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| Window cleaners replace banners on the building of Jugoslovensko Dramsko theatre in Belgrade. |
It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s glad to do it: No matter how unattractive a job seems, somebody is doing it. But here’s the surprise: they may feel more of a sense of pride and belonging than many of your average high status professionals. Stigmatised jobs – “dirty work” – are often thought to be a certain path to an unhappy life.
People in these jobs may cut the heads off chickens in abattoirs, clean other people’s toilets or chase up unpaid bills. They are parking inspectors, paparazzi and police internal affairs officers. Nobody leaves school with a burning desire to do these jobs, yet they get done. And research shows that people who do them find ways to give them meaning.
According to Professor Blake Ashforth from Arizona State University, people performing what he calls dirty work often develop enviably strong and supportive workplace cultures. We all need to develop a sense of meaning in our work: “We need purpose and a sense of control – and that is true in any job, but it is particularly acute in these jobs because they know full well how society views them.
“They feel this sense of being ‘put upon’, that it is us versus them, and it causes them to develop pretty strong occupational cultures. They bind together to protect themselves against the slings and arrows of outsiders.” The more stigmatised the work is, the stronger the occupational cultures are – like the camaraderie of the “thin blue line” of the police force.
“The very thing that causes the stigma becomes a badge of honour,” says Ashforth. For his research on dirty work, Ashforth talked to 54 managers in 18 occupations and interviewed some of the people working in those jobs.
Among them were workers on fishing trawlers on the Bering Sea. They have one of the most hazardous jobs in the world, performing backbreaking work on giant swells and in freezing temperatures.
One worker told him: “It’s risky. Actually, it’s more than risky – it’s a brutal, archaic life. But I like it. When I go out fishing, I’m slipping into a role that humans have always played. It’s the eternal hunting party. Five guys go off, you know? And 30,000 years ago, we went off to score a mammoth. Now we go out to score fish.”
People in these jobs may cut the heads off chickens in abattoirs, clean other people’s toilets or chase up unpaid bills. They are parking inspectors, paparazzi and police internal affairs officers. Nobody leaves school with a burning desire to do these jobs, yet they get done. And research shows that people who do them find ways to give them meaning.
According to Professor Blake Ashforth from Arizona State University, people performing what he calls dirty work often develop enviably strong and supportive workplace cultures. We all need to develop a sense of meaning in our work: “We need purpose and a sense of control – and that is true in any job, but it is particularly acute in these jobs because they know full well how society views them.
“They feel this sense of being ‘put upon’, that it is us versus them, and it causes them to develop pretty strong occupational cultures. They bind together to protect themselves against the slings and arrows of outsiders.” The more stigmatised the work is, the stronger the occupational cultures are – like the camaraderie of the “thin blue line” of the police force.
“The very thing that causes the stigma becomes a badge of honour,” says Ashforth. For his research on dirty work, Ashforth talked to 54 managers in 18 occupations and interviewed some of the people working in those jobs.
Among them were workers on fishing trawlers on the Bering Sea. They have one of the most hazardous jobs in the world, performing backbreaking work on giant swells and in freezing temperatures.
One worker told him: “It’s risky. Actually, it’s more than risky – it’s a brutal, archaic life. But I like it. When I go out fishing, I’m slipping into a role that humans have always played. It’s the eternal hunting party. Five guys go off, you know? And 30,000 years ago, we went off to score a mammoth. Now we go out to score fish.”
Categorising the work - For his research, dirty work was divided into three categories:
1. Physically dirty jobs. These are dangerous and distasteful, such as working in a sewer or in a slaughterhouse.
2. Socially stigmatised jobs. You are tainted by association. This would include prison guards and social service counsellors who are working with people who are marginalised by society.
3. Morally stigmatised work. The work is seen to be of dubious virtue and includes telemarketers who bother people at home, used car dealers, people who work for cigarette companies or casinos, and sex workers.
