Translator: Skylar Cheng Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen “And you? What do you do for a living? ” It's the question we've all asked dozens and dozens of times.
A few years ago, I was at friends’ house for a party and I didn’t know most of the people. Invariably, the same scene repeated itself. A stranger, let’s call him Gérard, asks me innocently, after a few seconds of chatting: “And you, what are you doing?
” And strangely, this time, the question seemed a bit silly to me. I wanted to tell him: “Well, listen, I’m eating a dry and fatty puff pastry. ” Of course, I understood that Gérard wanted to know what my job was, my function, what allowed me to live and pay my bills.
Why is it so common to define yourself by work? And why do I have a problem with that? It gives me the feeling of being stuck, of being frozen, of being squeezed into a box and of not being able to expand beyond my function.
And above all, how is it possible to define yourself by work when you know that 85% of jobs in 2030 do not yet exist in their current form? That day, I realized to what degree work has social value. It structures our lives.
It gives rhythm to our days. Subway, work, sleep. It is in all speeches, especially political ones.
We are told to work more. . .
to earn more. But it is also present in family discourse. When I was a child, my father, a farmer here in Picardy, told us: “You have to work hard at school in order to have a good job later.
” And he often added: “Otherwise, you will come and milk the cows with me. ” So I worked hard at school, I did what was expected of me and I got what is supposed to be a good job. What is a good job?
Well, the story doesn’t say that. A priori, no need to milk the cows. But other than that, I had no other explanations.
So I looked around me. I saw that for some, a good job is a secure job that’s not too tiring. For some, a good job is a paid job.
For others, it’s a kind of social representation, an identity, a positive and flattering image of who they are, an expression of their ego, in fact. “I work, therefore I am. ” So if Gérard asked me: “What do you do for a living?
” I could have answered him: “I am a good job. ” But are we human “beings” or human “doings”? So for a long time, I was a human “doing” trapped and torn between the value I placed in work and the meaning I really found in it.
A kind of bitter feeling of “All that for that? ” And in the background, there was this kind of invisible injunction from society. I was supposed to like what I did because I had a good job.
So if I’m being honest with you, I would rather not work. But you too, look at your neighbor. There’s one chance out of two that he does not like his job.
(Laughter) (Whispers in the audience) I think the noise speaks for itself. And even worse, 48% of French people say they agree with the following statement: “Money is the only reason I go to work. ” So not liking your job seems banal, but it’s also legitimate.
First of all, because working is not a pleasure but a constraint, a necessity to provide for our needs. And also because work is not easy every day. It’s a kind of suffering.
Seven out of ten French people say that their job is nervously tiring. Musculoskeletal disorders remain the leading cause of occupational diseases in France. In this context, defining yourself by work may seem paradoxical, even insane.
Because, in the end, we define ourselves by a constraint, a suffering. I think it will not surprise anyone to know that among the few supposed etymologies for the word “work”, one of them is the Latin word “tripalium”, an instrument of torture intended for slaves. Brilliant!
Other linguists think that the word is a derivative of the word “hindrance. ” Voilà, it’s no better. So, what do we do?
Faced with suffering at work or the loss of meaning, we may be tempted to leave everything, to go and milk the cows, to cultivate our garden, but that is rarely a realistic option. The question is to rethink the way we work to create surroundings and spaces for celebration. And that is precisely the proposal of the liberated company.
In my professional life, I have been able to collaborate with this type of company. And no, it’s not putting table football in the break room. That’s not the liberated company.
The liberated company wants to rethink the way they work, offer employees more autonomy and leave them free to choose how and at what pace they work. Rather than a pyramidal hierarchy, one is in a horizontal system instead, even a circular system, in which interactions take place in a much more fluid way. And so naturally, employees are no longer confined to one role, but they are naturally led to take on more responsibilities.
That is the key idea. The liberated company proposes to reinvigorate the mission of employees and thus allows increased employee satisfaction, commitment, but also better company performance. So I tell myself that the liberated company may be a solution for those French people who say they do not like their job.
But am I ready to be freed by a liberator boss? And you? Is it a real liberation to be freed by someone else?
If the liberated company offers a possible response, an organizational and collective one, it is not the ideal solution. But nothing is. So what are my options?
What are my individual options if the collective response is not enough? I realized that I had to tread other paths and I followed other leads. I listened to all the TED talks on the subject.
I read a lot of books on work, and it was very, very interesting, but also very, very guilt-inducing. I was told that I had to find my life mission. Even there, I felt like a failure - I still don’t know what my life mission is.
After all, my life mission is to live, right? A friend advised me: “Make your passion your job, so you’ll never feel like you’re working again. ” A brilliant idea, really.
So I trained to become a yoga teacher. And then, in parallel with my work, I started teaching right and left. My passion has become a constraint.
So I finally realized that I had to stop searching for answers outside, but to search, to find my path inside. So I started an inner journey, an exploratory journey. I think it’s interesting that other linguists - again - see perhaps another etymology for the word “work.
” The prefix “tra” evokes movement. [The French word for work is “travailler”] Work would be a crossing, a transport, even a transformation. In English, the word “travel” refers precisely to travel.
And I like that. I work to experiment, to grow as a human being, to have life experiences, to move forward. For example, to experiment with stupid colleagues.
It is an experience like any other that allows me to progress and grow, to learn patience and tolerance. So I don't work for work. Work is not an end in itself, it’s just a means, a way to experiment.
There is this sentence from Khalil Gibran's “Prophet” that particularly resonates: “All work is empty, unless it contains love. Because working with love is connecting with others, connecting with oneself. Working is love made visible.
” In the end, it doesn’t matter what I do, what’s important is how I do it. And you, tomorrow? Accountant, baker, banker, project manager, business manager, European region developer, how can you bring meaning back into your work by being who you are?
How can you embody your function and exude who you are in what you do, to work more authentically, with love, in fact, according to your own authenticity? In the end, I freed myself from suffering at work by toning it down, by considering it for what it is: a simple means. Loving what we do or not does not define the success of our life.
And that doesn’t define me as a person. Just because my job is worthless doesn’t mean I’m worthless. So when Gérard asks me: “What do you do for a living?
” Well, in the end, it’s me who decides to interpret it as: “What is your job? ” The simple fact that I interpreted it that way actually said a lot about how I understood work in my life. Unbearable suspense reigns in the room.
You are probably asking yourself: “But what does she do? ” I do the same job as before, but differently. I work in human resources.
I started my business a few years ago. Work is not always easy, but I do it in an authentic way and with the love that I have in me. The questions that have helped me on this journey are: “Why do I do it?
“Who do I work for? ” “And how? ” So, at the break that’s coming up soon or at the next cocktail party at a friend’s, when you approach a stranger, ask him, “Who are you?
“What are you passionate about? ” “What makes you laugh? ” ” I think that at that moment, you will touch something more profound than what is “done”, and much more inspiring: you will see a being, and that is what’s important.
As for me, I’ll leave you now, I’m going to finish my puff pastry.
