Maslow's hierarchy of jobs?
I was reading rosefox's post about not feeling like a writer because they don't identify with the narratives of not being able to do anything else/being so passionate about it/driven/attacked by muses. And I had many thoughts! (Surprising no one!) So many they didn't fit in a comment. So then I thought I could post in my own journal, which ok, I know is a surprising and revolutionary idea, but bear with me? (I also had thoughts about writers that didn't promote that kind of narrative, like Scalzi, who does a great job of talking about it like a job, but other people said that kind of thing in the comments already.)
I've been thinking a lot about jobs, careers, etc. I remember when I was a kid, my mother talked to me about the difference between a career - something my grandmother had, which basically devoured her life - and a job, which was something you did to the pay the bills. And despite the fact it kind of maybe hurt my grandmother in a lot of ways, it was definitely the better option if you could. People were lucky to have careers that they loved and consumed their lives. (And to be fair, I still feel like that. Which is partially, I think, a function of an ADD brain. I have a lot of trouble doing something unless I throw myself entirely into it.) But I've been at the same company for quite a while now and for most of that time it's been challenging and fun and I've learnt a lot. But right now it's not; the departments I set up are running smoothly and have become boring as a result. Fortunately, my bosses recognise this and things should be changing in the next couple months. But this led to a lot of thinking about what I want to do next and what direction I want to be building towards. And as a result I've been wrestling with the idea that we place value on certain types of work/skills. That I still feel - internally, family-wise and socially - that certain types of work are perceived as better than others. That creative things are "cooler", have a better legacy, will make a bigger dent in the universe, etc. And that something more business-y feels...like selling out in some way?
I suspect some of it is a narrative we build to compensate for lack of money or recognition, to tell ourselves that we struggle for *art* while people whose lives - at least visually - are easier are doing something less valuable.
I don't have this well-formed yet, but I keep thinking about it. I wonder what it's like in other fields? If I worked for Google, would it be the programmers who are the "artists" and managers are still kind of...support? What about business people/finance people? My brain wants to tell me they are boring people who sell out for money instead of doing good. Sadly the ones I've known tend to be people who cared about things like theatre but decided they needed to make a good living and weren't happy. But there must be people for whom that is their skill set and a kind of art or creativity?
I feel like at school - and at home - I was definitely taught there was a value hierarchy of types of work. There were creative fields - theatre, writing, etc. - and academic fields - pure science, math. Then came lawyers, politicians, doctors, "just" professors, programmers, diplomats, etc., that were still valuable jobs but not quite as laudable (I suspect banking would have been in here too, but weirdly not for me). Then teachers, builders/mechanics - who were really artists, nurses, etc. And kind of...then there was "other stuff"? And I'm not sure there was ever any differentiation between working the register at Macdonalds and...being a business consultant? Like, obviously if I'd thought about it I'd have known that Macdonalds versus office manager versus business consultant would pay differently, but...that was about it for my conception of it? The idea of other kinds of jobs was never really brought up? I don't remember like...admin or business-y people? Like operations! I had to *ask* my boss what a COO *did* when my company got one.
And there's definitely layers of privilege and class that I keep trying to unpack; my family were mostly journalists, so I didn't have other models there, and I went to a prep school. Do other schools talk more about other kinds of jobs? I do know a lot of people whose parents did one (or often many) of the ?? jobs. But most of those people rejected that (ok, I know a lot of writers:), so I don't know that many people who *did* see that as the path to follow. But how prevalent is this? Do we generally fail to teach children what the real world looks like and its wide variety of options? And does this come with the hierarchy built in? (With an awful side helping of "but you can't rise above your level, so you should just start out knowing that you're never going to be worth as much".)
And of course, my brain being stupidly self-critical, it's also a lot easier for me to look at other people doing things that aren't in a "creative" field and think they're still being creative and doing fascinating things and being fulfilled and having good lives, but if I follow that path, then I must a failure.
Ugh. Still not framing this well, but brain! How much are the narratives we tell ourselves/culture tells us built around not having a choice? Or that work shouldn't be "work" it should be a love affair or you should be swept up in it? I remember distinctly being told that if you had to work at writing, you weren't really a writer. That it would be tortuous - but I think mostly in terms of being wracked by passion and of course starving artist syndrome - but inherently, if you were a real writer it would just *flow* and be magical. It's not the only narrative I got about writing (journalists tend to be a *bit* more pragmatic than that) but there was definitely still a kind of "if you can do anything else and be happy then you aren't a real writer/dedicated enough/pure enough". Which definitely led to "and you are probably inherently a less interesting/valuable human being because you aren't Dedicated To Art."
