Prof. Chris Raffensperger
Professor of History and Chair of the Department
Kenneth E. Wray Chair in the Humanities
Director, Ermarth Institute for the Public Humanities
Medieval Europe, Russia, Ukraine
It may have been Henry David Thoreau, or perhaps M.C. Rob Base, who said, "Joy and Pain, like sunshine and rain." The relevance to our topic is clear: while joy and pain, or drudgery for that matter, are in opposition to one another, they are much more akin to two sides of a coin. Both rain and sunshine are required to make the world fertile for crops, trees, and everything else. In the same way, the joy of work cannot be appreciated without the drudgery.
In our profession, such as it is, faculty have plenty of opportunities for both joy and drudgery. In the same class, I can call on three or four different people before getting the correct answer to what I imagine is an easy question; and then moments later have a student make an excellent connection between last week's material and this week's. The former may be the anecdote I share with colleagues, but it is the latter that I hang onto as motivation to go back and do it all again the next day.
All jobs are like this. The workplace comedy is a popular genre because nearly everybody goes to work and thus most can relate. "The Office" is, perhaps, the most successful example of the genre, showcasing the titular joys and pains of the workplace. The drudgery of meetings and motivational seminars enlivened by office flirtation and pranks on Dwight.
"Waiting," the movie, and "Party Down," the TV show, both function in a different kind of office, the service industry. The servers are all people who have dreams and are waiting for them to actualize in some manner, and while they wait they, well, wait tables. The drudgery is quite clear for anyone who has worked in the service industry. But the joy, that is the part that keeps one coming back. Again, there is romance and flirtation, and again there are jokes and pranks.
The through line, or telos as Dr. Jackson likes to say, is that joy in work is not only possible, but should be prized as a goal in and of itself. Further, the joy most often comes from interactions with other people. Even for the introverted academic, finding someone who has read their book, and maybe even enjoyed it, is always a happy moment. All of which is not to say that the actual work of teaching, research, and writing that academics do is joyless without people, it isn't. There can be pure joy in pursuing your own interests. However, for myself, I typically find that when I have found something interesting, or written something which I think is good, my first instinct is to share it with a friend.
Jobs are part of our lives and unless you are independently wealthy (and if you are, please call me, I have some investment opportunities!), you have to work, and thus it might be important to put the joys of work forefront in your mind and privilege those over the (many, monotonous) moments of drudgery.
In the popular TV series "The Office," employees often get on each other's nerves, especially these guys—Jim Halpert (l), played by John Krasinski and Dwight Schrute (r), played by Rainn Wilson.
Prof. Ross Jackson
Associate Professor of Business & Economics
Program Director, Master of Science in Analytics
Management
Generalizations should always be met with great suspicion. To the degree to which they have broad application, they tend to be vague to the point of being both uninteresting and unhelpful. As an example, there is broad agreement among workers that having clean air and a ceiling that does not leak is preferable to breathing contaminated air or working under a faulty roof. Conversely, to the degree that generalizations are interesting, useful, and specific, they tend to exclude as many, if not more, as they accurately describe. All this is to say that any generalization, including this one, should be met with a healthy degree of skepticism. What follows is a generalization as to potential sources of joy and drudgery at work. And while I largely conform to the generalizations offered, this is not simply a litany of what I like or hate about work. I certainly know those things, but covering them here would be too idiosyncratic to be of use to thinking about how one might approach one’s career or manage the work of others.
Within organizational and motivation theory, Frederick Herzberg (1968) described a concept he referred to as “hygiene factors.” The name is derived in response to how hygiene tends to work professionally and socially. Having “poor hygiene” can generate negative outcomes. However, having “good hygiene” does not tend to generate positive outcomes. Rather, it simply tends to generate the absence of negative outcomes. With this in mind, Herzberg’s theory suggests that before one can motivate individuals, one must first address what is demotivating them. Or stated somewhat differently, one must fix whatever is the source for dissatisfaction. To the degree to which this theory is correct, it would make sense to address the sources of drudgery at work first, since they potentially impede the flowing of joy.
Admittedly, there is widespread differences as to work preferences. Some people find comfort in being told what to do; others chafe at dressage. However, it has been my experience that two types of assignments tend to contribute to a sense of drudgery at work. Both are relatively easy to prevent. The first form is the assignment of “thankless tasks.” These are assignments that need to be accomplished, but nobody (or very few) is going to be happy about it. To the degree to which these tasks are necessary, they are unavoidable. However, and somewhat ironically, just because they are thankless tasks, does not mean that individual performing cannot be recognized and appreciated for the work. There are thankless tasks. Managers should take extra care to be sure to thank the individual, or groups, performing these tasks. Unpopular and unwelcome too easily gets conflated with unnecessary. If a person performs an unpopular task well, that person should be recognized. This transforms the thankless task into one that highlights an individual’s professionalism. A second form of drudgery-inducing work is anything that required additional effort but turned out to be meaningless. Asking a person to “do more,” and then to have that investment be met with organizational apathy is a slap-in-the-face. It is hard to find joy at work when one is asked to do things nobody likes, nobody wants, and has no effect. It is hard to find joy when it feels like one is wasting one’s life.
However, many do find deep fulfillment and joy through work. Again, this is best understood individually. That being said, there are some commonalities as to what tends to bring joy at work. The first is a sense of belonging. This is not the same thing as being extroverted or being social. A sense of belonging is deeper than simply being sociable. Introverts crave a sense of belonging as much, albeit differently, as extroverts. A sense of belonging can contribute to the sense of joy one has about one’s work. The second aspect that can contribute to a sense of joy at work is the ability to be authentic. If one is able to be whoever one is, and have the expression of that uniqueness understood and respected, one will likely have a sense of joy as one works.
Work can be, and often is, either a site of drudgery or joy. Occasionally, it can be both simultaneously for a given individual. If one is interested in sustaining one’s own motivation or motivating others, it is important to understand what motivates is not necessarily the same as what demotivates. Joy tends to follow a sense of authentic belonging. This is something that we can all cultivate as we work with each other.
