Being human is a social activity. Connections between and among fellow humans are how we make meaning, understanding ourselves, our actions and our world. Interacting with each other keeps us healthy, guides us to happiness, and gives us the tools to deal with the many challenges that life brings. Exploring that theme in the workplace and home is at the heart of Allison Pugh’s influential career as a sociologist. Her latest book, The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World, offers a powerful – and alternative – way of understanding the multiple values found in interpersonal labor.
Pugh, professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University and a prolific scholar, loves interviewing. She does it very, very well. Pugh worked as a journalist, among many other jobs, and was long interested in the “magic” that takes place in a successful interview. What makes for one of those real human to human encounters? We know when it happens, but what are the factors that make it something other than a transaction? How does it come about? To answer, Pugh looked at the literature, interviewed a slew of folks whose work relies on real engagement with others, and developed the idea of “connective labor.” This is the work that relies on real human to human connection, usually a dyad, making meaning and mutual understanding as a primary function. At the center of The Last Human Job are nuggets pulled from the hundred plus interviews with chaplains, nurses, doctors, health care workers, therapists and teacher, people whose workplace effectiveness is all about human connection. Their stories will resonate with anyone who has given consideration to the power of these kinds of jobs. Pugh weaves them together into a very interesting theory of connective labor, the kind of profound labor that really makes a difference.
Lurking, as an existential threat to connective labor, is AI and creeping standardization of workplaces. Pugh provides examples throughout, from Dutch grocery stories (people don’t always prefer self check-out; sometimes they like talking with cashiers) to the many systems being implemented in health care settings to cut costs and maximize profits. Increasingly jobs that rely on connective labor are being re-organized. This can improve consistency, lighten the burden on workers, and re-prioritize resources to improve overall outcomes. Think about standard protocols and scripts for certain kinds of therapies. On the other hand, they can also rob interaction of honest meaning. Pugh is not anti-change or anti-technology. The consequences of her research are clear: over reliance on counting and tracking can make the treatment as dangerous as the underlying disease.
For good reason, Pugh’s focus on connective labor prioritizes jobs that have an emotional component at their core, a human to human recognition of another. The book opens with a moving account of a chaplain’s work, followed by data about the loneliness or depersonalization crisis in contemporary America. This worrisome trend, Pugh asserts, is about an “intensification of need” that so many are experiencing. More than growing demand for therapists, it speaks to the thinning of human networks and connectivity. People want to be seen, truly seen, by others. They want acknowledgement. Technology, often served up as a “better than nothing” solution to the need, is thin gruel. It may be a cheaper way to provide something, but is that how we want to live?
How and why tech falls short becomes clear as Pugh examines the social architectures in which connective labor takes place. These are the workplaces, the hospitals, schools, clinics and workarounds by which the labor takes place. For the privileged, a physician on call or a tutor for one’s child is a tremendous option. For the rest, securing meaningful connective labor can be a challenge, just as it is for those who choose careers in connective labor. Pugh demonstrates that it is possible to make connective labor sustainable if sufficient attention is given to an organization’s relational design, connective culture and resource distribution with the right leadership. A California community clinic functions as a case study. While not easy, organizations that promote sustainable connective labor can be organized and supported in a cost-effective manner.
This and more make The Last Human Job a valuable work. Nonetheless, I could not help but think of Upton Sinclair’s famous quip regarding his classic novel about life and labor in the Chicago stockyards in the early 1900s, The Jungle. Sinclair, a socialist, very much hoped that the book would facilitate political change. It did, though increased regulation for the meat industry was not the goal. “I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident hit its stomach,” he said. Pugh’s focus on AI and systems, I believe, redirects our attention from some vitally important insights.
Accepting Pugh’s assertion that connective labor is essential to human interaction, why think about it primarily in therapeutic or educational settings? It is vital there, to be sure, but more is afoot. It also is an essential building block of team building, of leadership across many different organizations, and in our friendships and relationships. The under appreciation of connective labor in workplace settings is a symptom, I think, or a larger problem. We may not be appreciating, or understanding, that the deep listening and acknowledgement of fellow humans is central to being a human. Moreover, authentic seeing of the other is foundational to many thinkers who sought to counter the isolating effects of modernism. For example, Martin Buber, a German philosopher from the early 1900s, wrote persuasively about truly recognizing others. The struggle to find authenticity in the face of AI and scripts for interacting with each other is the latest battle in a war that has been underway for more than century.
With that in mind, perhaps it is a good time to put down the phone, unplug, and have a real conversation. Connective labor might be the most valuable work that we ever do.
David Potash