Work
A. R. Gini
As adults there is nothing that more preoccupies our lives than our work. We will not sleep as much, spend time with our families as much, eat as much, or recreate and rest as much as we work. Whether we love our work or hate it, succeed in it or fail, achieve fame or infamy through it, like Sisyphus we are all condemned to push and chase that thing we call our job, our career, our work, all of our days (Ciulla, 2000; Gini, 2000).
In its most benign sense, work can be defined as any activity we need or want to do in order to achieve the basic requirements of life and/or to maintain a certain lifestyle.(Sullivan, 1989: 115). The paradox of work is that while many of us wind up hating it, or are simply worn down and exhausted by it, most of us start off eagerly seeking it out. We want to work. Work in this society is seen both as a means and an end in itself. As a means, work is the vehicle by which we can achieve status, stuff, and success. As an end, work allows us to conform with one of our most cherished myths, the ‘‘Protestant Work Ethic.’’ This ethic holds that work is good and that all work – any work – demonstrates integrity, responsibility, and fulfillment of duty.
In the long run work can prove to be a boon or a burden, creative or crippling, a means to personal happiness or a prescription for despair. But no matter where a person winds up on this spectrum one thing is clear: work is one of the primary means by which adults find their identity and form their character. Simply put: where we work, how we work, what we do at work, and the general ethos and culture of the workplace indelibly mark us for life.
Karl Marx has argued: ‘‘As individuals ex press their lives, so they are’’ (Marx, 1967: 409). It is in work that we become persons. Work is that which forms us, gives us a focus, gives us a vehicle for personal expression, and offers us a means for personal definition. ‘‘Work,’’ argues John Paul II, ‘‘makes us human because we make something of ourselves through our work.’’ Individuals need work in order to finish and define their natures. Just as work is not a simple given or fixed thing, said John Paul, so too human personalities. Both are facts continuously being produced by human labor (John Paul II, 1982: 112).
For good or ill, we are known and we know ourselves by the work we do. The meter and measure of work serves as our mapping device to explain and order the geography of life. Our work circumscribes what we know and how we select and categorize the things we choose to see. The lessons we learn in our work and at work become the metaphors we apply to life and others, and the means by which we digest the world. As Samuel Butler said: ‘‘Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.’’
Philosopher Adina Schwartz (1982) has argued that, at the level of mental health, work is a basic requirement of adult life. As adults, we need work in the same way that children need to play in order to fulfill themselves as persons. Unfortunately, this thesis applies even to those of us who spend our lives laboring at ‘‘bad jobs’’ – jobs that Studs Terkel refers to as ‘‘too small for our spirit’’ and ‘‘not big enough’’ for us as people. Jobs that are devoid of prestige. Jobs that are physically exhausting or mindlessly repetitive (Terkel, 1974: 521). Jobs that are demeaning, degrading, and trivial in nature. Even these kinds of jobs – though we are often loathe to admit it – provide us with a handle on reality, an access to services and goods, and a badge of identity.
Given the centrality of work in adult life and its impact on the development of personality and character, few students of business ethics and organizational development will be surprised by the contention that the ethos of workplace, corporate culture, and the mores of management influence the ethical norms and moral values of individual workers both on and off the job. Robert Jackall in his important book Moral Mazes argues that no matter what a person believes in off the job, on the job all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, are required to suspend, bracket, or only selectively manifest our personal convictions. What is right in the corporation is not what is right in man’s home or his church. What is right in the corporation is what the guy above you wants from you (Jackall, 1988: 109).
Jackall contends that the logic of every organization (any place of business) and the collective personality of the workplace conspire to override the wants, desires, or aspirations of the individual worker. For Jackall, the primary imperative of every organization is to succeed. This logic of performance leads to the creation of a private moral universe – a moral universe that by definition is totalitarian (self ruled), solipsistic (self defined), and narcissistic (self centered). Within such a milieu truth is socially defined and moral behavior is determined solely by organizational needs. The key virtues, for all alike, become goal preoccupation, problem solving, survival and success and, most importantly, playing by the house rules. In time, says Jackall, those initiated and invested in the system come to believe that they live in a self contained worldview which is above and independent of outside critique and evaluation.
