Do What You Love

[LMNO]

Yes, it's Slate, but it's interesting.

One consequence... is the division that DWYL creates among workers, largely along class lines. Work becomes divided into two opposing classes: that which is lovable (creative, intellectual, socially prestigious) and that which is not (repetitive, unintellectual, undistinguished). Those in the lovable-work camp are vastly more privileged in terms of wealth, social status, education, society's racial biases, and political clout, while comprising a small minority of the workforce.

Yet with the vast majority of workers effectively invisible to elites busy in their lovable occupations, how can it be surprising that the heavy strains faced by today's workers—abysmal wages, massive child care costs, etc.—barely register as political issues even among the liberal faction of the ruling class?
In ignoring most work and reclassifying the rest as love, DWYL may be the most elegant anti-worker ideology around. Why should workers assemble and assert their class interests if there's no such thing as work?

DWYL reinforces exploitation even within the so-called lovable professions, where off-the-clock, underpaid, or unpaid labor is the new norm: reporters required to do the work of their laid-off photographers, publicists expected to pin and tweet on weekends, the 46 percent of the workforce expected to check their work email on sick days. Nothing makes exploitation go down easier than convincing workers that they are doing what they love.
Instead of crafting a nation of self-fulfilled, happy workers, our DWYL era has seen the rise of the adjunct professor and the unpaid intern: people persuaded to work for cheap or free, or even for a net loss of wealth.

Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life! Before succumbing to the intoxicating warmth of that promise, it's critical to ask, "Who, exactly, benefits from making work feel like nonwork?" "Why should workers feel as if they aren't working when they are?" In masking the very exploitative mechanisms of labor that it fuels, DWYL is, in fact, the most perfect ideological tool of capitalism.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

If no work gets done, everyone fucking starves.

Ergo, work must be done.

Therefore it is best to do work you enjoy.

Does that serve the system?  Who cares?

Fucking Slate.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I hear a "You're an at-will employee" a lot. Along with "You choose every day, to be here and do your best. If you can't do that or don't want to do that, then leave. It's your choice." I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

Along the same lines and just as fucking stupid.

It's easy to talk down to the peons when you've got insurance and sick-leave and whatever else. It's also easy to make the manager scared like nothing else when he remembers what it was like to be a peon and how easy it is to be demoted back to that.

[Sita]

Their whole premise seems to be that people can only be doing what they love if it involves higher education or some kind of art.
There are plenty of people doing what they love in the way of construction, maintenance, farming, hell there are even people that are happy being maids and janitors.

It's stupid to think that someone being happy at their job is somehow a bad thing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

How did you not report them for this?  That's JAIL TIME for the offending manager.  And deservedly so.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It's stupid to think that someone being happy at their job is somehow a bad thing.

But very hip.

The idea of work you enjoy being bad because someone else might benefit from it is fucking retarded. 

It's really just the flipside of teabaggerism.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

How did you not report them for this?  That's JAIL TIME for the offending manager.  And deservedly so.

I made the reports 'along appropriate channels'. Nothing ever happened. When I went a more direct route, suddenly I was a bad employee who lied a lot and was really lazy.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

How did you not report them for this?  That's JAIL TIME for the offending manager.  And deservedly so.

I made the reports 'along appropriate channels'. Nothing ever happened. When I went a more direct route, suddenly I was a bad employee who lied a lot and was really lazy.

Which channels were those? 

If your employer told you that the corporate chain of command was appropriate, that too is jail time.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

How did you not report them for this?  That's JAIL TIME for the offending manager.  And deservedly so.

I made the reports 'along appropriate channels'. Nothing ever happened. When I went a more direct route, suddenly I was a bad employee who lied a lot and was really lazy.

Which channels were those? 

If your employer told you that the corporate chain of command was appropriate, that too is jail time.

There was an 'independent' but affiliated number we were supposed to call any time we saw violations of any variety. Promised anonymity and quick response, etc. 'Cept anyone who called mysteriously became an awful employee.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

How did you not report them for this?  That's JAIL TIME for the offending manager.  And deservedly so.

I made the reports 'along appropriate channels'. Nothing ever happened. When I went a more direct route, suddenly I was a bad employee who lied a lot and was really lazy.

Which channels were those? 

If your employer told you that the corporate chain of command was appropriate, that too is jail time.

There was an 'independent' but affiliated number we were supposed to call any time we saw violations of any variety. Promised anonymity and quick response, etc. 'Cept anyone who called mysteriously became an awful employee.

https://www.osha.gov/oshdir/ga.html

It's never too late to spread a little love.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

How did you not report them for this?  That's JAIL TIME for the offending manager.  And deservedly so.

I made the reports 'along appropriate channels'. Nothing ever happened. When I went a more direct route, suddenly I was a bad employee who lied a lot and was really lazy.

Which channels were those? 

If your employer told you that the corporate chain of command was appropriate, that too is jail time.

