I retired some 24 years ago, but I still bear the scars of years of pointless tasks being foisted on me by single minded authority. I lived those two lives for years, the dead world of employment and the living world after of work. The one world where I must perform in a particular laid down manner, and the world where I had choices, some what limited by the system, but choices, to dream, to mix with who I choose, to move alone, and at my pace. Living in two diametrically opposed worlds, is destructive and saps your energy, destroys dreams, stunts creativity, and breeds alienation. When will we enter the healing process? When our tasks will be for the benefit of ourselves and our community, creating that better world for all, one in which we choose the direction, we choose the shape of that world, where we mutually agree to see to the needs of all our people. When do we leave alienation and the divided self behind us, and return to a whole being, to being human?
This from
Running Wild:
A MEMO FROM THE OFFICE
(Contributed by another comrade in
So-Called Australia)
Jobs Destroy Our Dreams
When I’m not at work I study the world. I read news articles and
books, I listen to podcasts and I write my own articles and
reflections. I practice music and I share music. I exercise and I go
outside. I volunteer and try to help build a different world with
other people. I dream of new possibilities for everybody and for
myself.
When I go to work, I stop dreaming. I think about what I’m
wearing and whether it’s appropriate, I worry about my hair and the
paint stains on my shoes, I hide who I am and make small-talk. I
become somebody else and find energy in this adopted personality so I
can comfortably call strangers and convince them to buy expensive
tickets. I spend hours doing something that doesn’t interest me and
that I don’t care about.
I do this because I need to pay for rent, food and transport and
other bills like electricity, internet and phone credit. I also do it
so I can save money to travel and so I can have drinks with friends
now and then. It’s not like I’m in financial hardship, I am far
from it. But I do need to work for my “daily bread”.
Jobs Define Us
We live in a society where the question
asked when meeting new people is often “What do you do?” For some
reason, the answer “I work part-time as a telemarketer” is the
fitting answer while “I’m a musician and an anarchist” never
comes to my mind, even though these are the things I devote most of
my time, energy and spirit to. We are first of all summarised by the
thing we do that pays our bills, the thing we do that stops us
dreaming.
This pressure feeds into a desire to build a career we are proud
of, to fight for the best jobs, to compete with our neighbours and
friends. Our means of survival becomes our personality and our
definition. Eventually we build a pride around selling our time and
skills to build somebody else’s dreams and somebody else’s
profits.
Jobs Disempower Us
Office workplaces like mine are usually very hierarchical spaces,
with a series of big bosses and little bosses and little branches of
workers bundled in between them. In my workplace, my co-workers and I
are at the bottom rung of the ladder. When a change is made that
affects the way we do our jobs or the way we interact with and in our
workplace, it’s because suggestions and decisions for improvement
of the company overall have filtered down this chain, finally
splashing us in the face with a new rule or system to follow. Often
these decisions do not actually offer the best solutions, but the
workers who understand their jobs best of all are rarely included in
discussions about these roles and changes.
The Modern Office
When I first started getting involved in anarchist groups there
was a lot of talk about workplace organising, especially when May Day
came around. The classic union movements of workers striking, walking
off the job united, holding meetings and giving a voice to all seemed
so impossibly far from reach in the modern office I work in. My
workplace is so intricately divided up into departments and
sub-departments, we rarely talk to others outside the team of
telemarketers and they barely even look at us. How could the people
occupying this office on weekdays ever walk off the job together? How
could they ever be united when they are, by design, so divided and so
competitive?
The unification of the workplace is one thing, the other is the
absence of very tangible or urgent issues within the workplace. We
aren’t having our workmates killed when forced to fix a roof
without safety gear, we aren’t being paid less than a living wage
or being denied sick leave (well… we telemarketers, as casual
labour, are!)
What is suffered in office jobs seems to be a much more subtle,
slow-working pain. Whether it is boredom from doing tasks that are
disconnected from our passions or that are controlled and managed in
a way that doesn’t suit our individual pace or processes; or stress
from unmanageable workloads, the requirements to dress and behave a
certain way at work or the simple reality of working under bosses
with limited job security.
In various ways these jobs eat away at our minds and souls while
we feel it’s impossible to complain when our conditions are so
seemingly good, with modern offices, well-mannered colleagues and
occasional perks like social clubs and company drinks.
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