The meaning of work

Below I reproduce an excellent essay from Lucy Kellaway, sometimes known as "agony Aunt of the FT" ! She was talking about the perceptions over work needing to have purpose on BBC radio 4's "A Point of View". I found it incredibly insightful and I am sure many in work especially in offices will find it so too. Lucy Kellaway is nearly always this perceptive and it would be good to hear more from her in future.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/views/a_point_of_view/



It pays the mortgage and gets you up in the morning, but these days workers want more from a job - they want meaning. Just don't go looking for it, says Lucy Kellaway.

Not long ago a man came to our house to unblock the drain. He peered into the stinking manhole, stirred the sewage with a stick and gleefully pronounced that there were several months of back-up in there. He then got to work with a rod and a plunger, and finally with a high-pressure hose - which sent the filthy, stinking mess flying into his face and all over the garden.

While he toiled he cracked jokes, gave me a lesson in the engineering of Victorian drains, and eventually, having cleared the blockage and tidied up as best he could, he got into his van, whistling to himself as he drove away.


We start to demand that our work has a larger meaning. This almost always ends badly, meaning is a bit like happiness - the more you go out looking for it the less you find


Since then I've kept thinking of this contented sewage man, and wondering what exactly it was that he got from his job that so many people doing grander and cleaner ones don't seem to get from theirs.

It strikes me that we are in the middle of an epidemic of meaninglessness at work. Bankers, lawyers, and senior managers are increasingly asking themselves what on earth their jobs mean, and finding it hard to come up with an answer. As the agony aunt on the Financial Times I get asked all the time by successful professionals - what is it all about?

The Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl wouldn't have been in the least surprised by this. In 1946 he wrote Man's Search for Meaning in which he argued that that our deepest hankerings are not - as Freud thought - of a sexual nature, but are a lust for purpose in life. Frankl spent five years in Nazi prison camps and during that time he worked out that there are three paths to meaning - work, love and suffering.

Gordon Brown, a man who has been doing a certain amount of suffering of late, seems to think that the answer is to strive harder. In a speech last week he said "I aspire for everyone to reach for the light - their ambition. Very simply, I aspire to create an opportunity-rich country where everyone can get on and get up in the lives we live. Never to level down, always to lift up."

Stamp of approval

This doesn't sound much more profound than James Brown's song Sex Machine - Fellas, I'm ready to get up and do my thing - get on up.

It's also dreadfully bad advice, as Brown should know from personal experience. For all those years when Tony Blair was at Number 10, Brown reached for his ambition - but now that he has got on and got up, has he found the light? No, it seems to me that the poor man is floundering around in the dark.

This doesn't mean that ambition is a mistake; it is just that there is no magic to advancement per se. The status and the money go up, but that's it. And then, beset by affluence and by introspection we start to demand that our work has a larger meaning. This almost always ends badly: meaning is a bit like happiness - the more you go out looking for it the less you find.

So where is the real meaning at work? Last week I put the question to various people - starting with our postman. Do you think your job has meaning, I asked him, as he stuffed a fistful of junk mail through our tiny letter box. He looked at me and shrugged. "I'm trying to pay the bills".

Getting paid to do a job is surely the most important sort of meaning there is. Earning enough money to feed and house one's family might be at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but the rest of the edifice depends on having this solid base.

Is the job sick?

As for the work itself, the postman said: "It's not the best job in the world, but I try to keep cheerful. I've always said that if you are unhappy at work, there must be something wrong somewhere else in your life."

He may have been on to something here. In the last few months three people with grand jobs have been involved in three horrible, violent ends. Mark Saunders, a successful barrister, was killed in a police shoot out; Mike Todd the chief constable of Greater Manchester police force was found dead on a hill, gin bottle by his side. And last summer the insurance millionaire Alberto Izaga, suffered a shocking breakdown and ended up beating his two-year-old daughter to death.

It is tempting to conclude - as many columnists have - that there is something about the intolerable stress and emptiness of these top positions that lead people to breaking point. The jobs are sick and they are making us sick too.

Possibly; but overall, I'm with the postman, in thinking that such problems come from us. I don't believe that these jobs are terribly sick. Instead, these were three unrelated personal tragedies that tell us nothing about work at all.

