James M. Flammang, author of more than two dozen
books, is at work on several more, including the
title described below.

A veteran automotive journalist, Flammang concentrates
on the "big picture," whether he's writing about cars,
consumer issues, simpler living, or any other topic.

During 2009, Flammang will be expanding his efforts
into the areas of work/labor, travel, and fiction.

Brief Summary: Conventional wisdom dictates that work is always good. Not only does it provide income and accomplishment, it generates a sense of responsibility and participation. Well, this book begs to differ. Starting with my own first full-time job, when I was ready for retirement 10 minutes into the first day, I use personal experiences and anecdotes, coupled with lifelong study of labor history and the work culture, to assess what's wrong with our excessive emphasis on jobs and careers.

Is working in a cubicle what humans were meant to do? What happened to the notion of truly blending work and other aspects of life, rather than separating them? What do we really learn from our first jobs, and our last, and every one in between?

If work is so wonderful, why do workers spend so much time chatting about coffee breaks, nighttime partying, and forthcoming days off (if any)? These and many other serious questions about the alleged beauty of modern-day work will be addressed - in a light style, meant to suggest alternative ways of thinking but not trying to pound new views into anyone.

Ten minutes after starting my first full-time job, I was ready to retire. Or if not retire, to quit--and run off as fast as I could, in search of some more appetizing way of life.

Glancing around that proofreading department, tucked within a mammoth printing company that produced telephone books, only a single thought filled my mind: Is this what all the fuss was about? Studying the intense faces of the proofreaders and the timekeepers who patrolled their days' work, I could only wonder: As a 16-year-old high school graduate, I had to ask myself incredulously: Is this what we're supposed to do every day, year after year, for the rest of our lives?

What else could there be? I knew nothing of any other type of existence. In working-class Chicago in the 1950s, you left school, and you got a job. Case closed. With money coming in, you could buy a car, get married, start a family and trudge off to work every day for the next 40 years or more. That was life for our fathers, and it would be for us.

Rather than run off, like nearly every young American in the mid-1950s I gave in and stayed on the job. For a while. Nearly a year for that one: first as a timekeeper, then a promotion to clerk in the cost accounting department. Then another job, and another, and another. Three months here, two weeks there. My short-term record was four hours. The longest connection lasted a bit over a year.

Prior to the 1960s and the birth of the counterculture, such a disparaging impression of work was not a popular view. Classmates who weren't immediately going on to college could hardly wait to be interviewed for their first jobs, whether in a factory or office, or behind the wheel of a truck.

Paychecks meant money to buy flashy cars, impress girls, carouse through drunken weekends. Never had I heard anyone, peer or parent, utter a discouraging word about what would inevitably turn out to be lifelong servitude. People might joke about how awful their jobs were, complete with vivid descriptions of bloodcurdling bosses and nasty coworkers, but nearly all of them showed up again every Monday morning.

Young Freddie doesn't want to work? "Must be a bum," local critics would charge. "Maybe a lazy commie. I'll show him what it means to ...."

Now, half a century later, all I can say is that I was right and they were wrong. If only it had been possible to run off or retire before sliding headlong into the world of work, life might have been a lot more tolerable. Rather than an alarmed response from an immature teenager, that initial reaction was the logical one, the sensible one. Beyond the obvious benefit of providing money to live on all these years, for many of us, work has provided few rewards and plenty of grief.

Sure, it's different for doctors, firefighters, therapists, caregivers - those who make a real and valued contribution to the welfare of humanity. But how many of us, after decades of work, can honestly say that our jobs have made a difference to the world? Any difference? Painful as it is to admit, for many of us a life of business, bosses and bureaucracy leaves a string of memories that are more painful than merry. All we've done is made a dimwitted dent in the routine of shuffling money around.
....

Note: Extended excerpts of Work Hurts will be added periodically.