What’s curious about “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is that it makes it sound like working is bad, which is the most un-American sentiment there is. In fact, Americans tend to believe work is what determines our morality and worthiness, so what drives the DWYL idea?
I once took a job at Whole Foods. I lasted three days. My co-workers were great, I liked the customers and the work itself was fine, but I came up against two big problems: the scheduling and the pain in my feet. Retail scheduling is brutal because there’s no regular pattern to your hours, but the foot pain. It started in hour four of my first seven-hour shift. Afterwards I hobbled to the train, grateful to sit. My feet were so sore I dreaded arriving at my stop and having to walk from the station to my apartment. On the second day, the pain started in hour two. After the third shift, I quit, unutterably grateful for the education that allowed me to move on to a job I could do sitting down.
Whole Foods taught me it’s okay to live for the end of the shift, especially for those without the privilege to choose between industries. Around that time I read an article by Miya Tokumitsu that made me realize that “do what you love” sounds downright absurd when you consider all the people who have no choice but to bus tables, clean hotels, pick fruit, etc. Earning a living doing what you enjoy is a lovely idea, but it’s elitist. Only those with certain advantages get to choose a career based on our preferences. You don’t have room to consider “what do I love to do?” when your only options are things you’d never want to do in your free time.
A friend once commented on how unpleasant an employee acted towards him. She wasn’t exactly rude, but she gave every indication that she didn’t want to help him or even be at work. My friend felt irritated and baffled by this behavior. If you don’t like your job, he figured, why stay there? His was the response of someone who has always had a choice about careers and who believes that if you don’t love your job, you’re not living right. I understand his view. I used to share it.
But consider how few resources most people have. In every ethnic demographic, the majority of Americans don’t graduate from college, so it’s not surprising how many unhappy workers there are. Before we judge them for not enjoying every moment, we might imagine the pain they’re in, which is probably physical, might be emotional, and is certainly financial. DWYL not only doesn’t support people with no choice about what they do for income, it doesn’t even acknowledge that they exist. The whole DWYL movement assumes everyone graduates from college with a degree they enjoyed earning and that will lead to a satisfying job.
But wait. DWYL also hampers college graduates who are led to believe they’re supposed to enjoy everything they do. In the spring of 2008 I was a temporary office worker alongside a freshly graduated young woman and we were both looking for permanent work. The office was trying to fill a position and I was surprised when my colleague told me she wasn’t applying for it. She was looking for more fulfilling work than administrative support. So I got the job and I was particularly glad to have it four months later when the recession caused opportunities to really dry up.
Even when we consider those who actually do love our work, DWYL is still a problem. We privileged workers who love our work so much that we’d do it even if we weren’t getting paid for it are vulnerable to — surprise — doing work we aren’t getting paid for. My 2008 job was at non-profit Rotary International where I worked for six years in their headquarters. During that time so many jobs were eliminated that some of my co-workers ended up doing the work of two or more people. It was a horrible situation, but Rotary culture included the belief that we were passionately changing the world, so it was all right if we didn’t earn what we were worth. Accepting salaries at the bottom of the market range was part of how we were contributing to the greater good. Non-profits like Rotary International are full of people willing to take poorly paid positions because they want to feel good about a job that helps others. They do hours and hours of work for which they never see a dime.
Then there’s the part of DWYL that maintains that people who actually have a good time doing their work don’t deserve to be fully paid for it. How many of us have frowned at the fees of a photographer, musician or other artist who we didn’t think should earn so much for having fun? DWYL causes us to devalue jobs that aren’t fun and jobs that are. It’s as if love of work must counterbalance amount earned, with the most pleasant jobs earning less than the more unpleasant, except that on the other end we don’t pay nearly enough for the rawest of manual labor. DWYL is a spectrum of hypocrisy.
What drives DWYL? People who don’t want to pay workers what they’ve earned. It’s an ideology that doesn’t acknowledge the reality of manual labor and makes others of us vulnerable to doing a lot of unpaid work. For those of us privileged enough to genuinely enjoy our vocations, DWYL eases the way for us to accept less compensation. The sentiment slips off the tongue like that “follow your bliss” one, but it’s insidiously anti-worker. It devalues — in real dollars — every kind of occupation held by the majority of Americans.
Before they retired, my father worked at a Veterans Administration hospital and my mother was a public school teacher. They liked their jobs well enough, but their passion lay elsewhere. They were extremely active in the Mexican American Political Association of Contra Costa County, California. Their chapter supported political campaigns, took on police commissions, faced down school boards and fought racism against Mexicans in whatever way it occurred.
To the end of her life, my mother helped organize food and clothing drives at her church and helped struggling families by digging into her own wallet. Giving to the community was where my parents’ hearts were. They modeled for me the dignity of doing what you have to do to pay the bills, and doing what you love after hours. DWYL didn’t cloud their vision. Their boundaries were clear and that’s how I try to live my life.
First published on Medium.
Well stated. Thank you.
You’re welcome.