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Vive La Loafing!
theodp writes "Bonjour Paresse, an anti-corporation slacker manifesto whose title translates as 'Hello Laziness,' has become a national best seller in France and made a countercultural heroine of its author, who encourages workers to adopt her strategy of calculated loafing in response to dimming prospects of success for rank-and-file employees. Could a translation find a Silicon Valley audience?"
I know it's kind of cynical, but I live in France, and this isn't vry counter-culture at all. There's a continuous struggle between those who try to take advantage of the system from the bottom (the "lazy" ones), and those who are trying to take advantage from the top (what we usually term "evil corporations"). The French are working on equitable treatment all around, and for the most part they get it. (36 hour work weeks, I get 7 weeks of paid vacation a year, great social care/ health insurace, and no, the taxes are almost exactly what I paid in the United States. They're only very sharp once you get to the 150,000 and up range.) The downside is that there are many who take advantage of this to try and bilk the system. I'm glad to be here, because they do right by me, and I try to do right by them, but the worst of the lot are really making things terrible for the companies that are trying to do the right thing, and aren't "evil".
There was a time when factories ran around the clock and would then close down for months on end until all their stock was sold. The workers had a great solution to this problem called "The Stint," an agreed upon rate of production that no worker would go over. To quote Joanne B. Ciulla:
Employers were constantly trying to make employees work faster. Most workplaces had a stint, and those who failed to maintain it by doing too much or too little were ostracized. Workers who upheld the stint despite the curses of their boss earned reputations as "good men" and trustworthy masters of the trade. The worker restriction of output symbolized "unselfish brotherhood," personal dignity, and "cultivation of the mind." One reason why the stint was important is that workers wanted control over the amount of time that they worked. Businesses at this time often ran factories around the clock and then shut down for months at a time.
Another interesting part of the workingman's moral code was having a "manly bearing" toward the boss. In the nineteenth century this popular expression was an honorific signifying dignity, respect, and egalitarianism. A person earned his honorific by refusing to work while the boss was watching. It is useful to reflect on the difference between only working when the boss is watching and not working when the boss is watching. They are both gestures of defiance, but one is about keeping one's job and the other is about keeping one's dignity. The first says, "I don't want to work, but I will, because you are watching." The second says, "I'll work because I want to, not because you are watchingThere was a time when factories ran around the clock and would then close down for months on end until all their stock was sold. The workers had a great solution to this problem called "The Stint," an agreed upon rate of production that no worker would go over. To quote Joanne B. Ciulla:
Employers were constantly trying to make employees work faster. Most workplaces had a stint, and those who failed to maintain it by doing too much or too little were ostracized. Workers who upheld the stint despite the curses of their boss earned reputations as "good men" and trustworthy masters of the trade. The worker restriction of output symbolized "unselfish brotherhood," personal dignity, and "cultivation of the mind." One reason why the stint was important is that workers wanted control over the amount of time that they worked. Businesses at this time often ran factories around the clock and then shut down for months at a time.
Another interesting part of the workingman's moral code was having a "manly bearing" toward the boss. In the nineteenth century this popular expression was an honorific signifying dignity, respect, and egalitarianism. A person earned his honorific by refusing to work while the boss was watching. It is useful to reflect on the difference between only working when the boss is watching and not working when the boss is watching. They are both gestures of defiance, but one is about keeping one's job and the other is about keeping one's dignity. The first says, "I don't want to work, but I will, because you are watching." The second says, "I'll work because I want to, not because you are watching."
Annual reviews are garbage. Half the time, they are glossed over because there is WORK TO BE DONE rather than filling out pissy little paperwork. The rest of the time, they often go by a "curve" which means if 100 employees all kick super ass, 20% will always get fucked, 20% will always be gods on paper and 60% will be mediocre... evne though they ALL kick as much ass.
And companies don't so much care about your reviews. When it comes to layoff time, seniority plays more of a role than capability, productivity and work-ethic. That seems bizarre since a company that is having financial trouble should trim their belt by retaining only the few best people they can rather than ditching everyone based on number of years in the company, retaining some of the crappier, lazier, lesser qualified individuals simply because they've been at the company, skating by without notice, longer.
Seriously, reviews aren't worth the paper they're written on.
I put in 80 hour work weeks for seven years. I lived my work. I worked at work, then I went home and worked on work the rest of the night. Plus weekends. And holidays. That's assuming I didn't just live at work, which I did for weeks at a time. And all of my reviews were golden. But I didn't play the political game as much. Rather than kissing ass and talking big about myself, I kept my nose down and did the work that was being neglected by those who were spending their time ass kissing rather than working.
I neglected my health and social life and now I'm in very poor health (living in an office and eating crap food so you can spend more time working is a bad thing in the long run) and I have no social network. All I did was work. Day, night, weekend, holiday. Sometimes I would go home at 10pm and drive back at 2am because I got bored or wanted to get more work done, even though the work day didn't start until 9am.
Anyway, I was laid off a few months ago in favor of hiring a bunch of people in india. I noted that all of the people that were laid off had been there less tiem than those who were kept on the payroll, and many of those who were laid off were known company-wide to be far more talented and capable than those that stayed on.
