What are characteristics of work under communism?

[KropotkinKomrade]

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." - Karl Marx

But what are we truly capable of, and what do we truly need?

If we abolished capitalism, it is almost certain that we would also abolish products and services that have no utilitarian value or purpose. Our efforts would not be squandered, we would focus them upon satisfying our fundamental needs. Hopefully we would attempt to further our understanding of how to take from nature according to nature's ability, and give to humanity according to humanity's true needs.

Marx believed that humanity has a fundamental need to engage in productive activity. Clearly we must be productive to meet our physiological needs, but we must be productive to satisfy our psychological needs as well.

What would work look like under communism? What would we do to satisfy our physiological and psychological needs? How would the disestrangement (not a real word, but what is an antonym for estrangement?) of productive activity affect the other forms of human alienation.

[JazzRemington]

The only difference is the conditions under which the labor is performed and to what extent humans would be involved. There still probably would be relatively unpopular or dangerous jobs but they'd generally be safer because of one wouldn't be encouraged to ignore safety regulations because they cut into profits.

[Savage]

Humans would no longer commit unnecessary labor, and labor would no longer be divided. From this we would a much shorter and diverse working day, undesirable (but necessary) jobs would be shared, of course some people are better suited to certain things than others but that does not mean that we will be limited by our intelligence or physical ability.

[Lucretia]

Interesting question, though I think ultimately the specific characteristics will emerge out of socialist praxis, just as socialist praxis will emerge out of capitalism. To try to think two steps ahead cuts very close to the kind of utopianism that Marx, with justifiable reason, despised. We can say for certain some broad features of labor under communism: necessary labor will be determined democratically, will be reduced significantly due to the absence of capitalist overhead and due to the reduced need to advance the productive forces simply for the sake of turning a profit, and will be more meaningful to the people engaged in it (they can see that it is serving a social need rather than the desire of a capitalist to turn a profit), thereby rendering it closer to the truly free labor one undertakes for self-development.

[KropotkinKomrade]

"All four phenomena from which we are alienated (from our product, from our productive activity, from our species being, and from other human beings) are related, in one way or another, to what Marx took to be the central feature of human life, our productive activity. Human beings are, for Marx, quintessentially beings who must be productive, who, that is, must interact with nature and other human beings to make things and effect changes in the world around us. By "species being," Marx means our essence as a species. Thus to be alienated from our species being is to be distanced from our fundamental nature as productive beings."
Marc Stier Marx's Theory of Human Nature: Alienation and Productive Activity

How can we reunite with our fundamental nature as productive beings?