Assembly Line Breakdown
Theme of the Week: Your Job Fit
Tim Downs
Monday, February 23, 2004
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Key Bible Verses: "All your life you will struggle &… you will sweat to produce food" (Genesis 3:17, 19). Bonus Reading:Ecclesiastes 1:3; 2:17–23
Henry Ford's assembly line shortened the time needed to build an automobile from 12.5 hours to just 1.5 hours. But this technical efficiency came at a high human price. As worker boredom increased so did absenteeism. As production quotas increased, workers began to suffer stress-related ailments, and alcoholism increased. Ford soon had trouble keeping enough workers on his assembly lines to meet his production schedule.
What went wrong? The Industrial Revolution completed a process begun at the Fall–the corruption of work. In the Garden man was separated from his Creator; on the assembly line man was separated from his work.
Once, work was the deepest expression of who a person was–a respected craftsman in a field that required years of training and experience. Now, almost anyone could do almost any job, becoming a kind of extension to the machine he operated. Laborers who couldn't see the end of the assembly line had little idea what their monotonous task contributed to the final product. For the sake of productivity, something momentous had been sacrificed–the meaning of work.
–Tim Downs in Finding Common Ground
My Response: Does my work seem meaningful or monotonous? Why?
Thought to Apply: Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their existence; they go stark, raving mad.
–Fyodor Dostoyevski (Russian novelist)
Adapted from Finding Common Ground (Moody, 1999) by permission.
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Thank You, Creator God, for uniquely designing me. Point me to what I can do that will satisfy me and glorify You.
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