By Igor Shchegolev

There are many opinions about the question, “Why don’t people work?”

Aesop’s famous fable clearly illustrates what the result of not working is.  The ant and grasshopper are opposites in that one of them doesn’t want to work.  People of many generations have accepted the moral of Aesop’s fable as the rule.

According t Aesop’s moral, the ant was right, and the grasshopper was not because it did not work during the summer.  It was singing and dancing all the time and didn’t anticipate what would happen in the winter.  That is a simple moral.  It is also too idealistic.  For Aesop, the world is divided into two groups – the ants and the grasshoppers.  However, people in real life are more varied and complex than the ant and the grasshopper.  Maugham tried to depict the world in more realistic colours.  He showed two brothers, one of whom didn’t work but was still rewarded.  It is the way life is.  So, Aesop defined a rule and Maugham showed that people don’t always want to live by the rules.  Why?  Life is more complicated than an Aesop’s fable because there is a big difference between labour and work.

Most people consider labour as a way to exist, to provide themselves with the necessities of life.  They work in order to live – even if they hate their jobs – and they would not work if they could manage not to.  A work ethic and moral rules have been created by society.  Political orientation does not matter; in any case, society will create conditions that require people to work hard.  In “The Work Ethic is Underemployed”, Daniel Yankelovich considers three conceptions of work: first, as labor, as a way to exist; second, as a way to improve one’s level of life; and third, as a moral necessity.  Some people accept these rules.  They work hard and consider this way of living as the only right one.  They believe that their labor will eventually be rewarded.  They are obvious characters of Aesop’s fable.  They are ants.  And they do labour, not work.

There is another reason that people work.  It doesn’t fit into any of Yankelovich’s definitions of work.  There are some people who work not for money, not for the best possible material life, not because of a moral necessity or society’s rules – but because they cannot live without working.  For them, work is a natural necessity that has nothing to do with either morals or money.

There are three good examples of people who illustrate that work is different from labour.  A good example of someone who could not live without working was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the great Viennese musician and composer.  He could not accept life without making music.  To live without creating music was meaningless to him.  Jack London, a great American writer, spent his entire life in an effort to describe people with strong personalities and willpower, people who were trying to realize the truth about life.  Roald Amundsen, the great Norwegian explorer, sacrificed his life for the work of exploration.  He was the first person to reach the South Pole.

The people I have been talking about lived in order to work.  They considered work something very interesting.  It made existence more exciting; it gave meaning to their lives.  Life and work were the same for them.  However, they don’t fit into the characters of Aesop’s ant or Yankelovich’s workers.  The three of them spent long periods of time without working.  These were times of terrible depression, stress, and even the threat of madness.  Mozart was under a depression after his mother’s death.  The last years of his life, he drank heavily and he died in poverty.  Jack London wasn’t more successful: alcoholism and financial problems led him to commit suicide at the age of 40.  Roald Amundsen was killed during the air search for an Italian explorer, Umberto Nobile.  It would be very simple to say that these people didn’t do any real work because they were lazy or because they could not handle problems due to a weak will.  However, like a glowworm, which does nothing at all, they made a beautiful light through their work.  The light they made illuminated whole generations.

I believe that the difference between work and labour can explain a lot of things.  Sometimes it is difficult to recognize the difference between them, but it is important to do so.  Since earliest times humans have created.  Their creativity has brought the greatest advances and inventions into the world.  Uncreative work, or labour, leaves no trace in history.  The majestic pyramids of Egypt, built through the labour of thousands of slaves but the work of only a few architects, still stand today as a monument to creative work.  They are a combination of work and labour.  So, why are we trying to differentiate the two terms?  First, it is important the difference between work and labour.  Second, it is important t work rather than labour in order to create rather than merely produce.

Work cited:

Yankelovich, Daniel.  “The Work Ethic is Underemployed.”  Psychology Today  (May 1982)

This article is taken from the book “Write to be Read. Reading, Reflection, and Writing” by William R. Smaller, page 102 – 103.  It is an essay written by a student from Azerbaijan.

Little white lies: lies about trivial matters, like false excuses to spare a person’s feelings; flattery; “how are you feeling”; “how’s it going”; etc. – these lies must be truly harmless and inconsequential, never intended to be given a second thought.

Placebos: deceptions to make a person feel better (like sugar pills); euphemisms; some self-help gimmickry; false reassurance.

Pufferies: inflation and exaggeration to make something sound better than it is; false praise; false encouragement; false support.

