My wife and I ate dinner last night in a little village called Ao Nang, which is about half an hour's taxi ride from our resort in Krabi, Thailand. It's a nice seaside town, with a population of about 5,000. Although small, it's a rather sprawling place, with three streets of tourist-targeted shops and restaurants. Like so many town is Asia, it's a bubbling, bustling, occasionally pungeant blend of greens and browns.
Before dinner, we happened to pop into a bar for a beer. As we drank, my wife noticed a particular man - who must've been in his 40's - in the same spot that we'd seen him previously. And as before, he was selling (or attempting to sell) various little electronic gadgets to passers-by. Kids toys and novelties, basically; all lasers and noise.
She (my wife) mentioned that she felt sorry him, and expressed the belief that no adult should have to make a living that way. I think what she meant is that she thought it demeaning and unjust that a man to have to try an eke out a living by flogging novelty crap to tourists who have - and will likely always have - far more money than he does.
I agreed immediately. But as the conversation progressed, we both began to have our doubts.
I like my job, but there are times I find it depressing and overwhelming. My wife is in a similar boat. We both make good (enough) money from our work. Good enough to have a holiday in Thailand, anyway. But we both work bloody hard for our money, and in doing so, endure considerable stress from time to time. So much so, in fact, that we felt compelled to go to a resort in Thailand to wind down. There may be something in this...
Our man, who had no office other than the street, and no office chair other than a stone bench, simply plied his wares to those who walked by. Most nibbled, but few swallowed the hook. In the time we watched him, he made one sale.
But in that time, he looked content. He looked healthy and fit. He chatted on his mobile. He chatted to people whom he knew when they walked by. He ate. He joked with customers with whom he made a sale, and with those whom he did not. And he played with lasers, for goodness' sake. Compared to my job, especially how it was before this holiday (i.e. insanely busy), I felt a twang of envy.
Now for all I know, this man might have a hard life that I'm currently romanticising. Or perhaps not. But there rests in all assumptions about the lives and jobs of others an inherent imposing of values. I'd be reluctant to call selling toys on the side of the road a career, because I've been conditioned to define a career as something elevated, essential, professional, skills-based, worthy and requisite of education and intelligence. All quite pompous crap really, that enables a society to perpetuate itself, so folk like me will keep working. A little contempt (or pity) for the lives of others can go a long way to stoking the fires of industry, that's for sure.
In a place like Perth, the need to find a satisfying career has become a powerful force. Fifty years ago, people seemed more content just to attain any position that enabled them to provide for their family. When did we start to demand more than remuneration for our efforts? I mean, we get paid, don't we?
Perhaps as we've become more consumerist and more secular, the values that the market place assigns to us have become more entrenched in our actions and thinking that we realise. I mean, I was pretty quick to feel sorry for a man I didn't know, because of the lack of value I ascribed to his work.
I really ought not do that.
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