I am living in India's capital, New Delhi. And the condition of government departments here is stagnating. According to the official hours, you work from 10AM to 6PM. But the schedule goes something like this:
10AM - Crowd bundles up at the office
10:30 to 11:00AM - The staff arrives
11:00 to 12:30PM - Work!
12:30PM to 1:00PM - Closed for Lunch
1:00 to 1:15PM - Getting-all-the-gas-out break
Then it is followed by some work, lots of bribery, lots of chatter with friends while the common man waits for his turn and so on...
On paper, its actually 40-45 hr weeks, but in reality its much less. And thats the situation in cities. In villages its worse than anything. No work for days, and that too only thru bribery. And OTOH, the private sector employee works his ass off till night to make himself and country proud (and also to pay off those heavy bribes). Sad and sic!
Venality and slackness would kill Indian dreams.
This only works if you can get rid of bad workers. My brother works at Publix and this is how they do it. Pay at the top of the range and you always have a pool of willing new hires. Then you can set higher standards for hiring and toss out the slackers. Resulting in a workforce of good hard working people whoes higher productivity and motivation cover the higher labor cost. If, as in France, it is almost impossible to get rid of poor workers then the higher pay method doesn't work. Your good people get fed up with having to take the the slack from the lazy guy and leave. Eventually the unremovable slackers build up and you have high labor costs with the same level of people as everybody else.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
I am not a lazy employee. I am a very dedicated, loyal, hard-working employee with the best of work ethics. I just want a company that values me and that will reward my hard work with more than a pending layoff. If I knew that I would be with a company for most of my life, like people did a generation or two ago (or they do in some other countries), I would continue to be the most productive, enthusiastic and capable employee ever.
However, after putting in years of sweat and tears and relationship building and education and heart into a job for the last five years only to be laid off with a thirty second phone call one morning (not because I sucked - but because after a half dozen layoffs, I could no longer escape the axe and a few thousand more of us said goodbye), I've come to realize that all of my hard work and loyalty was for nothing. Here I am five years later, starting all over again.
People work hard and are dedicated and productive and happy when they know that progress and achievement can be theirs. But when they recognize that for all the toiling they put in, they could be axed due to budget constraints or politics (as opposed to personal ability) on a whim, they give up.
Would you run a marathon if you knew the finish line was going to be randomly extended and that you would periodically be grabbed and yanked back to the starting line all over again? After awhile, wouldn't you realize that the race itself is pointless and give up?
The parent brings up VAT (or AVT as it is known in France) which stands for Value Added Tax. He's right to point it out, because many luxury goods cost much more in Europe than they do in the U.S. In France, the AVT is 19% (imagine having to pay 19% sales tax on DVD players, TVs, etc.). It's a very valid point, however the basic cost of living is much cheaper here than in the U.S. Fresh baked loaves of bread can be had for 20 cents. Bottles of wine for 2 or 3 dollars. Going out, you aren't expected to tip the bartender a dollar for every drink, and you won't pay 8-10 bucks for a single drink at the bar. Top shelf resteraunts are just as expensive, but the quality of food you get at your average resteraunt blows away what you're used to getting in the U.S. And, to top it all of, as a way of subsidizing resteraunts in France, most employees get these vouchers called 'Ticket Resteraunt' that cost $4.50 each and have a face value of $9.00, which is just perfect for lunch at a resteraunt. Most resteraunts have lunch 'menus' (think of it as a gourmet version of McDonald's #2) that typically consist of something equivalent to a steak, a glass of wine, and an after dinner coffee at this price range. (For an additional buck or two, they throw in dessert.)
But, of course, for the geeks who want to know about the gadgets. I just bought a 120GB hard drive and it cost me 80 Euro. Blank DVDs are around 50-60 cents a piece (as opposed to the 25 cents thats starting to be common in the U.S.) SFF computers will run you about 320 Euro, and yes, these all include tax, and are all a little bit more than you pay in the U.S.
Music is much more expensive (unless you shop iTunes Europe), and DVDs definitely run a little more expensive, though the bargain bins get to be as low as 3.00 each. All in all, I make less then I did in the U.S., but I live as comfortably, and I travel a lot more. (I've been to Spain, Ireland, and Italy already this year.)
Well, that's France for you... A bit off topic, but maybe of interest to see what it's like to live over here...
amen, brother.
what's sad about it from my perspective (my hair grows grey and my knees aren't quite what they used to be) is that so many bright, energetic young people just don't recognize this fundamental truth.
it's like reverse-idealism: in their optimistic prime, young people are more willing to spend their days, nights and weekends wading around in the shit their corporate masters pour on them, because they earnestly believe that *they* are special, and that *they* will be the ones who succeed, and they're therefore willing to accept a labor environment that's unjust and socially primitive overall.
as time goes on, you realize how much of your life and soul you've devoted to making other people rich and comfortable, and you resent the means they've used to get you to do that... and even if you've accumulated some material wealth in the process, the balance sheet looks questionable.
the current economic system has produced some miracles to be sure, and perhaps it may be the best that human beings can do - but don't fool yourself: an enormous price has been paid by a great many, while a relative few have paradise handed to them as a result.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.