"The working man"

I've seen this attributed (in a Stephanie Pearl-McPhee book) to Churchill, but more of the Internet sources say it's Ben Franklin, and honestly, it sounds more like Franklin to me:

"It is the working man that is the happy man; it is the idle man who is the miserable man."

I think that's true. (Well, with a couple of caveats: first of all, the "working man" has to be allowed some rest with his work, and second (and perhaps more important), his work has to seem meaningful, at least to him).

I started another round of soil "searching" for invertebrates this week. (In fact, shortly, I'm going to go and do the two-samples-for-the-day I do. I can't do more than two - both because of time issues but also because of ergonomic/allergy issues - staring down the barrel of a heavily-lit microscope for more than an hour and a half makes my eyes hurt too much, and even with a face mask, too long of an exposure to whatever greeblies are in the soil makes me headachey)

It's funny - like a lot of things, I kind of dread it before I start ("Oh, this is going to take so long") but once I'm in the middle of it, I enjoy it. It's actually kind of ....peaceful. I'm not sure I'd call it "fun," it's certainly not going-to-the-yarn-shop fun, but it's also not awful. One of the other things about it, too, is if someone comes and "needs" me for something, unless it rises to the level of The Building Is On Fire, I can put them off until I've finished the sample I'm working on. (I have a student this semester who has some "issues" with time boundaries, as in, this student seems not to realize he is not the only student I have.)

And it's getting stuff done. And it's fulfilling my "rule" that I "need" to work on research an hour a day (except for Wednesdays, which are my awful day where I'm busy from 7 am until 7:30 pm, and Sundays, which I still tend to think people should take off. Or if not Sunday, some day of the week. I do think the idea of a Sabbath day is a good idea, and not just because of a religious perspective.)

And teaching. By and large, I enjoy teaching, even if there are the occasional people who either have "issues" or whose "issues" interact badly with my "issues." I took my class out in the field yesterday; it's always fun to watch the students and see what they do. This go-round I didn't have any of the prissy people who freak out over getting soil on their shoes (yes, I've had those, though more commonly when I was a TA and had rich kids from the Chicago 'burbs in my classes) or who walk into one spiderweb and then refuse to go any further. (And yeah, I get arachnophobia. And yeah, walking into a spiderweb is disconcerting even if you DON'T have arachnophobia. But...if you're planning on a career where you work with living things....).

One student called me over at one point to verify her identification of a tree. When I told her she was correct, the other two members of her group (non-ironically) high-fived her. I like that kind of thing...I like seeing a little enthusiasm and a little breakdown of the "too cool for school" attitude. (Though to be honest, most of my ecology students don't have that attitude; I think it's mainly in my non-majors that I see it). And I like it when students are willing to be a little (appropriately for the situation) goofy. I sometimes have students in my non-majors class refuse to take part in the class activities because they say they're "dumb" or "silly." I don't know - I feel like if you can't get away with doing things a little silly when you're in COLLEGE, you might as well go and start filing TPS reports right now.

And actually, coming back to the idea of the working man (or woman, I'm using "man" in the general sense here) being the happy man....I think a lot of people are unlucky in that they do wind up in careers that are, for them, like "Office Space." (I know Office Space is a comedy, but I have to admit it's a movie I found somewhat depressing*...most of the main characters seemed to have no roots and no inner life, they really had nothing outside of that dream of getting enough cash to be able to say "Forget you" to their boss and walk away, and...then what? Lying on a beach forever complaining that they asked for a margarita with no salt on the rim of the glass?) I suppose there are jobs that are kind of awful and stultifying and someone just has to do them....or there are jobs with awful little requirements (I know of someone who has to log a code into her computer to let everyone else working with her know when she takes a bathroom break. She explained the reason to it for me but I still find the idea of that mildly horrifying).

I've talked about liking "Dirty Jobs"...and I have to admit, as gross as some of the jobs on that show can be, a lot of the people who do them seem pretty happy. I suppose it's because so many of the jobs have tangible ways of knowing when you are "done," or you can see what you're doing and accomplishing. I've talked about how (when I have the time so I don't feel like I'm "stealing" it from more pressing matters) I like weeding or even cleaning the house because I can look back over it and see what I've gotten done. (And I have a hard time writing and revising manuscripts, I think, because it's hard to see when they're "done" - and when you send what you think is pretty good off for review, sometimes the reviewers don't agree, and sometimes they really rip up your poor little manuscript). I suppose part of the reason I like working with the soil samples is that I know I have 20 to work through, I know I am doing 2 a day, and I can see when I'm getting close to done with them, and when I'm done I can say, "Yes, I did that."

(*I watched part of "Doctor Strangelove" the other night. I know it's billed as a comedy (though a dark comedy) but I admit I find the movie both depressing and kind of claustrophobic. Probably a legacy of having grown up during the tail end of the cold war, having relatives who talked of building and outfitting bomb shelters, and hearing Sting sing about how he wondered if the Russians loved their children too...)