Recruiting for these jobs can require a different sort of approach because, while the money sometimes offers some compensation, it can be difficult to fill vacancies. “People tend to fall into it. We talked to a bill collector’s manager and he said: ‘Nobody at the age of ten says ‘I am going to repo cars when I am an adult.’ It just doesn’t happen,” Ashforth says. “So, in those kinds of cases, [they get into it] often more by default than by choice.”
For new recruits, there is often an attractive “hook”: the risk-taking required of bike couriers may be a draw-card for thrill-seeking fitness fanatics.
Family connections can be very important. Multiple generations of families populate police forces, fire fighting and fishing. “[In these cases], their work is normalised to them. They don’t see the issue,” says Ashforth.
Morally stigmatised jobs are the hardest to fill. “There is a greater reliance on personal networks. Exotic dancers tend to recruit through their friendship network: a friend who is in the industry may say ‘Hey this is very good money you ought to give it a shot’,” he says.
Managers have a big role to play when it comes to retaining people who take the jobs that nobody else wants. They need to be conscious of what their employees are going through and give them the means to cope with the work.
1. Physically dirty jobs. These are dangerous and distasteful, such as working in a sewer or in a slaughterhouse.
2. Socially stigmatised jobs. You are tainted by association. This would include prison guards and social service counsellors who are working with people who are marginalised by society.
3. Morally stigmatised work. The work is seen to be of dubious virtue and includes telemarketers who bother people at home, used car dealers, people who work for cigarette companies or casinos, and sex workers.
Recruiting for these jobs can require a different sort of approach because, while the money sometimes offers some compensation, it can be difficult to fill vacancies. “People tend to fall into it. We talked to a bill collector’s manager and he said: ‘Nobody at the age of ten says ‘I am going to repo cars when I am an adult.’ It just doesn’t happen,” Ashforth says. “So, in those kinds of cases, [they get into it] often more by default than by choice.”
For new recruits, there is often an attractive “hook”: the risk-taking required of bike couriers may be a draw-card for thrill-seeking fitness fanatics.
Family connections can be very important. Multiple generations of families populate police forces, fire fighting and fishing. “[In these cases], their work is normalised to them. They don’t see the issue,” says Ashforth.
Morally stigmatised jobs are the hardest to fill. “There is a greater reliance on personal networks. Exotic dancers tend to recruit through their friendship network: a friend who is in the industry may say ‘Hey this is very good money you ought to give it a shot’,” he says.
Managers have a big role to play when it comes to retaining people who take the jobs that nobody else wants. They need to be conscious of what their employees are going through and give them the means to cope with the work.
Managing employee reactions - “They have to help them understand why their work really does matter in spite of the way society sees it,” says Ashforth, who was in Australia this month to give a lecture at the University of South Australia. However, in his research – Dirty Work and Dirtier Work: Differences in Countering Physical, Social, and Moral Stigma – Ashforth was surprised to find that few managers explicitly dealt with the issue of “dirty work” with their new employees.
“I’m guessing they’d lived with it so long themselves they had already normalised it and didn’t think like a newcomer might. But when you address it full on, you help people see there is meaning, there is importance in doing this kind of work.”
This might mean debunking myths about the people they deal with, so debt collectors see themselves as helping people manage their debts, rather than chasing “lazy or bad” people.
It might also mean advising workers how to dodge questions when they are in social situations. It is easier to say you work in women’s health than in an abortion clinic, and it prompts fewer intrusive questions.
Ashforth says the way society treats people who do low-status jobs is grossly unfair: “We are the ones that say we want the garbage collectors and we want the funeral home people and, yet, when we encounter people who do those jobs, we shy away . . . It is very hypocritical.”
“Every job has a reason for being and the people in those jobs are very good at being able to articulate why their job matters – even if society doesn’t always agree with them.
“They may not be able to agree with the importance of casinos or sex workers, but the people in those occupations, nonetheless, find reasons that they find personally compelling for why their work really does matter.”
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