Work

It has been a while and I had been looking for a source of inspiration for my next column but I had simply been swamped at work. During one of my one minute breaks I take between large tasks (as a form of reward) I read a less formal email sent to me by a co-worker.

The email had attached to it genuine article taken from The New York Times detailing the story of one 51 year old George Turklebaum who had died during office hours in a company he had worked at for thirty years.

The issue was that he was not discovered to be dead until five days later when a cleaner questioned his present at the office during the weekend. The more troubling issue was that he had shared his workspace with 23 other workers on an open plan floor.

What kind of a world do we live in that requires us to spend at least 50% of our awake hours working for and with people who do not relate to us as individuals with thoughts, personalities, interests, dreams?

There is a craze nowadays of job addiction where it became not only acceptable but also expected that a person sacrifices time with family, hobbies and social life to work. It is also expected of individuals to give priority to work over personal time.

Jobs seem to have missed their original purpose of simple providing and have turned into a non-ending race that defined us, controlled us, turned us into near obsessive individuals famished to receive status, accomplishment and bigger cheques than we can spend.

Very few of us actually enjoy their jobs, those lucky satisfied individuals are normally those who had the luxury of chasing their dreams and avoiding the influence of career advise, greed and fear. Those individuals look forward to waking up in the morning and heading towards their loved jobs. Those are the individuals that look at their work tasks as pleasures rather than obligation. Those are the individuals that smile at work, and miss it like a child when they leave.

However, most of us do not have that luxury, we wake up every morning and go to work simply because we have to. Certainly, even the least enjoyable jobs give pleasures of achievement and self worth. But as I traveled through different parts of the world and joined different offices (for the same company) I came to an understanding that even the least enjoyable jobs can be light hearted and pleasurable given the right environment.

I believe we can turn our luck around by establishing a respectable yet friendly environment. Starting from throwing beanbags around the office, to buying lunch to light hearted jokes and discussions about common interests, colleagues can create a natural bond and pleasant company that could make work hours less painful on difficult days.

The article concluded something like “Don’t work too hard, no one will notice”. I believe in doing the best we can in everything you do. But if you can enjoy a perfectionist’s job all the while enjoying it, then why not? A very wise female worker once said to me “we spend so much time at work, we might as well enjoy it”. Amen to that.