Meet Bill: Work Sucks

Recently, a new movie came out on DVD called “Meet Bill.” It was an odd movie to say the least. It featured a mentor, Bill, in the middle of some very precarious life situations. Bill becomes a little unglued and during this time, he happens to be signed up to be part of a mentoring program for his high school alma mater. The student he is paired with actually appears to have a better grasp on reality for the most part during the movie. However, there are some particular scenes within the movie a mentor/student relationship should never experience. On what planet is it ok for the mentor and the student to share a “joint?” I think none. Why this particular portion of the movie was written and filmed is beyond me. However, even with such an obvious lack of sense on the writer’s and director’s part, the movie did offer a tidbit to talk about. As the title so cleverly states, Work Sucks.

Bill, our down and out “hero,” has a moment in the movie where he expounds to his student about how (and I’m paraphrasing here) “if you work for someone else your entire life, eventually, all you will care about in the end is the paycheck because work sucks.” I’m pretty sure every generation of our existence has come to believe that for the most part, work does suck. We are constantly told from a very young age, find something you love to do, figure out a way to make money doing that, and you will be happy. However, the real world exists and not fantasy island. As rational human beings, the great majority of us in this life are destined to work and make a living doing something we do not particularly love because we must support our life and/or family. Doing what we love doesn’t necessarily offer the best monetary rewards.

Sure, there are those lucky individuals in our society who have hit their niche and uncovered a goldmine of riches because of their persistence and focus on their true talent and ability. For every one of those, there are hundreds if not thousands of us who never reach that point of perpetual bliss. What differentiates those who “succeed” and those who are left working in a less than ideal job for the rest of their lives? Not much. There are some key ingredients of course that must happen for the possibility to even exist. Among those are: timing, perseverance and persistence, sacrifice, faith, and of course, luck. Without these key ingredients, the opportunity cannot exist. While some people may be lucky enough to have their fortune seemingly “drop into their lap,” the rest of us must actually apply the above ingredients to change our way of life. You may be thinking I am missing the most important ingredient of all, money. Sometimes, money is the only factor keeping the dream from happening in the form of startup costs/etc. However, giving the right timing and focus on the other ingredients above, I believe money will come.

Have you ever seen the stories of the “stay at home mom” who has an idea and puts her entire focus on making it happen and she ends up turning a simple idea into a fortune? The mom has turned her life around without the money ingredient. She applied the other key factors and focused entirely on making something happen. Money eventually came. There are many stories such as this. People have found a way to change their lives, but only if they try. Not just try, but give everything they have to make it happen. They BELIEVE they will succeed. They truly believe that everything they do is working towards their goal of achieving the life in which they are working at something they love doing.

I’m not saying that you have to work for yourself to love what you do either. There are many jobs in the world that you can absolutely love what you are doing while working for someone else. However, even for these individuals who have found their calling working for others, I will bet you they can immediately give you a list of what they do not like in their current position. I would place a bet that management would appear on almost every list. The job is great, but management is not. But, it’s a tradeoff they are willing to make because of their love for what they are doing.

Even in the above situation, the individual worker would be better off working for himself because he is making a tradeoff. But you may say that we cannot all work for ourselves. We can’t have 250 million sole proprietorships. No, we can’t and I agree. That is where the statement from Bill comes into play. Work does suck. It sucks because you are doing something you don’t truly love and you are doing it for someone who likely does not reward you appropriately for your effort. If that isn’t the definition of work sucks I’d like to see a better one. Are the rest of us destined to work in these jobs while only a small fraction of us succeed at making a living doing what we love? Sad to say, but given our current and past job and market climates, I don’t think anything will change in our near future.

Our capitalist economy prides itself on one thing, profitability. To achieve profitability, most companies depend on workers being highly efficient and productive while at the same time, not being paid what they are worth. This tradeoff is where the company makes their money. Get more out of the worker, but trickle very small portions of the rewards down to them. Are you currently in such a job? More than likely, but so are the rest of us. Very few of us will realize what it’s like to live a life doing what it is we love doing. We are “forced” to spend the majority of our able years doing something for someone else to support our families. Yes, it is an honorable and necessary thing to do, but is it right that we are “throwing” the greatest portion of our lives away when our time could be better spent?

We know everyone cannot achieve the dream of doing whatever they love because like I said, there cannot be 250 sole proprietors and have a successful business market. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the knowledge that for the greatest percentage of us, we are left to work in positions where we are likely to think that “work sucks.” This can be changed. Work, which you do not truly love, does not have to suck. To accomplish this, we need better management. We need better employee treatment. We need the wealth to be shared fairly within each business. While computer programming may not be your true love, if you are treated with respect and given your appropriate human and monetary rewards, you will not believe work sucks even though your true love may be farming. At that point, work is a means to an end, one that you are not throwing your life away at, one that does not remove your happiness and imposes stress during your hours off the job.

I will agree with Bill in the movie that for the majority of our society, work does suck. But, I place the blame on those we work for, not the job itself. Every job can be made satisfactory, it’s how we are treated that makes work suck. Some people are able to leave this world behind completely and move forward in a business they truly love, but they are the life lottery winners. We all have an opportunity at it, but the practical reality is everyone cannot win. Works sucks, but it doesn’t have to.