Jackall argues that all corporations are like fiefdoms of the middle ages, wherein the Lord of the Manor (CEO, President) offers protection, prestige, and status to his vassals (man agers) and serfs (workers) in return for homage (commitment) and service (work). In such a system, says Jackall, advancement and promotion are predicated on loyalty, trust, politics, and personality much more than experience, education, ability, and actual accomplishments. The central concern of the worker/minion is to be known as a ‘‘can do guy,’’ a ‘‘team player,’’ being at the right place at the right time, and master of all the social rules. That’s why in the corporate world, says Jackall, 1,000 ‘‘atta boys’’ is wiped away with one ‘‘Oh, shit’’! (Jackall, 1988: 72).
As in the model of a feudal system, Jackall maintains that employees of a corporation are expected to become functionaries of the system and supporters of the status quo. Their loyalty is to the powers that be; their duty is to perpetuate performance and profit; and their values can be none other than those sanctioned by the organization.
Although Jackall’s theory is a radical one and deals primarily with large corporations, the logic of his analysis can be applied to any place of employment. We are a nation of workers, a society of employees. Statistics indicate that over 80 percent of the workforce are employed in organizations of twenty or more people. Every organization, corporation, or place of business has a meter and measure of its own. In a very real sense the workplace serves as a metronome for human development and growth. The individual workplace sets the agenda, establishes the values, and dictates the desired outcome it expects from its employees. Although it would be naive to assert that employees simply unreflectively absorb the manners and mores of the workplace, it would be equally naive to suggest that they are unaffected by the modeling and standards of their respective places of employment. Work is where we spend our lives, and the lessons we learn there, good or ill, play a part in the development of our moral perspective and how we formulate and adjudicate ethical choices.
In claiming that workers can become functionaries of the logic of performance and organizational ethics of the institutions they work for, Jackall is in no way denying the value of a more classic normative analysis of ethical decision making or the importance and responsibilities of individual moral agency. He is not claiming that individuals are ethically absolved when they capitulate to the status of being an organizational toady. Rather, he is trying to explain how the imperatives of the workplace and the requirements of life facilitate and encourage the abdication of personal responsibility and autonomy. After all, if work is the primary vehicle for the achievement of personal success, status, prestige, and financial security, who of us is above the temptation to cut corners, turn a blind eye, or simply overlook the requirements and niceties of ethics? But whatever way we choose, the lesson to keep in mind is this: ‘‘As individuals express their lives, so they are.’’ The ‘‘portrait’’ we paint of ourselves at work is how we are known to ourselves and others.
Conclusion
Because work looms so large in our lives I believe that most of us don’t reflect on its importance and significance. For most of us, work is – well – work, something we have to do to maintain our lives and pay the bills. However, work is not just a part of our existence that can be easily separated from the rest of our lives. Work is not simply about the trading of labor for dollars. Perhaps because we live in a society that markets and hawks the fruits of our labor and not the labor itself, we have forgotten or never really appreciated the fact that the business of work is not simply to produce goods, but also to help produce people.
Was Descartes wrong? Perhaps it isn’t Cogito ergo sum but, rather, Laboro ergo sum. We need work, and as adults we find identity and are identified by the work we do. If this is true then we must be very careful about what we choose to do for a living, for what we do is what we’ll become. To paraphrase the words of Winston Churchill, first we choose and shape our work, then it shapes us.
Bibliography
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Gini, A. (2000). My Job My Self. New York. Routledge.
Jackall, R. (1988). Moral Mazes. New York: Oxford University Press.
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John Paul II (1982). Laborem Exercens. In G. Baum (ed.), The Priority of Labor. New York: Paulist Press.
Schwartz, A. (1982). Meaningful work. Ethics, 92, 634 46.
Sullivan, T. J. (1989). What do we mean when we talk about work? In A. R. Gini and T. J. Sullivan (eds.), It Comes With the Territory. New York: Random House.
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