While we are primarily concerned with welfare, unemployment and jobseeking, work is nevertheless central to these experiences. Dozens of people we interviewed over the past ten years who were currently ‘out of work’ stated unequivocally that they wanted to work, often that they enjoyed work, or even that they were a ‘worker’ unlike some of the ‘shirkers’ or ‘spongers’ who they imagined to populate the dole queue. When they spoke about their family background, many described how their parents had instilled a strong work ethic in them.

Regarding attitudes towards work, the greatest contrast was not between men and women, urban and rural or any class divide, it was between those who had work and those who didn’t. People were relieved to have found work, even if it was temporary, parttime or precarious, but weren't slow to criticize the difficulties, indignities and inequality of work – they complained about their bosses, colleagues, working conditions and customers. But for those who currently had no paid employment, work acquired a sort of ideal status, seen as an unarguably good thing and always better than unemployment.

Perhaps this is unsurprising: people often want what others have and they do not (Girard, 1977). Yet in the longing of the unemployed for a job, the ideal or even magical qualities ascribed to work appear. For instance, Darren had worked manufacturing windows after leaving school early and had been unemployed for two years due to the collapse of the construction industry. He only watched television at night-time, because otherwise it felt bad: “There is nothing sweeter than slobbing in front of crap TV after a hard day's work. There is nothing worse than slobbing in front of crap TV after a hard day's nothing!”

Somehow, work transforms crap TV into a “sweet” experience; if he watched it during the daytime he would feel like a “waste of space”. What Darren describes here is a peculiarly religious balancing of accounts, wherein indulgences must be justified by hard labour. Darren had moved back in with his mother and described a day of avoiding her while jobseeking in the morning, mainly online, working on his car in the afternoon and staying up late watching movies and spending time on social media.