"I'm just doing my job!"

Yesterday I finally made myself a favor and made a dreadful phonecall. I need a new tax card. Thus, I had to call the local tax office. I hate calling people whom I don't know; and I hate calling official authorities even more. Well, the lady at the tax office was very patient, she even tried to reply to my stupid questions and took her time to shed some light on the mysteries of tax percentages. I was impressed. I was happy all day. But for what? She was just doing her job; she was doing exactly what she was supposed to do, no more, no less. This small scene shows the difference it makes in what spirit something is done. It's far too easy to think about people's jobs in terms of a minimum level of performance - "performing one's role". Maybe we add the appendage of extraordinary people whose performance exceed the formal requirements of a job. But the picture is, I think, still far too one-sided.

Think about the different contexts in which somebody might say "This is simply my job." We ask the guy working at a home for elderly people: "Isn't it a heavy load to bear, to take care of old, dying people?" "Well, this is my job" I tell the sales manager how happy I am with the results of the latest quarter, but she says, humbly, "I'm just doing my job, it's nothing". I shout at the meter maid when I run towards my car "Don't give me a ticket! Please!" but she snarls at me "Goddamit, you people, I'm just doing my fucking job!" It's interesting that these examples contain very different pictures of what it means that something is "just my job". There's different distinctions; "this is just my job, and not a personal offense", "this is just my job, it has nothing to do with me, I perform it as a robot".

One summer many years ago, I worked at a firm that provided laundry services. Most of the people hated their jobs. When we arrived at work in the morning, we used to say to each other: "And now we're here again...", "here we are...." and "yet another day..." and "this day, too..." One of the ladies used to grab her mate's arm and walk out of the canteen, jokingly singing "Let's woooork!" And then we were back at the line. We were doing our job, all right, and we hated it. It was just a job. Afterwards, I've come to think how different doing that job was for me, compared to my mates who'd been working there for twenty years. For me, it was just a summer job, a few months of toil and drudgery at which I look back with a feeling of nostalgia. For them - it was life, the routines of everyday life. While working there, it was, in a sense, not "just a job" for me, or anyone else: it was our reality, our world, our habits. But from a different perspective, it was just a fucking job; something you do without joy, without passion, without commitment. You do it, you get paid for it.