Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Leaving the Cubicle

I'll admit- whenever I hear gender historians talk about the time in which women fought for the right to work outside the home, I always think the same thing: "Yeah, but work sucks..."

Here Sandra Tsing Loh makes the same point in a funny and informative essay. You can see if you agree with her: I'm on the fence about it a bit of it. But, she seems to have made working work, and I'd really like to start agitating and organizing for the end of work altogether.

4 comments:

Brian Dunbar said...

But, she seems to have made working work,

I don't know much about Ms. Tsing-Loh's work day - but I assume that a professional essayist - writer - performer doesn't spend a whole lotta time in a cube.

But I do lover her writing and audio commentary.

Rufus said...

That's what I mean. To me, the idea of writing all day and turning a profit from it is not exactly work, but something better. I would love to see more of us getting paid to think outside of the cubicles. Actually, I dream of a day when the cubicles are reserved for robots and the rest of us can turn a profit from play.

(I guess that I might, one day, have that sort of position. But, for now, I'm still in the gallies.)

Brian Dunbar said...

I've got a cube, and I guess I spend a lot of my work day in it. But ..

My work doesn't happen _in_ the cube, but in data centers that are elsewhere. It seldom feels like I'm 'in a cube', even when I am. It probably helps that I work for a smaller company (in the grand scheme of things). The space we're in is more like 'office space logically divided up' and less 'rat maze'.

Rufus said...

Well, the big distinction is in what kind of boss you have! A good boss keeps their hands off unless there's a major problem. Also, I think it helps to have a fairly low number of managers and middle managers. Zero is best, but one or two would be acceptable.