Public Service: meanings and senses of an evolving labor

Abstract

In this paper we propose a discussion that lies within the thematic field of the articulation between Psychology and Work. The aim was to discuss the meanings and senses that public servants attribute to work. To this end, the analysis was based on data from a field study with 30 federal civil servants who work in an institution of technical and technological education, and on theoretical frameworks that address the centrality of work and the specifics of the work processes in the service sector. The results reveal the importance of work in the structuring of the servants' material and symbolic lives, and that the meanings attributed to it are related to the provision of survival, the (re)production of social values, such as autonomy and independence, social integration, personal fulfillment and existential meaning. The analysis of this subjective dimension of work also allowed the assessment of the importance of caring about these worker's health in these times of deep changes in the public sector.