Work Turns Liquid and Overflows

2010 is the year of jobs. Jobs to cling to, jobs to be found, jobs to be sought. Social mobility, never strong in Italy, could decrease even further. To their dismay, young people could find they have to postpone yet further their hopes of being hired, while middle-aged people who have lost their jobs stand to suffer the most. But economic uncertainty will also affect those who haven't been laid off: the crisis is making work ever more liquid and pervasive. Work is expanding in the lives of many. Like a liquid, it has lost its shape and structure, since its time and space have lost their predictability. Downsizings and restructurings force those who stay to do more with less resources. Thus the intensity of work grows and grows. At FIAT, many managers have accumulated a number of tasks they have to perform on both sides of the Atlantic. Flattened hierarchies and direct reporting are children of the idea by which only managers, and their direct vision and first-hand experience, can make a business grow. Whoever is entrusted with even minimal responsibility is expected to put in overtime, offer complete remote availability, take work home, and do weekend meetings. Work has long broken the 9-to-5 shackles which mores and unions had imposed after WWII. Aided by technology, work is intruding into times and spaces hitherto considered private and sheltered. We have seconded this trend out of fear, convenience, and sometimes out of boredom. Job uncertainty makes it more likely to give in to employers' demands for higher commitment and productivity. But if it's true that work encroaches on private life, the opposite is also valid. With respect to the past, today it's technically possible and tacitly tolerated to organize one's vacations by using the Internet connection at the office, as well as chatting online and making a few personal calls. In this mishmash of work and non-work, office life and private life, we gain from having more flexibility in the use of time, but we risk underestimating the price we are paying. Having become multitasking jugglers, we risk to be plagued by a sort of attention deficit syndrome, i.e. the inability to focus on one issue at the time, and devote all our energies in addressing it. We also risk losing our ability to navigate a complex world: the taste for fine distinctions, for patience, and listening. 2010 could well be the year of reckoning. People are already reacting. Those who understand that, in order to rule one's life, one needs to master his/her own time, are downshifting toward jobs that allow a less frantic pace of work. Others are rediscovering the taste for working the land and growing produce. Another option is the one described by Richard Sennett, according to which there is a rediscovery of craftsmanship and the appreciation of skillful, autonomous manual labor.

However 2010 won't be the year of radical change, which we invoked when the crisis was more threatening and the folly of the system we have built was exposed in all its irrationality. Bankers, consultants, managers and entrepreneurs have started to go back to business as usual. Sarkozy's idea that GDP had to shelved in favor of an indicator of human happiness no longer commands attention. But any complacence would be mistaken. What if the nightmarish scenario described by Matrix were not so distant from our everyday reality? How much happiness are we producing for ourselves, others, and the planet? These are uncomfortable questions, but they mark the difference between awareness and stupor. Working in the new world requires people with open eyes. So, do you want the blue or the red pill?