Define "work"

[lillibet]

Elsewhere, someone was discussing the work that he and his partner are doing to improve/sustain their relationship and someone else commented that if a relationship requires work, then it may not be worth continuing. This led into a discussion of what defines "work," more generally. If you enjoy a process, is it work? If you choose to do something, is it work? Are activities you undertake in pursuit of a hobby work? If you get paid to do something, is that work? If the product of your activity mainly benefits someone else, is that work? What activities do not count as work? What is work?

EDIT: For those of you who enjoy conversations between dpolicar and me as a spectator sport, be sure to check out the comments.

Comments

[dpolicar]

I'd say it's "work" if you're doing it because you want the results, rather than because you want the experience of doing it.

That said, sometimes what one wants is the experience of doing work, which would make a hash of my formulation. But I still think I have the right basic idea.

BTW, I'm inclined to disagree with the idea that a relationship that requires work isn't worth continuing. I know, you're shocked.

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

i like that definition.

also, i agree with your assertion about relationships and work. i'll stop before i say something rude.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's "work" if you're doing it because you want the results, rather than because you want the experience of doing it.

What if you want both? I throw out cooking as a possible example, at least in certain cases.

[dpolicar]

A fine question.

I'd say that to the extent that you're doing it only because you want the results, it's work to that extent. If you'd miss nothing about the activity were the results handed to you, it's pure work. If you'd miss certain aspects of it but not others, it's partially work. If you'd miss the whole thing, it's not work at all.

There are certainly perplexing boundary cases like deciding in retrospect that something that "seemed like work at the time" really wasn't, or vice versa.

Cooking is a funny one for me, in that I sometimes enjoy the experience, and sometimes merely the results, but I'm also aware that if I spend long enough away from it I suffer emotionally. Which to my mind makes it two kinds of work - one gustatory, one therapeutic - as well as, in some aspects, play.

Excerpts from IM, Part I

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Excerpts from IM, Part 2

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Re: Excerpts from IM, Part 2

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think very differently about what "hard" and "work" when it comes to engineering-type things: "hard" is when there is a significant chance
of failure because, for example, I'm not sure my skill set can stretch to
coming up with a solution to the problem, and "requires work" is when something takes my particular skill set and some focused effort and time,
but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get it done in the end and be happy with the result. (And the focused effort and time ought not to be too unpleasant, or else it falls into some other category again.) "easy"
is "requires work that is far enough below my skill level that I don't
have to worry about it at all".

I prefer "requires work", or on the easy-enough end of "hard" that the
risk of failure is somewhat low; I hate when "hard" borders on "seems impossible" and yet there we all are bashing along at it and failing.

'course, then there's also when "seems impossible" meets "sudden inspiration" and then you actually have accomplished something that
seemed nearly insurmountable, and that feels great - but I hate the
part of the process of getting there before the sudden inspiration
and feeling doomed.

Excerpts from IM, Part 3

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Re: Excerpts from IM, Part 3

[muffyjo]

(Spicy brains, indeed! God I love this.)

I hold that "work" is neutral. It needs other words around it to help identify its meaning to the speaker and is not, of itself, defined sufficiently to explain the object it refers to. It's much like "sky" in that it doesn't say that it's overcast or clear, stary or cloud-filled it's an insufficient description for much else than directing someone's attention upward.

But to imply work in the context of a relationship changes the meaning slightly but, I would argue, not enough. I think the question is not whether or not the parties involved are "working" on their relationship but more likely to be are they working on changing one or the other of them in that relationship. I don't think two people should ever be involved in changing one. I think people changing their inner workings is something only achieved by their own efforts. Which is not to say there aren't some wonderful catalysts out there but in the end, it's never "we" who changes, it's "I changed". "We" can only provide constancy, motivation and security the rest is always "I". And if a relationship keeps coming down to two parties trying to change one (even if they both are believing it's the other one) then there is a problem.

