Two years ago, I read the popular novel Eat, Pray, Love. While I enjoyed the plotline and it gave me massive wanderlust, one thing from the novel has stuck with me over the past two years and I still find myself referring back to it.
During the "Eat" portion of the novel, the author is in Italy. What better place to eat, right? But as she gets to know the Italian people and their culture, she finds that there is a lot more to Italy than first appears. The people there are relaxed, calm, and happy with their lives. They find excuses to slow down and enjoy their food, make better food, and spend time with their families. To Italians, family and relaxing are the most important things. You take care of yourself and your family first and everything else is secondary.
Unsurprisingly, I really like that idea, but only partly because it involves lots of food and down time. Since Elizabeth Gilbert planted the thought in my head, I've come to realize more and more how obsessed Americans are with their jobs.
When you first meet someone, what questions do you ask them? Most getting-to-know-you conversations go something like this:
Person 1: What's your name?
Person 2: Jennifer. What's yours?
Person 1: Bob. Nice to meet you.
Person 2: Nice to meet you, too. So, Bob, what do you do?
Person 1: I work in the construction industry. Paving roads, building hotels, that sort of thing.
Person 2: That sounds like really rewarding work.
Person 1: Oh, it is. What do you do?
Person 2: I'm an administrative assistant at a legal firm.
Person 1: Wow, a legal firm! I could never do that.
And the conversation focuses on work for a large portion. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just trying to illustrate that much of our initial introduction to someone new revolves around their vocation.
I don't know how that conversation would go in Italian, but I can tell you how I wish it went. I wish we would ask about names (that's a good thing to know) and then actually get to know the person. We have this strange idea in America that whatever a person does for work must be their All Consuming Passion and we construct personalities around that occupation. He's in construction? Definitely a well-meaning, slightly unintelligent person who probably spent a great amount of his childhood with Legos and Tinker Toys. How many of you, when you read "construction industry" didn't automatically have that feeling that he was probably less intelligent than Jennifer? How many of you thought, "Oh, she won't be sexually attracted to him because he's in the construction industry. He's probably got a mullet" or some other stereotypical-construction-worker thought? I'll admit, I had one. All because of his job?
Off of that, when you tell someone that you work in a job that doesn't make much money (for example, author/painter/musician/singer/dancer), your self-worth in their eyes actually shrinks. Not that they think you're less of a person, but that you are a fool for pursuing something that provides neither financial stability nor is a "real career". Even if they like you, there is still that niggling fear that you will become the person who needs to be supported by friends because your latest painting didn't sell and your rent is due and please, Jennifer the Legal Assistant, could you loan me $2,000?
I suppose that only goes to prove that it isn't so much your career, but the money you have, that is the defining factor in some relationships. We don't judge our friends based on money -- but if you had a friend who was constantly in need of money, wouldn't you rather they took the back burner? We're incredibly selfish with our hard-earned money because WE are the ones who earned it. If that's not the American dream in action, I don't know what is.
I know I sound incredibly pessimistic here, but I'm not suggesting a departure from intelligent money-saving and -sharing. I'm just as selfish with my money as anyone else (maybe even more). Be careful with your money. The end.
It's fascinating that money from work is the Most Important thing to American culture. Your worth revolves almost solely around how much money you make, whether or not you've received promotions, and if you have a job at all. If you don't have a job? You're automatically (and perhaps semi-unconsciously) labeled no-good, lazy, and a mooch. Maybe not as much in this current economical state, but everyone still sort of shakes their head at you if you don't have gainful employment.
Now we've all seen Click, that Adam Sandler movie, and we all know that work SHOULDN'T be the most important thing. But, and this is the point of my post, what if your work forces you to have it be the most important thing?
Let me tell you what's happened this past month.
One month ago: Peter gets an assignment from a higher up who we will call M. Don't get any Bond aspirations; I'm currently full of angst toward her. M wants an application in a month that does These Specific Things. Peter says, "Will do!" and starts working.
One week ago: M contacts Peter and asks how it's coming. Pretty well, thanks. But, M says, could we not write it in Silverlight? (quick departure from the narrative: that would be like asking me, who is fluent in French and English, to write a legal document in Farsi.) Remember how it's due on Friday?
Peter, ever the diligent worker, says that they will do their best. (This despite the fact that he is already really close to being done with the non-Silverlight version. Does she ask? No. Silverlight will look prettier.)
He goes to B&N, buys two humungous Silverlight books and studies his brains out. He has not come to bed before 2 AM for the past week. His cough returns; I start to worry about his health.
Tuesday: He starts to fall asleep tying his shoes, getting dressed in the morning, and once, ever distressing to me, in the car on our way to the store. As a wife, I'm frightened and concerned and want him to come to bed early on Wednesday. I ask; he says he has to finish this one thing and he'll come. "Before 3?" I say. "Maybe 4," he says. It's 11 when I ask. When he finally comes to bed, it's 5:10. "I couldn't figure it out," he says, incredibly frustrated. I go to work at 7 and he sleeps until 10. He's at work until 7 pm. He comes home Thursday and works on the program until 3 AM but he is finally finished. Hallelujah!
Friday comes and goes. He helps a member of his team to work on the back end of the same program. Comes to bed at a decent time.
Then last night happened. He was up ALL NIGHT LONG helping this guy on the back end. Their "due on Friday" really meant "We need it on Sunday" so they were up until 7 AM. He worked on that dang project for 17 straight hours last night and today? He's sick. He could hardly stay awake long enough to eat breakfast this morning and he fell asleep in the shower.
And I am livid.
What gives a company the right to take my husband's health and flush it down the drain? What gives them the right to FORCE him to be a workaholic when he isn't one? Why is it okay for them to give him an incredibly hard assignment and then punish him when he physically cannot complete it? Why is work so important? Why does that application have to be out NOW? Is the world going to end? Is it going to crash the financial stability of the company? NO! Just because some high-up executive with an inferiority complex says it has to be done, the workers have to go night and day to accomplish the task. M, we are not bees and you are most certainly not the queen. It's your fault that I have a sick husband. It's your fault I've had to fall asleep alone for the past week. It's your fault he has headaches and stomachaches and generally feels like crap. It's your fault that now we have to work on getting him better instead of keeping him healthy in the first place by giving him a reasonable time table to accomplish things.
You know what, company? We're moving to Italy. At least they understand that you have to take care of yourself first.
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