I’m not posting this to invalidate anything, I am posting this to give y’all a glimpse of what a positive future of (optional) work might look like. I am an anti work socialist whose worked in food service, schools, retail- and hated it all with a passion.
I now work in a local UK social service, in an unnamed city where austerity has hit hard.
The specific service is relatively new, based sincerely on some radical theories of care and social goods.
Basically our mission is to cover the gap between kids being taken away into care and families who are in crisis but don’t meet that threshold. So we deal with horrific things- things like abuse, SIDS deaths, homeless teens, parents with full blown psychosis, sibling sexual abuse, and the less grim but equally important missions of supporting teen parents and parents with disabilities that impact their parenting confidence and/or ability.
Basically someone at the council finance department realised that our interventions save the council on average £95k a week, because so many kids become so much safer at home that fostering comes off the table and police don’t get called out as much and schools don’t have to send out as many truanting and welfare officers.
That’s obviously a shitty reason for us to get funding, but as a result we are swimming in it. We’re hiring more and more social workers and therapists every month. Everyone has a manageable workload. Best of all, we get to just throw money at families that need it.
Part of my job is just “approving” (I approve everything, never reject anything) and documenting our spending. A social worker comes to me and says Hey, I think this mother will be more able to work on her anger response if she doesn’t have to worry about making rent, and I can say Hey cool here’s 3 months of rent for her, let’s throw in some groceries and a new car seat too. A kid is sad because she doesn’t have a proper bed? Let’s buy her one and some stuffed animals and repaint her bedroom while we’re at it. Teen is kicked out? Let’s pay their rent on a flat and give them a living stipend and get them in group therapy and pay for them to go on days out with other homeless teens.
I get to see concrete improvements in the lives of kids and families. I get to spend money on what money ought to be spent on.
I also read some horrific case files and court transcripts- when I do a task like this my manager turns off my computer the second I finish and says don’t turn this back on until you’ve had a walk through the city or a nice long coffee break or a conversation about how this has impacted you with a colleague or a friend. This is paid recovery time.
Last week I read the most horrific detailed transcript of sexual abuse I’ve ever heard- my manager sent me home 4 hours early when I finished and said she’s recording those 4 hours as a necessary job function and they’re fully paid.
Everyone is treated like this. Self care and paid time off is not just encouraged but strictly enforced. Hours are flexible- not in theory but in actual encouraged practice. If I can’t face the day I don’t have to.
It’s shitty that this is all only possible because we save the council money- but it is concretely and materially improving lives. Two different motivations that reach the same conclusion.
Anyway, I just wanted to lay this out for you all as an example of what work can and should look like. Material positive impact, passion that is allowed to flourish and not exploited, and an aggressive emphasis on worker health and happiness.
That is what the future should look like