Archive for the ‘What is work?’ Category
Mind Your Obits
This Week’s Hero: Wallace Allen (1919-2012)
The things you learn from obituaries:
Mr. Wallace Allen had been a long-lasting editor at the StarTribune (three decades) and passed away in December. During his tenure he led the way to “make the paper more accessible to readers.” He seemed to have a focus on words and design, and employed both in his passionate understanding of what a newspaper could accomplish in our culture. At 93, he continued to read the New York Times and the StarTribune daily.
Two bits from Tuesday’s Obituary stand out:
- Though he suffered various ailments, he had been able to get around with a walker. On that walker he had this bumper sticker: “Free press. Free speech. Free country.”
- And even after decades of editing he continued to edit and write in retirement. Notably, in one of his last assignments editing a newsletter at his assisted living home in Honolulu, he urged his volunteer staff to “to investigate actions by the home’s management.”
So—a commitment to finding and telling truth all the way through.
That is remarkable.
###
Shop Talk Creates Remarkable Moments
Does God show up in shop talk?
I wondered aloud what it would look like if God showed up at work. I thought it would not look like church but instead might resemble acts of excellent service, possibly offered anonymously. I argued such service might flow from a deeper dedication than winning points with the boss. I also speculated that if God showed up, He might bring with him a sense of the larger purpose to our work.
One medical device company I worked for the CEO would routinely travel with sales reps to visit physicians. When the CEO showed up, the tenor of the conversation changed. Suddenly it was not about just product benefits and features, but it was about the surgeon’s particular need with the kinds of patients she was seeing. Or what the cardiologist was noticing about how this technology helped his patients and where there could be improvements. The conversations broadened out beyond technology, and then broadened out beyond that particular physician to all surgeons or all cardiologists or all patients with this particular pathology.
Shop talk—the conversations we have with colleagues—can be a rich source of practical help. It can also be utterly engaging. It’s the details we notice and sharing the things that work (and noting those that don’t) and the funny stories of different personalities and their ways of approaching work. Shop talk is all about what we find remarkable, what we find stimulating or workable. Or amazing. Or meaningful. But shop talk can never be created by a computer—it is always about a human response to a shared situation.
It’s Monday, that day of the week when our work can feel particularly mundane or stale. Hearing our colleague explain why our shared work helps people can be refreshing. It can help reframe today’s tasks. Sometimes it takes great courage to explain to our jaded, cynical colleagues why we continue to move forward and why this work has meaning. My favorite leaders have shop-talked their way into answering the meaning question—and today I’m grateful for their acts of revelatory courage.
###
Image credit: surrealmagicalism via 2headedsnake
“Work is my salvation.”
Theologically—entirely false. Literally—sorta true.
I heard myself say that headline the other day. My buddy and I were talking about what it means to pursue a craft. For me, the work of pursuing a craft is about the ability to focus. And the ability to get back to focus post-distraction.
Focus and getting back to focus are inherent parts of learning and practicing a craft. I believe that focus on craft builds sanity and humanity. Getting back to focus on my craft of copywriting has pulled me out of many mentally ambiguous places and difficult decisions. Focus on craft—especially as I aim toward usefulness and practical service—allows me to background difficult decisions and gives time for my subconscious to work at them. And after I’ve focused I am able to do productive work on those decisions.
I also think growing in our craft is a way to serve God and people. Bethel Seminary—my alma mater—recently received a $190K grant to pursue a “Work with Purpose” program (Bethel Magazine, Fall 2012, p.8). I’m eager to see how this unfolds because the standard churchy answers for a productive and full life mostly involve using work as verbal platform to persuade others. But the work itself—that’s where I see growth, usefulness and, frankly, the hand of God. This is an old notion from the Reformation that need resurrecting pronto.
Last weekend Mrs. Kirkistan and I watched a documentary called Buck, about a guy from a rough, abused background who had an uncanny way with horses. I’m not a horse guy, and I’m not a fan of cowboy flicks, but this film was mesmerizing from beginning to end. What Buck could tell people about themselves as he watched the way they treated their horse was painfully close to home. The movie is full of notions about collaboration, respecting others and how to work with others without breaking them. One take-away quote from the film was that “horses just need to do something useful. They want work to do.” Maybe Buck was anthropomorphizing horses—maybe not. I do know that the craft we learn and the work we do often places us productively among other people.
And that is a good place to be.
###
Image credit: gibsart via 2headedsnake
Cory Doctorow’s Story Keeps Me Up at Night
“Makers” makes my mind spin
Doctorow’s notion of “New Work” generates a physical reaction in me.
Doctorow pictures a future U.S. that has been in decline for some time. Big work for big corporations is long gone and poverty is the new normal. This is a future where giant empty boarded-up malls and Wal-marts invite ad hoc flea markets. And these flea markets now represent the best of commerce as they inhabit high-end retail spaces formerly occupied by the Macy’s and Nordstroms and the like.
After the new economy stripped away the old dependable jobs, the New Work movement sprang up with people recycling waste technology and creating mind-bending, highly specialized products that created their own markets. Cottage industries formed in communities small and large all over the country and people jumped their remaining corporate positions to pursue their own visions. And then it all fell apart. Again.
The book’s vision makes my head spin because of the visceral sense of work as creating and owning. The vividly drawn characters create and collaborate in ways that are very easy to picture, amidst the volatile conditions that already exist in our culture. Maybe it’s the ups and downs of these spirited characters that keeps me awake at night. Doctorow’s vision of the future is that of decline with a sharp aftertaste of humanity striving and living and sometimes succeeding.
I’m only halfway through, but the book has my attention. I may need to finish it fast so I can sleep again.
###
Image Credit: Mondorama 2000 via thisisnthappiness
How I had to stop working to love my work.
I don’t have to work. I get to.
People are endlessly interested in work—though not exactly in the stuff they toil at daily. Every week I talk about work with lots of different people. Students looking for work. Careerists suddenly thrust out of (formerly) safe positions. Adjunct professors disgusted with poverty-level positions. University lecturers trying to fit research together with teaching and coming up short.
Work says a lot about who we are as individuals and what we like to do. It’s says things about our priorities and talents, but work could never tell the whole story of who we are. It is only a starting place for that question.
Roughly 15 years ago I realized I was hiring and paying expensive ad agencies to do the very work I wanted to do. So I quit to find a way to do the work I was hiring away. That was the beginning of a journey toward a new way of thinking about how I spend my days. It became less about going to a place and more about solving real problems that bothered real people, using ideas and words strategically. It felt great to jettison the internal politics of a large corporation, though I miss the great fun I had with friends in the workplace. That’s why I relish my current client teams.
But like the hero in the commercial below, being perfectly suited for something doesn’t mean someone will give you the chance to do it.
Just because someone says you don’t fit the job, doesn’t mean you don’t fit. This is how you find your work: the thing you won’t stop doing just because someone won’t pay you to do it.
Today, even on a Monday, find a way to start doing the thing you love. And don’t wait for a company or boss or faculty chair to recognize your genius. Start the process now to expand and hone your particular genius. Don’t get to the end of a career only to realize you missed the opportunity to work.
###
conversation is an engine 