Becoming the Supervisor

Preface

In song and story, it is widely recognized that most people are happy to work for their pay. They’re not after a handout. This is what I see in the workplace. People are willing to work, especially when they go home at the end of their shift thinking they have done something worthwhile, something that will make a difference. We humans like to think we’ve made a contribution.

Dorothee Sölle, the noted Christian theologian, argued that humans are made for two things: love and work. She argues that our society’s aversion to work has more to do with the soul-less tedium that most people experience when they labour for wages than it does with any fundamental unwillingness to work. And when I challenge supervisors, they grudgingly admit ...