{"id":3621,"date":"2025-07-08T15:59:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3621"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:59:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:59:31","slug":"finding-meaning-in-menial-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Meaning in Menial Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Even if it\u2019s a dirty job, somebody has to do it. It will probably make you miserable, though, unless you see it as a means to fulfill a purpose or achieving a goal.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Dean Shepherd<\/a> of the University of Notre Dame said that research he conducted on poor people living and working in India\u2019s slums shed light on how to find meaning in any job.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re at work and you aren\u2019t having such a terrible day and you think, \u2018but imagine if I was picking up trash in the slums of India\u2014how could you find meaning in that? How could you be happy?\u2019 because they describe their work as dirty,\u201d Shepherd said. \u201cThey\u2019re walking through effluent and rubbish and dead animals and picking everything up and getting the trash to a landfill or recycling it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even then, they had made meaning, and they did it through a couple of ways: One was to look back at their [own and their parents\u2019 job] history and say, \u2018It was my destiny that I pursue these types of things; my family has done it for a long time,\u2019 so it had meaning, because it put them in a historical context,\u201d he said. \u201cThey also gave themselves a pat on the back in the present, because they say, \u2018Because I’m doing this, we can eat tonight, and my children can go to school tomorrow,\u2019 and then they would also think about the future to say, \u2018It might take multiple generations to escape poverty\u2014by me doing this, my children are able to go to school; if they go to school, they might get a good job, they might marry well, and they can move out of the slum.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo in some ways, they\u2019re saying they cannot change their condition because it\u2019s history; on the other hand, they say, \u2018but I can change the history of my children,\u2019 so in some ways, it\u2019s a contradiction that they hold in a way that makes them feel better, because they think, \u2018I\u2019m helpless; I can\u2019t blame myself for the situation, but I also have some ability to influence the future of my children,\u2019 which actually also gives them meaning, so they have meaning coming from from both ways of thinking about doing a dirty job.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s despite the fact that dirty work is stigmatized in India, as it is in many countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you know the person who\u2019s engaged in dirty work, often they have intersectionality, which means if you if you come from a stigmatized family or class doing stigmatized work, you\u2019re often from other stigmatized groups,\u201d Shepherd said. \u201cIn this case, there was dirty work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came from the lower caste, and they lived in the slums, and both of those were highly stigmatized, and in most cases stigmatized work, like being a mortician or a sex worker, is often tied in with other intersectionality, things like gender, location, place of origin, those types of things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo finding meaning in this work has a little bit of generalizability to other forms of dirty work and other stigmatized groups.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Even if it\u2019s a dirty job, somebody has to do it. It will probably make you miserable, though, unless you see it as a means to fulfill a purpose or achieving a goal. Academy of Management Scholar Dean Shepherd of the University of Notre Dame said that research he conducted on poor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,29,44,46],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","category-emotions","category-motivation","category-well-being"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinding Meaning in Menial Work - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Finding Meaning in Menial Work\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T15:59:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":544,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/Sanitation-workers-garbage-trash-dirty1.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"CAREERS\",\"EMOTIONS\",\"MOTIVATION\",\"WELL-BEING\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/finding-meaning-in-menial-work\\\/\",\"name\":\"Finding Meaning in Menial Work - 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