It’s only fitting that on a blog about race, higher education, and spirituality, we include a post about work. After all, this tends to be the driver for higher education. In addition to higher earning potential and building a more specialized skill set, we usually attend graduate school with the intention of advancing our career in a particular way. For some, this means changing fields, and for others, this means going deeper into their existing field. In the United States, school is too expensive to simply pursue graduate education for education’s sake. More often than not, our decision to attend graduate school, in some way, is usually linked to work.
My generation, for better or worse, is filled with great passion, and we frequently try to satisfy that passion through school and work. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The challenge comes in that we have to invest in grad school BEFORE we get that highly elusive job in the field we’re so passionate about. The same can be true for undergrad: you take those prerequisites in medicine, pharmacy, or physical therapy BEFORE you start the MD, PharmD, or DPT, all the while wondering if the career will be a good fit. In some ways, that situation is even better than what happens with law school, a career track with NO UNDERGRADUATE PREREQUISITES. Heck, you can start your first semester of law school and realize that you hate it (that’s less likely with the former 3, as they have prerequisites). There’s a very real element of uncertainty that exists, but a huge part of that has to do with how we see work: a means to an end or an extension of our identity. But let’s be honest, is this only about uncertainty?
One of the reasons the social sciences (ie. sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, etc.) are so interesting is because people are irrational and extremely complex. In the absence of that, studying people wouldn’t answer particularly intriguing questions, but I digress. Irrespective of what country you live in, whether or not you have a job, or how much or little you are paid, your life is embedded within a social system, and that system helps you make sense of different aspects of social life. That includes work, or the lack thereof. Because of that, work matters, as it facilitates the allocation of scarce resources ($$$), which we acknowledge, collectively, as very important. Beyond that though, when you have higher access to scarce resources, you generally improve your social standing, too. This proves to be very important for our topic.
There are at least a dozen nuances for a discussion like this, but the one I’ll examine for this post is the financial vs. the social: is work simply a means to an end, or is it an extension of our identity? Realistically, the answer lies somewhere in-between. Revisiting an earlier question, would you shovel poop for a living if that meant you could triple your current income and work 1/3 the hours? If work is simply a means to an end, the choice is rather clear. It’s easy in a discussion like this to consider people who take the job shoveling poop as shallow, materialistic, or hungry primarily for financial gain, but that’s not entirely true. As I’ve traveled the world, I’ve had the opportunity to see people work in a diverse spectrum of countries, extremely wealthy as well as deeply impoverished. When I was in the Philippines, I visited a small community where most of the families there provided a service to grocery stores and restaurants. Their job, probably for 8+ hours a day, was to peel garlic. Lots and lots of garlic. All day long. That’s how they made a living for their family though. If you ask them if they saw their work being an extension of their identity, they’d probably see it as somewhat of an unusual question. Perhaps they see being farmers as part of their identity. That would certainly make sense to me. But suffice to say work was whatever they could do to support their family, and probably not much beyond that. To shovel poop, triple their income, and increase their free time by two thirds, I’m sure they’d take great interest.
This isn’t always a function of desperate circumstances though. Indeed, I imagine many people in America would take the deal as well, even those with careers we would regard as “highly successful”, whatever the heck that means. A common misconception I’ve observed is that people with high-profile careers must like what they do, simply because it’s a ‘good’ job (again, “good” is open to interpretation), or perhaps because it’s highly coveted and desired by many. Quite the contrary. I know quite a few extremely accomplished professionals who don’t like what they do. If you spend 50, 60, or 70+ hours a week doing something that you absolutely do not like, would you pass on an opportunity to triple your income and work considerably less? If work is primarily a means to an end, the answer is a resounding yes. While I suspect specifics vary from person to person, the reality is shoveling poop isn’t only a function of how desperate you are for money… it’s also a function of how you see work fitting into your broader social life.
You’re probably thinking about the backlash when you hear about an accomplished professional resigning from their position to shovel poop. But remember, for these individuals, they see work as more of a means to an end than it is an extension of their identity. Disclaimer: they will probably be ridiculed for years to come. Maybe for the rest of their life. But these people see work more in financial terms than they do in sociological terms. Identity. Social Standing. Perceptions. Social Scripts. They’re aware of these things, but the financial implications of work bear more weight on their decisions. Besides, those high-profile positions tend to be rather consuming and demanding. Shoveling poop and having more time with their family may be exactly what they need. And to triple their income? It’s an obvious winner.
Returning to our original question: is work simply a means to an end, or is it an extension of our identity? The social side of this believes the latter. Generally, we’ll attend school, driven and motivated by our passions, believing we’ll be able to find something we enjoy, are passionate about, and will compensate us appropriately given the type of lifestyle we want to live. Social standing is another layer we can add to this: if work is a manifestation of my identity, in work, I can directly influence my social standing, based on how I shape my identity. On the topic of social standing, I think relationship status is also extremely important here, as I don’t think the girls come running to date that handsome, young poop scooper. Similarly, as a guy, you may not be as excited introducing your girlfriend to the family if she’s 5 years into her career shoveling poop. It stinks that we’re kind of shallow like that, but again, our lives are embedded within a complex, social system. If you’re married already, you still have to consider social standing as well, but since you’re ‘off the market’, you probably approach an opportunity like this with a different mindset than a single person would. In an earlier post, we already discussed social scripts. That is, people from my neighborhood, from my family, from my school, with similar degrees, generally pursue THESE kinds of opportunities. Again, those scripts are very powerful at restricting behavior. No matter how you spin it, if work is a manifestation of your identity, you are far, far less likely to take the job scooping poop, even in spite of the higher pay and lower work load.
In 2016, I watched most of the presidential debates for the democratic and republican parties. I’m reminded of something Senator Marco Rubio said. His point was along the lines that he didn’t understand why we (Americans) stigmatize vocational degrees. He went on to say that welders earn more money than philosophers, and America needs far more welders than it does philosophers. Fact checkers differ slightly on the validity of his claim, but albeit controversial, it’s mostly true. We do stigmatize vocational/technical degrees. Welders are in far, far greater demand than philosophers. On average, they find a job faster and start working sooner. There is a difference in pay, favoring welders, HOWEVER; I think the consensus on his point is the difference in pay normalizes over the duration of the career (sometimes) and generally evens out. But his comments fit perfectly into this discussion. The reason there’s generally a greater interest in philosophy is as we choose our careers, pay is not the sole motivator. For many, we see work as an extension of our identity, so we feel philosophy fits better with our identity than welding does. The other side of that goes back to my comment about work being embedded in a social system, which includes social standing. The reality is even with equal pay, society views philosophers differently than they view welders. The pecking order is white collar (ie. engineer), blue collar (ie. mechanic), and then no collar (ie. unemployed). Based on that logic, even when a blue-collar worker makes more than a white-collar worker, they still may hold a lower status, which is a crazy idea. It reinforces my earlier point though: our lives are embedded within a social system. Enough about all that, though. Let me know your thoughts on the sociology of work. How much do you see your identity influencing your career and vice versa?
Nnamdi