The Knowledge Work itch

I don’t know where I first heard the term “Knowledge Work,” but it stuck with me and I use it often. In a post-industrial society, Knowledge Work is where most of us earn our living. Certainly there are many traditional laborers in the market; however, for most of us, gone are—or at least should be—the days of punching a clock, performing a repetitive task, clocking out after eight or more hours, and then returning home.

Citizens of the Knowledge Work society occupy all sorts of schedules, ethics and environments. For example in my case, while I’m full remote, I still have access to my company’s local office. I often work from my home office. But, I may work from a restaurant—or bar. And currently, I work from the road in a travel trailer.

My hours are just as fuzzy as my environment.

And it’s this fuzziness that can often devolve into a full Gaussian blur if the Knowledge Worker is not careful.

Our “work” doesn’t start and stop at a specific interval. Our output is a variable. We live the definition of “shower thoughts”.

It’s this Knowledge Work itch that keeps the clock running long after we’ve “clocked out” for the day. And if we’re not careful, this can keep us in a constant state of stress because we don’t allow ourselves to truly disconnect. The Knowledge Worker must trust themselves—and their biology—to let the unsolved problems linger at times.

Because…

Somewhere deep in the caverns of our thinking closet, that line of code we just don’t like lingers. And we don’t need to actively ponder it; it incubates all on its own.

We may be having a beer or watching Netflix, but our subconscious is churning through that one stinky piece of code, that unclosed loop, and just when the protagonist is about to muster the last of his meddle and smite the antagonist, our cantankerous and suddenly uncivilized brain blurts “A ha!” and drives us from the couch to the terminal.

We don’t care that we missed the climax of that film we just invested two hours into. We scratched our itch. Our dragon was slain.

Tonight we sleep well.