Misdirections: false recommendations; intentional incorrect or incomplete answers.

Bluffs: fake resumes; false credentials.

Protections String-Alongs: lies to protect a colleague; lies t protect a client lies t liars (to teach them a lesson; to give them a taste of their own medicine).

Snow Jobs: lies to enemies.

Terminological Inexactitudes: lies to the boss (this term was first use Winston Churchill!); also knows as “soft-soaps”.

Defensive Lies: lies in a crisis when innocent lives, health, or safety are at risk.  (may be morally justifiable if the lie can pass the “publicity test”.)

The source: that was in my ENGL 225 handout “Ethics and Professional Communications or You Want Me to Write What?”

Protecting from Unnecessary Hurt

By Donald W. McCullogh

Taken from “Write to be Read” (Reading, Reflection, and Writing) by William R. Smalzer

Verna claims that I said her baby was ugly.  I can’t imagine being that insensitive, though it was a long time ago and my memory isn’t exact in these matters.  I do recall Verna holding up her newborn and saying, “Isn’t she cute?”  And I, seeing a splotchy, scrunched little face and being committed to complete honesty, must have said something like “Well, she really is … a baby?”  Or maybe, “It takes an infant a few months before she can really be considered cute.”  Or I suppose there is a small possibility I said, “Strictly speaking, she is kind of ugly at the moment but will undoubtedly become a ravishing beauty.”

Nearly thirty years have passed, but whenever I run into Verna she reminds me that I called her baby ugly.  I don’t know her daughter; for all I know she became Miss Universe or perhaps my words lodged in her tiny subconscious and she has spent the last fifteen years in psychoanalysis working on low self-esteem.  In any event, I now wish I had lied.  It would have saved all of us a lot of grief.

Occasionally, courtesy calls for a lie.  Let me hasten to stress I’m talking about white lies, not black or gray or even off-white lies.  Show-white lies.  But even so, I realize I’ve just launched this chapter into very dangerous waters, with though ethical questions all around us.  We had better navigate through this subject very carefully, wit a firm grip on the tiller…

… How can we speak truthfully about lying?  The ancient philosopher Aristotle may be of help to us.  He said that honesty was more than unloading everything to everyone.  Rather, it is speaking the right truth to the right person at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

Not every truth is mine to tell: a truth shared in confidence and a truth that would needlessly hurt another is not mine to tell.  Not every person has a right to know the truth.  Some willfully distort what they hear; some use facts to cover a larger, more important truth: some have blabbermouths with unrelenting and undiscriminating tongues.  Not every time is appropriate for the truth: some seasons call for tactful silence: they day your friend’s daughter dropped out of school is not the day to tell her about your daughter making the honour roll.  Not every way of communicating honours the truth.  Sometimes the manner in which something is said subverts reality, as when a preacher says all the right words about God’s love but through a tone of voice and a concluding string of “oughts” (therefore we ought to do this and we ought to do that) that makes you feel guiltier than ever.  Not every reason deserves the use of truth: some motives for telling the truth are simply too destructive to deserve the respectability of being clothed in the truth.  Some expressions of “honesty” are really attempts to demean and belittle another person.

When it is the wrong truth or the wrong person or the wrong time or the wrong way or the wrong reason, a white lie may have more integrity than a facile, insensitive “honesty”.  But when does a white lie begin to turn a slight shade of gray?  When does it cross over and become an immoral act of dishonesty?

Perhaps a good test would be to ask, Does this lie protect the other person or does it protect me?  Let’s waste no time in admitting that it’s not easy to tell the difference.  On the surface, a lie may appear t protect another person from unnecessary pain; on closer examination, however, it’s actually an attempt to save me from uncomfortable exposure.  In Graham Greene’s “The Heart of the Matter”, a police officer in a West African colony during the war has an affair, and in an effort to “protect” his wife from the pain of the truth, walks down a road of falsehood that leads to disaster.  Greene’s story may be fiction but it’s a profound truth reenacted everyday.  It’s easy to convince ourselves we’re guarding the feelings of another when we’re only trying to protect ourselves – and this sort of deception often ends in more complication and more lying and more pain than we could have ever imagined.

But just because it’s difficult to tell the difference between and appropriate lie and a morally unacceptable lie does not mean we give up the attempt to make the distinction.  Life, after all, is difficult.  So we press on, doing our best, knowing we’re not God, and counting on the grace of God when we blow it.  Though committed to honesty, we know that sometimes courtesy calls for creative stretching the truth.

