Thank God It's Monday!

The National Lampoon published a book in 1974 called "The Job of Sex" It was a parody on the best-selling "The Joy of Sex". It wasn't the funniest book in the world, but then, the book it parodied wasn't all that great, either.

I tend to carry around reading matter, so that waiting time is never wasted, and because my tastes are so eclectic, people often ask me about the interesting titles I am reading. Someone saw that book, and commented that she'd never be caught dead reading that in public.

"It's not Joy of Sex," I pointed out, "it's Job. A parody."

"I saw that," she said. "If I thought sex was a chore, I sure wouldn't want anyone else to realize that!"

Job satisfaction has been deteriorating since 1995. It's now only 39% among those under 25, although it rises to nearly one in two among those over 55.

Part of that would be the level of success that has been achieved. The lowest levels of job satisfaction are among those making less than $15,000, while it's 52% with those making $50,000 or more. I think, however, that part of it is learning to work.

"Whatever you are doing, let your hearts be in your work," advises Colossians 3:23. While Mike Rowe has found some jobs to be dirty, there is no television show called "unworthy jobs". If a job's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all.

Nancy Ortberg says "I love to work". And you've probably felt that way. Almost every time I have started a new job, I have had trouble sleeping the night before. I'm so excited that I wake up early, and show up all bright and shiny, ready to set the world on fire.

And then it starts going downhill. The same thing happens in school. Ever see a first grader that wasn't excited about starting school, meeting new friends, learning to read, learning to do arithmetic? Their eyes bulge, they're so excited at the prospect - and yet within a couple of years, most of them have had all the joy and excitement beaten out of them. Line up, stand straight, stop talking, no chewing gum, hold up one finger or two to go to the bathroom, look here, don't go wandering around.

Sheesh. "Why Johnny Can't Read" isn't phonics - it's unfunfulness. Yeah, I just invented that word. It was fun to invent that word. And something we all need to ask is, "Is it fun yet?" Is it fun for ourselves? Is it fun for our subordinates? Is it fun for our customers, and fun for our vendors?

If it's fun, you don't have to pay your employees to do their jobs. They will want to do their jobs. All you have to do is to make sure they can afford to do their jobs. They need to pay their mortgages, and feed their dogs, keep the lights on, and send their kids to college. But if it's not fun, they need to buy some fun, besides.

There's a reason why they call it work. As a rule, people pay us for doing something they can't do, or because they won't do. If my wife needed brain surgery, I'd hire an expert, rather than doing it myself - but I'm capable of scraping paint, or mowing the grass, or doing a brake job. I can cook a better meal than most of the ones I eat in restaurants.

Scraping paint is a little on the boring side, but I can listen to music while I do it. I enjoy mowing the lawn; the fragrance of the cut grass is wonderful. I seem to bung up my hands every time I work on brakes, but knowing that the job is done right is pretty important to me. If I had enough time, I'd never hire anyone to do any of those things.

The reason why "equal pay" initiatives have never succeeded is that people usually don't get paid for what they do. They get paid for what they put up with. A secretary may have comparable worth as a truck driver - but she works in a quiet office with a coffee pot a few feet away, while he bounces up and down all day with the sun glaring at him.

Lousy bosses have to pay their employees more, because they'd rather work for a good boss. The late Smokey Yunick used to have a sign posted in his garage. It quoted a fair hourly price for top-notch repairs, a substantially higher rate "if you watch" and an outrageously high rate "if you help".

I used to be interesting. Then happily, I discovered there's more money in boredom. -
Hugh MacLeod

Hugh MacLeod is known for "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards", and one of them has caught fire. He calls it "the blue monster".

Hugh says "For too long, Microsoft has allowed other people - the media, the competition and their detractors, especially - tell their story on their behalf, instead of doing a better job of it themselves. We firmly believe that Microsoft must start articulating their story better - what they do, why they do it, and why it matters - if they're to remain happy and prosperous long-term".

I'd argue with that. They need to tell themselves what they're doing. If you're doing something really creative, people will notice. You're the first one to notice, of course. You smile a lot. You walk with a spring in your step. People get curious, and notice what you're doing. You become a magnet. People are drawn irresistably to people who make things happen.

Helen Kelley in the 1991 Ken Burns film, Empire of the Air said that soon after she started listening to radio, she stopped practicing the piano, because she didn't have to make her own music anymore. Seeing that interview was an ah-hah moment for Dave Winer: "It was a mistake to believe that creativity was something you could delegate, no matter how much better they were than you, because it's an important human activity, like breathing, eating, walking, laughing, loving."

I think we need to be careful how we define creativity, though. It's not just painting pictures and writing novels. You can create anything of value. Ice cream was boring, and sales kept dropping - until creative people introduced the super-premium brands came along. Coffee was boring - and now it's not.

Services can be creative, too. Waste Management wasn't very reliable about picking up our trash - and while they were swift to take our money, it didn't always get credited to our account. In disgust, I went looking for another hauler. A wonderfully vibrant woman called back from Butler Hauling. She was enthusiastic and excited. When they made their first pickup, I was a little apprehensive, because they weren't driving a fancy-dan garbage truck, but rather a stake truck with plywood added to make the sides solid, and the truck had seen better days.

Mrs. Butler, though, swung into action. She and the fellows working with her jumped down, grabbed the trash and tossed it high into the air to land on the truck bed. Whomp, whomp, whomp went the bags - and then one of the fellows picked up a candy wrapper that a passing school kid had tossed into the yard, and tossed it into the truck as well.

Most trash haulers I've dealt with, you were lucky to get them to take the trash you had bagged up. They'd break the bags, and leave a mess, at least once a month. This crew was looking to clean up a mess that wasn't part of their responsibility.

Do you think I told ten people that Butler Hauling was the best haulers I'd ever seen? The answer is no - because I told at least twenty. And I know that Mrs. Butler and the fellows were happy doing what they were doing, because they were smiling, and joking back and forth, and some weeks, they'd break into tune.

Life is short and the workday is too long to be doing something you hate. And it's probably not what you're doing, but how you do it, that makes the difference.

It's no fun being a captive. And work oughta be fun. It can be fun.

What's the worst job in the world? You can find someone who enjoys doing it. Doing it well is an important part of it. What's the dirtiest job you can think of? Call up the leader of your local FFA chapter, and ask him: he'll tell you that most farm boys enjoy spreading manure - and yes, it gets all over you when you do it. And millions of people enjoy, yes, enjoy changing their kids' diapers, because it's an act of love.

That's probably key to the whole thing. Work is a relationship. When we perform work, we're caring for people. If you don't love your fellow man, you've got more serious problems than work.

But if you choose a job you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.