Career Advice posted by Richard Seymour

This is both hilarious and sinister. The article, by someone from 'Careerbuilder.co.uk', advises us - distraught - that "office gossip and banter is costing the UK £43 billion a year". By which is meant, the time spent working could be making companies that amount of profit, assuming the absence of ordinary human interaction didn't reduce productivity. On the basis of this spurious factoid, it offers seven conversational topics to avoid at work. You must never talk about politics, sex, religion, your home life, illness, money, or love. So, basically, 99% of human existence is verboten. But most important of all:

And finally, there will always be people in your job who seem to enjoy stirring things up, complaining about management and trying to draw others into it. If you can't tell people how you feel about discussing these subjects, walk away. Say you have to get back to work or pop out. If that isn't possible, don't pay any attention to what is being said. The best that you can do is to keep out of it.

That's right. If some commie starts riling things up, just smile, nod politely, and back slowly out of the room. Don't, at all costs, get involved.

Labels: dead labour, obedience, work-life balance, zombie labour

The old work-life balance. posted by Richard Seymour

Five million workers in the UK do an average of almost two months worth of unpaid overtime each year. That's worth £25bn to the rich, and five grand to each individual employee. It is probably mainly effected through unofficial pressure from the boss and the adoption of minute linguistic operations such as 'core hours', 'flexibility' and so on. Now, some people don't have much choice but to acquiesce if they want to keep their jobs. But see if you're one of these hard-working, committed team players reaching for the sky, adding value, pushing the envelope, reinventing the wheel, thinking outside the box and all of that? You're a fucking tool! Cut it out and stop making shit difficult for the rest of us.

Labels: capitalism, dead labour, exploitation, work, work-life balance