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Comment by emmett | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting how much it really is a problem of alienation, not of the work itself.

Stage magicians who obsessively practice the same motion over and over own their work, own their output, and feel empowered by the hard work and the success it brings.

Waiters who do the same thing because a larger machine they do not identify with dictates it feel disconnected.

The work itself is a distraction from the real problem, which is that the employee does not believe that what they are doing is important or valuable and that they don't feel ownership over their own actions.

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In high-school I worked in a restaurant. Not high-end, but decent enough that some customers expected a lot. Most customers were respectable human beings, but there were a few sad and pathetic misanthropes who acted as though paying money gave them absolute power over you. Those customers were enough to make the job feel a bit like prostitution. At a high end restaurant I'd imagine this effect is intensified, both by the amount of dollars changing hands and the discipline of the staff.

It's a shame that it would never work in today's world, but the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia is something direly needed today. If the ultra-rich spent one day a year in service to wage-slaves who normally serve them, it might make the rest of the year feel a little less empty for people like the author of this article.

You "imagine" the effect is intensified but you don't actually have any evidence to support it. I've also worked at a restaurant as a waiter. Despite it being a very low end buffet where the food was cheap and wages low I identify completely with the article (except nobody had a stroke while I was working). The only real difference was that the author and his co-workers were much better at their jobs than me and my own co-workers.

Wealth is a big red herring in this story, but I guess its a story no one would be interested in without.

>Wealth is a big red herring in this story, but I guess its a story no one would be interested in without.

Well of course. Nobody's interested in stories about poor people: they're too common.

I think that's the problem for many (if not most) people who are satisfied with their job--a lack of autonomy and ownership.

For example, take fry cook A, who works at Wendy's, and fry cook B, who works at an independent restaurant where the owner gives him a good deal of creative control.

Fry cook B's job is to make the best damn hamburger he can, and he get's to use his brain a bit. Fry cook A's job is to make the exact same hamburger as every other cook at every other Wendy's in the country.

Most humans just aren't very happy trying their best to act like a robot.

That's actually the point Daniel Pink makes on his book Drive

http://deliveringhappiness.com/the-motivation-trifecta-auton...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_Ab...

"Daniel Pink, in his book, Drive, lists three elements of the motivation formula: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. - "

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