My search for meaning - and for a pint of milk - then took me to the Turkish corner shop where I asked my question to the man behind the counter. He was looking tired: his shop is open fifteen hours a day so one might think he had no time for meaning. But he said there was a lot of meaning in what he did. "I make a living and I like the people who come to my shop." he said.

Parenting craft

A good point, too. According to a recent survey of work place satisfaction, liking one's work-mates is as important as money in persuading people not to quit. Simply by being friendly and chatting by the coffee machine one is creating meaning... of a sort, which, given how much chatting I do, is quite a comforting thought.

When you have spent a couple of days changing nappies and grilling fish fingers, to be surrounded by adults who don't want their bottoms wiped seems pretty meaningful

The shopkeeper also said he liked the work itself - he takes pleasure in stacking his tiny premises so high with goods that he has just the thing you want when you find the cupboard is bare at 10pm. It's hard running a successful corner shop, and he's good at it.

According to Richard Sennett's new book, The Craftsman, this ability to master a skill and then practice it well satisfies a basic human need. For Sennett, a craftsman doesn't have to make beautiful inlaid cabinets or chisel stone. He could be a software programmer, a cook or even a parent.

This satisfaction in the job itself seems to me the best sort of meaning there is. As a journalist, I survive on those rare jolts of pleasure that come when you find just the right words and get them together in just the right order.

Yet this sort of "craft" meaning isn't open to everyone. Shoving junk mail though letter boxes isn't a craft. Neither, at the other end of the spectrum, is being prime minister. Indeed no jobs that involve managing or leading are crafts, which is one of the things that makes it so particularly hard for managers to find meaning in what they do.

Peace with pointlessness

In fact managing is one of the most thankless jobs in the world. What managers are mainly trying to do is to get other people to do things that they don't want to. To work harder, for a start. Their other primary function is to carry the can, and to get blamed for all sorts of things that probably aren't their fault. Not only are they creating little meaning for themselves, they get blamed for destroying meaning for people below them.

Sennett describes how the craft of doctors and nurses is spoilt by NHS managers and their punishing targets. Teachers bleat endlessly that government guidelines are taking all the joy out of teaching. The other day an RAC man changed my tyre, which he accomplished in about three minutes, and spent the next 10 jabbing data into a hand held computer. He told me that this new bureaucracy had destroyed his pleasure in the job - a complaint echoed by most workers in most jobs. The meetings, the second guessing, the pointless duplication, the politics, we all moan. Just let us do the damned job.

In some ways I'm with the managers, or I would be if they didn't so often make such a hash of it. Hospitals and schools both need targets. Businesses, including the RAC, need to be run efficiently. People hate change, we naturally suspect all new ways of doing things, we scream that the purpose in the job is going, but that's too bad.

Maybe the best way of dealing with pointlessness at work is not to worry too much about it. An acquaintance in advertising tells me how one day he and his colleagues were agonizing over a tiny nuance in a script for a radio commercial. Suddenly he had a jolt of realisation: this was utterly pointless. Since then he has made his peace with the meaninglessness of what he does, and enjoys the job rather more as a result.

Another way of finding work more meaningful is to do less of it. Last week the government extended its plans for flexible working to make it easier for parents to work part time. When I worked a three day week I found the meaning of work was complimented by the meaning of looking after children. Or rather, that each provided a refuge from the meaninglessness of the other. When you have spent a couple of days changing nappies and grilling fish fingers, to be surrounded by adults who don't want their bottoms wiped seems pretty meaningful. And by contrast, having half of one's identity tied up in the rearing of children means that one places fewer impossible demands on the job itself.

A final way of gaining meaning at work is also on the rise: and that is the threat of redundancy. As a result of the credit crunch 55,000 financial sector jobs have already been lost, and more loses are to come. While being fired is the ultimate sign that one's job was meaningless, the relief of escaping the axe could make one so grateful to have work, that one stops asking oneself such awkward questions.

Go back to your zombies and prepare for management

This year, with the retirement of a long established colleague I have taken on new responsibilities and I now have a team of people who I manage.

With this in mind, my boss thought I would benefit from attending a two day management of course. I've been on similar before but I suppose it can never hurt to have some new ideas and reminders of how to deal with certain situations.