[lordfeepness.livejournal.com]

I don't think that "work" necessarily has to have a negative connotation. I think that you can absolutely have fun while doing work--or, on the other hand, some kinds of work may cause boredom, pain, etc. I think I would define work as any activity you engage in in order to realize, or contribute to the realization of, a finished product of some kind. In other words, it's a goal-oriented activity, as opposed to a free-form activity with no specifically defined end result.

[skreeky]

if a relationship requires work, then it may not be worth continuing

Good gods, what a preposterous idea! I wonder if this person has any relationships worth saving at all, and whether the other person involved would agree.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

See, the funny thing is that the person saying this is someone whom I respect immensely, largely for her skill in relationships and the deeply good (inasmuch as an outsider can ever judge) and highly stable relationships she conducts. That's why I focused on semantics, because I know from watching that our approaches are not that widely disparate.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

'Work' is expending effort. I think it's value neutral, really...it's not a bad/hard thing in and of itself.

Running a marathon is 'work'. To some people, it's liberating and exciting, and to others it's painful and awful.

To maintain a good relationship, then, there HAS to be 'work'...or 'effort', right? I mean, otherwise, you're just coexisting. Getting up to get someone a ginger ale is 'work'. (Heck, getting up to get yourself one is 'work', too, but I assume we're considering *extra* 'work'.)

If it's hard work, odious work, work that makes you feel bad rather than feeling good, then that's an indicator that something is wrong. Or if you're the kind of person who's so selfish that any 'work' you do for someone other than yourself is to be suffered through, then perhaps you're just not the relationship type. :-)

So yes. A relationship is 'work'. It means doing things you might not otherwise do, or not doing things you would. And those changes/transitions are 'work'. Remembering flowers on her birthday is 'work'. It's the motivations behind that (I want to, v. I have to) which make it 'good work' or 'bad work'.

I think.

[mangosteen]

I assert that any sufficiently complex and close relationship needs active effort in order to continue and thrive. This may or may not coincide with some other definition of "work". Only weeds grow naturally.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that.

[schmoomom.livejournal.com]

Thirding that one. Eloquent.

[marmota.livejournal.com]

if a relationship requires work, then it may not be worth continuing.

I agree; either there is something very semantically interesting going on in this person's mind, or something is horribly wrong.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I think all relationships require occasional maintenance effort, but the degree may vary over relationships and over time within the same relationship. As for the "not worth continuing" comment, I would assert that if a relationship either gets no maintenance work or is in constant maintenance mode, that's the time to start reassessing whether it's worth continuing. No work can mean stagnation and complacency, but too much work can mean that the relationship just isn't viable in the long-term.

I think relationship "work" can be enjoyable and can be chosen, but may not be either of those from time to time, and that the degree to which it usually is freely-chosen and enjoyable may well be indicative of how well the relationship will weather the times when it is miserable and forced upon you.

continued thoughts, now that I'm not at work

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Work, job, whatever...the place where I'm paid to show up and perform tasks. ;-)

If you enjoy a process, is it work? If you choose to do something, is it work? Are activities you undertake in pursuit of a hobby work? If you get paid to do something, is that work? If the product of your activity mainly benefits someone else, is that work? What activities do not count as work? What is work?

To continue from my last post: I think all of those count as work. "Work" is a very expansive word. Words such as "job" and "chore," as you and Dave noted above, are more nuanced. I think "work" is, fundamentally, effort you undertake in pursuit of a goal. That goal could be building furniture because you like building furniture. It could be tasks you are paid by an employer to perform. In relationship terms, it could be such diverse things as hashing out problems between partners, regardless of whether you reconcile or split; it could be a periodic checking in, even when things seem fine, in order to make sure things actually are fine; it could be purposeful talks about life and relationship goals; it could be making sure you do fun and different things with your partner to make sure you don't fall into a rut; or it could be doing whatever it takes to have children even if that's just having a lot of sex. :-} Some of those are more enjoyable than others, some may be more necessary than others, some may be chosen and some not, but it's still all work in my book.

