by Daniel Yim
Fiction Shapes Reality
I have not attempted to argue that one of these three competing approaches to fictional characters is better than its alternatives, because each one has significant strengths and weaknesses. One thing we can surmise from the example of Dilbert is that even extravagant fictional worlds can parallel reality in insightful ways.
14
Of Course It Sucks—It’s Work
ANDY WIBLE
No contemporary writer has brought out the doldrums of work better than Scott Adams, and no character expresses the plight of a disenfranchised employee better than Wally. When Wally is asked why he doesn’t work much, he responds, “I figure there will be plenty of time to work when I am dead. The co-worker says back, “But you won’t be here to do it.” Wally says, “I guess you don’t know what a perfect system looks like.”
Old-Fashioned Hard Work
Why does Scott Adams have such a negative view of work? One answer is simply that it is work. Work is a necessary evil that we would avoid if we could. Lottery winners are most excited because they get to say those two words: “I quit.” Work is labor, which is taxing, dull, and difficult. Work sucks. It is freedom-sapping and it stunts our growth as human beings. It is a daily humiliation, as Studs Terkel points out.
Scott Adams writes in The Joy of Work, “The only reason your company pays you is because you’d rather be doing something else. We work as long as we need to sustain ourselves and those who depend upon us, and then if we are lucky enough we can retire and enjoy what is really important in the world.”
The classical Greeks, such as Plato and Aristotle, held this view of work. We are free, intelligent beings and work constrains us. Yes, we need to work, but we should work as little as possible. At the time slaves did much of the hard labor. Wealthy Greeks and Romans didn’t arrange their lives around work. In fact, Aristotle taught students, but mostly he valued his leisure. His views caught on. In Rome, by the fourth century there were over 175 public festival days per year. The cultured and civilized avoided work because it numbed the mind.
In the past, the dehumanizing view of work focused on blue-collar work and hard labor. Work is bad, according to this view, because it’s either backbreaking or else boring assembly-line work. This kind of work, goes the view, is monotonous and valueless. It has no intrinsic value and, consequently, neither do the people who do it. Robots could do it, and increasingly they do. Even educated engineers like Dilbert and his colleagues are constantly concerned that robots will take over their work.
Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism makes this point. In a capitalist society, only products and profits matter. Workers become objects rather than subjects. Workers are dissociated from their work. Creativity is lost. Workers might as well be machines. Adams makes this point clear with his most disenfranchised worker Wally. Wally says to Dilbert, “You claim to be an introvert and yet, you never seem drained when talking to me.” Dilbert responds, “That’s because you don’t put off a human vibe. I experience you the same way I do birds, furniture, and robots.” “You totally get me,” agrees Wally, to which Dilbert says, “Don’t talk.” Algorithms and robots are threatening to take over the engineering work that Dilbert and co-workers do, because they’re already treated and treat each other as objects.
Even though workers hate their jobs, they need them and want them. A job allows us to buy the things that will make us fulfilled and happy. People are “working for the weekend” as is often said. The happiness which we get from houses, cars, beer, and family all cost money. Work, according to this view, has no value in and of itself. Work only has instrumental value. It is a tool to get what is really important, such as family, happiness, beauty, music, knowledge, and love.
What does this mean about a good work ethic? Should we work hard if work itself has no intrinsic value? Hard work has often been praised, especially in the United States. The Protestant work ethic remains an ideal, one that is believed to be necessary for achieving success in life. Americans work longer hours than citizens of most other industrialized nations in the world. The forty-hour work week is often thought to be a minimum which we should exceed. According to a 2015 Gallup Poll, Americans work on average 47 hours per week compared to around 35 hours per week in Norway, Italy, Denmark, and other European countries. Almost 40 percent of Americans working full-time said they worked more than fifty hours a week and they mostly had white-collar jobs. The harder we work and the more work goals we achieve, the more successful we are as persons. True American idols are people like Warren Buffett, a billionaire who works long hours well into his eighties.
Perhaps the best criticism of the hard work ethic comes from Wally. Why are we praising something inherently bad? Wally says, “Remember, Asok, success requires hard work and sacrifice.” Asok replies, “Got it! I will work hard and sacrifice.” Wally retorts, “I was going to say that is why you should avoid success. Who brainwashed you?”
Real success is found outside work and Wally is keen enough to realize that. We shouldn’t want to be Warren Buffett because he needlessly works all the time. Americans go to work so much that they don’t get to enjoy its spoils. We have all heard tragic stories of people who work long hours, ignoring their family, and who then die on the job. The Japanese language even has a word for it. “Karoshi” is death from overwork. Unfortunately, karoshi is alive and well. In 2017, a thirty-one-year-old Japanese reporter died of heart failure after working 159 hours of overtime in a single month. Perceived “success” killed her.
