The Ploughman Job and The Job Characteristics Model

Introduction

After skimming the Tony Robinson’s 2004 book of The Worst Job in History, I decided to choose the job of the ploughman. As described by Tony Robinson, back in the dark ages of British History, ploughing means living, if not, it would be impossible to live. With that notion, I presumed that being a ploughman must be one of the common jobs in the dark ages.

In the Dark Ages, ploughman seems to contribute a lot in terms of food resources. It was portrayed in detailed that, if a harvest that fails to produce, it was because of an insufficient work done by ploughman and lessen the amount of ploughed fields. And this leads to even bigger problem which is food shortage. Food shortage or famine is so used back then that a father voluntarily sell is son into slavery as long as there is enough income in return. As stated by Robinson (2004) in his book, it is sad to acknowledge upon that “Hunger was a fact of life”, p.22.

A ploughman job meant so much that if it was not done in sufficient amount, it has caused the so called famine-struck. Back in the seventh-century Sussex, the Saxon historian and the monk Bede denoted that famine-struck is that of a number of about 40 to 50 emaciated and starving people pack up in a pact to commit suicide together. They would join hands and leap over to the edge of the seas to die by the fall or by the drowning. How can so many people join in together to end their lives? Scarce of food sources has led to unimaginable delinquent. This shows the importance of the job called ploughman and the impact a ploughman has to the society in the dark ages.

Just like any other job, a ploughman job starts as early as the daybreak. The ploughman would go out driving the oxen to the field and then yoke...

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