Sunday, January 19, 2014

The Sunday Blog Post: Love What You Do

The other day, I read an essay in "Slate" in which the author dissects and dismisses the idea that we should love what we do.  In fact, Miya Tokumitsu argues that the "love what you do" mantra (meme?) has become pernicious - it glosses over differences in class that determine the lovability of work, and it allows employers to squeeze workers for more while offering little financial reward. She uses the phrase "elite", which is what we stamp these days on anything undesirable, never mind that much of America's population would probably fall into the broad global definition of elite.

There are certain arguments she makes that are very worth hearing. She cites the patron saint of DWYL (a truly obnoxious but nonetheless convenient acronym) culture, Steve Jobs. In his famous Stanford speech (watch it, read it) he said, "You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do."

To be fair, I don't think his is bad advice. To the extent that it encourages people to take professional risks on possibilities they feel strongly about, it's fantastic advice. Not that it matters. Almost everyone is capable of love, but not everyone has a very high appetite for risk. A few heartfelt words in a college auditorium aren't going to change anyone's fundamental character, and that's really what Jobs is talking about.

There is a dark side to Jobs' vision, however, and Tokomitsu makes her strongest point when she says that Apple would never have become a global behemoth unless it relied upon the labor of hundreds of thousands of factory workers all over the world. Most of them probably don't love what they do. Much has been made and said of the consumer electronics boom, and how it has empowered a particular upper class of world society. 

When most of us talk about loving our work, we rely upon a set of prejudiced and privileged assumptions, namely:

1) We will earn good money for our work - and we will earn more money for our work, relatively, than most of the human population. (For an excellent case study in what I'm talking about, read Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers, in which her main protagonist works 12 hours a day as a garbage sorter for truly meager wages. Very few books so handily explode the myth of the meritocratic universe.)
2) Our hard work will be rewarded with greater responsibility (being the boss is, in fact, a less stressful way of life.)
3) Our work will be rewarded with prestige. Or will even start out prestigious.

The notion of loving what you do is built upon the assumption (not faulty, but not universal) that in exchange for hard labor we will receive appreciation, admiration, and reward. For most people, that is simply not the case. And it is impossible to separate DWYL from this assumption.

More disturbingly (and perhaps obviously) Tokumitsu suggests that this notion - that people should labor for love - allows modern-day corporations to exploit their workers' labor. She cites three industries: fashion, media and the arts.  These industries are prestigious, people enter them for love, and they earn zilch. Without citing any particular example, I'll apply her observations about media to the journalism industry. I went to a solid journalism school and have worked media industry jobs ever since. Along the way, more than half of the people who graduated with me have shifted focus and moved into other careers. As one of the people left in the field, I am aware that by and large, our industry pays far, far less than almost any other industry does for the same amount of work. The mental, emotional and sometimes physical challenges of journalism are enormous; but the job pays in prestige, not so much in cash. (This is not a universal truth, but an overall observation. News is 24 hours, journalists rarely take breaks. Other high-level jobs that demand such total dedication - medicine, law, finance - pay much more.)

As a college junior, I found myself choosing between four possible summer internships. One was in banking, one in technology, one in advertising, one in journalism. I took the journalism job. It paid the least, but it came with less tangible rewards  (And yes, I was lucky to find paid journalism jobs - I wrote about my decision not to work unpaid internships in another post.)  I was very happy, but emerging research suggests that if I were richer, I would have been happier yet (although, admittedly, this research is in its initial stages). Intertwined with the notion of DWYL is the idea that you are not working for money. At least not immediately. And there's nothing wrong with that, unless you're working for an organization that will keep whatever value there is in your labor that you leave on the table.  (Tokumitsu cites academia as the most exploitative profession of all.)

The argument becomes more nuanced in the world of the arts - where, the idea is, people often labor for public gain. Being willing to suffer total penury seems to be one of the requirements of any great artist. And maybe it is. But I also know that there are tons of museums (not to mention design shops) that rely on the unpaid labor of (mainly) young women. A friend of mine who works with the intern program at a well-known museum told me that they knowingly pay rock-bottom wages, and as a result their employees are mainly women whose husbands/boyfriends have more lucrative jobs that pay the rent (this is in an expensive city) or who come from large family fortunes. Think about the number of women in the world who have the option of marrying rich (Fewer than 5% of American men earn over $100k a year). Think of the number who inherit serious money. Now consider the question of diversity and representation in the arts, in media, and in fashion.

Which brings me to my next point: even within the rarefied world of the US elite, the notion of DWYL has devalued the idea of working for personal profit. The world is separated, according to many, into those who do what they love and accept that their labor - the production of ideas, goodness, art - carries little reward, and those who do machinistic jobs that they hate in exchange for a frightening amount of money. There's the idea of "selling your soul," whatever the hell that means. (We're all selling something, if not our souls, but some of us are getting a better price than others.)  Mixed in with the idea that you should DWYL is the idea that if you're working for money, you've somehow given up.

The notion of loving what you do has also justified - or perhaps permitted - the expansion of work to a point where it has become, for many of us, the most defining feature of our lives and selves.  Certainly, our parents worked, but they didn't work like us.  Back then, there was the notion of "job" and the notion of "life." Now the two have fused as we work more than we did before.  I don't know if DWYL permitted this phenomenon or merely evolved after it, like some kind of necessary adaptation. John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandchildren would be working three-hour workdays. Instead, we've gone in the opposite direction. The Sheryl Sandbergs of the world exhort us to lean in; they never suggest that the corporations we work for should lean out. (And why should she? Remember that Sandberg is more frequently to be found on the interviewer's side of the desk. If more women lean in, it benefits her.)

Certainly, there is no glory in doing a job you hate just for money (and frankly, not much long-term success, either. Not to be trite, but that's as true for your lovers as it is for your job.). There is value in exploring ideas, possibilities, the world. There is value in doing these things while appreciating that being able to do them at all is an extraordinary luxury.  There is truth to the fact that working to expand such opportunity to others less fortunate is not only a favor but a requirement. There is truth to the notion that the empires of people like Steve Jobs were built upon many, many individuals, not all of whom will ever be asked what they love.  And there is value in acknowledging that you labor for love, yes, but you also labor to keep the lights on when it gets dark.

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