From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2002 - 10:35:20 MST
(Emlyn O'regan)
> Man, you guys must really hate your jobs.
> Seriously, this definition:
>> "work" is, by definition, time spent in pursuits other than what
>> would be one's first choice of what to do with that time.
>
> is really pretty sad. Just say someone had an idea about what they
> really wanted to do, hmm, like research into nanotechnology, and
> went out and acquired the skills. If said person then managed to get
> work in that field, the work they wanted, what would you call that
> employment arrangement? A paid hobby?
I don't think there's that big a problem with the text as written,
but it could be worded better: how about "work is time spent
fulfilling someone else's desires". To the extent that you might
happen to share those desires, it might be fulfilling to yours as
well, but certainly never 100%.
I personally quite enjoy being a compter geek; I have two at home
and program recreationally. But my first choice of how to spend my
time on the computer probably wouldn't be to print your cable bill--
I'd be more likely to choose something like helping Eli with his AI
or working on Wikipedia full time. But as it happens, the city I
choose to live in has a large company with lots of money that will
give me some of it if I use my interest and skill to print cable
bills. It's a quite enjoyable job: I get to play with fast
machines and printers the size of trucks, and I do it well. But
I'm not going to pretend that I actually chose to spend 8 hours a
day writing software to print bills. And even if I did somehow
get a job with SIAI or Wikipedia, I'd /still/ be doing something
whose specifics were chosen to support someone else's goals,
even though they matched mine a little more closely.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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