Enjoyable work

What makes one's job enjoyable? What makes us work hard? I think essentially one needs to be intimately and emotionally involved in the product you're creating or the service you're providing.

Our society tends to assume how hard we work, how much effort we put into something, is closely related to how much we get paid for that work. I disagree. I reckon what motivates people to work hard is not so much how much you get paid, but rather the sense of achievement in producing something that other people really appreciate together with the knowledge that not many others have the requisite skills to do what you've done. It's working towards some goal, and for others to exclaim "wow" when they see what you've done. It's pride in producing something, or providing some service. And this in turn will make one very much enjoy the work they're doing.

But much work under capitalism tends to be repetitious just doing one task. You're not creating the object, only part of it. Hence you're a cog in the overall machine as I said in this blog entry. And the object is not ours. It belongs to someone else. Hence we are alienated from that we are creating, or the service we're providing.