Work

I now have a copy of Kellen Hatanaka’s Work*

The book is a beautifully illustrated ABC of familiar and unfamiliar occupations.

I think we need more books like Work, which I liken to the incredible Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss.

Books like this put a smile on your face, but they also remind us there’s more than one way to look at work and careers.

– – – – –

Like Dr. Seuss before him, Kellen Hatanaka reminds us there is so much to learn.

Each job, each profession, every different job title is a new world of experience opening up before our eyes.

In every labour lies the potential to love what we do.

To see something new through someone else’s eyes.

And to understand a little more from our own perspective too.

Kellen Hatanaka's Work

Ask two different people in the same occupation – two Postal Workers for example – what their job means to them.

While it’s impossible to guess what each one might say, I guarantee they won’t talk about posting letters for too long.

What you’re much more likely to get is a window into the world from two quite different points of view.

Speaking from their own experience, each person will tell you what it looks and feels like to have this occupation.

How people treat them. How their work has changed over the years. How it has shaped them.

How the job integrates with the rest of their life, and in doing so what their work has sustained and supported.

hatanaka

You may say I’m a dreamer, and this is nothing more than a pre-school picture book about work.

All true.

But there’s more.

Ask yourself why the author chose this subject, and chose to handle it this way.

Then ask yourself about the Postal Worker, or Butcher, or Oceanographer, or Office Worker, or Quantity Surveyor, or Road Maintenance Operative, or any other worker you know.

Ask yourself what he or she might say about their career and their work.

And I’m willing to bet you will see something new.

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[*My thanks for the introduction to Kellen Hatanaka’s Work
must again go to the tireless explorings of Maria Popova on Brainpickings.org]

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