Look around almost any office, shop, factory or retailer, and chances are you'll see people frowning.

        Lots of frowns — outnumbering the smiles in some places maybe 10-to-1.

        The reasonable conclusion, then, would be that people don't like their work, are unhappy with their work and don't want to work because they would rather be fishing, doing needlepoint or otherwise occupied with a hobby.

        But author Al Gini, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago who teaches in the philosophy, human resources and industrial relations departments, found that is not the case.

        In his book My Job, My Self: Work and the Creation of the Modern Individual (Routledge; $27), Mr. Gini found that people really do want to work — despite the unceasing whine from most that a job is just a job and that they dream of a deserted shore in Bali most days.

        Americans, he found, also want to enjoy their work. And what's more, they want to do something good with their lives and work.
       

More than money

               Those are the three big motivators for work for most people: Workers want interesting tasks, they want tasks that allow them to show off their talents and they want a happy place to work.

        Or, at least, they want a congenial place to work.

        Money. Well, money doesn't matter all that much — not compared with actually having a job, anyhow.

        While money doesn't have the meaning it once had, self and self-interest are never far from mind, particularly among younger workers.

        For them, it is a big old me world out there.

        “When the concept of Generation X first came up, I disdained them. Now I realize that they were the tip of a revolutionary iceberg,” Mr. Gini said.

        “Gen-X'ers are telling us that they are not going to give their lives over to work. They have seen their parents and grandparents work themselves into a grave and they are not going to do it.”

        They will work hard when they are on the job, but somewhere nearby, in a desk, perhaps, the resume is always ready.

        That leads to another conclusion, Mr. Gini found.
       

Eroding loyalty

               Absolute loyalty is on absolute hold — if not absolutely gone.

        "What we have instead is sequential loyalty,” Mr. Gini said.

        “People do the work and work hard at it. They will keep up their skills but they are also ready to walk out the door — though they would like a good letter of recommendation.”

        When lottery winners and others who have scored big money with jobs, books or a business are asked if they will continue working after the bonanza has arrived, 75 percent plan to keep working.

        “Adults need work in the same way children need play,” he said.

        "It's where we find our possibilities, our creativity. We want to work — though when asked if people were going to stay in the same job, 65 percent said, what, are you crazy? A majority say they will work at another job.”

        He said he does not expect Gen-X'ers' attitudes to change as they age, either. A mortgage, a car note and raising a family will probably not have much impact on their attitudes about the balance of work and life.

        “The fact is they want meaning. They want money and they want perks,” he said.

        E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com.

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