Working For A Living — And Loving It

On the one hand I am amazed that somebody actually noticed that employees with more control on the job are happier. On the other hand, I am amazed nobody thought of this.

I am certain none of you remember the industrial revolution, as it happened a while ago.  To my amazement and delight, internet to the rescue.  Really, you can learn about anything you feel like learning on this internet thing.

The great thing, I think, is that this 18th and 19th century period was full of inventions and improvements in the standards of manufacture that made the standard of living better for a lot of folks. The bad thing is the human toll.  Working women and children in particular had no laws to protect them.  People did not know about factories and production and what it would do to people. I remember reading a long time ago about how rebellious the first factory workers were, rebellious at the outset.  People had been living primarily on largely self-sufficient farms.  Nobody told them when they had to start work and end work and such.  So it really is not any surprise, given the fact that a relatively low alcohol content grog was the main drink available, that people went out for grog breaks as frequently as they could manage.  They concentrated poorly and required direction from a management that could probably only be seen as repressive, no matter what they said or did.

In any sector known to me, including animal research, it is well known that a lack of control causes stress.  For example, if you really want to give a mouse an ulcer, you restrain it (tie down, gently, a little mouse footsie or something) and keep it far enough from the food access and it will start to develop a mouse-ulcer. So of course humans, taken from independent control of their work to factory type situations, are going to get sick.  Blood pressure rises, mental health declines; I really do have some ultra serious reasons to believe these things.

Work can be horrible.  I really do not know anybody who does not complain to me that he or she has the worst and most stressful job in the world. So it ought to be at least a little self-evident that one of the best things we can do is to give workers as much control as possible over their work.  This might also give them pride in their work. I remember in the 60’s — and forward — people praising the value of handmade goods, individual craftsperson shops, and the like.  Lovely, but prices go up, so we need the people who make these goods to know how to target the affluent consumer. Some know, some don’t.  I believe an upholsterer told me once that the way to be successful in upholstery is to specialize in exacting restoration of historical eras, and market to those who can afford them.  Makes sense to me. Similar strategies ought to work in pretty much any and every line of work.

But what about factory workers?  In America we have come up with labor unions.  Protection of rights is what we are and should be all about.  In  history we learned about the Triangle shirt company fire, where people perished because of poor unsafe working conditions.  Women and children, of course.  My own grandmother of blessed memory tried that kind of sewing-work, when she first got to America, and could not last more than a couple days for opting as housewifery for a life, although she did march once with the suffragettes.

I don’t think people realized then what we realize now, even though we don’t much want to admit it.  People simply need to connect to their work and have some control over it in order to take pride in it. There may be other ways, besides the adversarial labor movement of America, to do this.  After all, social experiments that end up in “us
versus them” seem to turn out scarily and poorly. I am reminded of the social experiment of the Oneida commune in upstate New York.  They had to bring in competent people to make a certain quality of product.  Although the name “Oneida” is still famous in silverware, there was a hostility between workers and management that was considered, over a century ago, to be responsible for the closing of the then commune.

The Japanese were relative latecomers to the Industrial Revolution, which had originated in Europe.  At one time their factory administration model, with aggressive participation by workers in the determination of the agendas of their own workplaces was taken as exemplary.  Now, I can’t find a single article on the net which has divorced their idea of work from politics.  I can’t find anything I consider worthy of presentation. By now, I guess I consider politics a cheap pseudo-science. To their credit, the authors of the article cited at the outset of my article admit that the notion of control over the working hours and conditions may be limited to more upscale jobs, and there were relatively few situations studied.

One of the “happiest” mental health clinics I know encourages bringing food to the workplace.  As my cooking skills are limited or non-existent, depending on how stringent the assessment of quality may be, I have brought in doughnuts.  Others have sent in bagels.  Getting in humor takes a crowbar, but is still an objective, I hear.

Control makes happy, it is self-evident, but an attempt at control can also misfire and make things work.  That is where management can help. Working together sure works better than “us vs. them” You would think that everyone would know by now. One of the biggest disappointments of my life was when I found out that Darwinian evolution did NOT apply specifically to humans. In other words, there will be no selective hyper-success for smart people.  People will not get smarter and smarter. People who control others may just find their agendas perpetuated. Life can get better for all.

It takes thought.  It takes listening to the sciences which we have fostered, and applying them.