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February 6, 2007
There's Work and Then There's WORK!
Yesterday we had a new carpet installed in our house. Shirley and I were home, doing what we normally do, in our study while the work was done. And I'm very sure that to the two young, hard working, installers what we were doing seemed to be the second cousin to nothing. We read and wrote a little and did a few other things at our computers. I thought a little about Bronze Age texts and Shirley worked at paying a few bills. They moved furniture, removed the old carpet and padding, cut and installed the new padding, cut, fitted and stretched the new carpet and moved furniture again for about nine hours with little more than a couple of short breaks. We went out to dinner.
It's not that we haven't worked hard in our lives. However, after high school any physical work was strictly voluntary. And it's not that we aren't fairly busy now with a considerable variety of endeavors. It's rather that, to someone who works hard doing semi skilled physical work, I'm sure what we do must appear to be something other than real work. Sure, we are retired or mostly so. But it's largely because we didn't do physical work and were well compensated for not doing it that we were able to retire several years before the average.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Maybe I'm just trying to assuage my guilt. It just struck me as a horrible inconsistency in our economy that those who do the kind of work that we do are rewarded in ways that those who do the kind of work carpet installers do can only hope for.
Posted by Duane Smith at February 6, 2007 6:50 PM | Read more on Odds and Ends |
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Comments
As always, it is impossible to denounce ID without employing and embracing ID in the process!
Posted by: Looney at February 8, 2007 7:08 AM
I too am retired and spend too much time at das computa. However I have kids in the trades and therefore am much more familiar with work vs. WORK. To feel better about this I do things like heat with wood which means wheelbarrowing 10 cords every spring from where it gets dumped up in the back lot to the nice long stacks behind the woodshed, then moving it again, this time into the shed in October and then further splitting it and carrying into the house daily Oct-Apr. It is not a nine hour day of hard labor, but it helps.
Posted by: David at February 9, 2007 2:53 AM
One of the things I most enjoyed about archaeology was that I could switch from fieldwork with all the dirt and sweat one could ever find in manual labor, to the lab, or to data analysis/report writing.
I always found it good fun to teach university students how to use a shovel. I had one student complain that he was in college so that he wouldn't need to use a shovel.
I note that all the plumbers I know from my fishing trips make well over $100K/year, so the amount of remuneration for skilled labor is considerably higher than for school teachers.
Very few people realize that writing is work. Fewer understand that thinking is harder work. When I explain that I consider one written page a days work, people often say things like, "One page? I can type 60 words a minute!" I ask them what they are copying.
Posted by: Gary Hurd at February 10, 2007 10:03 AM
Gary,
I agree that writing is work and thinking is harder work; at least it is for me. But as you indicated not everyone believes that. You are also right about field archaeology. I have thought that field archaeology was the optimum mix of strenuous physical activity and strenuous mental activity. I see it as ironic that as a species we evolved to be near our adaptive limits when we seek to uncover our own past.
Posted by: Duane at February 10, 2007 11:00 AM
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