing" unions have the nerve to demand compensation for their services and to be treated like people instead of cattle.
Not to mention, we can thank those "all or nothing" labor unions for the 40 hour work week, safer working conditions, child labor laws, overtime pay, a minimum wage, vacation pay, sick leave, and the middle class itself. I'm sure you're currently enjoying none of those benefits.
I'm just glad Americans didn't always grovel at the feet of the high and mighty.
For the record, I did concede that CEOs do probably work hard. Screwing the American populace on a daily basis without in Vaseline is hard work indeed. How 'bout another trillion dollar round of taxpayer bailouts?
But, for what it's worth, I agree with you wholeheartedly on the Walmart issue. We sold our souls to that particular devil. We'll see how low their prices are when they've achieved their goal of running everyone else out of business like they already have in many parts of rural West Virginia.
eat the rich.
that is all.
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