Another critique of the ethic of working hard is that it is a lie perpetrated by people in power. Adams’s CEO yells to employees, “We can only succeed if we work harder than our competitors.” Then he looks down at his phone that goes off, “oops, I gotta go. My helicopter is here to take me to my massage on my super-yacht.” He looks up adding, “Stop staring at me. I only have to work harder than the other CEOs.” As in Greece and Rome, the elite today know the importance of leisure over hard work. Without slaves that can be forced to do hard labor, lower-level employees are brainwashed into doing it for low pay. Tina realizes this when Pointy-Haired Boss says, “Remember, it is only work if you would rather be doing something else.” Tina says, “I would rather be doing anything else.” Pointy-Haired Boss replies, “Oh, in that case, you are trapped in a nightmare that never ends.” Tina then muses, “I have a lot riding on the afterlife.”
Tina’s problem, namely that hard work fails to pay off in this life, was anticipated in the Greek story of Sisyphus. Due to his own self-aggrandizement, craftiness, and deceit, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a hill every day for all eternity, only to have it roll back down again every time. This is an analogy to our life. We get up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, and then do it all over again the next day. Our lives seem as meaningless as that of Sisyphus. Dilbert says, “You know my life is an endless string of useless tasks orchestrated by idiots.” The only hope seems to be getting the rock to the top of the hill, as Tina might imagine happening in a meaningful afterlife. This pipe-dream is one that Tina seems to disbelieve even as she entertains it.
Yet an important difference between Sisyphus’s situation and ours is that we have life outside of work. We can find happiness and meaning outside work with family, friends, quiet contemplation, and hobbies, after rolling the rock. Dates aside, even Dilbert seems to enjoy some of his time outside of work with his friends Dogbert and Ratbert. Thus, if work has no inherent value, people must do more than work if they are to live a meaningful life. The key is to always focus on what’s really important, such as happiness and friendship with others. People in countries such as Denmark and France are doing a better job than those in the United States, for they rank higher on the happiness index, partly because they work fewer hours and vacation more.
There are a couple of criticisms of this classical view of work, which Adams seems to support with his humor. First, we can’t separate our jobs from the rest of our lives. We are
our work. Our work affects us when we work and when we don’t work. There is overflow. Anyone who has worked has also lost sleep over what happened at work. Also, our identity is connected closely to our work. When meeting someone new for the first time we generally ask, “So, what do you do?” Read any obituary to see the importance of work to a person’s identity. We are our jobs, and if we are not fulfilled at work, we won’t be at home. As Al Gini says in his book, My Job, My Self, “I work, therefore I am.” Dilbert does not have a meaningful life at home for many reasons, but work is not helping. Dilbert thinks, “It’s another useless day at work with no accomplishments. Luckily I have a meaningful life at home.” When he gets home Dogbert says, “Ratbert broke the Xbox.” Dilbert replies, “GAAA! I have nothing.”
Finally, we spend a third or more of our adult lives working. Shouldn’t that third of our life be fulfilling? Sure, we need to do some things we don’t want to do in life, but a better life is one where the work that we do is enjoyable. Our work brings us meaning as well as our home life. Some even believe work is necessary for a person to live a meaningful life.
Fulfilled Workers
Gini supports what philosopher Joseph Desjardins appropriately calls the “human fulfillment” model of work. This view holds that work is a necessary activity, through which people develop into their full potential as human beings. Work doesn’t thwart meaning; work is required for people to have meaning in their lives. Life without work is not worth living. Areas with high unemployment tend to have high rates of depression and other mental health problems, even when their basic needs are being met. It’s not just money they are lacking, it is work.
The human fulfillment view accepts the Greek view that all humans have the potential to live fulfilling lives. It differs by claiming that work, and not just leisure, can provide fulfillment all by itself. Warren Buffett has a successful life because he is fulfilled through his hard work. It isn’t a job that he has to do; it’s calling that he loves to do. Even his book is called Tap Dancing to Work. He’s not doing it for the money. He plans to give most all his money away to charity after he dies. Adams satirically points out this need for treating people better in work. People can relate to what he says. No one wants to be treated or to treat people the way that Pointy Headed Boss does.
Good work helps to bring meaning to our lives by providing us with virtues. Work organizes our lives. Economist E. F. Schumacher says that good work brings creativity, challenge, development, honesty, and an element of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. Every employer should strive help develop these qualities. Adams, in his book The Joy of Work, discusses the importance of creativity in the workplace and allowing time for creativity. He says we should manage creativity and not time. Some people manage time and are always filling any hole in their schedule. Adams believes that good work allows for strategic times where you are not technically busy and can be creative. Donald Trump now calls this “executive time.” Creativity is something that makes jobs meaningful. As the robot once said to Dilbert, “Someday robots will do all of the technology work and humans will only do creative jobs.”
You might object that it’s impossible for every job to allow for creativity. A blue-collar worker doesn’t have two hours of executive time in the morning to be creative. But while the amount of creativity may be relative to the job, all jobs should allow for some. For example, many blue-collar jobs incentivize workers to come up with more efficient ways to do their jobs. The worker will get a portion of the cost savings if their creative ideas save the company money. Jobs should also be challenging. Some jobs, such as neurosurgery, are inherently challenging and others such as factory-line work will be less so. Employers can still facilitate challenge in line work by having employees occasionally switch jobs or they can offer new training.
