Picture: Richard Baker. Source: http://www.alaindebotton.com/work_photographs/gallery_index.htm
I've been gripped by Alain de Botton's The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, learning from it and laughing in equal measure at de Botton's take on events and on the jobs investigated and observed. At one level de Botton's basic argument is that work with all its quirky absurdity saves us from thinking too much about death, as well as keeping us out of greater trouble, giving us a sense of mastery, and putting food on the table. At another, he provides a set of sharp insights into globalisation and the modern labour process. I think a lot of 16 year-olds would gain a lot more from it than from conventional careers classes.
In a strange way the book reminded me of Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital - The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century - which nearly 35 years ago I recall finding similarly difficult to escape (and will now have to re-read, or try to.....), both having an intense authenticity about them. I've always had a bit of a thing about Human Resources, having spent many years in trade union roles contending with a succession of HR people, and de Botton is spot on in this piece about HR in a global accountancy firm (Ernst and Young?):
Responsible for wrapping the iron fist of authority in its velvet glove is Jane Axtell, head of the accountancy firm's Human Resources department, based on the sixth floor. She recently organised a landscape-painting competition to help the auditors to release their untapped creativity, and is now, in an effort further to boost morale, engaged in lining the building's corridors and reception areas with plaques bearing the legend 'Our Values Statement: Who We Are and What We Stand For'.
There would certainly have been less for a diarist such as Saint-Simon to report on in Louis XIV's court had Axtell been present at Versailles. Thanks to her, the company now has in place a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying and gossip, a twenty-four-hour hotline for distressed employees, forums in which complaints may be lodged against colleagues and a tactful procedure by which a manager can let a team member know that is breath smells.
Underlying these innovations is the belief that workplace dynamics are no less complicated or unexpectedly intense than family relations, with only the added difficulty that whereas families are at least well-recognised and sanctioned loci for hysteria reminiscent of scenes from the Medea, office life typically proceeds behind a mask of shallow cheerfulness, leaving workers grievously unprepared to handle the fury and sadness continually aroused by their colleagues.
Picture: Richard Baker. Source: http://www.alaindebotton.com/work_photographs/gallery_index.htm
Comments