I do not dream of labour. That’s become the common refrain in conversations about work, where people still dare to ask “what is your dream job?”
What used to be an exciting question, prompting you to imagine the endless possibilities that were believed to come with being grown-up, being good at something, and being in control of your own time, has now become a trigger. The reality that many of us found at work felt like having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown over our heads.
Traffic. Evil bosses. Outdated IT systems (and the crabby people who are in charge of them). Meetings that could have been emails. Emails that could have stayed in drafts.
There’s nothing dreamy about work.
But if I did dream of labour, if I still believed that there was such a thing as an ideal job, this is what the day would look like.
07:00: Snooze alarm #1. Pick up my phone to check the time and also that small number on my WhatsApp icon.
07:15: Get out of bed after having chosen a YouTube video to play in the background while I open the curtains and then go into the bathroom to brush my teeth.
07:30: Boil water for tea while running a bath.
07:45: Go into the bath and lie back, with a sigh.
08:15: Dry off and go into the kitchen to pour the perfectly warm cup of rooibos tea.
08:20: Sit on the bed, contemplating lying back down. Drink tea and start moisturising my body instead.
10:00: After pulling myself out of a sudden malaise (is it me or is it too warm in here? should I have turned off my emotional support heater?), I open my laptop and navigate to my emails. Which one should I start with? And how many will I endeavour to actually answer today? It all depends on how I feel after breakfast.
12:00: Pre-empting lunch by scrolling on UberEats. Switch over to Checkers because it’s better to be responsible… But do I have a shopping list? I should have a shopping list. Wait… what did I want to order in the first place? I forgot.
12:30: Check on emails one last time before
13:00: Lunch! I can scoff something down and then nap.
14:30: The last work of the day is a little bit challenging: I’ve had to open two or three different dictionaries to answer a deceptively simple editing query.
15:00: Work is over for the day. What’s for supper?
And at no point during this day does anyone send me a message on Teams, call me on my phone, start a sentence to me with “can you quickly just-“, steal my mug, use it and stick it in the sink filthy with oats and lipstick or otherwise require me to do anything but my actual job.
Plus, at the end of the month I earn exactly what my expertise is worth and I don’t shrivel up inside every time I pay for electricity, internet or fancy grocery items like canned tomatoes or fresh fish.
I don’t dream of labour, because “working hard” has not always translated to proper remuneration or even adequate acknowledgement of my contribution to keeping a project afloat. I used to love the idea of being so into my job that I would just be known for doing that one thing and it would become my life and I would be fulfilled forever and ever amen.
Now, I worry about what will be left of my passion, skills or motivation by the time I reach retirement age, if I keep going at this rate. I’ll be so unfulfilled, my back bent and my eyes scrunched up from scraping all my pennies together in Excel spreadsheets. Where will the happiness be then?
So that means I need to be happy while I’m working towards retirement, right? I need to be able to go to work every day and not immediately be bored by people’s requests in my inbox, or just their general presence?
But how do I do that, when everyone seems to only want to hire “AI enthusiasts” and all the jobs that I a) can actually do and b) really want don’t even look twice at my applications?
And don’t get me started on freelancing. Going online daily to hawk my wares so that I can hold on to two or three clients who can afford my rates sounds awful.
Where can I run to?
Nkhensani Manabe 