"Both work and life should be much more than 'bearable.'"

Amen.

:: Douglas Rushkoff - Weblog :::

"A Harvard Business School professor told me that more than half of his students leave their corporate jobs within two years, disgusted not just by the company for which they worked, but 'the whole world of business.' Invariably, they choose jobs or start their own companies in order to participate in projects they feel offer meaning and fun. In a recent study of American workers by the Radcliffe Public Policy Center, 64 percent said they would prefer more time to more money, and 71 percent of young men said they would give up pay for more time with their families.

In their crude efforts to make work more fun, however, most companies are missing the point. Employers are busy installing foosball tables, hiring chefs, and building gyms for their increasingly disgruntled employees, but these are just ways of trying to make a bad situation more tolerable. (or to coax employees into spending long hours away from home) A foosball table is not the sign of a fun place to work; it's a glaring symbol that work is not fun and employees need a break. Why would they rather be playing foosball than doing whatever it is they've been hired to do?

Many have argued that it’s immature and idealistic to believe that everyone,or even a majority of people,should be allowed to enjoy their jobs. In the words of one dark New York TimesOpEd piece, 'We're still just means of production....Work is often more bearable when we don’t, in addition to money, expect it always to deliver happiness.' The same might be said for life itself, particularly when our duty to perform an economic function extends from what we can produce to what we can consume. Both work and life should be much more than 'bearable.'"