Entitled to work
In his now famous memoir, Randy Pausch wrote:
“So many graduating seniors have this notion that they should be hired because of their creative brilliance. Too many are unhappy with the idea of starting at the bottom. My advice has always been, ‘You ought to be thrilled you got a job in the mailroom. And when you get there, here’s what you do: Be really great at sorting mail.’ No one wants to hear someone say: ‘I’m not good at sorting mail because the job is beneath me.’ No job should be beneath us. And if you can’t (or won’t) sort mail, where is the proof that you can do anything?”
I’ve always agreed with that statement, and—having worked in lots of high-stress, low-pay jobs in the past—I’ve thought a lot about it since. The thing that gets me isn’t that manual labor is somehow more virtuous than knowledge work, but that the craft of doing something well—of having a strong work-ethic—matters.
That the posture we bring to the work we do (regardless of what we do) isn’t merely a great way to impress your boss or your colleguages or to get better tips, but a moral obligation to our forbears, to the people we serve, and even to posterity.
As James Sommers says in this great article:
“No job is too low to not warrant care, because no job exists in isolation. Carelessness ripples. It adds friction to the working of the world. To phone it in or run out the clock, regardless of how alone and impotent you might feel in your work, is to commit an especially tragic—for being so preventable—brand of public sin.”
It’s true. No job is beneath you. But carelessness and jadedness certainly are.
Thoughtfulness, thoroughness, precision, kaizen, integrity—these are virtues. And the best part is, they’re free. It doesn’t cost you anything to care more, to show greater concern, to think longer or work harder than your peers.
And once you know how fun it is to play the infinite game of doing a thing well—the joy of a job well done—you’ll recognize that hard work is not drudgery. It’s where exertion meets tranquility.