Work is what makes the world go round. Slacking off doesn’t | Peter Goers

The harder you work the luckier you get. Don’t stay in bed unless you can earn money in bed, writes Peter Goers.

Work is more fun than fun. Work is what you do whereas fun is what you try to have – and trying to have fun can be expensive, exhausting and pointless. Plus hangovers.

I say this as someone lucky to have enjoyed all the work I’ve ever done and if you enjoy your work it’s not really work. That’s one of the secrets of life.

The other secret is ... have a nap.

Work defines us. Work is who and what we are. There’s a lot of twaddle about work-life balance. Just work. Life follows that.

Work is what makes the world go round. Slacking off doesn’t.

The dear old Queen Mother said, “work... is the rent we pay for life.” Of course, she never did a hand’s turn of work in her very long life.

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother celebrates her 87th birthday in 1987. Picture: Tim Graham Photo Library

She never cleaned a toilet or worked professionally but she did her bit – her job was smiling, waving, wearing funny hats and saying nothing of any importance. The role of royalty is to do nothing but to do it well. Nice work if you can get it.

I’ll never stop working but then I just basically sit on my arse at a desk or in the theatre and I attempt to entertain people.

In my recent ventures into stand-up comedy at the Rhino Room and the old Cranker, I’ve become a sit down comedian.

Recently a friend of mine, Deane O’Brien, died at 88. As a young man he got a job mowing lawns. He did it for one day and then never worked again.

He became a familiar eccentric in the streets of Norwood and was a strange but cheery person of gnomic utterance.

Family wealth funded a kind of inoffensive indolence but before you say “lucky bastard” would you really change places with him? I wouldn’t because I’d be instantly bored.

Nothing beats the satisfaction of a job well done. Jonas Salk told the world that “the reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more”. More please.

Often the preparation for work is more wearing than the work itself, such as worrying about it, getting dressed and coiffed and battling traffic.

I’ve always loved all my work – if work it is. It must be torturous to have to do work you loathe or are not suited to.

Farming is hard work and a constant gamble and there were many young men forced into farming through family obligation which became a living hell. Fortunately, that’s less common now.

Nowadays the young are much more choosy and transitory in their work and their resumes are much more varied.

People no longer stick with the same firm in the same job for their entire working lives as once they did.

Time was, you got a job and retired from it at 65, were given a retirement present of a bakelite and chrome smoker’s companion or an engraved Ranleigh tray and then you dropped dead.

Now people live and work longer but retirement does change your life because you generally get even busier. The entire volunteer sector depends on retirees. They work very hard in so many good causes.

Immigrants generally work their guts out – if all who drove a taxi, Uber, delivery van, truck and bus stopped, the entire country would grind to a halt.

If every immigrant who worked in aged care stopped that sector would collapse. Ditto for servos. Think of them if you oppose immigration.

Each generation thinks the next generation is bone idle. My father used to tell me “you couldn’t work in an iron lung” despite me having five part-time jobs before I left school.

I salute workers everywhere, especially teachers (on whom everything depends), doctors, nurses and cleaners.

I salute my friend Angela Brustolin who left school, got a job as a cleaner at the Port Pirie Hospital and left 45 years and 8 months later. She is the salt of the earth.

Hard physical yakka is exhausting and should be better rewarded. Cleaners and carers are not paid enough.

There is no such thing as menial work. All work is important. We all depend not only on our own work but the work of others.

The three most important things in real estate are location, location, location. And the three most important things in a working life are vocation, vocation, vocation. You do not choose a vocation. It choses you.

Work on. The harder you work the luckier you get. Don’t stay in bed unless you can earn money in bed.

We earn our rest and recreation and now I’m going to slack off – ’til next week.

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Jane Greenslade – Yorke Peninsula farmer and conservationist

Annette Marner’s exquisite book on the wildlife and gorgeous gorges of the Flinders Ranges

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Roger “Rouge” Shepard – legendary 94-year-old drag artist and the sweetest, luckiest man I ever knew.

Originally published as Work is what makes the world go round. Slacking off doesn’t | Peter Goers