If only I die just once in my life
So let’s see you smile,
‘cause I’m not impressed with your loneliness.
Not one bit.
~~
What compels people to speak? We spend so much of our time just talking. We talk and talk, do something, talk as we do it, talk about it after we’re done doing it. There are few places where talk is as prevalent as in the academy. As I noted a while ago, I’ve never really left the academy, so I’m quite used to lots of talk.
In the summer, I work as a landscaper. There is very little talk in the landscaping business. If there’s one weak point on my crew, it’s communication, but that’s because we’re expected to know what to do so we don’t waste time with a lot of talk. The amount of silent communication that goes on is really quite impressive, I think. We improvise. We get things done.
Last year we had a new man on the crew who never really understood that he had to think for himself. He asked too many questions, and didn’t get the kind of detailed answers he was hoping for. It didn’t take very long before he was off the job, partly because he was lazy, but his laziness was related to his complete lack of ability to take initiative without verbal imperative. Not that there’s never any friendly banter. There is. But compared to school, when at work I’m like “a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” You don’t have to tell me that this is a strange place for an Eliot quote. I know it.
I am particularly quiet at work, because I don’t relate very much to my co-workers. I have an excellent crew, but I’m an academic, they aren’t. Which isn’t to say they’re not intelligent, they simply have very different interests. By their standards, in fact, I’m probably the stupidest one on the crew.
I can’t say I mind that though. Work in the summer is both humbling and invigorating. I know that I’m a good worker, though by no means an exceptional one. When it comes to academics, I fear no one. I know that I can hold my own in a discussion. I know I can write an A-grade paper on just about any subject (in the humanities) for even the most demanding professors, with relative ease, whether I already hold knowledge in the field or not.
At work, however, failure is a real possibility. I might be trying my hardest, doing the best I know how, and still ‘fail’, so to speak. And when I do, I’m expected to fix it, and I do. There are no loose ends for me to abandon when the semester ends. Everything must be completed, and unlike at school, a place where I move freely and easily, by the end of the day, month, and summer, I can always point to concrete accomplishments. I have something to be proud of, something I’ve done – but not too proud of. I have no reason to feel superior in any way at my job. I become an important part of a whole, but I’m not a unique or irreplaceable part.
What is the point of these reflections? There is no real point. They’re just reflections. There’s nothing wrong with talking. By the end of last summer, I was desperate for the kind of stimulating communication I get when at school. I had hoped that this year a friend of mine in Sem would get a job on my crew. Unfortunately, I don’t think the position was available.
There is something right about shutting up once in a while and just doing, and silently taking responsibility for what’s done, and for what’s undone, and needs to be done again.
njero said,
Apr 7, 22:47 #
I am especially interested on your comments re: work-pride. Or, as a sociologist might put it, priding (sorry).
I’ve been trying to work out today how it is that I feel more important in my current construction job, than I might in a corporate or media position. Or, why what I do seems to matter more than what the stereotypical desk-jockey does. I suspect it has something to do with both the personal aspect of providing homes for individuals, and the sheer permanence of that which I produce. But I’m unable to get past these simple impressions to the heart of the matter.
Tristan said,
Apr 8, 00:15 #
I imagine that the dynamic’s a little bit different when you’re building houses, since you pour so much time and effort into a single place. But with landscaping, I’ve noticed that, for all the pride I have regarding a particular job, once we leave the site the final time, the thing is suddenly out of my hands. What once was, in some small way, mine, is no longer. It’s a strange sensation. My pride in past jobs (when, for instance, I drive by them) often feels a little misplaced. Yet not in a post-partum sort of way. It’s weird.
Pappel said,
Apr 12, 11:04 #
I think that the satisfaction/pride one feels when working in a job with a visible outcome and results is incredibley common, even among the “academics”, as you put it, Tristan.
I will be graduating from college in a few weeks. I have spent three years of my life, not to mention thousands of dollars, on a Humanities B.A. that I will probably do fairly little with.
...I want to bake.
IFRpilot said,
Apr 13, 10:02 #
Unless your building something you don’t really want to, like that bell tower last summer. although i will admit, i do feel a little bit of pride everytime i hear that bell ringing, and small smile comes to my face. Although the smile comes from remembering when the old guy wanted to hear what i sounded like and his helper grabbed the bell hammer and struck the bell. My head happened to be right next to the bell, inside the forms. Needless to say, loud.