“It is easier to love humanity than to love one’s neighbour (Anonymous)”

Summary

In the Toronto Star article “Many Canadians are made to feel like strangers in their homeland”, Shellene Drakes has touched on a sore subject of racial discrimination, as well as the impact of the term ‘visible minority’ on people of colour.  The reporter concentrated on the experiences and feelings of three Canadians of different ethnic descents.  The heroines of the article have a lot in common: all of them are females of the same age group, all of them were born and raised in Canada, and most importantly, all of them belong to visible minorities.  Their experiences are, however, different.  Shellene Drakes pointed out that the blacks, especially of Caribbean descent, do not share the same feeling of belonging as the Indians (from India) and the Chinese.  The reporter mentioned imperfection of Canadian educational programs in history, which failed to recognize the contribution of people of colour to the historical and economical development of Canada.  Nevertheless, Shellene ended her article on an optimistic note by saying that contemporary Canadian society is becoming more acceptable of different races and nationalities.  This fact might bring about the day when we will not ask each other the usual question, “Where are you from?”

Analysis

Even though, the article by Shellene Drakes does not provide an in-depth analysis of the subject, it touches on quite a few sociological issues, such as systemic discrimination of visible minorities, – especially of blacks, – multiculturalism as a defining characteristic of Canada, Canadian identity, and the globalization of today’s world.  The article can be analyzed from the symbolic interactionists’ point of view, as it focuses on the experiences and feelings of three different people.  The looking-glass self theory of Charles Horton Cooley can provide sufficient explanation of why the black lady Dayo Kefentse internalized the prejudice of white Canadians against the blacks, and how it became part of herself.  She is offended by the innocuous question “Where are you from?”, because she perceives it as an implication that she is either not a Canadian or not quite enough of a Canadian.  The prejudice against blacks has such a long history in Canada that, unfortunately, it has become now part of blood and flesh of the whites. One of my classmates (a white Canadian) said quite a mouthful that he sees difference between systemic and individual discrimination is that one is logical and the other is not.  The significance of this can hardly be overestimated because it shows that this person is completely unaware of how little the idea of racial discrimination has to do with logic.  As a matter of fact, prejudice and discrimination are neither logical nor rational, and this is exactly why it is extremely difficult for minorities to surmount them.

The author of the article and all the three heroines confirmed that Canada’s pattern of intergroup relations was multiculturalism.  “People wear their cultures on their sleeves here”, says Sehrab Grewal.  Multiculturalism is very favourable for recent immigrants, because they do not have to strip their ethnic identity right away.  They do not have to cut all their roots and ties the moment they land in Canada.  On the other hand, for the children of the immigrants, multiculturalism provides an opportunity to decide for them to what extent to maintain their original ethnic identity or not to maintain it at all, and become a Canadian instead.  Out of the three ladies, two were able to identify themselves as Canadians.  What is Canadian identity after all?  It makes sense (at least to me), to determine the national identity of a person by that person’s culture.  If an individual was born in Canada, and raised in Canadian culture; if he/she lives in Canada, speaks English or French and most importantly does not speak the language of his/her ancestors; if he/she does not share the cultural values, and does not breathe the same air with the people of his/her ancestry (speaking both literally and figuratively), then he or she is a Canadian.  Then there is no need to look at skin colour or eye shape, or calculate the blood percentage that you inherited from your parents, grandparents and so on and so forth.  Or if your last name (for the sake of argument, let’s say Kovacs) is neither British nor French, should it make you less of a Canadian then?