New education and training allows for development. Many employers pay for employees to get another degree or acquire new skills. The Pointy-Haired Boss doesn’t really want people to develop at work. He just wants people to do their current job and honor new requests. In one Dilbert comic, the Boss says, “How is your employee engagement coming along?” Dilbert answers, “I’ll make you a deal . . . I’ll pretend I am happy here and you will pretend to believe it.” The Boss cautions, “I need more than that. I also want you to pretend you are loyal to the company.” Dilbert replies, “I can do that if you pretend you are interested in my career development,” to which Boss asks, “Can we do that without talking?” Dilbert says, “It’s best that way.” The comic ends with Boss saying, “My job was a lot harder before I learned all the shortcuts.” Development opportunities must be real and not just a name change. The Boss gave Asok a promotion once and said, “Your new title is spelled the same as the old title, but the pronunciation is totally different.”
Honesty is also important. Jobs, which force a person to lie will corrupt a person’s character. The virtue of honesty can be lost, and the employee tends to feel as bad as the person receiving the lie. Jobs that require lying are dirty jobs. In one Dilbert strip, Boss cautions, “Stop being honest when you go on sales calls.” Dilbert asks, “You want me to lie?” Boss responds, “I would never ask you to lie. I am asking you to nod your head and smile while our salesperson lies.” Adams knows that structures built to encourage lying may harm both sales and salespeople in the long term. The employees at Wells Fargo, who were forced to set up additional fake accounts for current customers to meet sales quotas, likely didn’t jump for joy for their achievements.
Schumacher also includes beauty as a job requirement, a criterion that Adams cleverly shows is missing in most corporate jobs. The drab cubicle office is an ugly hell that most workers must stare into eight to ten hours a day. Tina informs the staff of the office relocation, “Your new cubicles will be a color called ‘Death Eater Gray.’ The fabric is a soul sponge that will absorb your happiness if you stand near it.” Later the boss asks, “How’d the meeting go?” Tina replies, “Well, you know, fear of the unknown.” Beauty may be hard to define, but some situations show its obvious absence.
The human fulfillment model does have its problems. It is unclear how many jobs can incorporate honesty, creativity, beauty, and love. How does a job pumping out port-a-johns involve beauty and goodness? Some work just needs to get done even though it’s no one’s calling in life. Other jobs, such as assembly-line work, lack creativity ninety-nine percent of the time. In addition, some people don’t want jobs that require creativity. Some people like boring, monotonous jobs. Other employees may forsake beauty on the job for higher pay. They don’t mind a nondescript beige cubicle. The job pays better and smells better than their last job, cleaning the locker rooms at the gym. The question of what kind of job best fits your life should mostly be left up to the free choice of the employee. The classical model of work didn’t identify the importance and impact of work on our lives. The human fulfillment model too narrowly defines what good work must look like.
Flying Free with a Net
The Kantian middle view of work holds that people should be free to decide what work best fits their idea of a good life within a moral framework. You can pick a blue- or white-collar job, you can choose to sell or produce, manage or follow. Whatever job or career you select, there must be worker protections to make sure the employee isn’t unjustly used. Every job must have a minimum wage, a safe work environment, freedom to assemble, and a culture of honesty. This view is also a middle ground when it comes to a work ethic. We should work hard, but not too hard. Leisure and work are both important to a meaningful life. Finding a good balance is important and the right balance can differ depending upon individual abilities and interests.
This theory differs from the classical view, because it holds that work can be intrinsically good and that work is a major element of meaning in people’s lives. Gini is right that our careers are central to our identities as persons. The theory differs from the human fulfillment model, because there is not a uniform set of criteria that every job must have
for people to reach their full potential. We can even imagine Sisyphus having a meaningful life if he truly enjoys rolling the rock each day up the hill and is satisfied with his achievement each night afterwards.
According to Kant, our ability to act freely on the basis of reasons is what makes us moral creatures. Humans are able to make intentional choices. When we use someone as a mere means, we are treating her as an object that lacks free will and rationality. Respect recognizes the subject as a moral being. Adams’s characters often feel like they are being used. One example is when the CEO made the intern Asok drink the industrial sludge at a press conference, in order to show it was safe. A day later Dilbert says, “It lopped a few points off of his IQ, but he still has a bright future in quality assurance or maybe marketing. And with his new tail he’d be an awesome zip line guide.” No matter what level of work, physical and mental health are necessary to achieve whatever end a person chooses.
The Kantian model maintains that employers should strive to make work meaningful, just not to the extent of the human fulfillment model. Work must allow for people to find meaning, both in and outside work. Employers need not bring high levels of values, such as creativity and beauty, into every job. Yet, they must not rob people of their physical and mental health, and they must allow people to be moral.
Norman Bowie, a modern day Kantian, says that there must be a “moral minimum” in place to ensure workers are not abused. A moral minimum is missing at Dilbert’s workplace. A proud culture of deceit and contempt persists. As we saw, the boss says he can’t order Dilbert to lie, and yet there are pressures and structures in place that require it. Dilbert is caught in what anthropologist Gregory Bateson calls a “double bind,” where there are two schizophrenic messages that contradict each other.