I have entered my flight confirmation number into the terminal, it has scanned my passport, asked me for a million details (it stopped just short of enquiring about my shoe size), and then a message flashes up: “We cannot issue your boarding pass- please see an attendant”. So I try to get the attention of a middle-aged lady behind the counter, and she jumps up, shouting “Gladly! I am needed. I have a job!” I am slightly taken aback by so much customer attention, so after getting my boarding pass sorted out I ask her why she was so glad to help. Her reply was unequivocal: “These terminals are there to make us redundant, but so far they have not fully succeeded. I am thankful to have a job”.
Her sentiment is by no means unique, especially in the Detroit area, which is where I am checking in. The car industry has taken a serious hit, so the state’s unemployment figure is around 15%, compared to 9% for the rest of the country. And that is not even the full picture: in a recent Gallup study underemployment in the United States was more like 18%, which means that one in five Americans does not have as much work or the type of work he or she would like. That is pretty steep. A friend of mine is not just out of work- after paying his mortgage for the past 15 years, he had to stop because of unemployment. Since the house prices in his part of the state plummeted, the value of his house is now less than what he still owes. In other words, he has paid his mortgage for nothing, and the bank now owns his house.
So here I am, on sabbatical, free to not work for four months, at least not working for pay, yet I become keenly aware of the privilege of having a job, one that not only pays the bills but that also brings satisfaction. I realize that efficiency is not all it is cracked up to be: so what if check-in is that little bit slower, but I actually talk to somebody rather than a machine, and somebody has a job? My brothers in the Philippines don’t have a washing machine. Instead a lady comes in once a week to do the laundry; I am not sure it is cheaper, but it provides a job and feeds a family. So should I make my purchases more often at the corner shop rather than at Walmart, so the little Indian can keep his job?
At least in Europe we have all drunk deeply from the Marxist ideology which claims that work is evil and that the slavery of work needs to be abolished. Indeed some jobs are not worthy of that name and should be eliminated; but surely the abolition of all work for the sake of more leisure is idiotic. Not only does it not make economic sense, it potentially also robs people of their dignity and vocation. During my four years in Belfast I met many people who had grown up in families which were on the dole, receiving social benefits, for most of their lives; the effect on them was most often disastrous: nothing got them out of bed, nor were they forced to look beyond themselves or serve anybody else.
I know people in many walks of life who take great pride in their work; some are academics, others shoe shines. Yet not every job will in the end turn out to be a vocation, a calling. Protecting lives makes some people ready to risk their lives every day, but packing groceries might not. But the adage of Martin Luther King still holds true: “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live”. So even if we don’t have a job which gives us a sense of meaning and purpose, even if we don’t have a job at all, we all need something beyond ourselves which makes us ready to risk and sacrifice. If it is not the people we work for or the cause we serve, what is it going to be? So if we can’t identify with my flight attendant’s reaction, maybe it is time we looked for a vocation.
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