Bruce Weik: Work at something that gives you satisfaction

Businesses are struggling to find workers. Many are saying it is this generation, the Millennials and Gen. Z. who are lazy and want everything handed to them. As I recall, they said the same about us Baby Boomers. The quest for meaningful, satisfying, and reasonably imbursed work is not new. What we are currently facing is just the reemergence of that quest, being played out by a generation of people who are struggling to make ends meet.

Our podcast this month explored this very topic. “Our relationship with our work?” We came to understand that our current shortage of workers is not easy to explain or understand. Studs Terkel, author, historian, broadcaster, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Chicago native, now deceased, interviewed numerous workers for his book, “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day, And How They Feel About It,” Written in 1974. It could just as well have been written last week.

“It (work) is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is a part of the quest.”

“As the automated pace of our daily jobs wipes out name and face, and in many instances, feelings, there is a sacrilegious question being asked these days. To earn one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow has always been the lot of mankind. As least, ever since Eden’s slothful couple was served with an eviction notice. The precept was never doubted. Not out loud, no matter how it dulls the senses and breaks the spirit, one must work. Or else.”

I guess, some almost 50 years after this was written, we have come face to face with the “Or else.”

One thing working people can say: Nothing has ever been given to us. Big business-corporations, seldom have offered up freely anything that helps the worker. The 40-hour work week, five days per week, eight hours per day, vacation pay, holiday pay, retirement plans, safety laws, child labor laws, all have been fought for with blood, sweat, and tears.

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The long quest for economic equality has been struggling over the last years. People are asking the age old questions that have always been asked: Why work to make the CEOs and corporations rich while we can barely get by, sinking deeper and deeper into debt?

Our work and our labor are but one of the many questions being asked today. Economic justice is but one of the topics being discussed. Women’s rights, the right to control their own bodies, civil rights, racial justice, climate control, all are being called into question by this new generation. The new generation is taking nothing for granted, including being typecast into the sex you are born into.

These are dangerous times. Now, more than ever, the change makers are being called commies, socialists, anti-capitalists, evil liberals. But now is not the time to cower. Now is the time to be fearless. To take more risks. To practice civility. To speak up and show up.

People ask me if it is time to pass the torch. They remind me I’m getting old. Time to sit back and let the younger generation take over. My answer is: not unless I died last night.

So work if you must. Do something you feel good about, that gives you satisfaction and makes you feel worthwhile. Don’t accept a boss who demeans you and constantly puts you down. Weekly, remind them what you are worth. Ask them if they would like to live on minimum wage for a month. If at all possibly, prepare yourself for tomorrow. Don’t lay back and expect people to give you anything. Together let’s find an answer to the “Or else.” The answer is there, but we have to talk about it.

Bruce Weik, was a longtime columnist for The Zephyr, and is co-creator of Many Paths Galesburg since 2019.

This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Bruce Weik: Work at something that gives you satisfaction