Happy Mondays: Putting the Pleasure Back into Work Book

Do you love your job? In Happy Mondays Richard Reeves suggests that many of us do and all of us can, yet we tend to view jobs as something to be got through rather than something to be enjoyed. This, he claims, is as much about history as about reality. He looks at both the theory of work and real situations, describing how work has changed in recent years and how it can be about more than simply money. "We spend most of our waking lives working", he writes, "To waste them in bad jobs is nothing less than a crime against humanity." Happy Mondays charts the nature of modern work and what it can become. It looks at the notion of careers, the ways in which modern employers address the leisure, health and spiritual needs of employees and the ways individuals can choose their work and vary their hours to suit. Reeves mixes academic treatise and practical example in a thought-provoking way, the bottom line being that today we should be able to find fulfilment, expression of ourselves and pleasure in any job--whatever it pays--from supermarket checkout to corporate management. The theory is not without flaw: there seems to be little recognition for example of just how many people in the UK are tied to production-line working with no real alternatives or of the wider politics of employment. Nevertheless, Happy Mondays, like Richard Donkin's Blood, Sweat and Tears is an interesting take on the notion of work in the 21st century: an alluring vision of what it already means for some and could become for many. --Sandra VogelRead More