Work vs Fun

Is your work fun? If not, should it be?

When I asked myself this question, it sparked a torrent of more questions...

If work were fun, wouldn't Monday be the best day of the week rather than Friday?

Why is it that children have fun playing games pretending to be a doctor, a nurse, a vet etc etc, but as adults we label these exact same activities as work and we feel stressed and burnt out by doing them?

If your job or your work is not pleasant and enjoyable, you're probably going to have a tricky time keeping yourself motivated and doing it to the best of your ability.

So why then is fun not generally considered to be a key part of work?  

It seems bloody obvious, but how many companies can you immediately think of that working there, in your mind at least, screams of fun?

If having fun translates into people loving their jobs and feeling reluctant to work anywhere else, why is 'fun' not the #1 key strategic driver of every organisation?

It makes us wonder where the disconnect happened - what changed that made us take ourselves so seriously? Why is work so 'not fun' for the majority of us? Why is fun not taken more seriously?