The Jobs Nobody Sees Still Count

Labor Day always makes me think about work, although probably not in the way we’re supposed to. I know the holiday has an actual history and meaning behind it, but for most of us it has also become the unofficial last long weekend of summer. There are cookouts, sales everywhere you look, people trying to squeeze in one more trip to the lake or beach, and plenty of jokes about celebrating work by not doing any.

I’m certainly not going to argue with a day off. What I have been thinking about lately, though, is how much work happens every single day that nobody really calls work. There are no timecards involved, nobody sends a paycheck, and you aren’t going to get an employee-of-the-month parking space for doing it particularly well. Most of it simply needs to be done, so somebody does it.

Keeping a household running is probably the easiest example.

You can spend an entire day working around the house and still have trouble explaining exactly what you accomplished. You washed two loads of laundry, changed the sheets, made three phone calls, cleaned out the refrigerator, paid a couple of bills, picked up prescriptions, figured out what everyone was going to eat, made a grocery list, went to the store, put everything away, cooked supper, cleaned the kitchen, and answered seventeen questions along the way.

Then somebody walks in and asks, “What did you do today?” Apparently nothing, since there isn’t a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled. The strange thing about a lot of household work is that when you do it well, nobody notices it at all. People notice when there are no clean towels. They notice when the refrigerator is empty. They notice when the toilet paper runs out, although they apparently don’t always notice that they’re the person who used the last of it.

When everything is stocked, washed, paid, scheduled, and where it’s supposed to be, life simply moves along. Someone made that happen. I don’t think I understood how much invisible work goes into running a household when I was younger. There were things that simply appeared as far as I was concerned. Groceries were in the kitchen. Clean sheets found their way back onto beds. Birthday cards were purchased before birthdays. Someone knew when appointments were scheduled and remembered that we were almost out of milk.

As a child, you don’t think much about who is keeping track of all of that. Then you become an adult and realize there isn’t a household fairy. I was a little disappointed by that discovery.

The Work of Keeping Track

The physical chores are only part of it. There’s also the job of remembering everything, and I think that may be more exhausting than actually doing some of it.

Someone usually knows that the dog needs more food before the bag is completely empty. Someone remembers there’s an appointment next Thursday and that another one needs to be scheduled next month. Someone knows which bill is due, which prescription needs refilling, whose birthday is coming up, what needs to be thawed for supper, and whether there’s enough laundry detergent to make it through the week.

You can be sitting perfectly still and still be working through a list in your head.

I know I’m not the only person who has gotten into bed and suddenly remembered something that absolutely must be done tomorrow. Somehow my brain can forget it all day and then decide 11:47 at night is the perfect time to bring it up.

Thanks for that. Caregiving adds an entirely different layer. When you’re responsible for helping care for someone, the work doesn’t fit neatly into business hours. You can’t always decide you’ll deal with something tomorrow morning because it’s after five. People need things when they need them.

Some days with Ma and Uncle R are fairly quiet. Other days it feels like somebody needs something every time I sit down. I can finally get comfortable, open my computer, and hear my name from another room.

You know that feeling when you’ve just sat down and somebody calls you? There’s a moment when you consider pretending you didn’t hear them. I’m not saying I do that. I’m saying I understand the temptation.

Caregiving can mean appointments, meals, medications, errands, paperwork, phone calls, repeating information, and simply being available. A lot of it looks like ordinary life from the outside because that’s exactly what it is. There’s no uniform to put on before you start and no clock to punch when you’re finished.

In many families, there isn’t really a finished. You just do today’s things and start again tomorrow.

The People Who Quietly Keep Things Moving

Once you start noticing invisible work, you see it everywhere. There’s the person in a family who plans every gathering. Everyone else arrives for Thanksgiving, but somebody thought about that meal weeks earlier. They decided what was being served, figured out who was bringing what, made sure there were enough chairs, remembered that one person doesn’t eat something, and probably cleaned the house before everyone arrived.

Then after everyone leaves, somebody is still standing in the kitchen looking at twelve containers of leftovers and wondering how on earth they’re going to fit into the refrigerator.

There’s the family member everyone calls when they need something handled because everyone knows they’ll figure it out.

There’s the neighbor who checks on someone elderly down the street.

There’s the grandparent who watches the grandchildren so their parents can work.

There’s the person who drives somebody to appointments because that person no longer drives.

There’s the friend who shows up with food when life gets difficult without waiting to be asked.

None of those things may appear under “occupation” on a form, but they’re work. Important work. I think women in particular have spent generations doing a lot of this without calling it anything. It was simply what needed to be done. Meals were cooked, children were raised, relatives were cared for, homes were managed, appointments were remembered, holidays were created, and somehow everybody else’s lives kept moving.

That doesn’t mean men don’t do invisible work too. Of course they do. Every family divides responsibilities differently, and sometimes the person carrying the most behind the scenes isn’t the person you’d expect. That’s actually part of the point. We don’t always see it.

Work Doesn’t Always Produce Something You Can Hold

I think we’re very good at measuring work when there’s an obvious result. You built something. You sold something. You finished a report. You earned a paycheck. It’s harder to measure the work that keeps something from going wrong. How do you measure making sure an elderly relative isn’t alone? How do you measure listening to someone who had a terrible day?

How do you measure keeping a household calm during a difficult season? How do you measure the person who notices everyone is exhausted and decides tonight is a pizza night before anybody has a chance to fall apart?

I don’t know that you can. That doesn’t make those things less valuable.

There are also people doing paid jobs we barely notice because we encounter them for only a few minutes. The person stocking grocery shelves before we arrive. The sanitation workers who make our trash disappear. The people keeping hotel rooms clean while we’re on vacation. The school cafeteria workers feeding hundreds of children before most of us have figured out what we’re having for lunch.

There are people working overnight while the rest of us sleep and people working holidays while we’re sitting around a table with family. I think Labor Day is as good a time as any to remember them too.

Maybe You Did More Today Than You Think

I have days when I reach the evening and feel like I didn’t accomplish nearly enough. My list is still sitting there with unchecked items, the project I planned to finish isn’t finished, and something has already been moved to tomorrow.

Then I have to remind myself to count the things that weren’t written on the list. Maybe someone needed me. Maybe I spent an hour handling something that came up unexpectedly. Maybe I made dinner, took care of the house, answered emails, dealt with family matters, and kept everything moving even though none of it felt particularly impressive.

That counts. I think sometimes we need to give ourselves credit for the work that doesn’t come with recognition. Not in some grand, inspirational way. I’m not suggesting we start handing ourselves trophies every time we empty the dishwasher. Although if someone wants to give me a trophy for laundry, I’ll take it. I’m simply saying that a day doesn’t have to produce something impressive to have been productive.

Sometimes the work is making sure everybody eats. Sometimes it’s taking someone to an appointment. Sometimes it’s answering the phone when you really don’t have another conversation left in you. Sometimes it’s taking care of a hundred tiny things so the people you love don’t have to think about them.

Most of that work will never appear on a résumé. Nobody is going to give you a raise because you remembered to buy toothpaste before the tube was completely empty. But a home, a family, and even a community depend on people doing those things every day.

So while we’re enjoying Labor Day, maybe we can give a little credit to all the work happening around us that doesn’t always look like work. The paid jobs matter, of course, and the people doing them deserve the holiday that was created to honor them.

I just think there’s room at the table for the rest of it too. Now, if you’re the person who planned the Labor Day cookout, bought the groceries, made the potato salad, remembered the ice, cleaned the patio, and will eventually put away all the leftovers, I hope somebody else is at least doing the dishes.

If not, leave them until tomorrow. You’ve worked enough today.