Text 3. Work: the daily grind we can’t do without

A man dies and finds himself in a sumptuous palace attended by servants and surrounded by every conceivable luxury. For a week he indulges in all the pleasures he never had the time, money or opportunity to enjoy when he was alive. Then one evening an angelic butler appears and asks him if everything is to his satisfaction.

'Perfect,' says the man, 'but tomorrow I’d like to do something different. Some work, perhaps.'

‘Not possible,’ says the angel.

Why not? ‘ says the man. ‘This is heaven, isn’t it?"

‘No.’ says the angel. 'Quite the reverse in fact.'

Work might seem like hell but however much we might think we loathe it, our psychological need for work is real. Everyone wants to be valued, and wages and salaries are the hard proof that we matter.

Not any old work qualifies however. No matter how worthwhile or demanding they might be, child-rearing, housework and voluntary employment tend to be regarded as non-jobs, hardly better than hobbies. In our work-centered culture a ‘proper job’ means paid employment. Being paid for a job is our stake in society. It’s god for our self-esteem.

Of course, we would also prefer work to be useful, interesting and congenial, as well as paid. But you don't have to enjoy your job to derive psychological benefits from it. In fact, our attitude to work is quite masochistic. According to psychologist Dr John Haworth, the constraints of a job, such as the need to overcome our own resistance to unenjoyable tasks, actually contribute to our sense of well-being.

The need to be in a particular place at a particular time, working as part of a team towards a common goal, gives us a sense of purpose and structure that we find difficult to impose on ourselves. Also, as the roles of the sexes become blurred, the modern workplace is an arena in which men can assert their identity and where women can create a new one. ‘I love my husband', says one female junior executive, ' but I have to admit that the office is where I feel most fulfilled’.

Although genuine workaholics are uncommon, many of us are 'job junkies' without knowing. When we are deprived of work we become irritable, unkempt, lethargic and unable to enjoy the expanse of leisure which, paradoxically, unemployment opens up for us. For people who are made redundant, the plunge into unemployment can be particularly cruel. At a stroke they have lost their livelihood and the foundation of their lives. To be told you are not needed is bad enough, but it doesn’t end there: you still have to live in a work-driven culture that tends to regard the jobless as outsiders and victims of sloth or incompetence.

Information technology may end up making even the workplace itself redundant. Offices are extremely expensive, a drain not only on company profits but also on the time and energy of employees who spend large parts of the day commuting to and from them. Almost half the British workforce are now employed to process different kinds of information on computers. They don't in fact need an office in order to do their work. All that is necessary is a power outlet, a telephone line and a computer.

Already more than two million British employees are what have come to be known as ‘teleworkers ' .Some work from home full-time, keeping in touch with headquarters by electronic mail and phone. Others 'hot desk’, logging on to a time-shared workstation for 1or more days a week.

Many employees welcome the break with tradition, claiming that teleworking has improved their lives enormously. ‘I used to spend two hours a day commuting.’ Says Bridget, an educational consultant with two children. ‘Working from home not only gives me more time for work and for my family, but has allowed us to move out of town- something that was impossible when I was tied to the office.’ But though commuting on the information highway may be preferable to sitting in a traffic jam, not everyone has the temperament for it.

A report from Swansea University psychology department came to the conclusion that the ideal teleworker is a self-sufficient and introverted individual. Steve, who works from home as a software designer for a bank, doesn’t fit this profile. ‘I liked the office culture,’ he says ‘the gossip and team spirit. Working from home can make you feel cut off’.

Various employers have reported that teleworking has improved productivity in some cases by up to 50 per cent, but some of them are discovering the downside. The unsupervised worker may be an unseen ghost in the machine who causes irreparable damage but who goes undetected until it is too late.

Whatever the advantages and disadvantages of teleworking, it is a siren song that neither employers nor workers are likely to resist. After all, we were conditioned to the nine-to-five working day, a routine imposed by convention rather than the particular tasks in hand, and there is no reason we can’t be conditioned out of it.

This article was written at home in the country during bursts of activity interspersed by periods of idleness. Perhaps that’s the natural work rhythm to which we’ll return in the world of virtual offices and video conferencing.