I took a gap year after high school graduation. I worked some, saved less than I should’ve, and took some classes at the local college with some of the scholarship money I’d received.

God loves a humble brag.

One of the courses I took was an introduction to criminology. That was when I still thought I was going to be a lawyer. I thought that right up until my first year in law school – second humble brag – when I realized law wasn’t for me. The problem with law is that it’s rule-bound, and often those rules seem contrary to what’s right.

I wanted to fight for what was right, and that’s not really the law. I couldn’t make the cognitive dissonance work, so I left after that year.

I enjoyed that first criminology course, however. It was taught by a Queen’s Counsel – the Canadian version of a district attorney, sort of. He’d been a criminal lawyer before that, a field I struggled with when I was eighteen, rigid, and all-knowing. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that criminal lawyers defend the innocent, nor that “guilty” is a phrase with context.

Criminology was the first course that taught me to question assumptions (statistics was the second). It was a good lesson though I didn’t embrace it as wholeheartedly as I might wish in hindsight.

One of the early discussions was about police officers and interrogations. How reliable is eyewitness testimony? How valid is the information officers gather? As it turns out, much of the reliability depends on the question: “What colour was the suspect’s hat” is a very different question than, “What was the person you’re talking about wearing.”

“When did you stop beating your wife?” is another good leading question.

Open-ended questions are usually a better choice, especially if you’re trying to solicit information: “Is hard work fulfilling,” or “Is hard work valuable?” asks for opinion and expansion. The question, “In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?” makes an assumption and limits your response.

Closed questions make claims about situations that open-ended ones generally don’t.

Claims, however, require evidence. From those making it by the way, just in case you ever find yourself faced with a claim you disagree with.

There’s no evidence to support the claim that hard work fulfills. Do you suppose labouring hard for crap wages in a mine is fulfilling? Do you suppose working hard at a service job and still needing government support to get by is fulfilling? Do you suppose standing out in all weather, and directing traffic during construction feeds the soul? Do you think that hard work combined with mental illness fulfills?

It’s a weird thing, this societal belief that it’s hard work that brings joy and value to life. I find it interesting to look at the people making those kinds of statements. They’re not usually people who labour in any way.

Why would hard work fulfill us? Hard work sucks. Productive work is valuable. Productive work that we enjoy makes us feel good. “Hard work fulfills,” is the kind of thing corporations sell in order to pay people at the bottom less money.

We’re more than labourers for those at the top, and statements that frame the good life as the working one – and what is a closed-end question but a statement – should encourage pushback and questions. Work doesn’t have an intrinsic value. Work is work. We need to stop quantifying people and basing their value on productivity and achievement.

We’re not what we do.

Outcomes are a different story, but I’d have to digress.

Here endeth the rant.

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