Although defining ethnicity by culture sounds quite reasonable, it does not eliminate grounds for discrimination.  After all, the original and first meaning of the word ‘discrimination’ is ‘the act of making or recognizing the differences and distinctions’.  It does not have a derogatory nuance to it.  Rather it describes an essential characteristic of the human mind.  We, as human beings, cannot think without symbols.  We have to define everything that surrounds us.  If the definition of an object or an idea is incomplete, then we are no longer comfortable with it and we start adding modifiers (such as an adjective), or simply creating new words (terms, symbols).  This is exactly the reason why we came up with the term ‘visible minority’.  Currently, whether we like or not, Canadian means white.  If a Canadian does not happen to be white, then we need a hyphenated definition, such Afro-Canadian or Asian-Canadian.  In order to distinguish between whites – native born and immigrants, – sooner or later we can create the term ‘audible minority’.  Being an audible minority can easily transform you to an invisible minority, where people simply ignore you because you are a recent immigrant. (Why bother?  He/she is not one of us.)  To demonstrate that our creativity has no limits, let me give a couple of examples.  In the last 10-15 years, Russians created the term ‘person of a Caucasian nationality’. What is the reason for that?  We have no ability to tell between Armenian, Georgian, Chechen, Dahestan, Azerbaijani or other numerous Caucasian nationalities.  The best we can do is guess that a person is from Caucasus, hence the term.  This classification hurt a lot of people, especially those who only bear a resemblance (arguably, though), but in fact are not Caucasians at all.  In 1997, one of my relatives was mistaken for a Caucasian, was stopped by militia and brought to the militia station because he did not have his passport with him (note, that our passport contains a nationality record).  Knowing “the friendliness” of the Soviet militia, and being full of premonitions, the poor fellow died right there from a heart attack.  There is another incomparable socially constructed term Homo Sovietikus (compare with Homo Sapiens) used to describe the results of evolution of people under the Soviet regime.  Though it is a joke, but as in every joke there is a part of the truth in it.  Or rather the other way around – there is a part of the joke in every joke and the rest of it is the truth.  It is questionable, whether we will be able to eliminate discrimination in all of its aspects.  Again, retournons a nos moutons, your name can cause a question to pop up.  Let’s say, your name is Dieter Kramkowski.  How many people will be able to resist the temptation to attach a tag, either by simply guessing (hmm, Dieter must be German, no, hmm…Kramkowski must be Polish) or by asking the notorious question, “Where are you from?”

The final accord that closes the discussion in the article gives us a glimpse at the very important characteristic of today’s world – globalization.  No longer can we live in the shell of our own nationality, because it is a small world after all.  The immigration – emigration and migration processes have become an everyday reality for so many countries.  This trend shows that we have to learn to coexist in the multicultural continuum because the probability of our neighbour, colleague or friend being of our own nationality is decreasing every day.  However, the recent resurgence of xenophobia in Europe, Russia and also in Canada leaves very little space for optimism.  Often immigration only exacerbates the antagonism between in-groups and out-groups.  To a larger or lesser degree, we are all ethnocentric.  Will the era of cosmopolitanism ever come?  We are yet to see[1].

In her article “Roll Back the Red Carpet for Boys”, Donna Laframboise points out that feminism has caused a significant warp in societal perception of which sex is being more discriminated than the other.  The facts tell us that males, especially in their early ages, face more troubles than females.  Yet, society remains blind and deaf to these facts and with persistence worth better application continues focusing on girls’ problems.  In order to stop practicing favoritism blindly towards girls, the author calls for openness, consistency and fairness towards both sexes.  I agree with the fact that males have problems and I support the idea of fairness, but I disagree with the interpretation of the given facts. 

According to Donna Laframboise, males commit suicides more often than females, and they are more prone to alcoholism, addictions, unemployment, homelessness and crime involvement.  Males even do not live as long as females.  The author tried to track males’ misfortunes back to school ages, when they are being outnumbered and outperformed by females.  As to what are the reasons for this disparity, the author adduces some contributing factors.  Firstly, boys suffer from learning disabilities more often than girls.  Secondly, boys are the objects of more frequent and inadequate punishment by dominating female teachers and their own parents.  Thirdly, boys are confused by incompatible goals, such as masculinity and intellectualism, and they more often decide on masculinity in order to be attractive to girls. On the other hand, the societal lack of attention to boys’ problems led to the situation when boys themselves accept this “status quo” without much complaint.  Underlying this phenomenon is our inertia of thinking, when we readily apply double standards towards boys and girls.  For girls’ failures we blame society, but there is nobody to be blamed for boys’ troubles but boys themselves.

