Journal Entry #3: Sartre’s Waiter
This is the third in a series of ruminations of who/what/where/why I currently am. You can find part one here.
Last week, I worked a seventy hour week, the first of such workweeks this year. This was three thousand six hundred minutes of concrete work and meetings, since there wasn’t much by the way of water cooler talk or idle internet browsing on company dime while I was working from home. I barely had time to finish my blog post and stretch in the mornings, and every moment felt harried. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. I had finished the work, and despite myself, I loved The Corporation.
There’s an undeniable degree of satisfaction that arrives after completing a project or assignment, especially when the deliverable is met with praise, whether genuine or feigned. No matter how much I try to suppress these feelings, I cannot help but feel accomplished, fulfilled even, after spending significant time and effort grinding out a project that is well-received. This pleasure is short-lived, ended immediately by the contempt I have towards corporate work. It’s the same condescending voice that writes these journals entries and holds derision towards the love my friends profess for their office jobs.
Their sort of investment and attachment to a job is the height of ambition for organizational behaviour theorists. If The Corporation can convince its workers of a higher cause than monetary or other fungible compensation, then they can be further exploited, paid less because they enjoy working. If workers conclude that their career is their single calling in life, their path to self-actualization, then they no longer work for pay or reduced pay, but to climb the ladder to their dreams, which ultimately aligns with corporate interests.
This arrangement isn’t that nefarious, and is even tenable; The Corporation and the worker have both done their own calculations. The Corporation has run the model and decided that good HR policy, employee programs, and managerial training is cheaper and more effective than higher pay. The worker, while less scientifically, has decided that the benefits of working at The Corporation make it a worthwhile place to spend more of their time, without necessitating higher compensation. These benefits are in addition to stock programs, health and dental, free lunches, and off-sites; they are intangible and priceless, consisting of community, achievement and purpose.
Where is the problem? Everyone is happy, and mankind now has electric cars and can reach Mars. Discovering mumblecore has robbed juvenile ennui of most of its comfort, so there’s little pleasure in scoffing at those who are in careers that they genuinely enjoy. They’re the ones who have it all figured out: who wants to be a struggling artist when there’s as much fulfillment to be had manipulating energy markets, and a nice buck to be made while doing so?
But unlike my friends who consider seventy hour weeks par for the course in their industries, I can’t seem to wholeheartedly dedicate myself to The Corporation. I’ll have masochistic moments like this week, where I find a bizarre gratification in doing nothing but sleeping and working, but most of the time, I can’t bring myself to enjoy work. Perhaps, like covered in my first journal entry, having too much time in my own head leads to overthinking.
In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre introduced a hypothetical waiter to explain his concept of bad faith. Without delving too much into concepts I don’t have a firm grasp on, Sartre’s café waiter plays his role enthusiastically, warmly greeting patrons and attentively addressing their needs. In this waiter’s diligence, Sartre sees a problem because a waiter is a mechanical role at odds with the fundamental freedom that all humans possess. According to Sartre, the waiter is being inauthentic, or acting in bad faith, by denying his freedom as an individual and consigning himself to a restrictive role-play demanded by society.
He wasn’t referring only towards to the waitstaff or other service vocations, but my views towards a corporate role are quite similar to the ones Sartre’s text holds towards these jobs at a literal level. I believed that someone authentic, fully embracing their potential couldn’t possibly be happy at an office job, constrained to the hoops that The Corporation set out for them, and too drained to do anything else after. I would not only limit discussing my job outside of the office, but also think contemptibly of those who didn’t do likewise. This would also materialize like it did last week, sneering at my satisfaction at a job well done and alienating me from the product of my labour. To live authentically meant escaping corporate monotony and doing something meaningful.
After all, The Corporation benefits from keeping everyone happily sedated in their jobs, and society encourages strong identification with one, particularly yuppie American society. Sartre’s waiter merely put in his seven hours, as mandated by French employment laws, and went home friends and family, but was already deemed inauthentic. What would Sartre think about an entire aspirational class of people whose culture taught that devotion to their careers was often more important than health and relationships, because it was the essence of their being?
Though I lack the requisite education to make any sort of meaningful criticism, Sartre’s waiter has been discussed by those much more learned than I, and sometimes even satirized. How does one become an authentic waiter if tradesmen must conform to the expectations that society outlines for them? Why are only the grocer, the tailor, and the office worker inauthentic? Critics painted Sartre as a champagne socialist of sorts, wondering aloud if only artists and bourgeois were able to live his brand of authenticity. It wasn’t his existential philosophy they panned, but rather his analogy. The world needs its waiters.
But it’s precisely Sartre’s waiter that I chose to work with, because the literal interpretation and its faults were helpful in disentangling my thoughts. What if he enjoys his job? He brings smiles to everyone’s faces through assiduous service, takes pleasure and pride in remembering regulars and their orders, and goes home after seven hours and stable pay thanks to the union. Sartre’s waiter identifies with being a waiter, but also enjoys working, and is no more of an adherent to societal expectations and less honest with themselves than a lawyer, banker, or doctor.
When my friends take pride in their work or professional reputation, it’s generally based on cleverness, diligence, or reliability; this is at least as authentic of an identity as that of a waiter. Who am I, or Sartre, to deem their pursuit unworthy? Likewise, if I occasionally feel happy after sloughing over slide decks and drafting emails, it would be inauthentic to deny those feelings. Seeing Sartre’s waiter criticized for its classism made me realize that perhaps my approach had the same flaws. Make those beautiful graphs, stun them with analysis, and make The Corporation proud.
Slaving for The Corporation often feels just like that, even for my friends who find it fulfilling. There are good days and bad days, but they’ve decided the good ultimately outweighs the bad, that the ends justify the means. I’m not so sure myself, but I shouldn’t discourage these positive emotions arising from work. Maybe the voice of contempt is blocked out during tight deadlines and stressful turnarounds; maybe if I work at being honest with myself, there will be more good days than bad.
I can learn to love The Corporation, or at least certain things I do for it, so long as I recognize that this job only comprises a small part of my identity and that I can leave if there is more meaningful satisfaction to be found elsewhere. Sartre advises to appreciate the myriad choices available and decide on meaning and achievement independent of social pressures, but this doesn’t preclude me from realizing some meaning and achievement from things that society deems appropriate.
I’m responsible for everything I do, for giving the things I do a meaning. Do things purposefully, do things authentically, and do them well. It’s a worn platitude, but meaningful because of how I arrived here. Next week, I’ll be doing the same thing at work, but more welcoming of its gratification. After all, the world needs its pencil pushers, bean counters, and records editors.
