Yesterday’s post brought many old streams of cogitation to the forefront of my mind. Among them was the age-old question of just why it is that we work and how best we should go about it. Clearly this is a question with as many answers as there are people to whom to ask the question but I think that one can hash out the possible answers into a fairly small number of categories which will allow us to more easily analyze the benefits of each. So firstly, the categories as I see them:
The Bee
Like its namesake, the bee is a busy, busy person. I imagine the bee in a profession like Project Management that is, for all intents and purposes, infinitely extensible. By day, the bee is a professional Project Manager for 60+ hours a week. The bee’s hobbies include studying for Project Management certifications and going to dinner parties where they can hear about job opportunities in Project Management and the latest certifications in Project Management. Conversation with the bee, even outside of work, tends to be about Project Management with the occasional anecdote about how much extra money the bee has because there’s just no time to spend it between work and studying. The bees are consummate professionals who are highly respected in their fields but typically work alone. Every scientist you’ve ever heard of was probably a bee.
The Bonobo
The bonobo, like his apiarian counterparts, goes to work and gets the job done. He puts in his time and when that final whistle blows and it’s time to go home he finds a way to kick back and relax. In today’s culture it’s likely that a bonobo will go home, watch some television, play with the kids and maybe play a video game or two and get up the next morning refreshed and relaxed and ready to go at it again. There’s a time for work and there’s a time for fun and bonobos know how (and when) to have fun whether it’s going to the monster truck rally or kicking back to watch that Doctor Who marathon. Bonobos are warm and relatable and tend to have lots of personal connections. While bonobos aren’t as dedicated as the bees, they tend to be better workers in general because their strong relationships with other people in the company make them great collaborators.
The Scholar
Scholars share some characteristics with their bee and bonobo counterparts but the motivations for working are derived from completely different sources. While the bee works because that’s just what the bee IS and the bonobo is “working for the weekend” the scholar is working for the purposes of pursuing something that the bonobos would regard as just more work but of a different type. Scholars are hooked on the adrenaline of accomplishment and work is just a vehicle to get that shot of adrenaline and also provide resources so they can pursue the other 27 work-like things that they do. You can always tell the bonobos from the scholars on the beach. The bonobos are relaxing in a chair soaking up the sun. The scholars are scouring the beach with a metal detector while picking up broken glass so nobody cuts themselves and simultaneously trying to get a perfect photo of the sunset. To the bonobo, relaxation means doing nothing. To the scholar, relaxation means doing something different.
The Sloth
I should start in describing the sloth by saying that the name isn’t intended to be a disparagement of this class of people. Quite the contrary, the sloth is a solid and efficient form of life and so is the human sloth of my imaginings here. While the other classes work regularly and out of habit, the sloth works only when absolutely necessary. It’s probable that the sloth has other interests but that they’re not of a nature that would be lucrative enough to sustain the sloth, usually of an artistic bent. For the sloth the working world is a place to be visited on a periodic basis as needed rather than a habitual place of habitation. Luckily, or perhaps as a result of perpetual penury, the sloth’s material needs are few and simple and so they live relatively carefree and quiet lives.
Personally, I can see varying degrees of value in each category above. The bees are steadfast adherents to a cause and they throw themselves into their line of work with absolute abandon. We owe a lot to the bees because they’re the innovators who really push the world forward. However, there’s a flip side to this in that sometimes you get a bee when you need a bonobo. If you’re doing ground-breaking work in genetics, be a bee. If you’re an accountant in a large corporation then taking on bee-like characteristics is likely to make you more rogue than anything else. There’s a time for exploring and forging ahead solo and there’s a time for collaborating. Bees can have a tendency to confuse the two much to the detriment of their (forgive me) hive.
I have to admit that I consider myself in the scholar category. I want to know and explore and see everything possible and the thought of just sitting on the beach doing nothing absolutely makes my soul ache. The benefits of the scholar in the workplace are many. Scholars are better rounded and tend to excel less in specific areas but make up for it by having a wider range of skills that can be brought to bear on a business problem. They can be assigned to a myriad of job duties and not only tolerate but also enjoy that level of job fragmentation. Like the bee though there are pitfalls to be aware of. Making personal connections outside the work setting can be difficult since the scholar typically has difficulty relating to bonobos and even to other scholars. Discovery of common interests can be prohibitively difficult when there is so much from which to choose. No matter the depth of one’s knowledge of Marchantiophyta it is exceptionally difficult to leverage those tidbits of knowledge to strike up a conversation with someone who enjoyed the newest Fox sitcom the night before and has an insatiable itch to talk about it. Because of this disconnectedness collaboration can suffer and scholars in a larger group setting will be less efficient than their bonobo counterparts.
Lastly, we turn our attention to the humble sloth. In some ways that lifestyle with its minimal needs is very appealing to me. This is probably at least in part because my interests are primarily of a sort that require more time than money to pursue them. Give me a camera, an internet connection and a forest to tromp around in and I’m as content as I’d care to be. So the idea of taking a more work-minimal attitude towards life isn’t altogether unappealing. More time for tromping, after all!
So, now that I’ve blathered on for what must seem like forever, what say you? Do you fit any of the categories above? If not, what category would we need to add to complete the picture? Is your category different from what you would LIKE your category to be
Today I left the apartment with fervor, energy and drive that I haven’t felt in a while (at least a week!). Motivation is a costly commodity when the temperature is 38 degrees and the wind is gusting at 30 miles per hour. I like to get out and do the photo thing but let’s face it, I’m a wimp. If it’s a choice between taking photos or keeping all my appendages intact, I’ll just go pull something out of the big box of books and turn the heat up. But this afternoon I poured out the door like a bucket of water over Niagra falls; I was ready to take on the day and whatever it happened to bring.