View of Work

HALF OF RUSSIANS SEE THEIR WORK AS MEANINGLESS

By Stephen Wilson

 

            A survey by the agency Superjob of 5,000 respondents found that approximately half felt their work was practically meaningless, useless and often wasted. They stated that they often wasted their time doing what they deemed as pointless chores. The survey indicates a huge level of dissatisfaction in the workplace in Russia. When asked, 'What do you think about your work during the day?' as many as 53% answered, 'I think the work is often senseless {stupid}," while 47% answered that, 'Every minute of their work was full of meaning'. As many as 31% believed with certainty that, 'We spend almost a third of the working day on useless work tasks.' Another controversial finding suggests that there may be a correlation between the level of pay and job satisfaction. For instance, the survey found that those who earned just up to 30,000 rubles a month thought that they wasted 34% of their time doing useless tasks, while those who earned 50,000 rubles or more felt they wasted only 29% on useless tasks. But the difference is so marginal it can hardly be considered that significant.

 

What are we to make of such a survey? Ask many local people here and it does not come across as a striking revelation. Svetlana Wilson told me, "I agree with the findings and the people who say their work is often useless. I am not surprised". So many Russian school teachers have told Second City Teachers that they waste their time having to fill in documents which nobody reads. Some Russian doctors state they spend more time doing paperwork that seeing their patients.

 

However, why so many Russians and people all over the world feel their work is often meaningless raises endless questions. Yekaterina Melnikova , a psychologist, attempted to explain why so many Russian workers don't attain job satisfaction. She stated, "You might offer several reasons. Firstly, a person is by nature not effective all day. Each person has a different biorhythm where some are owls, others are larks. Therefore it comes as no surprise that someone will arrive at the office exhausted, and just walk around the office meditating. A second reason is that employers don't give workers enough freedom for self-expression and they therefore lose motivation and don't see any sense in doing what they do. But there is also a third reason where the work does not suit some employees. They don't know what they want." In other words, they are doing unsuitable work.

 

What is clear is that many people don't feel they attain true self-realization. Work is often mainly a means to obtain an income. It is a necessity. As a Russian proverb goes, 'If you don't work, you don't eat'. Much of the work we do comes across as repetitive, monotonous, and pointless. It can seem so pointless and poorly paid that people make excuses to evade or avoid it. One popular Russian proverb states, 'Work is not like a wolf, it won't run away into the forest'. What it means is that work will always remain and there is no hurry to do it'. Of course, such proverbs and the folk tale of a lazy worker called Ivan the Fool acquiring wealth without effort has led to many people believing Russians are inherently lazy. Some Russians I meet even think this is the case. But we should be weary about rashly jumping to such conclusions. It is often the case that employers attempt to justify paying low wages and making workers redundant because they are either not working well or hard enough. Directing the blame elsewhere often conceals a level of mismanagement, corruption and failure to train the workforce. 

How can a worker perform well when he lacks not only the training, but nobody gives him the tools to do the job? In the 1980's the tabloid newspapers used to state that the British worker was the laziest worker in Europe. They even described the 'laziness' of the British worker as 'The English Disease'. But what was the actual truth? The facts were that such a notion was a blatant lie. All the research carried out suggested the opposite, the British workers worked the longest hours in Europe and often did the most overtime. The self employed were working 60- 70 hour week and rarely took days off. One of the reasons why British workers were working so hard was that they were scared of losing their jobs because the level of unemployment was so huge during those years.

 

But is it any great wonder that a reasonably intelligent person will find much of the work we do as pointless? How many adverts do you receive asking you to purchase goods you don't need? How many people require the latest mobile phone where one is good enough? If you drop into a shop which sells a computer one salesperson might talk about all the new functions of a computer which you don't require to do your job. It is difficult to explain to some people you don't need a computer to play some special games or use exotic graphics. The system of capitalism is based on inventing all kinds of false and absurd needs. Marketing research consists of mainly selling useless products nobody really needs or wants. Capitalism is a form of 'institutionalized escapism'. People must be persuaded to play addictive computer games and consume addictive fast food. Small wonder that people find their work so meaningless when they are being asked to produce useless and often unhealthy goods.

 

The word for work in Russian 'rabotat' is linked to the word robot. Few people are aware that following the Russian revolution the Russian Government admired Henry Ford and tried to introduce 'time management ' to the factory where every worker had to work 'just like a robot'. The Central Institute of Labor set up in 1920 under Aleksei Gastev, performed experiments to train workers to work like machines or robots. As the historian Orlando Figes states, 'Gastev's aim was to turn the the worker into a sort of 'human robot' - a word, not coincidentally, derived from the Russian {and Czech} verb 'to work',: rabotat'. Since Gastev saw machines as superior to human beings, he thought bio-mechanization would represent an improvement in humanity'. When I asked a student of English, Maria, what she thought of 'Time management' she retorted, "I am not a robot. I find it difficult to get up in the morning and need about three or four alarm clocks to waken me up". Thankfully, such experiments by Gastev were abandoned. Marx, in his early economic and philosophical works, stated that much work stunts and arrests the full flowering of a worker. At worst, it can lead to a person becoming a  'crippled monstrosity'. Marx argued that much labor 'makes people stupid and one sided'. Much work is not genuine human activity and creativity. At most, people reach self realization in their free time by pursuing all kinds of hobbies, interests or social activities. At least performing labor might help some people not only to support a family, but at least afford them free time to be more creative. The main point is that a person is much more than his job. His work should not define or reduce the scope of his creativity. It is worth noting how different cultures can perceive work in radically distinct ways. In English, you might state "John is a plumber'. But if you translate this into Scottish Gaelic it comes across as 'There is a joiner in John'. This suggests that there is more to John than his job as a plumber. For there is also a father, a husband, a dancer or perhaps a warm sense of generosity in John. So people are much richer than their perceived roles in the work place. They are endowed with spacious souls!