The Value and Dignity of Work

One of the foundations of civilization, work not only provides livelihood but also bestows self-respect

How we approach our work—with pride or negligence—says a lot about us. Biba Kayewich

In the television show “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” aired before many of my readers were born, Bob Denver, later of “Gilligan’s Island” fame, played Maynard G. Krebs, a beatnik—for young readers, think early hippie. His trademarks were a goatee and an aversion to work. Whenever someone mentioned the word, Maynard would panic, yelp “Work!” and sometimes, even drop into a faint.

Along with my siblings, then old enough to appreciate that show, I’d always laugh at Maynard’s line, although it was one we never dared try out on our parents.

Dad, a small-town physician at that time, worked 60-plus hours a week, and when he was home, he switched gears from his examining room to the yard and woods around our house. My brother and I were still in elementary school, but we worked alongside him, clearing brush, pulling weeds, and raking leaves.

We also helped Mom with household chores, mowed the lawn, and fed the horses housed in a barn built by Dad and his father, a carpenter.

Dad was old-school, a child of the Depression and later, an infantryman fighting the Germans in Italy. He’d grown up poor in a household where the adage—“if you don’t work, you don’t eat”—was a living reality.

He bestowed his work ethic, perhaps his greatest gift, on each of his six children. Both Mom and Dad considered all work honorable and worthy, no matter how menial, and we were raised to believe the same.

Work: The Basics

In Genesis, God banishes Adam from the Garden and lays a curse on him: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). Like Maynard G. Krebs, some Americans still see work as anathema, preferring to take money from the government rather than earn it from an employer. Citing stress on the job, others have recently laid claim to the idea of “quiet quitting,” a philosophy which may be summed up as “I’ll do what I’m obliged to do at work, but not a whit more.”

Others, however, appreciate hard work of all kinds. Ben Franklin, a man as industrious as they come, wrote, “It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.”

Just recently, skilled trades advocate Mike Rowe remarked, “Work ethic is important because, unlike intelligence, athleticism, charisma, or any other natural attribute, it’s a choice.”

When we try to define work, we probably think first of labor exchanged for some kind of payment. Whether it’s a teller at the bank or the guy driving a truck, both are working, at least in part, to make money. In their own way, they are heeding the trademark words of America’s early pioneers: “Root, hog, or die.”

That was harsh, but the meaning was clear: If you wanted to survive, you’d better get on with the job.

Work: The Deeper Meaning

All work is a form of service, often unrecognized as such by the laborer himself, to our fellow human beings. The kid who dispenses hamburgers and fries at a local fast-food restaurant is feeding the hungry, which, in Christian tradition, constitutes a corporal work of mercy. The tall gentleman once employed by my public library cleaned the bathrooms, mopped the vestibule, wiped down the tables, and brought some sparkle to that place. A nurse I know well, now retired, gave her all at a hospice, caring for the dying and, on occasion, returning home in tears at what she had witnessed.

Christianity has long extolled the value and dignity of work. “Ora et labora,” which translates to “pray and work,” has guided monastic life for many centuries, and the ancient Rule of St. Benedict notes that “idleness is the enemy of the soul.”

The Shame of Our Shaming

To the detriment of our culture, our society, and ourselves, some people don’t always grant this dignity to others. They hail the talents and wealth of actors and Silicon Valley emperors, and they look with respect on the doctor they’ve just met at a party, but they look past or through the man who introduces himself as an auto mechanic. I’ve actually encountered one blue-collar worker, a carpenter, apparently talented, who seemed apologetic when telling me what he did for a living.

What our culture has done by dishonoring certain work or jobs is ridiculous and harmful on two levels. First, this superior attitude toward the blue-collar and working-class steals away their worth as human beings. The broker or bureaucrat who considers herself somehow better than the plumber she meets at a backyard barbecue is behaving like so many people, arranging her fellow human beings into some sort of hierarchy and judging them by what they do rather than who they are.

This same widespread notion of position and status has also affected the trades in our country, which are crying out for competent workers. For decades, we have pushed our young people to attend college, whereas many of them might have enjoyed happier lives, and high incomes, becoming welders, masons, or technicians. The jobs are out there, but those who are qualified to work them are missing.

Some show this same disdain for the woman who chooses to care for her husband and children, maintain the house, and assume all the responsibilities this decision entails. Over the years, I’ve seen perhaps a dozen or so women who, when asked that most American question, “What do you do?” say with some sense of embarrassment, “I’m a stay-at-home mom.” Long considered one of the most vital of human endeavors, managing a home and raising children no longer qualifies as worthy labor.

To shame such work is, in itself, shameful.

The Fruits of Human Labor

Work isn’t only about money and human dignity. It’s the foundation of civilization.

I’m writing these words in a coffee shop on Main Street in Front Royal, Virginia. Directly outside of my window seat is a candy store in an old building built from thousands of bricks. In the window of the café are posters and decorative lights. To my right are wooden and metal tables, chairs, a nook with a widescreen TV and sofas, glass counters encasing ice cream, and a score of other fixtures common to such establishments.

Every item here, from the largest to the smallest, is the work of human hands and human ingenuity. Ditto on the sandwiches made in the kitchen, the bagged chips, and the Peet’s coffee. The establishment is clean and organized—again, the results of someone’s labor.

To the Best of Our Ability

In “The Book of Man,” William Bennett includes a profile of Terry Toussaint, who took a job as a sanitation worker in Fort Valley, Georgia, where he cleaned gutters, fixed potholes, and eventually became supervisor of the department. Toussaint believed in making each day count. Bennett writes, “His attitude, not his job or his status, defines who he is as a man.”

The same is true for all of us. Our attitude toward work tells others who we are. And here we must remember that work, no matter what it is, doesn’t bring dignity to us. No—we bring dignity to the work, and the key to that dignity is our attitude.

When we give ourselves to a job, performing with competence and an upbeat, can-do attitude, we not only serve others, but ourselves as well, daily adding another coin, usually without even realizing it, to our treasury of self-respect.