What Is Work

What Is Work?

Over the last couple of weeks our class has been discussing the different definitions of work we have to day in our society. Since working is one of few necessities to survival it is a common thing and has been the main point of many lives for many generations. We are so familiar with the term, however when one is asked to define the word it becomes such a struggle. One can say work is laboring on a farm all day, but it can also be just sitting at a desk and using your brain or not using your brain at all. This term can be very broad and cover so many categories. Although if one was to look up the word work in Oxford American College Dictionary it states that work is, "an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result". My definition is somewhat similar. I believe that work is an act that a person has performed to gain or not to gain a reward or incentive.

When people speak of work, it is usually about the occupation or job they do to make money and provide for themselves or their family. When choosing a job some strive to find the one that will make them the happiest; something that they can wake up in the morning and be excited to go to. Then there are those who just need a job to make quick money whether they like it or not. In reality people are now strung out on living out what is known as the "American Dream". The American Dream is a dangerous deception that the American society all needs to wake up from. Movies always depict the American Dream as having a big house surrounded by a white picket fence, a dog, and two kids. Although many people own a house, it turns out that they are less happy than when they lived in an apartment. Many people work all their lives to obtain the goal of living the American dream. In Richard Sennett's passage "No Long Term: New Work and the Corrosion of Character", he speaks of a man who was a janitor for 20 years; "His work had one single purpose, the service of his family" (165). He did whatever he could to make sure his family was happy and so they could live the life that was only a dream to some people. "It had taken him fifteen years to save the money for a house, which he purchased in a suburb" (Sennett 165). Happiness is based on living within your means and developing relationships with people you love and respect.

There are many instances where work does not even involve the receiving of money. Mothers have been working since the beginning of time. Moms have taken over the jobs of cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and punishing. The definition here is basically putting for the physical or mental effort to accomplish a task. This type of work is also done in sports. Athletes must physically work there bodies by exercising to the point where they almost pass out to accomplish the goal of getting stronger. As for the mental aspect, students are a great example. School students are learning new things every day to work to gaining the maximum knowledge they need to graduate.

We are beginning to see more and more lower class citizens in our country every day. This category of people ranges from those who are homeless people to those in decently paid jobs who will attempt to get their children into the middle classes. Now lower class citizens' definition of work is pretty much putting forth everything they have to actually survive to see another day. These lower class members are basically at the very bottom of the money earning ladder. Lower class citizens always have trouble making ends meet. The members of the lower class have jobs such as maids, servants, bathroom attendants, and street cleaners. In Barbara Ehrenreich's passage "Nickel and Dimed" she describes a moment when she was actually working one of these low class jobs, a maid. Ehrenreich's passage implies that maids are not paid very well and that these women are very much below the poverty line. There are many signs of poverty in this passage but the one that stood out the most was when the maids wanted to stop and get something from a convenience store and she says, "I haven't brought any money with me and we cannot put together $2 between the four of us" (Ehrenreich 223). Lower class jobs are usually not the easiest because they work more to get paid less. Most likely the jobs that are available require manual labor. One thing can be concluded, the life of a lower class person can be defined as a life of work. Whether a person is a slave, a farmer, or a free poor individual, they are going to live a hard life in which they are forced to earn everything they get.

To today's middle class citizens, work is not a subject to be taken lightly. Work, to the middle class, means immensely applying oneself, whether physically or mentally. Parents and even lay people work shift, or strenuous hours of exertion, to continue to acquire wants as well as needs. To the middle class, work is not an option. These middle class workers usually comprise of white collar jobs such as clerical, sales or managerial occupations. The wealth obtained by them varies from hardship, which is working from paycheck to paycheck, to even comfortability, allowing citizens to live comfortably. In Robert Reich's passage "Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer", these people are