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  • From: childers.paula AT epamail.epa.gov
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] hot or not: meaningful work
  • Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 16:57:11 -0500

Tom;

I just have to say, I've been considering for quite some time *becoming*
a lawyer simply so I *can* go do more meaningful work! However, the
type of lawyer work I would do would undoubtedly pay a lot less than I
make as a techie, but I still think I might feel better about myself at
the end of the day.

It all comes down to how you define meaningful. And frankly, what I
define as meaningful does not fit well with a profit-driven corporate
business model. Peace, justice, democracy, protecting the environment,
and civil rights are not aligned well with the profit motive. Note that
few of the people he mentions in the story as finding their "calling"
are still working in their ultra-corporate jobs. I just can't buy that
some people find deep meaning & fulfillment as Enron-style corporate
raiders... or as, say, the guy who sucks out porta-potties, either. The
guy who got into govt had months in bed to think - most of america's
lower classes don't have that kind of time, they have to work three jobs
to feed their kids.

Changing the face of work will take a shift in the consciousness of the
people doing the work, especially at the uper levels of society, to
drive the rest of it. Our society is not set up to provide enough
"meaningful" work at liveable wages even for those of us who go out
seeking such right now- nor are we (collectively) doing much to adjust
our ideas of success to embrace meaning over money. We are too busy
buying into the corporate patriot act. The article says "We are sitting
on a huge potential boom in productivity -- if we could just get the
square pegs out of the round holes." Well, no, that's just not it.
Meaning isn't found in MORE STUFF, whether you are buying it, selling
it, or making it. Productivity is not the right motivator. When will we
learn the answer is to stop trying to put pegs in holes in the first
place?

just my 2cents.





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