Company by Max Barry. ISBN: 9781400079377.
Probably the biggest concept I dealt with in Company
was the concept that not only are we saddled with these awful jobs that
don’t give us respect as people or recognize that we are there to work
and have meaningful existence elsewhere, we deserve them.
In
a way, we might deserve to get taken advantage of by work if we allow
that to happen, but it was something that I had never really considered
before. Even in my temp jobs, if people asked me to stay after and do
some extra work, I’d push things around in my personal life to make that
happen. If I was told to deliver things without compensation, I’d hop
in my car. I mean, all this work has to get me somewhere in the company,
right?
I had put a lot of my life up to that point into the idea of being a
writer/journalist. Anyone who does it can tell you that it’s an
incredibly absorbing profession – it’s really difficult to really be
able to find that line between you as a whole and you as the worker
sometimes. I feel like a lot of people have the same problem
distinguishing themselves from their work, even if what they do is a
dead-end temp job. It’s what we do to get by. It’s what we do to pay for the
other parts of our lives that define us. It’s who we are for now and
who we hate until 5 p.m., then we go home and remain upset because we’ve
got so much of ourselves packed in from the day that we don’t know how
to experience without exploding.
I
know it didn’t really strike me until I read that book. It seems so
simple, but I realized I am not a thing. I’m a person first, and I
happen to do this thing, second.
It
doesn’t directly change the way I work. I want to do a good job for my
boss, so I push hard and do things here and there, even if I don’t care
for the job. But it does change how work meets the rest of my life. I
try to put people first, rather than a job, in scheduling. If I already
have plans, I am unavailable to my job. What’s more reasonable? Build
relationships with people I’ll know my whole life, or clock in a little
more face time in the job I won’t have in five years?
It
also changed how I determined what type of work suits me best. I
realized I can work with people well and can empathize with them, even
if I am a little awkward, so I should stick where I can deal with
different people and personalities. I want to be socially responsible,
so I feel best about my work when I know it’s going to benefit others
somehow. I like things to be different from day to day, but I really
appreciate the chance to meditate while doing smaller tasks during the
work day.
I
don’t know if I really would’ve considered these things as strongly if I
hadn’t taken the time to realize who I am, and make what I do fit that,
rather than the other way around.
Kyle B. is some guy you've never heard of, but he's okay with that. He's a writer and journalist (also both a lover and fighter) that graduated from Kent State University a few years ago, with some slight gainful employment since. He loves to read but pretty much puts a new book back on the shelf if a couple of the first words on the jacket are "murder mystery" or "romance."
What I always hated was when I would be called in to work on my days off and I would usually feel obligated to come in or I'd feel guilty the rest of the day.
ReplyDeleteI never had that particular experience, but when I worked in insurance we sometimes had the option to work overtime. Once grad school really started getting underway I stopped taking it even though I really wanted to (I needed the money!). On one level I felt guilty because I knew our customers needed us, on the other hand the insurance company offered to little gratitude for our work and as our company was phasing out my job it made it difficult to even fathom giving up so much when they weren't willing to work with me (I had requested reduced hours and other concessions to try to reduce the amount of job related stress so I could focus on grad school).
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