There was an 'independent' but affiliated number we were supposed to call any time we saw violations of any variety. Promised anonymity and quick response, etc. 'Cept anyone who called mysteriously became an awful employee.

Ooooo

you might want to talk to a lawyer about that. Or just call OSHA directly. That sounds HELL of illegal, on an epic scale.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yes, it's Slate, but it's interesting.

One consequence... is the division that DWYL creates among workers, largely along class lines. Work becomes divided into two opposing classes: that which is lovable (creative, intellectual, socially prestigious) and that which is not (repetitive, unintellectual, undistinguished). Those in the lovable-work camp are vastly more privileged in terms of wealth, social status, education, society's racial biases, and political clout, while comprising a small minority of the workforce.

Yet with the vast majority of workers effectively invisible to elites busy in their lovable occupations, how can it be surprising that the heavy strains faced by today's workers—abysmal wages, massive child care costs, etc.—barely register as political issues even among the liberal faction of the ruling class?
In ignoring most work and reclassifying the rest as love, DWYL may be the most elegant anti-worker ideology around. Why should workers assemble and assert their class interests if there's no such thing as work?

DWYL reinforces exploitation even within the so-called lovable professions, where off-the-clock, underpaid, or unpaid labor is the new norm: reporters required to do the work of their laid-off photographers, publicists expected to pin and tweet on weekends, the 46 percent of the workforce expected to check their work email on sick days. Nothing makes exploitation go down easier than convincing workers that they are doing what they love.
Instead of crafting a nation of self-fulfilled, happy workers, our DWYL era has seen the rise of the adjunct professor and the unpaid intern: people persuaded to work for cheap or free, or even for a net loss of wealth.

Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life! Before succumbing to the intoxicating warmth of that promise, it's critical to ask, "Who, exactly, benefits from making work feel like nonwork?" "Why should workers feel as if they aren't working when they are?" In masking the very exploitative mechanisms of labor that it fuels, DWYL is, in fact, the most perfect ideological tool of capitalism.

I think I agree with their premise, actually.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I heard this almost every day at the last place I worked. Usually when I was pointing out OSHA violations or asking if I got overtime for the extended hours closers had to work on floor care nights.

How did you not report them for this?  That's JAIL TIME for the offending manager.  And deservedly so.

I made the reports 'along appropriate channels'. Nothing ever happened. When I went a more direct route, suddenly I was a bad employee who lied a lot and was really lazy.

Which channels were those? 

If your employer told you that the corporate chain of command was appropriate, that too is jail time.

There was an 'independent' but affiliated number we were supposed to call any time we saw violations of any variety. Promised anonymity and quick response, etc. 'Cept anyone who called mysteriously became an awful employee.

https://www.osha.gov/oshdir/ga.html

It's never too late to spread a little love.

That's what I like about you, Roger. You're always looking for ways to give back to the community. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's what I like about you, Roger. You're always looking for ways to give back to the community. 

I am having a really angry week.   

[hooplala]

Yes, it's Slate, but it's interesting.

One consequence... is the division that DWYL creates among workers, largely along class lines. Work becomes divided into two opposing classes: that which is lovable (creative, intellectual, socially prestigious) and that which is not (repetitive, unintellectual, undistinguished). Those in the lovable-work camp are vastly more privileged in terms of wealth, social status, education, society's racial biases, and political clout, while comprising a small minority of the workforce.

Yet with the vast majority of workers effectively invisible to elites busy in their lovable occupations, how can it be surprising that the heavy strains faced by today's workers—abysmal wages, massive child care costs, etc.—barely register as political issues even among the liberal faction of the ruling class?
In ignoring most work and reclassifying the rest as love, DWYL may be the most elegant anti-worker ideology around. Why should workers assemble and assert their class interests if there's no such thing as work?

DWYL reinforces exploitation even within the so-called lovable professions, where off-the-clock, underpaid, or unpaid labor is the new norm: reporters required to do the work of their laid-off photographers, publicists expected to pin and tweet on weekends, the 46 percent of the workforce expected to check their work email on sick days. Nothing makes exploitation go down easier than convincing workers that they are doing what they love.
Instead of crafting a nation of self-fulfilled, happy workers, our DWYL era has seen the rise of the adjunct professor and the unpaid intern: people persuaded to work for cheap or free, or even for a net loss of wealth.

Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life! Before succumbing to the intoxicating warmth of that promise, it's critical to ask, "Who, exactly, benefits from making work feel like nonwork?" "Why should workers feel as if they aren't working when they are?" In masking the very exploitative mechanisms of labor that it fuels, DWYL is, in fact, the most perfect ideological tool of capitalism.

I think I agree with their premise, actually.

I do too.

I'm reminded of something I read recently (can't remember where) which asked "Should people who love their job be paid less?"

Sure, they're already working on weekends and sick days... why not pay them less too?