I agree with the author that males have a lot of problems that deserve our fair attention.  But I do not think that these troubles have anything to do with feminism.  The shorter lifespan of males is a result of biological wiring and is absolutely irrelevant to the feminist activity.  The higher suicide, alcoholism, crime involvement rates also have to be ascribed to the biological and psychological differences between males and females.  But following the author’s reasoning, let’s take a closer look at school ages.  In my opinion, the dominance of female teachers in school might be somewhat unpleasant for boys, but not to such extent as to lead to five times higher suicidal rates in young males.  If we agree that boys prefer to be masculine rather than intellectual, then where are those Apollos, gods of sports?  In fact, we see that boys do not choose to be intellectual and often omit to go in for sports.  My engagement in sports never hindered my intellectual development.  On the contrary, it was complementary to my academic achievements, because it helped in developing such valuable skills as self-discipline, time management skills and will-power.  Therefore, to me, Donna’s argument about a boy culture is not very authoritative.  In my school years in Russia, I witnessed similar situation, when girls outnumbered and outperformed boys.  There was no strong societal message for boys to excel in masculinity, and they did not.  On the other hand, our boys could not care less about their academic performance either.  I think, the reasons have to be found somewhere else.  For example, boys tend to be immature longer than girls, sometimes as long as they live.  Why boys do not seem to care is because they are sure that when they grow up they will make up the time in the workplace, which has not failed yet to be male-dominated.  That is partly the answer to the question why feminists and society does not call off their concern about females.  In workplace, females are left in the rearguard with all their academic achievements, while males “skim the cream”.  Females have to try twice as hard to get half of what males have got without much effort.  That explains females’ stronger motivation for academic performance in school.

But I am far from underestimating boys’ troubles, the only thing I want to accentuate that we have to look at the situation in its broader context.  Feminism cannot be blamed for boys’ misfortunes, because feminism is not trying to achieve its goals at the expense of males.  Rather we have to be aware of problems of both sexes at the different stages at their lives and treat them accordingly.  Most importantly, we have to discard our idea or reducing both sexes to the common unisex denominator, but instead open our eyes and minds to the biological, psychological and gender differences of females and males.  I agree with the author of the article, that it is about the right time to do so with all fairness.

Dear Natasha & Jonathan!

Take a deep breath (or better a hot bath followed by a cocktail) for this is going to be a long story…

This gift is to mark the occasion that we’ve missed all of your important occasions so far such as Christmas, the New Year’s Eve, the 10^th anniversary of you being happily not married, Jonathan’s birthday, Natasha’s graduation, and the new arrival of your cats (I do not remember their names, but these days I am not quite sure I remember mine).

So, we are clear with the purpose of this gift (not that every gift needs a purpose, but this one happens to have one).  As for its combination, it was unwittingly left at my discretion as Natasha refused categorically to give me any hints.  So, if you do not like it, you have a choice of being more cooperative next time or being stuck with my taste (questionable no doubt, as all tastes are).  Maybe we will get you a nice “dust collector” next time (you are going to have a place of your own, after all, and those usually have ample space for storing dust collectors.  Paying mortgage must have some rewards!)

Anyway, they say it is not the gift that counts, but the thought.  So mine went this path…

“The gift will help Natasha and Jonathan set the mood for the party of planning their next trip to see us.  They sit on a couch (they do not pick up the phone and are deaf to the requests from their numerous relatives and friends), relax, have a drink, put some music on, look at some pictures in the photo album and think “remember (Natasha, Jonathan) we have some friends who live in Toronto.  It is not all that far.  We will go visit them.  We know that we are not only invited but also welcome, which is not necessarily mutually exclusive.  Maybe we manage to see them before fall … (see the card)”

Some Q&A to follow:

Q: Oh, but they have a baby… A: We know that having a baby may not be a major attraction especially given your recent loss of a water fountain, but when you come visit us, all the damage can only be done to our place (think about it!)

Q: Oh, but they are on a diet…A: We agree that all that dieting might be off-putting to normal people, but it will be over soon.  Nikolai’s ETA at the “Being Supermodel” destination is end of April, and mine is end of May.  And we know that it will take you at least a couple of months to get ready and come to Toronto.

Q: Oh, but Svetlana cannot cook…  A: My marginal cooking skills should not be an excuse either.  After all, who could prepare a decent dinner, if one has to exclude pea soup, boiled eggs, mayonnaise, store-bought dressings, squash and potatoes?  Only Jonathan with his Chef’s degree.  But do not you worry, we can go out or, maybe, stay in and have some nice fresh cauliflower and a couple of grapefruits (Natasha loves those, I know!)

So, now you have to come.  And maybe this time we will win a game of billiard.

There are only a couple thoughts left (you may now refill your glasses).  The bear baby on the gift bag is not a distasteful hint (“where is yours?”), but simply an oversight on my part, I did not notice it as it was hiding in the folding.  You can consider it (the bear on the bag) a little spy we sent to check if you are trying to get ready for the trip to visit us.

