An Analysis on Work

I'm currently reading a facinating book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers. His previous book, Blink, was good, but I thought lacked a coherant point. This one, however, is crystal clear. Success isn't simply a matter of talent or inherant ability, rather, depends largely on outside cultural factors. I won't re-hash what he says because this isn't meant to be a book review, rather, one side point he made really got me thinking. In chapter 5 he talks about what three qualities a job has to have if it is to be satisfying. He says:

Those three things -autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward- are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.

This makes perfect sense to me. When I read this I immediately started thinking about these three things in relation to my job in retail. In the first area, autonomy, it fails miserably. This, however, is just the nature of the retail game. I have a boss who has a boss who has a boss who has a boss and so on forever and ever. The hierarchy is a bit muddled, but little I do in my job is of my own choice. There is always some process, some procedure or some order that comes from some authority figure.

Now, complexity is a little bit of a complicated issue. It really depends on how you look at the idea of complexity and there are really two ways to look at it: intellecutally complex or physically/mentally complex. It isn't intellectually complex at all. Frankly, its a bit mindnumbing. Physical/mental complexity you might be able to make a case for. It's physical because you are on your feet the whole time and sometimes have to carry a lot of stuff (like I did yesterday and kinda tweaked my back). It's mentally complex because you have to keep your head and not lose it in front of a douchebag customer. 

Where the job really fails, however, is the effort to reward ratio. I could bust my ass and try to do a good job, but I'm still going to get paid the same as the guy who screws around the whole shift and does nothing. It's the classic Office Space problem, I would work hard and try to make the company more money, but I don't see a dime of that, so what's my incentive? It also has a long-run problem. I could try and have a good close, get my section good and clean and get all my stocking done, but the next day, everything will be back where it was and it was as if my efforts meant nothing.

So when you look at it, my job in retail is not at all satisfying. That's ok though. I don't plan to make it a career and at this stage in my life, I think having this job is good for me. At the very least it gives me fewer of those idle moments that aren't good for me.