Laurence Van Wassenhove, a fifty-nine-year-old French woman, has been receiving a full paycheck from her employer for the last twenty years—despite having no work to do in all that time. 

The reports covering her story talk of this “bizarre” situation as if it would be “bliss” and a “dream come true” for many. Much of the chatter from the headlines has been about whether it would be worth the time to get paid to do nothing, or if it’d be too soul-sucking. 

One commenter, though envious of Van Wassenhove, recognized that this is rather a case “about [her] dignity.” Indeed, there is more behind the headlines.

No Work & All Pay

Van Wassenhove has medical diagnoses that necessitated her move into an accommodated secretarial role. However, when her employer, French Télécom, was bought out by the Orange Group, she asked to be transferred to another region in France. There, twenty years ago, an assessment deemed her medically unfit for the new role. And so, she did not receive the requisite accommodations that would have enabled her to do her job. 

She was sent home on indefinite standby, placed in “professional limbo.” Of this move, she said, “I was paid, yes, but I was treated like I didn’t exist.” Without coworkers or responsibilities, she developed depression because of the isolation and inactivity.

There remain unanswered questions about this case (she is suing Orange for discrimination), but for our purposes today, let’s consider how Mme. Van Wassenove’s situation proves that work is about more than a paycheck. 

Work’s Perks

Van Wassenhove’s experience is a cautionary tale for those who care only about the money. That’s what she had: no work, just the paycheck. Yet that didn’t provide fulfillment. (Likewise, those who work just to get paid will find themselves going bankrupt in other areas of life.)

So, what are the benefits of work, including for people in similar situations to Van Wassenhove’s?

Work provides community. Daniel Darling wrote that work is “a way we demonstrate that we understand the value of those we work alongside, and those we interact with. Our work is how we love and serve our neighbors.” Coworkers and clients are fellow humans, made in the image of God, whom we can help through our labor. Van Wassenhove’s “forced inactivity” segregated her from personal interactions and the chance to see the impact of her work on others. 

Work provides purpose. It can be hard to look forward to a day of tedious, seemingly menial work. Imagine then waking up with nothing to do. It’s no wonder Van Wassenhove felt like an “outcast” and a “discarded employee.” She was robbed of “meaningful work.” She was precluded from purpose. Here’s Darling again: “Constructive work is in and of itself a way we live as image-bearers.” Additionally, as Dr. Andrew Spencer wrote, “Our work is also a measure of our service to the world.” If we lack purpose, what would come of that besides depression?

Work provides dignity. In 1942, Dorothy Sayers wrote in her essay “Why Work,”

[T]he Christian understanding of work…is the natural exercise and function of man…It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.

As we know, work came before the Fall. It is what God made us to do. That’s why there is ‌shame in not working, even when we are forced to stop. Our dignity in the Imago Dei remains intact, but something is lost inside us when we are unable to work.

Van Wassenhove’s case is unique because of her (effectively) unearned salary. However, humanity has a tragic history of barring certain people from working, and thus seeing them with less dignity. 

Employing the ‘Unemployable’

For centuries, people with disabilities have been seen as unemployable. What could they offer to society to make their way in the world? What could they do? The lame, blind, and mute whom Jesus healed, he found not in a workplace but on the side of the road, begging. In 2 Samuel 9 (ESV), Mephibosheth, “crippled in his feet,” thought himself as useful as a “dead dog.” In addition, well into the twentieth century, people with intellectual disabilities lived out their days in institutions, segregated from the general population.

The Old Testament commands care for widows, orphans, and aliens, ensuring that those who can’t provide for themselves are provided for. This is wonderful, and we have similar provisions today for the disabled, in the form of government funding, insurance coverage, and disability service organizations.

It’s worth noting that we are at the dawn of a new era of employment for people with disabilities. It’s known as “Employment First.” It rejects the thought that anyone is unemployable and holds to, as one website states, the “deeply held conviction that every person, regardless of disability, has the right to work in the community.” Job coaches and employers alike are discovering that people with disabilities not only can work, but also want to work.

For people like Van Wassenhove, work is about much more than a paycheck. It gives them community, purpose, and dignity. I’ll leave you with this comment from her attorney: “Work, for a person with a disability, means having a place in society.”