Welcome to re:work
Whether corporate or entrepreneurial, individual or collective, paid or unpaid, what role does work have to play in our lives?
It’s a question that often goes unexamined. Too often, we make choices about work based on unchallenged assumptions. It’s easy to go on autopilot and follow a seemingly pre-determined script - until the day you ask yourself, as we did: Did I choose this, or just follow the steps?
We started following that script to the letter: go to a good school, get a respectable job, be happy. But it turns out that living a fulfilled and meaningful life does not come with a formula. We started our careers together: same place, same company. Tom left his high-flying corporate career - recruiting, testing, and examining the choices of top executives - and turned that examination on himself to find more intention in his work. David chose to stay on his trajectory, with a keen eye on how we could work better - a question at the heart of his work today, helping organisations think about how they structure roles, and of his background in the social sciences. Our paths diverged; the conversations about work remained.
re:work is an intention to open that conversation to the world. Reflecting on work’s role in our lives, reconsidering how we work, and reaffirming why we work.
What you can expect from us: one essay every two weeks, alternating between the two of us, with other voices joining over time - because there are no simple answers, and our core philosophy centres on constructive disagreement. We’ll explore the deep questions about work openly: why we work, how we work, and how technology might change that. We don’t have all the answers, but we’re trying to find them.
Our first essay will come this week. Tom’s meditation on why we work.
So subscribe, and come disagree - it’s how we find better answers together.
Tom & David