Changing the Way we Work: Reading Jenny Odell Reading Why Work Sucks
Jenny Odell makes her perspectives on big corporations who control our lives clear early on. She doesn’t believe that we should be forced to take pride in our work and that we should be able to control our own lives. How to Do Nothing is a treasure trove of references to outside literature that have clearly shaped Odell’s way of thinking. The book which Odell referenced that stuck out to me the most is called Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. Odell’s reference to the book is almost entirely negative saying that it paints a picture of a work environment that blurs the line between our personal life and our work life. This negative reverence to a piece of literature is unlike the many other book references Odell provides. When I read Why Work Sucks, I found that the content was not only different from the way Odell interpreted it, but it could have also added to her narrative in How to Do Nothing.
Why Work Sucks is a book about revolutionizing the way we work. The authors, Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler, are two women who decided that the way we work needs change. This book is backed throughout by their experiences of working to implement their new management methods into workplaces across the country. The first few chapters of the book establish why work can suck and how we have gotten to a place where we spend 40+ hours a week unhappy and possibly even miserable. The primary force driving this misery is the endlessness of work. When people know, that as they finish one task, they will just be given another they have a much smaller motivation to work. This lack of motivation leads to people faking their way around work and sitting at their desks all day accomplishing nothing. Managers assume that because their employees are at their desks, they are doing work.
Who is benefiting from this wasted time and misery? It is certainly not the employees and the companies who are losing countless productive hours. Why Work Sucks says on page 8, “We all know work sucks and yet we do nothing.” So, the simple question must be asked. why? Why Work Sucks addresses this issue by proposing the idea of a results-only work environment or ROWE for short. This new method of business and management is benefitting not only the employee, but also helps increase productivity and workplace morale.
ROWE is a relatively simple method of management, and I think that Why Work Sucks over complicates it by having many repetitive chapters that state the same thing. A ROWE is a work environment where you can do your work from wherever you want, whenever you want so long as you are getting things done on time. If you want to do your work in the Bahamas or in the middle of the night that’s up to you and not your company. And, why should it be up to your company? Rowe answers this question by saying “you owe your company your work, not your time and certainty not your life”. A results-only work environment reestablishes your personal life so you can reconnect with the world around you. Why Work Sucks says on page 22, “Time should not be a measure of how work is done.” A clear and simple image of doing laundry is given as example. Think about it this way: when you have laundry to do you don’t think “Oh, I better put in two hours of work into doing the laundry otherwise I will have done a bad job.” You should just see it as a job which must be done, and it’s done when your laundry is completed, not when you filled up some arbitrary amount of time.
Why Work Sucks wants to make sure that the readers understand this is not just a hypothetical idea that has yet to be implemented. It has already been put it into action at corporate BestBuy. Over 3,000 BestBuy employees are currently working in a ROWE and the company saw not only a large increase in productivity, but also a “30% increase in work engagement.” When people control their own time and it “is no longer a something you feel guilt or resentment about how you spend,” (WWS, 54) work becomes less of a task which you must complete and more of something which you can enjoy.
Odell’s mention of Why Work Sucks comes on pages 17 & 18 when Odell raises concern over how a ROWE may create an overabundance of work in her life turning every space into a “work environment”. Odell continues by saying she was “troubled by how the work and non-work selves are completely conflated throughout the text”. Odell then cites a quote from page 18 of Why Work Sucks in which they say, “What can I do today to benefit my family, my company, and myself.” This is where I begin to politely disagree with Odell’s interpretation of a Why Work Sucks. Why Work Sucks says that in a ROWE you can work from anywhere any time and they say that you do not need to be accessible at all times. In a ROWE you can be busy watching a movie in the same way that in a normal work environment you are un-reachable while you are in a meeting. So, working in a ROWE does not mean that you must be available to your co-workers at all times.
Odell continues on page 18 by saying that, “Your company” does not belong in the list of people that you should be considering how you can benefit daily.” I must also disagree with Odell’s interpretation of this quote. Why Work Sucksis not saying that you MUST benefit your work instead they are saying that while working in a ROWE you MAY have a newfound interest in being committed to helping improve your company. By redefining the way we think about work we can create an environment that is far more enjoyable and less pressured than the typical 9–5 job. We finally have the option to think about work as something truly important to us and not just a plac we go to fill the day. Caring about your work in a ROWE is not a requirement as Odell makes it out to be, as much as it is a new opportunity for taking pride in such a fundamental part of our lives.
Odell continues her disagreement with Why Work Sucks by saying, “There is nothing to be admired about being constantly connected, constantly potentially productive the second your open your eyes in the morning, and in my opinion, no one should accept this. Not now, not ever. In the words of Othello “leave me but a little to myself.” Here Odell is saying that by being able to work at any time we are essentially destroying our personal lives. I think that the results of a ROWE are contrary to this in that you can regain your personal life and save yourself many miserable hours of faked work and commuting time every week. When you only have to work to get your tasks done you can have a new efficiency, but not in the negative connotation which Odell states. You are more productive, and because of this increased productivity you have more time to yourself. In a ROWE you cannot “leave me but a LITTLE to myself” but you can leave yourself A LOT since you have complete control of your time. “Your time is always your own” (WWS, 100).
I am not saying that I entirely disagree with Odell. I find her narrative in How To Do Nothing to be quite empowering. However, I do think that her interpretation of Why Work Sucks is not in line with what the authors intended. By working in a ROWE, you can have a personal life and, in line with one of Odell’s main narrative messages, you can connect with the world and people around you more strongly and healthily. Odell’s idea of an ideal world is one in which you control your own life and your own time. You are not influenced by social media or the fake world around you and your connections are genuine and valuable. Why Work Sucks is not a book about increasing your productivity, but rather about increasing your control over your own life. In a ROWE you control your own density, free time, personal life, and decide what is important to you. This message would make a strong backing point for the rest of Odell’s narrative and could even help her build the world she wants to see.
I believe that if Odell were to give Why Work Sucks a second chance and set aside her hatred for big corporations, she would see that the authors of Why Work Sucks would agree with her. A ROWE is an example of empowering people to take control of their life and not allow others to control it for them. If given a second chance, Why Work Sucks would add to Odell’s narrative and help make the world she believes in creating a reality.
Works Cited
- Ressler, C., & Thompson, J. (2011). Why work sucks and how to fix it: The results-only revolution. New York: Portfolio/Penguin.
- ODELL, J. (2020). HOW TO DO NOTHING: Resisting the attention economy. Place of publication not identified: MELVILLE House.
