Work, Workplaces, and Worker Wellbeing… thru the Lens of Snow White

Getting animated with insight into our own jobs and working life

Let’s go on a ride with Disney’s animated classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — the lessons it teaches us about work and the ways in which it shapes Expectations of Work Life.

This ride will take the form of a relatively extensive series of Heigh Ho editions. (Think of a subscription as a fastpass).

Am I straying from the initial promise of Heigh Ho? I think not. Beyond merely examining the movie in the context of work — with a few editions upfront to set the stage — we’ll use it as a launchpad to gain insight into our own jobs and work life.

Coming attractions:

• The classic “Whistle While You Work” 🎵 song (and scene) compels us to consider the potential for:

  • Job crafting as a mechanism to cope with tedious work;

  • The rich history of on-the-job music-making, and evidence of its relationship to employee well-being;

  • Emotional labor.

• The Dwarfs, a group of miners living off the grid, have been called a model of well executed collectivism by some; others identify them as a marginalized caste of laborers relegated to the most oppressive work.

• Reflecting on the role of purpose in our own work is inevitable when we hear the Dwarf’s sing: “A thousand rubies, sometimes more, But we don't know what we dig 'em for!” 🎶

• Snow White escapes the stranglehold of her stepmother, who sentenced her to a life of forced labor (cooking and cleaning), and is given shelter by the Dwarfs, who agree to accommodate her in exchange for… cooking and cleaning. But the two roles aren’t the same. We’ll scrub the nitty gritty job characteristics that explain why.

• The movie’s creator, Walt Disney, had his own life-changing adventures with work, not least of which were…

  • An early adulthood employee experience that haunted his dreams until his dying day.

  • Labor strife within his own workforce.

• The relevance of modifications Disney made to the original fairy tale, first published by the Grimm Brothers, in which Snow White was seven years old and the Prince only swept her off her feet after his monetary offer to acquire her was rejected.

There’s so much more. This may seem like making something outta nothing — Snow White isn’t about work, and Walt Disney, as we’ll see, probably wasn’t making a statement about work, consciously or unconsciously. The movie, nevertheless, serves as an example of a cultural force that has a strong relationship to our Expectations of Work Life.

It’s like a magic mirror that reflects our socio-cultural constructs of work, and may inform how we can make a job… fairest of them all.

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LinkedIn Peek-In

• Speaking of mining, Paulo Gomes this week announced his new book chapter about “Off-The-Road (OTR) Tyre Management” in the mining industry and posted a screenshot of the first page. I’m out of my element with this topic, but I understand it to be about working safely with the giant tires of earth-moving vehicles used in mining. Kudos to Paulo not only for the publication and for spotlighting this vital safety topic, but also for eliciting the kind of meaningful discussion thread that’s become an endangered species on LinkedIn. Comments like Kris Thorsteinsson’s…

“Had an exploding grader tire locking ring fly past my head before hearing all the stories of maimings and fatalities from split rim tires”

…remind us of what counts most with employee well-being.

• Leigh Stringer shared a Wall Street Journal article, No One Wants a Printer, But Everyone Wants to Print, in which she’s quoted with a succinct assessment: “When you need it, you need it.” Though much of this article about desktop and office printers is tongue-in-cheek, it touches on topics relevant to our work experience: minor annoyances, obstacles, and generational differences. Plus, the article’s anecdote about a 3-hour printing odyssey gives me a chance to sing, “Someday, my prints will come.” 🎶

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Work By Numbers

• Since 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor has seen a 69 percent increase in illegal child labor. U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh comments…

“Too often, companies look the other way and claim that their staffing agency, or their subcontractor or supplier, is responsible.”

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate for disabled persons, 7.6 percent in 2022, decreased by 2.5 percentage points from the previous year. The jobless rate for those with a disability was about twice as high as the rate for those without a disability.

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Featured image by Ina Hall from Pixabay