“I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.”
– Bruce Grocott
As I spend the weekend doing all the things I want and have to do around the house to prepare for another week of full-time work, I wonder how this feeling will shift in retirement. After all chores are still chores. They almost seem like work when you get right down to it. They have to be done on a regular basis or the house falls into a chaos of disrepair from poor maintenance. However, the difference between my own household chores and the tasks I don’t like at work is quite stark.
If I choose to put off cleaning the bathroom for another week, (because I am completely out of energy at the end of a work day), that is my prerogative. I will live with the annoyance of looking at a shower basin that is getting ever more soap scum coated. I will eventually break down and spend the hour bringing it back to a respectable level of clean. The only person bothered by the cleanliness of the bathroom is me. The frequency of cleaning the bathroom is therefore completely in my control and the reward of having it be clean is just for me.
Same type of rational with grocery shopping. This one is a bit different in execution because the shopping is dictated by the cooking and this task is shared in our house. So, there is some accountability. I look at cooking as an elevated activity. I don’t see this related to cleaning bathrooms in any way, shape or form. I would do all the cooking to avoid the bathrooms, but the time investment component is just too great. Bathrooms can always wait, dinner can’t. I’m also not willing to accept the kind of meal that can be out from a box in the cupboard and onto the table in no time at all. I just can’t eat like that anymore. So, I need to spend time on the weekend preparing menu’s, dishes, or components to make weekday meals easier and faster.
I simply don’t view any of the effort in household management, chores or other activities as I view work. Rather these are activities that I like to do for a variety of reasons. I like a clean house and I love great meals. Being organized enough to easily live this way is not a form of work for me. It could be viewed as a regularly occurring activity, but stepping into a clean shower feels refreshing in a strange way. It puts a spring into my step. That might be a huge rationalization for an otherwise bothersome chore, but I value an orderly living space.
What I do regularly at my corporate job, on the other hand, is 100% work. So little of it is entirely of my choosing. Not even the timing of the work is really under my control. Then there are the things that must done in a certain timeframe otherwise there will be punitive action. Sometimes the penalty is from above, but often it is from other departments. They will withhold services in order to coerce timely responses that serve their agenda. That is the first problem, the lack of control of my time.
Then there is the lack of control over process and output. Even the most progressive corporate cultures are becoming strangely conformist. They say entrepreneurship is a value, but they don’t really mean that. They want you to take initiative, sure – but act like an entrepreneur, not really. Now there are a whole bunch of everyday tasks, conversations, and meetings which everyone agrees are ‘part of the job’, otherwise known as work.
Finally, there is a general direction of what you can and cannot do which is prescribed by the corporate structure. You have some decision rights and not others. Your job description says you have some level of pre-selected and limited choices in one area but are strictly prohibited from giving your two cents in another area. You can make friends with everyone around you in order to make the work as enjoyable as possible. But that takes time, which increasingly no-one in a corporate job has in abundance. Making friends is technically allowed, but is really a nice to have at the end of the day. Everyone has a personal life they are eager to get away from work in order to enjoy.
Which brings me back to the definition of work. For me, anything I do at home is not work. Everything I do at my job is work. It is clear. Some tasks in both worlds, I like more than others. Some tasks I would like to never do again if I didn’t have to. But what compels me to do things for my own benefit is so much greater than when the main beneficiary is corporate profit.
Yes, some might say that extra work brings about the possibility of a promotion, a raise or a bonus. In some years maybe all three benefits line up. Increasingly, corporations expect a high level of output as a normal part of keeping your job and getting a meagre cost of living increase. The bonuses are near impossible for the average worker to achieve. Big raises and promotions require an effort above and beyond what everyone else is already doing. Promotions give you more complicated work that takes time to figure out how to do well, which can be a mixed blessing.
How would any of the chores being done at home be considered work in the same way? For me, the benefit of feeding myself properly, translates into health, energy and vitality. I am able to handle stress better. I am more creative and kinder. I find it easier to compromise and help someone else, rather than be overly concerned with what benefits me first. Ironically, there is not a corporation I know of that feed’s employees three healthy meals a day in order to create these kinds of benefits across their workforce. The very kind of employees every corporation wants could be had by either feeding them or allowing them enough time off with fair compensation in order to feed themselves. Instead our workday and commutes are so long we are squeezed in the morning and night and have to eat lunch at our job sites.
Because corporate staff do not generally have enough time to take the best care of the basic building blocks of health – aka food, exercise might as well be akin to winning the lottery. If basic nutrition falls prey to the priority of a long work day, a workout falls way down the list as well. In fairness, young people have the energy to fit all this in, but they also have an active social life pulling them in all directions. Older people end up trying to put health higher on the list but simply run out of steam by dinner time. Falling into the sofa after eating is more the norm. So, working at a corporate job makes doing anything at home a little tough, not matter what it might be called.
Living in retirement becomes a complete rebalancing of activities. I cannot wait to have the time to focus on my health through diet and exercise as well as reducing stress. Will these activities feel like work? Not to me. The idea of doing something unpleasant, like cleaning a toilet in my own house for my own benefit, just doesn’t equate to corporate work. The difference in pay doesn’t bother me either. Sure, corporate work pays more than my retirement funds will stretch in a given month. But the sense of autonomy is priceless.
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