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Why we love to hate our jobs

Alice Wignall

OH, WE all hate work, don't we? Just cannot stand it. Did I ever tell you about the time I called in sick for a week because I could not stand looking at my boss for one more moment? Or mention the time I cut my own arm off so there was no way they could make me take minutes in the meeting that day? How about the time I faked my own death to avoid the commute?

If you were in any doubt about just how much we loathe employment, you could take another look at lifelong.disappointment.com, a website for those wanting to vent their spleen about workplace miscreants.

One infuriated contributor writes about their boss: "Mark reminded me of the kind of bloke who drives an unlicensed minicab for the sole purpose of raping drunken passengers. His minuscule IQ was matched by the number of baths he had a year.

"Working in a factory can be a dull job at the best of times, but Mark managed the quite amazing feat of being both dull and infuriating at the same time. I'd find myself grinding my teeth into anger-powder at his banal and bigoted comments, while simultaneously berating myself for letting such a degraded Hobbit get to me in the first place."

And that is one of the more restrained entries.

You would have to be slightly weird never to wonder if there was a way to make your boss disappear. Nor can there be a person on the planet, relying on a computer for some essential and urgent piece of work, who has not within five minutes wanted to hurl the thing off the nearest cliff.

Feast of frustration

No one could deny that a day in the office is a feast of irritation, frustration, and sheer wonderment at the ridiculous things that your fellow human beings can say and do with, apparently, no sense of shame.

But is that a problem with work — or with life? If you spent all day, every day in your own house, you would be Googling for a website where you could record rants about home life before lunch on day one. Why does the postman always have to make such a racket? Who is this lobotomised streak of inanity who has somehow got a job presenting a national radio programme? Why are the streets filled with people whose default speed is "slow shuffle" between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. every weekday?

Most things in life are just annoying, especially if you do not have much choice about them, if they are repetitive, and if they require interaction with people you have not personally selected for the purpose beforehand.

It is just that we spend more time at work than anywhere else, so we think it is the fault of the job when it fact it is just the fault of, well, the world in general.

Can modern work be all that bad? We are not compelled to do it, after all, apart from in the material sense. But if it was really so vile, we would all just throw our hands up in despair and disappear off to the hills to raise sheep. And even that would get irritating after a while — do you have any notion quite how stupid sheep can be?

They put "Mark, my boss" right in the shade, I can tell you.

But as with admitting to liking Cliff Richard records (and not in an ironic way), you cannot say you like work. Try it tonight, in the pub. Try forming the words: "Actually, my job gives me financial security, a role and purpose, a sense of self-esteem, intellectual stimulation and social interaction and a warm place to sit during the say. I love it!"

But do not worry: you can moan about it, while carrying your clandestine affection for gainful employment deep within your secret heart.

Perhaps — just perhaps — one day you will be able to shout it from the highest hill, but for now it must be like this: the love that dare not speak its name. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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