Does wage labor contribute to well‐being beyond providing an income? Well‐being can be understood in eudaimonic terms as the happiness derived from a socially valued life or in hedonic terms as the experience of pleasure. The eudaimonic–hedonic divide is replicated in competing progressive visions of the place of work in a good life. Laborist theories stress the centrality of paid work for a meaningful life. By contrast, for post‐work theories, pleasure is important for well‐being, and work is generally not expected to be pleasurable. Surprisingly, many of the participants in my study of diverse US job seekers described one or more of the jobs they had held as “fun.” Fun connotes enjoyment without deeper meaning, a hedonic rather than eudaimonic account of nonfinancial work rewards. What made a job fun were small work pleasures: enjoyment of the tasks and feeling competent at them, enjoyment of the physical work environment, or enjoyment of social relations on the job. These small pleasures could be found in both standard and nonstandard, precarious jobs. This study indicates the need for a labor politics that improves hedonic well‐being on the job. It also expands an “anthropology of the good” to include ordinary enjoyment.

中文翻译：

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小小的工作乐趣和两种幸福

除了提供收入之外，雇佣劳动是否还能促进福祉？幸福可以用幸福的术语理解为源自社会重视的生活的幸福，也可以用享乐的术语理解为快乐的体验。幸福与享乐的鸿沟在关于美好生活中工作场所的相互竞争的进步愿景中得到了复制。工党理论强调有偿工作对有意义的生活的重要性。相比之下，对于后工作理论来说，快乐对于幸福感很重要，而工作通常不会令人愉快。令人惊讶的是，我对不同的美国求职者进行的研究中，许多参与者都将他们从事的一项或多项工作描述为“有趣”。乐趣意味着没有更深层次意义的享受，是对非财务工作奖励的享乐而非幸福的描述。使工作变得有趣的是一些小的工作乐趣：享受任务并感觉自己有能力完成任务，享受物质工作环境，或享受工作中的社会关系。这些小乐趣可以在标准和非标准、不稳定的工作中找到。这项研究表明需要一种改善工作享乐福祉的劳工政治。它还将“善的人类学”扩展到包括普通的享受。