The course was taken by a charming lady from Fulham. At the risk of offending many people, my office has a lot of people from Essex and a lot of people from south London (myself included). In short I don't often hear the English language spoken as well as it is spoken by some residents of Fulham. But I guess accents is a very risky topic, especially in Britain, so I shall move swiftly on !

The course was not rocket science. In fact it was not any sort of science but a mixture of common sense on how to deal with difficult people in difficult situations as well as various management and psychological theories on what motivates people and how to get the best out of them etc etc.

One session that caught my imagination was a crude classification of all people according to their energy or action and their attitude or enthusiasm.

Those with high action and a good attitude were obviously the best from a management perspective and were called "stars". The high action but negative attitude were "cynics" albeit quite productive ones. Those of positive attitude but little action were either "passengers" or "tourists" while the worst were those of little action and a bad attitude. The last group were termed "zombies" or "the undead".

This was supposed to be a serious management course but predictably this bit wasn't taken too seriously. We were divided up into teams to talk about how we would deal with the different employee types.

I was put in a group that was charged with thinking about "zombies". We found this quite difficult as apart from sacking them which would probably happen in more hard hearted organisations, one would have to analysise their entire personality and try and appeal to something that made them tick to achieve any progress.

We then had to present our thoughts. Our zombie group started.

"Now do any you manage people who might be zombies ?" asked the charming lady from Fulham. I must admit that my hand wavered but I thought "No the worst I have must have are tourists, positive but of little output" (I should also note that I do have star (s)".

A colleague from IT had no such qualms. Up went his hand. "I've probably got two" he said. His total team is eight strong so that makes a 25% strong zombie contingent !

The course went on over 2 days with role plays, discussions and coffee breaks.

At the end we were all wished well. I guess in at least one case this really did amount to "Go back to your zombies and prepare for management"

I will be giving my team a bit more thought next week !!!

A miracle in the eye of the beholder

Magda is in charge of the café in the office where I work. The café serves a rather uninspiring collection of sandwiches, salads, crisps and soft drinks. This is not the fault of Magda but the outsourced catering company who employ Magda. Magda is always pressing for improvements. One "victory" was the introduction of jacket potatoes! Ludicrous fire regulations prevent even toast being made in our office but Magda somehow gets around the regulations and has a virtual black market in things like bacon and sausage around breakfast time. Magda knows what the customer wants even if her employers don't.

Despite being in the centre of London with sandwich shops and cafes all around, the office café is always packed at lunch. I think in no small part, the loyalty to the humble office café is due to the attitude of Magda to her customers.Magda greets each customer and gets to know everyone's name despite the relatively high turnover of people in the office. Magda has made herself everyone's favourite Auntie in the office. She shares in the delights of life like births, engagements and weddings. She is also a counsellor especially to the "girls" in the office who are periodically whisked into her office next to the café to discuss some crisis or other.

Magda is both sensitive and outgoing knowing which customer can take a joke and which customer just wants a quiet word.

For all her cheerfulness, Magda over 18 months of selling sandwiches to me has revealed a life story that on many levels seems tragic.

I don't know the full details but she shares fragments with me and others in quiet moments when the café is empty.

Magda was born in Poland but somehow came to England during the Cold War. She married quite a successful Englishman and they had one daughter. Magda lived the life of a comfortable London housewife and mother, taking her daughter to school and in addition to keeping house and home didn't need to work so spent time visiting art galleries and exhibitions with her circle of friends.Then her young daughter became sick. A form of leukaemia was diagnosed and British hospitals seemed unable to offer any real hope. There were options but they were in America . Magda and her husband made the difficult but inevitable decision to remortgage their house to pay for the travel and treatment in America . The treatment was received but ultimately failed. Magda's only child died the tragic death of the young.

Subsequently and in circumstances Magda has not revealed, her husband died. Magda was widowed and alone in London with a huge mortgage on her house. In circumstances that would have crushed many Magda got on with life although that simple line cannot do justice to all the trials and issues she must have faced.

Magda the kept lady of leisure, now widowed and childless had to work. She ended up working for the office café and is still paying off her mortgage.

