Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, It's Off To Work We Go

Still struggling to get back into the daily grind after Christmas and New Year, you may complain: why is he so cheerful? Or: Maybe he is just being ironic. Some may even assume that we are about to reflect on the classic 1937 Walt Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  No. In fact I am trying to say something about work. Work is good. Or at least it should be.

Many proverbs and fairy tales warn against idleness, celebrate the hard-working person over against the lazy. Work is also a theme in literature as varied as Charles Dickens, Horatio Alger and Sidney Sheldon, though their popularity lies, I suspect, more with the success of their protagonists than with hard work.

Sociologist Max Weber argued that the rise of Protestantism created a ‘work ethic’ that helped create modern capitalism. Like all grand theories it has its problems, but in some cases it seems uncannily accurate. Witness the parallel rise of Pentecostalism in Brazil and the rapid economic growth of the country.

So where’s the Catholic dimension to this? Happily, I can report that we Catholics also have something important to say about work. In Laborem Exercens (1981), John Paul II, echoing ninety years of Catholic Social Teaching on the subject, insists on the right to work, the right to just wages, but also on the dignity and creativity of work.

Let me concentrate here on the dignity and creativity of work. The first, dignity, may superficially be linked to social standing. Some jobs confer a certain social status: neurosurgeons, advocates, CEOs, professors and bishops, for example, are seen as ‘important’ people, while plumbers, motor mechanics, street repairers and cleaners are not. The former are considered to have intelligence, skills and special knowledge, for which they get honour and often high salaries. The latter – well, let’s not talk too much about them.

Unless, of course, you find that your drains are blocked, that your car has broken down, that the potholes in roads are themselves getting potholed, or that you survey the debris in your living-room left over from that New Year party! That’s when, if you’re honest, you revise your estimation of the dignity of these lowly ‘trades’. To how many professors (even engineering professors) or bishops would you entrust your car’s clutch?  How many CEO friends can unblock a drain?

And then, the question of creativity: great artists and scholars create beauty and knowledge. But all work, properly understood, can be creative. A skilled mechanic can create an optimally running car, gliding effortlessly over a superbly maintained road, taking a CEO to work where she creates wealth, provides new employment and enhancing quality of life, in a work environment made pleasant by a team of dedicated cleaners.

We know, of course, that this is not always the case. We all know that sinking feeling we get as we crawl out of bed for another day’s grind. But it needn’t be the case, nor should it be. Our challenge is to find ways to transform our work into something that is dignified and creative. While much can and should be done to make our work environment better, such transformation cannot on its own be achieved by legislation – It’s ultimately a disposition that we need from within.