So, in a relationship, if you find yourself, on balance, expending more effort on the unpleasant or unrewarding kind of work than on the pleasant or rewarding kind, that would be the time to consider whether the relationship is worth maintaining. Because, you know, relationships are not supposed to suck. (There's an interesting book called Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay that's great for helping one figure out what can be worked on in a relationship and when there's probably not much point in trying.)

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

I go with the very basic Tom Sawyer whitewashing-the-fence definition: If you have to do it, it's work; if you don't, it isn't. For example, I love doing massage, such that I've gone to some effort to bring my table to the beach, the mountains, the desert, etc, for the sake of giving massage to strangers. But I also perform massage as work, i.e., I show up to give massage for a specific amount of time to a specific person, because that person is paying me to do so. I may well enjoy it very much, but then it's "work."

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

So you can't choose to do work? Or is it simply that having chosen to do it, it ceases to be work?

To use a personal example, would you consider what I do with Theatre@First to be work? (Don't worry, this isn't a trap--I think the answer depends very much on one's own definitions.)

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I guess I don't think of it in terms of choice at all. I certainly choose to do both paid and unpaid massage; and when I choose to do either, it doesn't become more or less "work."

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Hmm, I guess I don't think of it in terms of choice at all. I certainly choose to do both paid and unpaid massage; and when I choose to do either, it doesn't become more or less "work." <sits and thinks for quite a while about what the distinction is...> It's not about payment (as there is certainly plenty of volunteer work in the world). It's not about commitment or responsibility. It's not about enjoyment.

Ah well. It is a very simplistic definition; maybe it doesn't work very well for other people.

I would consider your Theatre@First commitments to be "not-work," though of course I'd glibly use the phrase, "Elizabeth puts a lot of work into Theatre@First." Boy, I shouldn't join the debate team on the merits of my definition, should I?

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Force times distance.

[breadd.livejournal.com]

um, reminded me of this joke, for which I googled to find a copy:

http://www.comedy-zone.net/jokes/laugh/religion/religious12.htm

[xthread.livejournal.com]

I still have to read the long exchange twixt you and dpolicar, but for the moment I'm inclined to second the inestimable mangosteen's fine analysis.

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

For those of you following along at home, my original words were:

In my own life, I've found that good relationships don't require anything that feels like work. Good relationships certainly require time and attention and communication and all that jazz, but I find that when my partner and I are compatible to begin with, those things require no significant effort.

When we discussed it, my husband phrased it slightly differently, saying that relationships certainly require effort, but in a good relationship, that effort is not onerous.

To answer your question, I think that for me, if there's something else I'd rather be doing, then what I'm currently doing is probably work. Additionally, even when I'm doing what I most want to be doing, it could be work if I'm doing it for the benefit of a person or group other than a close friend or family member.

So if what I most want to be doing is resolving a issue with my partner, then it's not work to me. And since in good relationships, I generally want to resolve issues as quickly as is practical, I don't usually find that conflict resolution feels like work to me.

Whereas if I decide to spend the afternoon doing something enjoyable for an organization I'm involved with, it still feels like work because I'm doing it for the benefit of the organization or the people it serves.

I had originally been going to say that even if there's something I'd rather be doing, what I'm currently doing might not be work if I'm doing it for the benefit of a close friend or family member, but I'm actually not so sure that's true, depending on how I think about "would rather be doing." There are certainly times when I do things that wouldn't originally have been my first choice of how to spend my time, yet I don't wind up feeling that they are work. I think that may be because those things are so clearly the right thing to do, I'm unable to imagine doing anything else with my time at that moment.

Driving to the airport at 5 am is certainly not usually on my list of "things I'd like to be doing," but if a close friend or family member needs to get to the airport early in the morning, I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing than taking them there, and it certainly doesn't feel like work.

[muffyjo]

I'm inclined to equate "work" as a neutral term having multiple meanings all of which engender a change in some state. The state of the object or objects or the state of some aspect of me. Working is a means to an end. Whether or not I enjoy that process depends on my attitude and choices.