What do I do all day?
Email.
Each day I check my email in the morning and "voila!" I got me a task list for the day. I respond to one, move it to the appropriate folder, and go on to the next suspended assignment. It doesn't end there. All day I accumulate messages from ANYBODY from ANYWHERE. Its like if people are just lined up outside of my cubicle (excuse me, work station) and keep laying memos on my desk. And there isn't a thing I can do about it. "Thanks, Bob." "Thanks, Anne." "I'll get right to this, Greg." "Yep, just put it right there." "I will get right on that." All day I try to stay ahead of the curve. Hopefully by the end of the day no more pending tasks are in my inbox and I can go home with great sense of satisfaction that I spent the day thwarting the forces of email backlog.
I had a conversation with a friend of mine this week about how it feels like these days that not many of us really produce much or do anything tangible. Back in the days of yore one grew crops, built a house, butchered meat, or chopped wood. Fixing stuff had a tangible result - "Yep, done did unclog that there drain." Even writing resulted in a direct correlation to something being physically published. Now that labor is outsourced to other parts of the world, stuff that is produced comes from somewhere else and we are left with maintaining inboxes.
If we aren't producing stuff for each other to buy we provide services that we "need." I ain't no economist, but I do know that we basically have a service industry. So we have to spend and spend and spend just to keep our economy going. In fact the good ol' economy needs all those unfortunate people to rack up debts on credit cards just to keep things floating. Basically, isn't that what this recent tax refund is all about. Some folks know that to keep things going, we need folks not to save or to be good stewards of their earnings; but rather to spend like there is no tomorrow. "Don't use that tax stimulant on the mortgage, go buy a plasma TV." (By the way, I find it kinda disconcerting that my government is trying to "stimulate" me.) So instead of making stuff to buy and sell, we all do things for each other, so that we can get money to spend on having things done for us.
Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I feel that there is a very tangible task and purpose to what I do. I work in higher education and we are equipping students to serve and to lead in the church.
However, I don't always resonate with the nobility of my labor when I open my email in the morning.
I am a professional emailer.
3 comments:
Dave, this post of yours is stimulating to me. In fact, it stimulates me to the degree that I feel I must email it to all the professional emailers I know, namely my friends who work in the service sector.
Seriously though, I think you're on to something quite remarkable here in terms of describing the fragility of the capitalist society in which we live. The question to which you allude is an important one: "What would happen to our economy if the electricity simply went out?" Many of us would be rendered useless to the organizations we serve and thus, we would be unemployed in a short amount of time.
This indirectly raises big questions for the Church: On what/whom do we rely for our survival? Could we exist without electricity?-(this is particularly threatening to highly programmatic churches). Or, if we believe that heaven is crashing into earth, then how can we as followers of Jesus be leaders in developing and promoting sustainable economic systems for people all over the world?
The questions are endless just as our reliance on non-renewable forms of energy seems endless.
I agree with your sense that something needs to change.
Thanks for the post.
how do you like that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURa9T0-Rjk mr. kobe is the worst!!! ;-)
you don't respond to my damn emails.
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