I have always loved to work. Schoolwork, housework, work-work: I’ve loved it all, perhaps because I’m an accomplishment junkie, and few things measure achievement better than work. You can take pride in your children – as the Earl of Grantham says at the end of “Downton Abbey” when – spoiler alert – Lady Edith finally gets hitched. But then he wonders why he feels a sense of achievement in her marriage. Precisely. A relationship is a state of being, not doing. You can mother someone. But more likely, you say, I am a mother to him.

Work, which is all about doing, is under siege right now in America. It is no doubt the primary reason Donald Trump is the president-elect, just confirmed by the Electoral College. Overworked, underpaid – undervalued – with increasingly fewer perks and increasingly expensive benefits, the American worker has said, “Enough,” we are told. ...