Now in her late forties, Magda has a remarkable love of life and love of humanity in general. However her life cannot be easy. Her employers, the outsourced catering company are far from generous employers and at times such as the recent underground strikes, Magda was forced to get up at 4am to take an elaborate route of buses into work to be around to have the café ready for the start of the day. There was no taxi offered by her employer to beat the strike. As on other occasions Magda perseveres where others would give up.

Magda's finances seem precarious. She earns £8.50 an hour which does not go a long way in London especially when still paying off a big mortgage. Other than that she has to return to Poland periodically to visit her aging Mother.

Then recently an old stray cat entered Magda's garden in West London . The cat obviously had some instinct as I doubt it would have got such a generous welcome in many other gardens.
The flea bitten cat was cared for, fed and revived by Magda. Then it managed to loose and swallow a tooth resulting in vet bills of over £400, money Magda could ill afford in reality. Magda keeps a £500 emergency fund for trips to Poland if she needs to see her Mother. This was largely exhausted by the stray cat.

However while according to conventional wisdom Magda was financially unwise, Magda's life has taught her that the loss of wealth is far less painful than the loss of life so she saved the cat.

Despite, or perhaps because of, her experiences Magda is a strong Roman Catholic and her faith is the one thing that keeps her strong.

The Firm has recently introduced awards for exceptional service and despite working officially for another company, Magda was nominated and then given an award. In the context of a 200 partner firm where many partners often earn over £1 million a year the monthly award at £500 was not particularly significant. However to Magda, saviour of stray cats and friend to all while earning £8.50 an hour, the award was a major issue.Magda was delighted and declared loudly "It's a miracle". Her finances, for now at least, are liquid once more.

I was just struck by the positive outlook of one who has lost the two people closest to her in being able to declare a miracle over £500. Miracles are not much recognised these days but as Magda proves there are miracles each day and sometimes they do not seem significant to others. For a partner in the firm I work, £1 million may not even be a miracle. But in comparison to infinity a million pounds is also insignificant. Money like so many things, depends on the meaning we give it and the purpose we put it to. I think Magda will give her £500 more purpose than many others would. Miracles are in the eye of the beholder.

The Pillars

I believe this photo is now over 12 years old but I still find it fascinating and genuinely awe-inspiring.

I found myself thinking of it today and was struggling with the scale of it all. I am no astomoner but I understand this is a star factory. It is called the Eagle Nebula, with its soaring star factories dubbed the Pillars of Creation. It is star birth in action, all captured in vivid color by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The scale of it is so difficult to comprehend but our Earth would not show up in any way if it was in the scale of this photograph.

While I am not suggesting we all sit around star gazing, the scale of creation in general can be useful in putting every day issues in perspective.

I recently had to deal with a rather peeved team member over some extra "compassionate leave" given to a colleague at the time a family member died. Peeved team member had lost his Father earlier this year and had been given a total of 7 days leave in addition to his normal 25 days holiday. However at the age of 48 he could not countenance that someone might get more compassionate leave than he did.

As diplomatically as I could I implied it was none of his business and it was a matter for HR, the powers that be in such matters. He grumbled that if the colleague was given more leave than him he would want some retrospective compassionate leave.

I tried to end the conversation having already taken half an hour on "the issue". I was frankly bemused that a man of 48 years old could be so petty, so jealous, so pathetic in his desire for "equality" in work. He has worked too long in the office, has lost his sense of perspective and although fundementally a nice man has become embittered in his pursuit of equal treatment when in reality there will never be equal or certainly not identical treatment of human situations that always vary and are never the same. If I hadn't been constrained by the need to act "professionally" and the sombre nature of circumstances behind compassionate leave I would have laughed at the very concept that he could get compassionate leave retrospectively.

I find the sense of entitlement and the concern over office life amazing in one who seems to have lived most of life's main experiences.

Perhaps I'll take a print of the pillars into work sometime. Maybe it could just bring home that our lives are but one tiny portion of all life that is spread over time and space. Against that the leave of a colleague might assume slightly less significance than it does at present !

In the meantime take a look at the Pillars of Creation....

28 years

I went to a retirement party last evening.

The man I am taking over from in my current job is retiring after 28 years with the Firm.

