It’s Labor Day weekend, so let’s talk about work.
Do you remember your first job? How it made you feel? That first payday? Or—let us not forget the labor of the family—that first day you brought your baby home from the hospital?
Of course you remember those moments, that person you were back then. It’s vivid, probably. If you feel inclined, tell us about it; share your story in the comments.
I earned my first paycheck as a dishwasher in a Greek diner on Northwest Highway in Barrington, IL. I was sixteen, and I didn’t much like the work. Hot and steamy, scraping half-eaten, sometimes partially chewed, meals off of scores of plates, getting barked at by the cranky owners and everyone else in the kitchen, it seemed—dishwashers are at the low end of the diner totem pole. Then, at the end of the first week, I got paid. That was good.
Our work shapes us; in many ways, it defines us.
On some days, when the work goes well, it can feel like something we were meant to do—called to do. A vocation.
I have been blessed in my career as a journalist. On many days, I feel the work is meaningful and constructive (now more than ever), and that the job I’ve done came out well. Those are the good days; there are others, of course.
But often over the years, I’ve stopped in some place, in the middle of covering something—a political rally, a major Supreme Court decision, a conflict zone, a papal conclave, most often, I guess, just walking away from an interview with a person who shared their part in an event, great or small, and taught me something about people in the process—so many times I’ve stopped, realized how fortunate I am, and raised a silent word of gratitude for this life.
But I don’t want to fool anyone with talk of the nobility of all work. As I say, it wasn’t like that for me all the time. And it’s never like that for millions of people around the world.
Some days, a job is just a job.
Some jobs are little more than drudgery.
Some jobs are physically wearying, even physically destructive.
Some jobs are 24/7, 365.
On Labor Day, we honor all labor, as we should. But we should also remember the hard fact:
Most people have jobs. The lucky ones have work.
And so now come the Lords of AI, promising a future without work altogether. The AI “bots” or “agents” and the robots they are already designing will soon rise to their full powers—and, we’re told, will do all the work we need done in the world for us.
“There will come a point where no job is needed,” says Elon Musk.
Well, in this as in so many areas, Elon Musk is an idiot. That he is also a visionary business leader is not a contradiction. See: Ford, Henry. But Musk and his AI brethren (notice they’re all guys) demonstrate to me every time they open their mouths one of the most depressing truths of these depressing years:
We have entrusted the future of humanity to some of the least humane people on the planet.
They seem to me—Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Alex Karp of Palantir, the whole fraternity of them—to be cold as reptiles (except when the ketamine is kicking in), socially incompetent, hubristic, megalomaniacal, amoral, and just generally weirdo jerks. I’d trust the lady who puts the flowers on the altar at just about any church in the country more than I trust these guys with our shared future.
But here we are. We must answer the Muskian claim: Should work disappear?
What will we be without it? To a significant degree, we identify and recognize our fellow human beings by their capabilities. She is good at that. He knows how to fix this. She’s the person everyone turns to when things go sideways.
That’s us. We are working creatures. Creative, cooperative, proud.
What becomes of us when the things we can do no longer matter?
In the Industrial Age, as human beings became cogs in the great economic machine of capitalism, the moral question people faced was about preserving human dignity in work. Labor unions, minimum wage laws, social insurance, child labor laws, workplace safety regulations—all aimed at re-establishing the full humanity of workers of the time.
In the AI age, the question we must face is far more diabolical: Can we preserve human dignity without work?
If we—all of us—actually had a say in any of this, I think we’d want a world without drudgery and backbreaking labor. But we’d keep working, too.
Our poem this week gets at that distinction.
It’s called “What Work Is,” and it’s by Philip Levine, whose poetry arose from his experience growing up working-class in Detroit during the mid-20th Century. I’ve always thought his voice to be an essential one in the literature of our country.
This is not really a poem in praise of work. Levine writes from personal experience about how it can be humiliating and de-personalizing. Then he remembers his brother, and the work he does—outside his day job—that makes him beautiful, and beloved.
—Terry
What Work Is
by Philip Levine
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at the Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a main is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring for today,” for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenl you can hardly stand
the love flooding through you for your brother,
who’s not beside you or behind or
ahead because he’s home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac for he can get up
before noon today to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never
done something so simple and obvious.
not because you’re too young or too dumb,
not because you’re jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don’t know what work is.