Working

I meant to post this back around Labor Day, but I didn't get to it. One of the best books I've read is Working by Studs Terkel. The book is a series of interviews with people across all lines of work. In most cases, Studs's questions are not included, which gives the impression that the interviewee is spontaneously talking about his or her job. The result is a look at the pride, humiliation, comfort, anxiety, security, and insecurity that people take from their jobs. The uncertainty about how the interviews were edited leaves one suspicious of whether there are political motives in some of the interviews, but that's the nature of writing in the social sciences.

The lines of questioning must be very good, however, because some of the people that begin speaking with utter confidence about their work descend into spitefulness and anger. A lot of the anger is directed towards hippies and people "on the outside" and in the boardroom. Of course, there is also an intimate look at the pettiness that everyone carries with him or her to work every day. I guess that a brutal commute and crappy drivetime radio are not incubators of peace and happiness in the workplace. And you get to do it all over again at five - did you remember that fucking secret song to win the chance to go to the Belaggio with a guest?. Okay, they didn't have such amenities of the workday in the early 70's, but you get the point.

The beauty of the book is that Studs lets the reader draw their own conclusions from what the interviewees are saying about their job. This book made me reflect on the idea of work, why I work, and what I should be working for. I thought that there was more here than in any of the self-help books on the subject.