Lately, we’ve seen a proliferation of discussions about the end of work as we know it. In this third year of the coronavirus pandemic, Americans are burned out, quitting their jobs in record numbers, and reconsidering the place of work in their lives. According to pundits, the “Great Resignation” signals a new era: the end of ambition, the rise of anti-work sentiment, and the possibility that we’re entering a time when a job might just be a job. But I’m doubtful that any of this will change Americans’ collective worship of work. What these conversations don’t take into account is the invisible religion of work that’s become an unassailable part of our culture. At a time when religious-affiliation rates are at the lowest they’ve been in the past 73 years, we worship work—meaning we sacrifice for and surrender to it—because it gives us identity, belonging, and meaning, not to mention that it puts food on our tables. If the American theocracy of work is to be dismantled, it won’t happen by just changing jobs or attitudes. It will require a fundamental transformation in the social system that dictates which institutions we derive fulfillment from.
Contrary to the new wisdom, work does love us back. That’s what I found while researching my new book, Work Pray Code, a study of work and spirituality in Silicon Valley tech firms, which are sometimes seen as models for American work culture. Despite professionals benefiting in several ways from our jobs, many of us talk about work as extractive: We say that we sell our souls at work; we describe it as draining. But in Silicon Valley, work is where many people find their souls. Over the course of five years, I interviewed more than 100 tech-industry professionals who echoed this sentiment. One young engineer, a former evangelical Christian who moved from Georgia to join a San Francisco start-up, told me that he had transferred his fervor for religion onto work. His company became his new faith community, providing him with the belonging, meaning, and mission that he’d once found in his church back home. In the fellowship of his start-up, he developed the faith that their enterprise social-networking app would “change the world.” The engineer was one of many people who described themselves as becoming more “whole,” “spiritual,” or “connected” because of work.
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