I’ve spent most of this evening trawling the internet for a certain quote from a certain book. Oh, and Pepe Le Pew pictures. There’s a fundamental dichotomy at work, if I ever saw one.
I had something of an epiphany at work today. Those of the team who were taken on on temporary contracts finish at the end of the month. One of them has booked up holidays and finished already. It gave me a bit of a start, to be honest. There but for the grace of God etc.
Upwards of 20 years ago, I read Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. At the time I was working for Bespak and still trying to climb the slippery pole. The book had some very interesting musings on “Quality” (and I capitalise that word advisedly, in this context), a word which the author, Robert M. Pirsig, deems to be undefinable.
The quote I was looking for refers to Quality in the workplace. Not just doing a good job but the state of mind both required to do a good job and the state of mind induced by doing a good job. To horribly simplify it, the quote is about trying to find a way to enjoy whatever your job is, no matter how humdrum, at least in part. About finding the quiet satisfaction in a job well done and the way that can spread. I think I might have at least touched a little of that recently. No, I don’t enjoy the hours that I’m required to keep at the moment but I was out of the job market for a long time and one has to start somewhere. I been able to focus on what I’m doing for a living – not for the sake of a living but for the sake of what it is.
Does that make any kind of sense? I wish I could find the quote I want but the book, like a lot of my books, it’s back in the UK. I may have to pop in the library on Monday.
1 comment:
it makes sense to me, just as you wrote it
I feel the same about everyday of my life, here, now in this house with the children
"finding the quiet satisfaction in a job well done and the way that can spread"
exactly
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