Do You Enjoy Your Work?

The number of people dissatisfied with their work seems to be growing. Are you one of them? Can your work be made more pleasurable? If so, how would this benefit you?

SOME call their work a dream. Others would sooner call it a nightmare. Apparently, the number of people belonging to the second group is not small.

A recent study, prepared for the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, says that “significant numbers of American workers are dissatisfied with the quality of their working lives.” They include “workers at all occupational levels.”

Among West Germans, long known for their industriousness, work has now been pushed out of its perennial number one spot. It has been relegated to fourth place​—behind family, leisure and friendship, in that order.

A drop in work satisfaction exists in many parts of the world, and various things have contributed to this trend. Can anything be done to counteract it? We shall see. But first, an important definition.

What Is Work?

“Work” is often thought of as “paid employment.” This definition, however, seriously limits what we are talking about. For example, it would mean that a woman who cares for her home and children is not working, whereas if she accepted payment to care for someone else’s home and children, she would be working.

A better definition of “work” might be the one used by the above-mentioned U.S. study. According to it, “work” is “an activity that produces something of value for other people.”

How Important Is Work Satisfaction?

“If the opportunity to work is absent,” this study continues, “or if the nature of work is dissatisfying (or worse), severe repercussions are likely to be experienced in other parts of the social system.” These repercussions can include a decline in physical and mental health or a breakdown in family relationships. Some dissatisfied workers become apathetic, others even antisocial in their behavior. Such factors can lead to excessive drinking, drug abuse, aggressiveness and crime.

Obviously, then, we have much to gain by trying to counteract work dissatisfaction, at least in our own lives. The late Albert Camus, French writer who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature, once said: “Without work all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.”

Who wants his life to stifle and die? So is it possible to put life into our work so as to make it more interesting and rewarding? Just how satisfying is your work? To check yourself, consider the questions in the box below.

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Is Your Work a Pleasure?

YES NO

□ □ Do you feel well trained for your work?

□ □ Would you consider your job performance above average?

□ □ Are the surroundings in which you work pleasant?

□ □ Do you see other people benefiting from your work?

The more questions you have answered with “YES,” the more satisfying your work is. The more “NO” answers you have given, the less satisfying it is. What can be done to change some of those “NO” answer to “YES”?

Can You Make Your Work More Pleasant?

“AT TIMES the stress is almost unbearable. Without an occasional shot of booze, I’d never make it,” said one worker. “The poor working conditions and old equipment are a constant source of irritation,” said another. Others say:

“I’ve had my fill of working with chronic complainers, some of whom are filthy-minded and filthy-mouthed to boot.”

“I’m just a housewife. It’s so dull. I feel so unfulfilled.”

“Racial discrimination is the main problem. Opportunities for promotion are few, and in slack periods we are the first ones to be let go.”

Do some of these complaints from discontented workers sound familiar? An individual’s ability to change these reasons for work dissatisfaction often is frustratingly limited. But one change is always possible​—a change in personal attitude.

The Importance of Attitude

It is unwise to pigeonhole types of work into superior and inferior, noble and ignoble, or prestigious and nonprestigious. Unless it is morally objectionable, all work is equally honorable and noble. In actual fact, however, most people do not view work in that way. Why?

Types of work are often judged as to relative importance on a monetary scale. But is the entertainer’s work, perhaps earning him well into six figures, really that much more important than the garbage collector’s work, which makes a direct contribution to public health? Is the loving care of a mother, who works for “nothing,” less important than the paid care provided for her child by a teacher at school? The U.S. study on Work in America concludes that no one is “worth a hundred times more than another merely because he is paid a hundred times as much.”

It is also unwise to judge work satisfaction on the basis of the prestige a certain type of work may seem to offer. What is important is accomplishment. To illustrate: An architect who has lost his knack for designing has less immediate reason for satisfaction, despite possible prestige, than does the janitor who succeeds in keeping his building spotless. Work should be seen within the framework of what it accomplishes for others, not just in the light of what it does for us in the way of salary or prestige. Learning to recognize this will increase our work contentment in harmony with the Bible principle that “there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.”​—Acts 20:35.

