Mormon Busy-work

Source

        Back in the days when I was a believing Mormon, my church-mates and I often touted the busy-ness of our lives as a mark of pride. We work up early every morning for seminary, showing up at the church building at 6:30 for 45 minutes of scripture study. We had church on Sundays that lasted 3 hours. We had youth activities. Most of our time outside work or school was taken up by church activities. Mentally, we were preparing ourselves for the days when we would go on missions and have children and become homemakers and serve as lay-clergy and do volunteer work for the church, balancing the ever-increasing demands of life and church. 
          We told ourselves – and each other – that the time we invested and the sacrifices we made were for the better good. These were the sacrifices that got us closer to the ever-illusive promise of the Celestial Kingdom and godliness. I too was constantly exhausted, struggling to balance my life with the demands of church. But I told myself that the work just made me stronger and so I persevered.
          Looking back, I wonder how much of that was time well spent and how much of that was time wasted. As Mormons, we were workers. We invested a lot of time and effort, struggling to balance everything that the church demanded of us. But how many of these requirements were impactful and how many of these requirements were simply busywork, tasks designed to keep the members exhausted and stuck in the system?
          As a Mormon, I learned how to work. I learned how to wake up early even when I didn’t want to. I learned how to keep going even when I wanted to quit. I learned to pull long hours and still wake up the next day. I learned not to stop.
        However, what I didn’t learn was to make my work mean something. I never learned how give my work impact and significance. I never learned how to prioritize and to establish boundaries. I never learned how to say no or to question whether I should be doing something. I never learned to value my time.
         I went to seminary because Mormonism required me to. I didn’t question why I was spending 45 minutes a day learning something that didn’t seem relevant. I didn’t learn to ask if it was a productive use of time or simply another activity that lead me towards exhaustion without accomplishing anything significant.
          Sometimes I feel this idea of busywork strikes at the heart of what Mormonism is. Mormonism is a demanding religion – members are required to invest significant amounts of time, money, and emotional energy. This has been the case from the earliest days of Mormonism, when the early converts gave up their homes and their families to follow the leaders across the US. However, we were never allowed to ask why. We couldn’t question the leaders. We weren’t supposed to read the outside literature on Mormonism.

          We were just supposed to stay busy following directions.

Attendance Lessons

Last month, my bosses at work decided to institute an attendance competition.  As high school teachers, we are required to submit attendance electronically every period.  In order to improve our record, which factors into the amount of funding our school receives, the deans of instruction started a competition, declaring that the team with the best attendance record would be treated to breakfast by the losing team. 

Some teachers are very methodical and always get their attendance in on time.  I am not one of them.  As a first-year teacher responsible for teaching 3 different subjects, I feel like I’m juggling chainsaws, trying to remember to do everything that is required of me.  Everyday, I teach three sections of anatomy and physiology, two sections of AP Biology, and one section of a research class.  On the days when I am more frazzled than normal (and there are many of them), my attendance record slips. 

At the end of every day, the deans sent out attendance records, with details of which teacher forgot to take attendance during what period.  Inevitably, my name was always on the list, a badge of shame as to my sloppy record.  The leader of our team – the head of the social studies department – began to get into the habit of stopping me in the hallway to talk to me about my attendance.  Then she started to send out team-wide emails every period to remind us to take attendance.  Emails that I never saw in time for them to be of any use. 

I am a pretty stubborn person.  Put enough pressure on me and my first instinct is to do the opposite of what people are pressuring me to do.  However, this was the workplace and the competition, misguided as it may have been, was for a worthy cause.  I did want to be better at taking attendance even if it did irritate me that my name and attendance record was sent to the rest of my colleagues on a daily basis. 

So I swallowed my pride.  I bit my tongue, holding back the sarcastic comments, and I nodded along to my colleague’s suggestions.  One of my students, in a burst of energy that I have yet to see being applied to biology, made a huge sign for my classroom that said “TAKE ATTENDANCE.”  My problematic class was the last period of the day, when I was too tired to remember much of anything.  So a teacher down the hall assigned a student to come and remind me.  Everyday, this student, who at the beginning of the year wrote down that his goal for my class was “to remain invisible for the entire year,” came walking into my room to remind me to take attendance. 

My attendance-taking improved, if only marginally.  I was still the teacher that marred my team’s record but my average improved and eventually the competition ended, with my team coming out as the winner.  When the holiday break ends and I return to work, the other team will be required to bring us breakfast. 

I also suspect that I learned something.  Although what that lesson was, I still haven’t figured it out.