The Job Description

Posted on January 29, 2008
Filed Under Fake Culture, Society |

Obsession is a trait that I would apply towards how we perceive ‘The Job’. The job, of course isn’t merely our place of work or whatever other work it is we are doing. Working is something we do, whilst ‘The Job’ is a way of believing and behaving. The notion of a job has become somewhat of an institution within our society - that is to say, there are certain collective social expectations, ideals and etiquette which accompany many job roles.

Work tends to be more about performing a task to achieve a specific aim or result, in that regards there is a vast gulf between ‘work’ and ‘job’. Now, I don’t know if jobs have always been about more than just getting the work done. Perhaps there has always been a degree of institutionalized ideas surrounding any and all jobs. Yet the fact remains that is how things stand here and now - and it has been a prime reason in me leaving many a job.

Let’s consider the nature of working at a task for a moment - doing the laundry say. Washing clothes is a pretty mundane task, but it’s one of those things which needs to be done and it serves a useful purpose. Now most of us will have laundry experience - and we all do the task in our own way. Granted there are only so many ways you can load a washing machine, but generally there are no structures dictating to us the order in which we should load the machine, or the type of washing powder we may use etc. The same principle applies to gardening, cooking and cleaning. In fact it can be extended to nearly every task a person may ever undertake.

We learn how to do the task, and then take a dynamic evolving approach which may well vary vastly depending upon our personality and personal preferences. However ‘The Job’ takes a very different attitude towards dealing with any task; here rules, regulations, linearity, and authority are the name of the game.

Naturally one may argue that such dictates are required - that they bring structure as opposed to chaos, and stop devilish employees avoiding their delegated responsibilities. In short the ‘institution’ prevents collapse and encourages growth.

Yet think about the launderette worker who has spent a lifetime doing the work of washing their kids clothes. Once in the workplace it counts for nothing - for they are bound into following the rules of ‘The Job’. The truth is, there are only so many rules a person can follow before their individuality becomes striped away. That is the nature of institutionalized dogma; to prevent free action and free thinking.

“You do not need to think in order to do a Job. You only need follow the instructions.”

“Everything can be measured and everything can be quantified.”

I hear that sort of thing a lot. Yet the harder you push a person the more they will rebel. The more you try and openly quantify a person, the less you will be able to. And so harder and stricter rules are called in.

Rules are used in lines of programming code. A function (Job) is the purpose of a computer application.

Where then do people sit in that war between free-thinking and indoctrinated cult-like programming?

As I look about I see a growing number of people who are rebelling against this very system. There is a developing awareness which will shortly approach a critical mass, at which point all bets will be off. Maybe the system will clamp down harder for a while - but in so doing it will only cause more people to rebel in greater numbers.

In the end, people move away from unquestioningly seeing all of this as ‘being the natural order of things’ and towards realizing that these are simply mere systems created by a certain point of human perspective. That then is one of the first all important steps into awakening…