The Dignity Is In The Doing

We have an odd habit of deciding which work matters before watching anyone do it.

A surgeon matters. A judge matters. A company president matters.

The person emptying the trash can?

We tend to assume meaning comes bundled with the job — that the title, salary, education or prestige tells us whether someone’s work is important.

Research by Yale professor Amy Wrzesniewski suggests something considerably more interesting.

Sometimes the meaning isn’t in the job at all.

It’s in the person doing it.

Wrzesniewski studied hospital custodial workers. On paper, their responsibilities weren’t difficult to describe. They cleaned rooms, emptied trash, mopped floors, and performed the countless other tasks necessary to keep a hospital clean.

But some of the workers didn’t see themselves primarily as cleaners.

They saw themselves as part of the healing team.

That changed everything.

One rearranged artwork in the rooms of comatose patients, hoping that something different or bright in their surroundings might reach them.

Another paid attention to which cleaning products were gentlest around patients with fragile lungs.

One maintained relationships with former patients, even writing to them after they had gone home.

None of that came with a more impressive title.

Nobody handed them a white coat.

Their hourly wage didn’t suddenly increase because they had decided that comforting a frightened patient mattered.

The job description stayed the same.

Their relationship with the job did not.

Wrzesniewski and other researchers gave this broader idea a name: “job crafting.”

Workers don’t always simply do the job they’re handed. They can reshape parts of it through the tasks they emphasize, the relationships they develop and the meaning they attach to what they do.

The academic name is relatively new.

The idea behind it isn’t.

Dignity is not issued with the uniform.

It is something a person carries in.

You Have Met These People

You don’t have to visit a hospital to find them.

You’ve probably met them all your life.

There is the mechanic who treats a stranger’s brakes as though his own family will be riding in that car.

He could tighten the bolt enough.

He tightens it correctly.

There is the school cafeteria worker who learns which child always comes through the line looking a little lost and makes sure somebody says good morning.

There is the bus driver who knows the regular passengers by name and waits an extra moment when he sees an older rider hurrying toward the stop.

There is the grocery clerk who notices the eggs underneath the canned goods before you get home and discover the problem yourself.

The receptionist who recognizes that the frightened person standing at the counter doesn’t know which form to fill out and could use two minutes of patience.

The person collecting trash who puts the lid back on the can instead of tossing it into the yard.

The nurse who pulls the blanket up.

The waitress who notices the coffee cup.

The custodian who notices the patient.

These are tiny things.

That may be why they matter so much.

Most of life is made of tiny things.

We Confuse Importance With Status

Some work carries obvious consequences.

We want the surgeon to be careful.

We expect the airline pilot to pay attention.

Nobody needs an inspirational speech about why the firefighter’s work matters.

But most people don’t spend their days performing tasks that society describes as heroic.

They drive trucks.

Answer phones.

Stock shelves.

Fix pipes.

Clean rooms.

Cook meals.

Cut grass.

Repair cars.

Deliver packages.

Teach children who aren’t always interested in being taught.

Care for people who may never remember their names.

If dignity depended on having an impressive occupation, an enormous share of humanity would have been excluded from it.

Thankfully, it doesn’t.

There is dignity in competence.

There is dignity in reliability.

There is dignity in doing something correctly when nobody is watching closely enough to know whether you did.

And there is tremendous dignity in recognizing that a routine task can matter greatly to the person receiving it.

To the mechanic, it may be the fourth brake job of the day.

To the driver, it’s the car carrying her children home.

To the hospital custodian, it may be Room 214.

To the person in the bed, Room 214 is currently the entire world.

That difference in perspective is where ordinary work can become something more.

Care Changes The Job

This doesn’t mean people should accept poor wages, bad working conditions, or disrespect because they’re supposed to find some noble purpose in everything they do.

Meaning is not a substitute for fair treatment.

And not every job is going to become a calling.

Sometimes work is work.

The rent is due Friday.

There is nothing wrong with admitting that.

But a choice remains in much of the work we do.

We can decide how we will do it.

Two people can perform exactly the same task and leave entirely different things behind.

One cleans the room.

Another notices the person in it.

One repairs the car.

Another thinks about who will be driving it.

One serves breakfast.

Another notices the person eating alone.

The difference may never appear on a résumé.

It probably won’t produce a promotion.

Sometimes nobody notices it at all.

The person doing the work knows.

And occasionally the person receiving it knows, too.

That’s enough to change an ordinary encounter.

Maybe even an ordinary day.

We spend a great deal of time telling young people to find meaningful work.

Perhaps we’ve put the words in the wrong order.

Meaningful work isn’t always something waiting to be found.

Sometimes it is something brought to the work.

A title can give someone authority.

A salary can provide comfort.

A profession can carry prestige.

None of those can guarantee dignity.

That part remains remarkably personal.

It appears in the extra minute, the careful hand, the thing done correctly when incorrectly would have been easier.

The task itself may be humble.

The way we hold it never has to be.

The dignity isn’t necessarily in doing important work.

Sometimes it is simply in doing the work importantly.