Work Is Boring—Use It

Let Your Zoom Ennui Inspire You to Change Your Life, or the World

Work is boring.

I expect many of you will disagree. You’ll offer your job as a counterexample. Or, if yours isn’t much to brag about, you’ll come up with hypothetical scenarios that show that work isn’t always boring. Spectacular as they may be, mental gymnastics of this sort prove nothing of consequence. I rule out the possibility of some exotic work that’s meaningful, enjoyable, stimulating, and not boring for a simple reason: It doesn’t exist.

Work—all of it—is boring.

Work is enforced labor, required by our needs and demanded by others. To work …

by Andreas Elpidorou | April 13, 2023

Going Back to Blair Mountain

The Largest Armed Labor Uprising in American History Is Finally Getting the Remembrance It Deserves

by Kenzie New Walker | September 1, 2022

For most people, the memory of the largest armed labor uprising in American history is unknown, buried beneath the dirt of West Virginia’s Blair Mountain alongside bullet casings and relics …

The Valley’s Last Camaro

In 1992, General Motors Shuttered Its Van Nuys Plant—But Not Before Union Workers Left Their Mark on the Final Car They Produced

by Andrew Warren and Tim Moore | August 29, 2022

Improbably, the best monument to the old General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys, California, sits in a garage in Jamestown, North Dakota—the final car produced at the facility that …

How Latin America Built L.A.

Excavating the Century of Economic Domination Beneath the 2022 Summit of the Americas

by Jessica Kim | June 6, 2022

Los Angeles is just the second U.S. city to host the Summit of the Americas, which brings together political leaders, civil society organizations, and business executives from North, South, and …

The 1970s Beer Boycott Inspiring Amazon Organizers Today

Over the Course of a Decade, a Diverse Bay Area Coalition Convinced Coors to Change Its Employment Practices

by Allyson P. Brantley | April 21, 2022

In 1973, San Francisco beer delivery drivers were at odds with local beer distributors over low wages, union-busting efforts, and employment discrimination. Distributors of the Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company were …

Meet the ‘Mediators’ Who Connect Scientists and the Public

Fossil Preparators Are a Panacea to a Closed-Off Field—And Their Work Offers a New Model for Research

by Talib Jabbar | December 3, 2021

How do colossal Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops fossils get from the ground to the natural history museum? And could that process—which involves not just paleontologists but a largely uncredited group …

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