Is fun at work overrated?

For most of human history, the idea that work should be “fun” would have seemed, at best, absurd and, at worst, offensive. Consider a Roman galley slave chained to an oar, or a medieval serf bound to land and lord, or a 19th-century textile mill worker inhaling lint in a windowless factory. Even professions we now romanticize—such as blacksmiths, sailors, or early physicians—involved long hours, high risk, and minimal autonomy. Work was, in essence, a necessary burden: dangerous, monotonous,...