Working Hard is Hardly Working

Occasionally, I have thoughts I want to shed light on, but I don’t have a completed stance on them or yet to have a clear conclusion. I decide to share them anyway as more open ended and generalized bite sized writings. They serve as prompts or catalysts for future essays. I will head these series of articles as “Concepts”.

“Work hard.”

 That’s what people say.

“If you want to get ahead, work hard.”

Granted, I know what people mean when they say this. Its short-hand for advising you to stay determined, tenacious, and steadfast in order to advance in your goal or career

But damn it all to hell, the phrase working hard has become an empty platitude– a joke of a phrase. Perhaps it used to mean something more meaningful. But in today’s job climate this phrase is said in bad faith, and it is said too often.

Working hard hardly works. Both the phrase and the action.

Often, I have seen tasks carried out with so much labor and distress, that the resulting outcomes are comically small. And we pat ourselves on the back and praise how hard we have worked. Or we cry of how we worked hard but the product does not show the effort

This term is misused countless times. Perhaps the most maddening way people have thrown this term around is when talking about a person’s standing. How hard did they try? They should have worked harder. If you work hard you will get somewhere in life.  We even talk about praying harder to get prayers answered

What is working hard?

In high school I had a talented chemistry teacher, who among teaching us general chemistry also taught her students general physics equations and other scientific formulas. One of those equations was the scientific definition for work

She told a little story to illustrate this equation to her students. While she was college her and her other college buds, all science nerds, had their car flip on its side when they drove to close to the steep shoulder of a road. The group pushed and pushed on the little car, hoping they could right it. One nerd chimed in that it was hard work, but the other tut -tutted, reminding their college that for it to be work, energy must be transferred. The car was not even budging, so no energy they were exerting on the car was being transferred into the matter of the car.

Here is what the equation looks like, for those of you who appreciate science:

W = F • d • cos Θ

In order to say there is work done—and for it to be measured–there has to be some displacement of energy.  In my teacher’s example, now work was done. It is  simple physics. Again, I know that the way we use the term in language is different than science. But it makes for a good illustration; to see the gap between talking abstractly about working hard and the concrete definition yet both usages desire results.

 Hard work does not equal actual work done. It never did. Someone, somewhere just started to say so.

I am living in a world where entry level jobs want someone with two- to-three years experience. Managers at part time jobs want employees 40 hours of work squeezed into a twenty-nine hour work week to avoid giving benefits (or because they can’t afford to). I have been at jobs that wanted us to clock in overtime but didn’t give overtime pay. People are still victims of wage theft. I’ve seen business scramble in order to not pay workman’s compensation; compensation for employees who put themselves in danger to carry out risky work so a company can profit. Many states have “right to work” and “fire at will” principals, meaning an employee can resign at any time but they also can be fired at any time without any review or cause. Things like loyalty and (again) hard work are still posited as values but they are rarely rewarded. The life- long stability of decades long careers is a dwindling dream, even if you work hard.

Working hard is hardly working. What a dumb thing to say—work hard.

What other option is there? I suppose you could stay saying, work smart.  Which, funnily enough, is a hard thing to do.