This Too Shall Pass by Julia Samuel

Author:Julia Samuel [Samuel, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241983911
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

Reflections on Work

Working is good for us. We have to work to pay the bills, and we are meant to work, to produce. For some people their work defines them: it is who they are. For others a job is about putting food on the table. Shockingly, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, workers in poverty hit 4 million in the UK in 2017, meaning about one in eight in the economy are now classified as working poor. Yet according to a recent survey, the majority of people like or love their job, while only 10 per cent dislike theirs.

Work is central to our lives. It takes up the bulk of most people’s waking hours, forging their sense of purpose, meaning and identity in countless conscious and unconscious ways. For many people work is where their optimal selves thrive: they have potency and a sense of growth from seeing the impact of their labour, having a direction to travel and a team to work with. When our personal life can feel complex, or painful and uncontrollable, our work can sometimes be the saviour and fill the holes that other areas of our life cannot. For the 10 per cent who dislike their job (6 per cent actively hate it), work can be the place where they feel out of control, controlled, demeaned or just plain bored. Having no autonomy or a bad boss are among the key factors in people disliking or hating their jobs. Ideally, to have a sense of wellbeing we need every piece of the pie that makes up our life to be going well: our relationships, our health and our work. They are interconnected and shape each other. Research is clear, though, that those who don’t work fare worse on every measure.

Statistics: UK YouGov Survey 2017

When asked how much they like their job:

45% like their job

17% love their job

20% neither like nor dislike their job

10% dislike their job

67% of middle class asked like or love their job

55% of working class like or love their job

Women more likely than men to say they like/love their jobs: 68% vs 58%

When asked if they would rather have a job they hate that pays well or a job they love that pays poorly, 64% said they’d rather have a job they love that pays poorly

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