He has done many jobs in that time and got to know so many people as evidenced by the big turnout at his farewell party. Nonetheless at least according to superficial notions of success his 28 years could not be seen as a particular achievement. He remained one cog, albeit an important cog, in a much bigger machine.

I just had trouble comprehending the notion of working in the same place 28 years. The world has changed so much since 1979 and yet this man worked in the same place all that time.

My contemporaries just do not do that any more and moving jobs after a few years is the norm. I suppose staying in one place could be seen as loyal but generally few do not that now and people attach little value to staying put now.

It is just slightly scary to think you spend well over half your working life in one place and I suppose that is one of the reasons people move although in reality many of us end up doing similar things in different places and trying to fool ourselves that is "variety".

In this case a good man stayed the course for 28 years and has retired from the working lives of the people at our Firm. He will be missed. So far I am quite content in my job so maybe, just maybe I will still be there in 28 years myself although at this stage it seems unlikely.......

Yes we have no alcopops...

Shocking news from those charged with planning our office Christmas party (yes that is now being planned !).

At a manager's meeting this morning the secretary responsible for the planning told us about the venue. Overall it was a nice establishment in the City, quite close to the office.

"The only problem is that they don't do alcopops. We know that not everyone drinks wine or beer so we've got to work out what they will drink".

A less tolerant contributor said "I think the answer is lemonade or coke".

Since when did alcopops become a necessity ?

Trust No One

A case of paranoia from the world of the office.

Barry my long established colleague has a position on the "Staff Social Committee" which aims to promote the interests of staff. Standard issues may involve variously:

- the state of the staff cafe- lack of choice and high prices
-the state of the staff restaurant- lack of choice and high prices
- the state of the toilets - "outdated" roller towels (a success of the committee was getting a cleaning register attached to the back of the toilet door to ensure cleaning can be monitored. Barry was not particularly welcome when he went to check in person that this innovation had been "rolled out" in the Ladies !)
- cycling facilities- where those who cycle to work can store their bikes.

On more adventurous days it may even delve into issues such as pensions, sabbatical opitions and beyond.

Barry's chief adversary, in his own mind at least, is our relatively new CEO.

Barry credits him with everything wrong in the Firm and for opposing everything good in the Firm.

Barry has long suspected a personal campaign by the CEO to eliminate him.

Today an electrician was fitting a new light.

Clive, our Finance Director, was passing through.

Barry exclaimed "Jason (the CEO) is getting new camera's to spy on us again".

Clive looked bemused.

I explained "Barry thinks his desk is bugged".

Clive rose to the occassion with "Oh yes, Jason has got pictures of all social committee members on the wall in his office".

Barry without missing a beat replied "Yes, he's trying to find a way of eliminating me".

Barry enjoys this work fantasy where he is the top of the CEO's agenda. Barry has done roughly the same job for over 20 years. This is somehow overlooked when he imagines his elimination by the dastardly Jason.

Barry enjoys the subject so much that it is easy to entertain him with ever more elaborate plots in the battle. Casting Jason as a global villain and Barry as James Bond is his favourite.

Recently Barry was speaking ill of Jason and I warned that Jason had bugs in place and would release a leaver emptying Barry's chair into a hidden shark tank below our office.

Barry then went off on a mental undersea adventure as he battled Jason for control of the world.

In the world of offices, sometimes it's a case of "whatever gets you through the day" !

As Barry would say "Trust no one".

The rather unappealling face of Petronella Pan

I had what was termed "promotion drinks" last week.

I have recently been promoted to manager of my department and this was to celebrate the fact as well as enable me to socialise with my new peers.

Most of the evening passed off quite well at a City wine bar.

However the party was made up of at least three ladies of a relatively mature age- DOB range 1957-1967 who clearly had something of a Peter Pan complex- hence the title I will give them -Petronella Pan.

These ladies were not just wanting a fun evening out. They were wanting to re-enact their days as "bad girls". For me, a mere strippling in my early thirties, this was not so appealing !

First of all John, a rather worldly but wise and good hearted man in his 40s was telling me about his divorce. Quick as a flash, Sheila a peroxide blonde near 50 year old shouted in between swigs of white wine "Oh yeah- been there, done that, got the t-shirt". Clearly this was something she didn't want to be left out of !

