How I Make Work, Work
A searingly honest and incredibly meaningful no-holds-barred interview with my brilliant (and anonymous) friend
I have this best friend. She’s successful (although she’ll shudder reading that), she’s smart (I am proud to say that I think she’d actually agree with this one), and she’s driven (now she’s laughing though, she reckons she’s lazy).
But, here’s the thing: even though she puts her best foot forward in her career, even though she engages in paid work full time, even though she’s good at what she does, she really doesn’t give a flying f*ck about work. She clocks on, does a good job, and clocks the hell back off.
Instead, she has boundaries. She doesn’t pander to “the man” so to speak. Her identity is not bound to what she does for a living and she’s not consumed by it. There’s no ego attached to the signature at the bottom of each email she sends, because she’s far more proud of her other titles: daughter, friend, wife, mother.
She doesn’t live to work. She works to live.
And in a society that is so tied up in our own self importance – what we do, what we study, what we earn – my friend’s approach to paid work has been a breath of fresh air for me: a stark reminder that yes, it’s okay if work does in fact matter to you, but no, we shan’t let it matter that much.
Here, we talk about her reflections on early motherhood, her approach to paid work, what’s really important to her, and why we all need to care a bit less at work.
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