On the nature of work
Jan. 25th, 2012 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_schaeferI have managed the budget-writing process for a bank division with over $2 billion in assets, $45 million in income, and $37 million in expenses. I have been the counter waitress in a failing luncheonette. I have run a bookkeeping machine that was obsolete before I learned to use it, written database reports on delayed airplanes and bus route changes, counted cars in an intersection, answered phones and alternately lied to callers or told them the truth, wiped the dirty butts of small children, analyzed data, made predictions about what would happen next month and next year, driven people places and driven them home, mortared concrete blocks together to build the wall of a church.
I've been paid for some of that work and not paid for some of that work. All of it required that I paid attention to what I was doing and did it carefully. The amount of money and respect I got for that work was rarely commensurate with the amount of effort and experience it took to do that work. The rewards for doing minor clerical work well are pretty limited; the punishment for doing it badly is pretty limited, too. The amount of time and care it takes to do it properly is always more than those who've never done it believe.
I've been paid for some of that work and not paid for some of that work. All of it required that I paid attention to what I was doing and did it carefully. The amount of money and respect I got for that work was rarely commensurate with the amount of effort and experience it took to do that work. The rewards for doing minor clerical work well are pretty limited; the punishment for doing it badly is pretty limited, too. The amount of time and care it takes to do it properly is always more than those who've never done it believe.
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Date: 2012-01-25 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 01:35 am (UTC)Oddly enough, this has no particular personal bearing for me right now. That is, the incident that set off my rant had nothing to do with my own work; it's a thing I heard about that tapped into my stored-up resentment from old years of having my own work devalued when I did painstaking number-crunching or artificially over-valued during the years I worked with big bucks. The value of work in a monetary economy comes from something other than its required effort, precision, or usefulness to society.
Oh, I seem to be going off to another rant. Better stop now.
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Date: 2012-01-26 04:54 pm (UTC)The truth is, doing something right is rarely simple. Doing some fast can be simple.
My little response is usually, "Which would you prefer: An accurate brain surgeon, or a fast brain surgeon?"
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Date: 2012-01-27 05:52 am (UTC)