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Al Gini is a member of the Department of Philosophy and the Institute of Human Resources and Industrial Relations at Loyola University Chicago. He is co-founder and Associate Editor of the journal Business EthicsQuarterly, Senior Consultant for the Ethical Leadership Group, and a regular commentator on Chicago's NPR affiliate, WBEZ.

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Why do we work? And why do we work so obsessively? Al Gini observes that work rules, runs, and sometimes ruins our lives. But what is intriguing is that in spite of this, many of us come to love, or at least need, that which holds us captive. In this provocative, lively, and sometimes disturbing meditation, Gini reveals that work is not only a fundamental aspect of our humanity, but also a profound reflection of our deepest selves. Peppered with real voices from workers and employers across America, and with references from psychology, history, popular literature and economics, My Job, My Self speaks to every employed person who has yet to understand the costs and challenges of a lifetime of labor.

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My Job, My Self

Brunner-Routledge

Chapter One

You Are What You Do

Career and identity are inextricably bound up, indeed they are almost equivalent.

?Douglas LaBier

                      In the last scene of Arthur Miller's Deathof a Salesman, Willy Loman's family and friends are standing at his graveside,saying their goodbyes, and reflecting on the character and legacy ofthe deceased. Willy, they suggest, was a dreamer, a schemer, a talker andteller of tall tales, a con man constantly searching for the big score. Butfor all of his big talk and even bigger dreams, both his mouth and hisideas were too large for his talents and abilities. Willy, they say, was afailure. But even worse, he was the kind of failure who could neveradmit it, either to himself or to others. And so right up to the end, Willywent on dreaming and scheming and hoping for that one big sale tocome along and set him up for life.

    Only one of those gathered at Willy's grave defends him. "Nobody... blame this man," he says. "You don't understand: Willy was asalesman.... A salesman has got to dream.... It comes with the territory."It was Willy's job to smile, talk a lot, glad-hand one and all, sayshis defender. His job was to sell himself, sell his dream and his ideas, sellhis product. It was his job that made him what he was.

    The saying "it comes with the territory," from Miller's play, is nowpart of the lexicon. It conveys an acceptance of all the parts of a job andof doing whatever you must in order to get the job done. Perhaps WillyLoman was a failure and a fool because he didn't recognize that he hadneither the temperament nor the talent for his chosen profession, butbeing a salesman shaped him; it drew out the best and the worst in himand made him what he was. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, first wechoose and shape our work, and then it shapes us?forever.

    Whether we have a good job or a bad one, whether we love it or hateit, succeed in it or fail, work is at the center of our lives and influenceswho we are and all that we do. Where we live, how well we live, whomwe see socially, what and where we consume and purchase, how we educateour children?all of these are determined by the way in which weearn a living.

    But work is not just about earning a livelihood. It is not just aboutgetting paid, about gainful employment. Nor is it only about the use ofone's mind and body to accomplish a specific task or project. Work isalso one of the most significant contributing factors to one's inner lifeand development. Beyond mere survival, we create ourselves in ourwork. In his classic article "Work and the Self," Everett C. Hughesargued that work is fundamental to the development of personality. Becausework preoccupies our lives and is the central focus of our time andenergies, it not only provides us with an income, it literally names us,identifies us, to both ourselves and others. Hughes was convinced thateven when we are dissatisfied with or dislike the work that we do, choiceof occupation irrevocably "labels" us, and that we cannot understand aperson unless we understand his or her work and how he or she dealswith it.

    In the long run work can prove a boon or a burden, creative or crippling,a means to personal happiness or a prescription for despair. But nomatter where we might wind up on this spectrum, where we work, howwe work, what we do at work, and the general climate and culture of theworkplace indelibly mark us for life. Work is the means by which weform our character and complete ourselves as persons. We literally createourselves in our work. To restate the old Italian proverb tu sei quello chemangi (you are what you eat), in regard to work: tu sei quello che fai (youare the work you do). Work is a necessary and defining activity in the developmentof the adult personality.

    According to theologian Gregory Baum, "Labor is the axis of humanself-making." We both establish and recognize ourselves in our work.Work allows us to find out what we can do and cannot do, how we areseen by others and how we see ourselves. In work we discover ourboundaries and limits as well as our capacities for success. Work is theyardstick by which we measure ourselves against others. It is the meansby which we establish our rank, role, and function within a community.Work not only conditions our lives; it is the necessary condition for life.Men have always known this, and have accepted it as part of their lot. Asone forty-five-year-old machinist put it, "Being a man means being willingto put all your waking hours into working to support your family. Ifyou ask for [too much] time off, or if you turn down overtime, it meansyou're lazy or you're a wimp." As more and more women have enteredthe workplace, they too have been forced to confront this fundamentaltruth of adult existence: Not having a job means you're a person withoutsalary, stuff, or status.

    Assuredly other factors enter into the equation of self-identity; forexample, genetic inheritance, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation,religious training, and family background. But even with all of these,work remains an irreducible given, the most common experience ofadult life. The lessons we learn at work help formulate who we becomeand what we value as individuals and as a society. Whatever the conditionsof our labor, work shapes us and, unfortunately, often malforms us.But, for good or ill, work makes us human because we make somethingof ourselves through work, and in so doing we recognize ourselves andothers in the task of working. And yet, as E. F. Schumacher has indicated,despite the centrality of work in human life, the question?"Whatdoes the work do to the worker?" is seldom asked. Workers andscholars alike regularly debate the benefits as well as the drawbacks ofparticular jobs in specific industries, but only rarely do they address theoverall impact of work on the psyche and character of the worker.

The core of Karl Marx's writings is his critique of capitalism as an economicsystem and his attack on bourgeois society as an unjust socialstructure. For Marx, capitalism engenders the consolidation of capital,the concentration of power, the continuous manipulation of the marketand merchandizing, the perpetuation of poverty, and the reification ofsociety into the disproportional dominance of the "haves" over the "have-nots."A significant part of Marx's critique that is sometimes overlookedis his analysis of the specific effects of work on the character and identityof the individual worker, as is Marx's conviction that work is the primarymeans by which we become persons. Marx argued that the factory systemalienated or disassociated workers from their work and consequentlystripped work of personal meaning and purpose. He maintained thatmechanized "conditions of production" (industrialization) denied workersresponsibility and creativity. According to his analysis, capital investment,machinery, the industrial process, and the product became moreimportant than people. The owners and managers of industry looked onworkers not as subjects, but as objects,...