Women Over Fifty

Just because I work hard to do it, is it work?  I don’t think so.  Work is when you say to someone, I’ll do this work for you, this many hours, and you will meet these conditions and pay me this much money.  Right?

Not necessarily so.  It’s what you expect, but it’s not necessarily what happens.  If you’ve been reading the papers you know that a group of workers have been  occupying their former workplace because they feel the contract between them and their employer was broken.  Now that’s work.  When you’ve done the work and you’re due the money and your employer says “Good by.  We don’t need you anymore” and doesn’t pay you the wages and benefits due to you.  That’s out of work.

I must admit, when I was young, I thought being laid off was a lark.  All of a sudden, I’d be free of my job with two week’s money in my pocket.  I’d feel rich and free as a bird.  You’ve probably already guessed that my husband was paying the bills and my money was just for extras.  You’ve probably guessed that I worked at those dime-a-dozen jobs where one job was pretty much like the next and the pay was small.

But those jobs felt like work.  Drudge jobs - like cleaning out closets and the back seat of your car.  I usually worked in an office.  I was usually the low girl on the totem pole, with the lowest status, the lowest responsibility, and the lowest pay.  Why should I care if I was laid off?  If I wanted another job just like it they were easy to find.

But these workers with the sit-in had a different  perspective on their jobs.  They work to live, to feed their families, to provide shelter, and/or to provide a few pleasures.  They need the work.  They took their jobs seriously.  Their relationship with their employers was serious business.  In a way they give up part of their lives in order to afford the rest of their lives.  Why else would people work?

When I finally began thinking of work as a career, my attitude changed.  Boy did it ever change!  I didn’t always need the money, but I certainly wanted and needed the work.  I began to understand what working was all about.

Then it changed again.  I began to love my job.  It gave me intense pleasure.  I identified with it.  I carried business cards that stated that I, Marilynne XXX, worked at this job, for this company.  I took pride in my work and in the companies I worked for.  I worked hard and I was proud of the job I did. 

I think this is where those workers were.  Like those workers, I was laid off. 

Unfortunately, I was also seriously ill at the time.  My company had some loyalty and paid me disability while I got better.  I was out for four months, and I did get better, but go back to work?  Only long enough to be officially laid off again. 

It was a strange thing, becoming ill in the midst of being laid off.  My office, my desk, my books were there just as I left them four months earlier - except for the things they needed to pass on to someone else to be finished.  But the purpose of my coming back to work was to be laid off. 

My work was to look for work. During that time I was encouraged to look for other jobs within and without the company.  I could use the telephone, the computer, the copy machine.  I could use anything I needed in the search for a job.  That WAS my job for the last two weeks. I worked the required two weeks and then went home to be unemployed.

That two weeks or so is the compensation those workers missed.  It means a lot to have help in finding another job.  It’s good to have a space to work and equipment to use.  It’s a fine benefit.  They didn’t get it or any part of it.

Part of my layoff was severance pay.  Those workers expected severance pay IF they were laid off, but they didn’t get it.  One can understand their frustration.  One can understand anger.  One can admire the calm manner in which they went about it.

So what is work?  It’s dedicating yourself to your chosen work while expecting compensation in return.  If you’re lucky, you’ll like your work.  If not, well, you do have a job and money coming in.  

Being laid off can be a disaster.  It’s more of a disaster if the expected compensation doesn’t come in.  I understand those workers.  

  Marilynne

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