How to Increase Work Enjoyment

Strive for quality. Good work habits include setting goals of performance and then striving to reach them. But a word of caution: Goals should be practical and attainable. Otherwise, failure to achieve them will lead to discouragement and greater dissatisfaction. Be determined to give your best, but do not expect perfection.

Young people can lay a foundation for doing high-quality work by getting a good education. This does not mean going to college. Rather, mastering the arts of reading, studying and learning will enable them to develop new skills later in life and to improve upon the ones they have already acquired. Remember, the better our work, the greater the benefits for ourselves and others. So keep up to date with new developments in your field of work and adopt them if possible and when feasible.

Be conscientious. Work done well and completed on time promotes the satisfying feeling of accomplishment and is reason for unpretentious pride. It is also a blessing to others. On the other hand, work done in a negligent way can cost us our self-esteem, while costing others frayed nerves or possibly worse. For example, think of the potential damage that mechanics, doctors or nurses can do if they are negligent at their work!

Avoid getting into a rut. With time, everyone develops a certain pattern of doing things. To prevent this from deteriorating into a dull routine, some have found it helpful to change their work pattern from time to time. Perhaps the order in which certain tasks are performed can be changed. After all, there is no law that says Monday must be wash day, is there? Or must certain factory chores always be done in the same order?

Of course, not everyone can make big changes in his work pattern. But many an office worker has found that simply moving his desk to a new position has given him a new start and has added freshness to his work. Have those housewives with the reputation of being constant furniture movers discovered the same thing?

Keep physically fit. This is a must if you are to enjoy your work. Get enough sleep at night. Spend your weekends in such a way that you will not end up doing substandard work on a Blue Monday. That always-tired feeling can turn you into a clock-watcher or an I-can’t-wait-until-the-weekend worker. Why, then you may feel like nothing more than an inmate serving time in a prison!

Contribute to a cheerful atmosphere. Keep your own working space, as well as the lavatories and washrooms, as clean and neat as possible. You might be permitted to cheer things up with a potted plant or a tasteful picture. By trying to improve the environment, your example may catch on and give management the necessary push to make other desirable changes.

Be pleasant and friendly. Doubtless you would not want to join your workmates in questionable practices, but you can still follow the Scriptural counsel: “If possible, as far as it depends upon you, be peaceable with all men.” (Romans 12:18) Do not allow differences of opinion or personality clashes to disrupt the work flow. Avoid confrontations. Above all, do not allow the discontentment of others to rub off on you. Keep a positive spirit. Why should you be miserable just because others may be?

Keep the mind alert. So-called dull jobs are generally those that require little or no mental effort. If your work is in this category, then it may be a real challenge to keep your mind active. Try meditating on previously learned material. Of course, this is no encouragement to daydream on the job or to create hazards by thinking about other things while doing work that requires concentration. But for work that does not fully occupy the mind, keep it alert by giving it something to do.

Persevere! Do not allow problems that may arise at work to rob you of your contentment. Either solve them or learn to live with them. Apply the Scriptural principle: “Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good.”​—Romans 12:21.

Be balanced. Hard work is a good thing. But too much of a good thing does not automatically make it better. Persons to whom work is everything (more important than friends or family) are called workaholics. They lack balance. Although their extremely heavy work schedule may make them happy, it seldom makes those who must work or live with them happy.

A workaholic should not be deceived into thinking he is being driven by sheer love for work. The underlying cause may very well be a feeling of insecurity or a spirit of ambition, even greed. It may be a vain “striving after the wind” that can lead to serious personal problems and even to an early grave. The Bible’s counsel is to “do hard work,” but workaholics ignore its statement that “better is a handful of rest than a double handful of hard work and striving after the wind.” Work can only be enjoyed to the full when it is kept in proper balance with other activities.​—Ecclesiastes 4:6; Ephesians 4:28.

By doing some of the things just mentioned, you may make your work more pleasant. But, besides that, did you know that work can prolong your life?

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For work satisfaction, accomplishment is important

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Conscientious work brings happiness

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A cheerful atmosphere can make work pleasant

In the long run, those of retirement age who devote much time to travel and hobbies do not find them totally satisfying. Why? Because these activities are not work that produces “something of value for other people.” Only by doing things for others​—to the extent that health and circumstances permit—​can our satisfaction be maintained.