Next the conversation turned to when Sheila had been "come onto" by various senior members of staff at Christmas parties past. These glories were relived with the emphasis being on how "gross" they were. Sandra, a slightly younger but less peroxided version of Sheila seemed to have a mildly envious glint in her eye !

This went round and round a bit with bad mouthing other people in the office. I would have left but as it was "my drinks" felt obliged to stay to the end.

It wasn't a late finish but by the end it was down to three ladies of the 1957-1967 vintage. Sheila said it had been a good night. Sandra agreed. Sheila said that Sandra was sort of person she'd like to go out and get completely "s***faced with".

Sheila then said it would be no problem as her (long suffering second) husband was always happy to come out and pick up drunk "girls". Sue, the most modest of the three, put in that her other half would never come out on such a mission. The taxi driver and I sat in silence listening to all this.

Sandra said if Sue's other half wouldn't play ball, Sue could always "crash" at her place.

I must have looked a bit sceptical about the Sheila's husband being happy to pick up drunk girls bit, because Shiela became more agitated and said "Oh yes, he's come out to pick up 6 or 8 girls before now- all drunk! ".

There then followed a discussion about various claims to have dated (and dumped) millionaires. Sheila proudly boasted she had dated one in an affair after her daughter was born. Still the taxi driver and I listened !

Thankfully we arrived at the station where we were all getting different trains.

Sandra giggled to me that it must have been an illuminating evening.

Sheila then asked my opinion of a teenage girl standing on the platform. My response of " a bit young" was not what she was looking for. She wanted "a male perspective".

It was harmless enough watching these vintage ladies act like bad girls. It was non-threatening to me to allow it be entertaining. However as I got on a train I felt a little bit sad. These ladies all doing relatively well in their careers have their sisterhood reduced to drunken boasts and tales more suited to some bad girls in their late teens. They haven't moved on and as the sun sets on their looks they seem to have found nothing else in their lives to provide meaning on entertainment.

Maybe I am being a bit censorious and maybe this was largely drunken banter. I have no idea if these are representative of many London women but next time ladies, I hope you behave in front of the "children" ! I'd rather not know all this !

Gordon's in the house

Prime Minister-to-be Gordon Brown came into our office today !

Or to be strictly truthful, he came into the same building as where I work. I work in a large 6 storey, former government building that is now owned by the media giant Bloomberg. My firm rents a couple of floors which includes the floor where I work.

"Gordon" came to see Bloomberg to mark the date when he became the unopposed candidate to replace Tony Blair. I didn't see Gordon as he is hardly a rock star and it would have looked a bit strange if we'd all run to the front of the building to see him.

My colleague Stavros showed no such inhibitions. Non-smoking Stavros accompanied regular smoker Sheila to the bus stop at the front of the building. There was still a no show from Gordon when Sheila finished her "fag". So Stavros loyally stayed outside until Gordon emerged and then came back to work a satisfied customer. This was the same Stavros who managed to forward me (and others) two emailed jokes in the first hour of work yesterday morning. Stavros is no workaholic !

We then all heard the Police sirens and Gordon disappeared. That's as close as I get to celebrities in my office :-(

The joy of ......... coffee froth

A cautionary tale against working too long in an office.

A colleague of mine, in his late forties- balding, mustachioed and a bit portly offered to get me a coffee. I am still attempting a healthier life style, albeit significantly relaxed from the original position of a fruit diet two weeks ago ! So I asked for de-caf coffee.

This caused a momentary confusion.

Colleague: Do you want powder out of the jar ?
Me: Or the machine is fine if that does decaf. Whichever is easier.
Colleague: I am not sure if the machine does it. Let me go and look.

Colleague (returning from Kitchen) Yes it does.
Me: Good, I'll have that one then.
Colleague: I think I might go for one too.
Me: Right
Colleague: I am one for froth on my coffee. I really enjoy it. That's why I always go for the machine.

Me: Right

Colleague: In fact I get very disappointed if I take a coffee and by the time I get back to my desk, the froth has gone.

Me: -


Observations:

Office life can be exceptionally dull
Colleagues can be exceptionally dull
The UK has very limited ability coffee machines