But there are so many different ways to make positive things in this world and it seems like there are serious problems with a system that says only a few people, who have to struggle at it mightily, are actually that valuable to the world. And everyone else pretty much exists only to support/appreciate (or throw obstacles in their path) their work? I feel like I keep learning about entire new fields as well as new jobs in every field that I was just never really taught about at all. How on earth am I supposed to know what I want to do when I don't even know half the options??
I've been thinking a lot about jobs, careers, etc. I remember when I was a kid, my mother talked to me about the difference between a career - something my grandmother had, which basically devoured her life - and a job, which was something you did to the pay the bills. And despite the fact it kind of maybe hurt my grandmother in a lot of ways, it was definitely the better option if you could. People were lucky to have careers that they loved and consumed their lives. (And to be fair, I still feel like that. Which is partially, I think, a function of an ADD brain. I have a lot of trouble doing something unless I throw myself entirely into it.) But I've been at the same company for quite a while now and for most of that time it's been challenging and fun and I've learnt a lot. But right now it's not; the departments I set up are running smoothly and have become boring as a result. Fortunately, my bosses recognise this and things should be changing in the next couple months. But this led to a lot of thinking about what I want to do next and what direction I want to be building towards. And as a result I've been wrestling with the idea that we place value on certain types of work/skills. That I still feel - internally, family-wise and socially - that certain types of work are perceived as better than others. That creative things are "cooler", have a better legacy, will make a bigger dent in the universe, etc. And that something more business-y feels...like selling out in some way?
I suspect some of it is a narrative we build to compensate for lack of money or recognition, to tell ourselves that we struggle for *art* while people whose lives - at least visually - are easier are doing something less valuable.
I don't have this well-formed yet, but I keep thinking about it. I wonder what it's like in other fields? If I worked for Google, would it be the programmers who are the "artists" and managers are still kind of...support? What about business people/finance people? My brain wants to tell me they are boring people who sell out for money instead of doing good. Sadly the ones I've known tend to be people who cared about things like theatre but decided they needed to make a good living and weren't happy. But there must be people for whom that is their skill set and a kind of art or creativity?
I feel like at school - and at home - I was definitely taught there was a value hierarchy of types of work. There were creative fields - theatre, writing, etc. - and academic fields - pure science, math. Then came lawyers, politicians, doctors, "just" professors, programmers, diplomats, etc., that were still valuable jobs but not quite as laudable (I suspect banking would have been in here too, but weirdly not for me). Then teachers, builders/mechanics - who were really artists, nurses, etc. And kind of...then there was "other stuff"? And I'm not sure there was ever any differentiation between working the register at Macdonalds and...being a business consultant? Like, obviously if I'd thought about it I'd have known that Macdonalds versus office manager versus business consultant would pay differently, but...that was about it for my conception of it? The idea of other kinds of jobs was never really brought up? I don't remember like...admin or business-y people? Like operations! I had to *ask* my boss what a COO *did* when my company got one.
And there's definitely layers of privilege and class that I keep trying to unpack; my family were mostly journalists, so I didn't have other models there, and I went to a prep school. Do other schools talk more about other kinds of jobs? I do know a lot of people whose parents did one (or often many) of the ?? jobs. But most of those people rejected that (ok, I know a lot of writers:), so I don't know that many people who *did* see that as the path to follow. But how prevalent is this? Do we generally fail to teach children what the real world looks like and its wide variety of options? And does this come with the hierarchy built in? (With an awful side helping of "but you can't rise above your level, so you should just start out knowing that you're never going to be worth as much".)
And of course, my brain being stupidly self-critical, it's also a lot easier for me to look at other people doing things that aren't in a "creative" field and think they're still being creative and doing fascinating things and being fulfilled and having good lives, but if I follow that path, then I must a failure.
Ugh. Still not framing this well, but brain! How much are the narratives we tell ourselves/culture tells us built around not having a choice? Or that work shouldn't be "work" it should be a love affair or you should be swept up in it? I remember distinctly being told that if you had to work at writing, you weren't really a writer. That it would be tortuous - but I think mostly in terms of being wracked by passion and of course starving artist syndrome - but inherently, if you were a real writer it would just *flow* and be magical. It's not the only narrative I got about writing (journalists tend to be a *bit* more pragmatic than that) but there was definitely still a kind of "if you can do anything else and be happy then you aren't a real writer/dedicated enough/pure enough". Which definitely led to "and you are probably inherently a less interesting/valuable human being because you aren't Dedicated To Art."
But there are so many different ways to make positive things in this world and it seems like there are serious problems with a system that says only a few people, who have to struggle at it mightily, are actually that valuable to the world. And everyone else pretty much exists only to support/appreciate (or throw obstacles in their path) their work? I feel like I keep learning about entire new fields as well as new jobs in every field that I was just never really taught about at all. How on earth am I supposed to know what I want to do when I don't even know half the options??