Meaningful Workplaces: Reframing How and Where We Work

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Bringing Your Whole Self to Work

 

I AM A CARPENTER,” or ”I’m a school custodian (or “an accountant,” “a therapist,” a nanny”), speaks as much to who we are as humans as it does to the collection of tasks we perform for our livelihood. One of the first questions we are asked by strangers after they hear our name is, “What do you do?” But what we do, according to Matthew Fox (1994), is the label of the job we get paid for in order to put bread on the table, a roof over our heads, and some extra money for pleasurable pursuits. The work we identify with, on the other hand, is the culmination of years of education, training, practice, and continued improvement of competencies infused with the emotional energy of wanting to do it well and wanting ...