Jobs, Fulfillment, and Wall-E

I recently watched Wall-E. I love Pixar films, being disappointed only by Cars. And I totally loved Wall-E. I was cracking up, and though it was not only cute but somewhat profound. Sure, it might have beaten the "save the earth" message to death, but since I think we should preserve the earth, reduce our trash and footprint, and not be so lazy and depending on automated technology I don't really have a problem with that message.

I was intrigued by the personalities of the robots in Wall-E. From what I can tell, each bot has a task, or directive. Each bot must fulfill this directive, and in this they find fulfillment. Some directives occur constantly (picking up trash), others from time to time (EVE and M-O, for example, only performing when certain other parameters are met). Sometimes it is one bot acting solo, other times one bot activates another that activates another and so on until all tasks are performed. From a programming perspective, this is pretty simple: integrated loops and functions. In any case, the point is, bots have jobs.

And bots are only happy when they fulfill their job. The more they cannot fulfill their job, the more frustrated and angry and perhaps despondent they become. EVE is angry with Wall-E, not because he is lovestruck and she's not, not because he tags along like a puppy, but because she thinks he's preventing the completion of her task. This is not to say that there aren't other emotions involved (she does seem to actually like him and be sad when his escape pod blows up), but that a bot cannot be happy if the task is not done. Over time or if left alone, it appears that one of two things can happen: 1) the bot modifies the task 2) the bot becomes obsessed with the task. (1) is exemplified in Wall-E: he (i think it's a he) starts collecting interesting junk instead of just disposing of it, and becomes curious about other possibilities in life. But he still performs his job. (2) is exemplified in the psycho ward, and in M-O. The task must be done, and all the time, even if it violates the parameters for the job. The tennis ball server should only serve tennis balls in certain circumstances, presumably on a tennis court and when asked; however, the obsessed one serves tennis balls all the time, at everything. This is a malfunction. Yet M-O begins to border on this when he makes the decision to leave his assigned electro-path in pursuit of "foreign contaminant." He is doing the job assigned, but not within the parameters assigned, thus he's not truly fulfilling his programmed duty.

How much do our jobs determine our happiness? And is it when we do them the way we're told to, or the way we think they should be done? Should our psychological security really be wrapped up in task fulfillment?