And my English is not perfect, never was, never will be, so please excuse all the pronoun shifting, run-ons, bad spelling, and grammar.  The lack of thoughts clarity is however not language related, but you can excuse it, too, now that you are hopefully in the good mood.

So, please come and see us, both of you, we will be looking forward to it.

Svetlana, Nikolai, and Daniel

Thank you for being there for me.  I appreciate both what you said and what you did yesterday.  Despite the fact that I might make you as uncomfortable as everybody else you are the only one in our group who did not run away from me like from a poisonous snake.  You helped me.  How?  You smiled and you laughed and you went to see art, even though at the moment you may needed your cup of tea more.

But the most helpful part of your help was that you made an effort.  You listened, you understood, you did not criticize my “torturing” strangers.  This guy Christian who did not have to, and did not want to, but with some coaching “went with the program”.  He did tell a joke, didn’t he?  I said I had a really bad day and all I asked for was to help.  The trick is how.  Help me my way, the way that I need, because I already know that if you succeed it will work.  It will work for me. I do not give you any instructions. You figure it out to make your way through the maze.  Not only Christian succeeded but also he did an A+ job.  He made me laugh.  But not only.  He could not have possibly known that his joke would turn out to be very relevant to my situation.  The way I see the point of his story is this.  The family guy could not handle being with others because he thought they were the reason that he felt frustrated (stressed, irritated, unhappy, you name it).  But when isolated and left alone he could handle it even less.  The imagery was gross but it made me listen.  It engaged me on a personal level.  I do not like that type of jokes.   So inside I have this sensation …oh, yuck, I do not like the way it is going…this is really disgusting…  But it was me who initiated “the process”, so I stayed and listened.  I did not ask Christian to make me like the joke.  Well, you were there.  What did I learn from that experience?  Nothing that I did not already know, but something I just could not get without it

I am the problem, when I figure out how to help myself; only then I can help others.  Or not help.

And you told me it was better to do it sooner than later.  Yes, you nailed it, girl. Right on the money.  I consider myself to be shrewd and perceptive, yet it took me only fifteen years to finally see the obvious.  Stop trying to find an understanding where it could not be found.  No matter how much I want to and no matter how hard I try I cannot make a blind person see and a deaf person hear.  It always had the choice to help or not to, a choice to sacrifice my needs for the needs of others.  So from now on, when I feel the urge to help others, I will pause and ask the question “Is it something that I really want to do?” So my action plan is stop helping people.  They can manage.  The trained professionals told me to “feel the fear and do it anyway”.  I did. I made a change today. I can not find words to describe the hurt…  But I managed with the help of people like you.  You do not need a diploma in psychology; you already know how to help people.  Can you do it?  You already did.  You succeeded where a “professional” failed. Next time you need a story in order to prove that you can help people, use this one.

I was totally wrong about the class.  Even though Girl # 7 said that she worked as a social worker and she could help people, I did not believe her claim.  Why?  I do know, but she proved me wrong today and I am glad that she did.   I already sensed that the only relationship Girl # 3 has with Gold is that she has a heart of one. And look at her face when she smiles, it radiates light; it is so beautiful, that I cannot take my eyes of.  And yet she struggles and struggles and struggles, and my god she deserves better.  I was wrong about the girls, at least some of them.  But I sensed the other thing right.  Going to school to learn how to help people cannot teach you if you do not have a heart.

Did you like the story about Tolerance?  Do you think that it describes you accurately as a Cancer?  I did not think that I fit the profile.  Not until today.

-          

I am the Scorpio who came first and did not take tolerance because it cannot be used for torture.  That is right.  I do not need tolerance.  Honestly is enough.  Brutal honesty, that is.

Many pairs of words imply each other. Finish implies complete, so completely finsish is redundant. So are many other pairs of words:

1. past memories

2. various differences

3. each individual

4. basic fundamentals

5. true facts

6. important essentials

7. future plans

8. sudden crisis

9. terrible tragedy

10. end result

11. final outcome

12. free gift

13. past history

14. unexpected surprise

Example: Before the travel agent was completely able to finish explaining the various differences between all of the many vacation packages her travel agency was offering, the customer changed his future plans.

Revised: Before the travel agent finished explaining the differences between the vacation packages her travel agency was offering, the customer changed his plans.

