Painting the Golden Gate Bridge

We’ve all heard and (at least, subconsciously) fear the life of Sisyphus, living in an endless loop of work to no real end. We make light of the pointlessness of our stereotypical work life with cult classic movies like Office Space, where employees’ most significant conflict comes from the copy machine and employees are forced into executing formulaic TPS Reports. The work is so meaningless that one such employee was fired years ago, but neither he nor the management notice that he keeps showing up for work.

While I’m as big of an advocate for meaningful work as any, I caution us against the mindframe that sees all mundane work as meaningless. In fact, we decide what has meaning. Given that truth, many mundane, Sisyphus-like tasks are important and have meaning.

Did you know that the Golden Gate bridge is painted continuously? Workers begin at one end of the bridge and repaint it only to start back at the beginning as soon as they are finished in order to protect the iconic structure from weather damage.

I find myself in the minds of these workers. Does there job have meaning? Or, is it all a pointless effort to no end?

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach