Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ttidcc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!ttidca!ttidcc!hollombe From: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath) Newsgroups: net.social Subject: Re: Work Ethic Message-ID: <441@ttidcc.UUCP> Date: Thu, 23-May-85 14:47:02 EDT Article-I.D.: ttidcc.441 Posted: Thu May 23 14:47:02 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 22:23:00 EDT References: <686@udenva.UUCP> Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath) Distribution: net Organization: The Cat Factory Lines: 65 Summary: In article <686@udenva.UUCP> ehenjum@udenva.UUCP (Jack Lindsey) writes: > Is work >something that we must simply tolerate in order to make the $$ to buy >that VCR and keep groceries in the 'fridge, or are the $$ only part of >the reason for working? Most of us spend 40+ hours/week at this >activity, so perhaps a fuller understanding of why we are doing it is >worth seeking. By coincidence this subject was covered in some depth last night in a course in "The Human Side of Systems" I'm taking at UCLA. It seems there are a lot of factors involved in job satisfaction and not all of them act as one might expect. I don't have my notes with me, but here's some of what I recall: It's important not to confuse job context with job content. Context includes such things as retirement plans, health insurance, and even salary and raises. The theory is that these things can't make you happy at your work. Their abscence will make you unhappy but there presence only returns you to a not-unhappy condition. Job content is where your job satisfaction really comes from. This is where the concepts of meaningful and creative work come into play. For a person's work to be meaningful to them certain conditions must be met. An analogy was drawn with the activities of a bowling team. On the face of it, rolling a ball at some pins is a pretty simple, mindless activity -- much more so than most of our jobs -- yet people pay for the privilidege of doing it. The motivations are revealed by changing certain aspects of the game and watching the results. First, suppose you're rolling a ball down an alley with no pins at the end. You'd get pretty bored with that in a hurry. Suppose you had to do that all day? Second, suppose the pins are there but there's a curtain across the alley so you can't see them. You have to rely on someone else to tell you how many you hit, or you get no information about it at all. Suppose you didn't think you could trust the person who was giving you the information. While these analogies aren't perfect, the parallels in many work environments are easily drawn. Assembly line workers who never see the final product and get only intermittent feedback on their performance are an obvious case. Of course, if you had to punch a timeclock and bowl 8 hours a day, every day, you'd get pretty fed up with that eventually. Having some say in how and when things get done in the work environment is also important to job satisfaction. Personalities also come into the equations. Some people actually like mindless, monotonous jobs because they have time to think or talk with their co-workers while working. I could go on for a while, but this is getting too long for a first reply. I think Mark Twain had the right idea, anyway. As he put it: "Work is what one is obliged to do. Play is what one is not obliged to do." -- -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe) Citicorp TTI 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90405 (213) 450-9111, ext. 2483 {philabs,randvax,trwrb,vortex}!ttidca!ttidcc!hollombe