How to survive a stupid job

In his article “Stupid Jobs are Good to Relax With”, Hal Niedzviecki delivers a touching eulogy for part-time jobs that can provide you with just enough income for living and yet do not require a lot of effort and time on your part.  Despite popular belief, stupid jobs are an unhappy lot for many young educated Canadians.  Many students have to work in stupid jobs in the first place in order to be able to pay their tuition, which increases all the time.  However, when new graduates finally arrive at the workforce, they find that the “real” jobs are already taken by people of older generations.  Then left with little choice, these newly fledged specialists have to return to stupid jobs again.  For a person, who is overeducated for a stupid job, the author recommends developing some strategy in order to avoid disappointment and even keep his/her sanity.  Niedzviecki proposes a new “culture of anti-work”.  Do as little as possible, slack here and there, avoid responsibility, and the reward will be freedom of mind and revitalized creativity.  I agree with the author that a“culture of anti-work” is acceptable in some situations, but I think it has to be approached with great caution, and full awareness of its possible devastating consequences.

I agree that a “culture of anti-work” can be a good idea for students.  If they are lucky enough to find a “relaxing” job that does not require mental or physical exhaustion, yet brings enough money to pay the bills, I do not see a problem in not working very diligently for little pay.  For students, this “culture of anti-work” is not very likely to become second nature, because studying is their first priority, and it is a hard job.  However, I disagree with Niedzviecki that the strategy of “having no attitude” is a good idea when new graduates just land in the marshland of stupid jobs.  My friends and I went through the nightmare of having stupid jobs, and at that time I learned that what strategy you choose at the very beginning is crucial.  Before accepting this “culture of anti-work” – which signals admission of defeat – I would recommend that you try all possible ways to get out of this deplorable situation.  It is important because first of all stupid jobs are very degrading.  When I think back on my numerous stupid jobs I cannot remember any freedom of mind and hardly any surges of creativity but instead long-lasting depression and sheer detestation.  Stupid jobs are dangerous not only because they undermine self-esteem and engender feelings of worthlessness, but also they lead to acquiring learned helplessness.  Working outside the field of the acquired profession for a prolonged period of time “makes null and void” academic knowledge.  I always say that I am an engineer only by education, because I graduated from the university seven years ago and never worked as an engineer.  My professional knowledge has vanished thanks to stupid jobs.  The danger of relaxing in a stupid job recommended by Niedzviecki is that the process of degradation will occur at a higher speed.  I felt it myself, and I resisted it in every possible way.  I had the misfortune of seeing my friends giving in to “passivity” too soon.  It was especially heartbreaking to see the corrupting results of this passivity, because I knew that my friends did not lack ability and that there was hope for them.  After all, the advantage of higher education is that it provides enough knowledge and ability to approach a problem intelligently and find a solution.  It is a pity when people cannot make best of their intelligence.  If a second education is required, it is better to go for it, than to be stuck being a deliveryman with a diploma in French literature.  However, I understand that it is not always possible to overcome circumstances.  If nothing seems to work, no matter how hard you try, then it is better to accept the recommendations of Niedzviecki.  I agree that it will keep you sane.

“Culture of anti-work” is appropriate for students and for those who tried all possible combinations to find their way out of the realm of stupid jobs but failed.  It is never too late to take the path of least resistance, but it might be too late to win your way back to real jobs.  Therefore before giving up, it is better to try to change the situation which led you to having a stupid job.  Only if you cannot change the situation, then it might be wise to accept the philosophy of Niedzviecki and change your attitude.

Any of you who have been asked to produce a letter of recommendation might find yourselves wondering how to describe your subject’s less-than-sterling qualities.

Here are some phrases you might find useful.

It was given to me by Julian Craft, my instructor for ENGL 225 (Professional Writing) course at DeVry.

For an employee who is so unproductive that the job is better left unfilled:

“I can assure you that no person would be better for the job.”

For an employee with no ambition:

“He could not care less about the number of hours he had to put in.”

“You would indeed be fortunate to get this person to work for you.”

For a stupid employee:

“There is nothing you can teach a man like him.”

“I most enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever.”

For a dishonest employee:

“Her true ability was deceiving.”

“He’s an unbelievable worker.”

For a employee who is not worth further consideration as a job candidate:

“I would urge you to waste no time in making this candidate an offer of employment.”

“All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or recommend him too highly.”

For the chronically absent:
”A man like him is hard to find.”

“”It seemed her career was just taking off.”

For the office drunk:

“I feel his real talent is wasted here.”

“We generally found him loaded with work to do.”

“Every hour with him was a happy hour.”