not quite

I hate the title, but this book has been keeping me company these past couple of weeks, ironically while travelling thousands of miles for work! Not sure what’s fascinating me about business lit right now. I think it’s somehow related to starting a job full time. But I also like the balance of this kind of journalism. It’s conversational, informed and confident, and manages to mix critique with optimism. It’s a style I wish I could emulate a little more.

One of the many strong points in the book is the argument that while contemporary workplace jargon may espouse a participatory ethic, an entrepreneurial attitude, a commitment to FUN and an openness to innovation, only certain ‘viable personalities’ are actually tolerated–the favoured one being ‘corporate cool mixed with flight-deck warmth’ (a phrase offered by Meaghan Morris in an interview for the project - will I ever find an interest that MM hasn’t found before me????!). The authors suggest: ‘Once it was the dress-for-success suits which made everyone feel the same; now they’re as likely to share a demeanour as a fashion brand’ (207).

I think these ideas feed in to my own arguments about the genres and modes of performance endorsed in academic work… but still lots to think about before I can make that link properly. For my contribution to the Everyday Life panel, I anticipate these concluding words will be important:

work is not controllable in the way that the system would have us believe; equally, we are not powerless against that unpredictability. Nor are we powerless against the organisation and the avalanche of cultural change programs or inspirational texts or the countless other methods that a company uses to turn us into the kind of workers they think they need for the twenty-first century. In the end, the sheer unpredictably of humans is what gives business its energy.

Ultimately, work is about messy realities, not finely tuned blueprints. Despite the technology, it remains incredibly human. Modern managers love to talk about the intangible elements of the workplace and how they determine the value of organisations in a knowledge economy. But they rarely factor in the intangibles like fear and greed or even just the pleasure of working with a particular person and the satisfaction of finishing off a project. But workers know these intangibles. They take for granted that work is nowhere as logical and rational as the textbooks would have us believe (218).