What do I want from my job? What do I want from my job? I want money! That’s why it’s called a goddamn job! If it were fun, it’d be called a “gig.” No, I get my ass out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn and drive through godawful traffic so I can sit at my desk and try (with less success as the week progresses) not to fall asleep, and degrade myself for the next ten hours because if I didn’t, I’d be stone broke and I’d have to live out of my car like that crazy guy I saw driving around the other day. Don’t get me wrong, he looked incredibly cool and I bet if I’d had the chance to talk to him and not just honk because the light turned green and he didn’t care because HE didn’t have anywhere to go, unlike the rest of us who are trying not to get fired, I probably would have found him the most interesting person I’d met, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him, so I can really only judge on looks. He sure looked happier than I felt.
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Quite an auspicious prompt for me this month, in the sense that I’ve been meaning to discuss this topic with myself at some point soon anyway. Potentially, by the end of this essay I’ll more deeply understand my feelings about my job, and whether or not I should stick with it for the longer term. Let’s see how it turns out.

Anyway, let’s start at the back, and move forward, shall we?

Why do we work at all?

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This is a fitting topic for me at the moment, as I am looking for a job, and in so doing, I am constantly faced with the question of where to draw the line between dangerous compromise and wise practical decision. As I mull this over, I think a lot about the idea of work in our culture. There seem to be a few rather distinct perspectives on the matter, but by and large I think that people see “work” as a rather narrow band of activity that is basically defined as the labor that is given in exchange for income. This income may take the form of direct necessities, such as room, board, or health care, or it may take the form of currency that can then be used to procure such necessities, as well as luxuries like nice clothes and japanese eggplant and home theater systems with surround sound. In any case, I think most people see “work” as what they do to make money, and I am beginning to realize that I define the word a bit differently, which leads to some complications when discussing the matter at parties.
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I can’t really answer the question as it’s written. I have had two classes of job in my career: those I loathed and those I loved. Right now I’m fortuitously lodged in one of the latter; to the question “What do we want from our jobs, anyway?” I’d answer: delight, challenge, pride, achievement, comfort, money, and good people to drink with. I have all of that—although more money is always better—and I’ll stay here until the next ridiculously fun opportunity comes along, at which point I’ll jump ship.

This is not terribly appropriate to the shades-of-gray nature of this prompt, however. And so I’m going to more or less ignore the prompt and replace it with a discussion of the moral equivalent in my life right now: my flatmate.

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