Preparing for the Gig Economy

Published by

Clarissa

August 17, 2015

There’s been a deluge recently of articles about the evils of paid work. Salon workers, Amazon workers, Google workers, Amazon workers again are depicted as poor persecuted victims of tge very concept of work.

It’s becoming clear how this post-work society (also known as “gig economy”) will function. Those with careers will pacify those without with stories about the tragic victimhood of the people who work. And so instead of protesting, the poor discarded losers will actually feel privileged and fortunate to be excluded from the evil workplace.

And hey, people are lapping up these ridiculous articles. I have not encountered a single piece questioning their purpose. Such a primitive little manipulation strategy, and look how well it works.

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16 responses to “Preparing for the Gig Economy”

Shakti

August 17, 2015

Nah. They’re bragging. The Amazon article is a recruiting article describing in luxuriant detail how stressed and overworked people who work there are. This article was written with the full cooperation of Amazon. “Look at how important I am! I work so hard and am so stressed I cry and get ulcers! High turnover means they’re hiring and hiring! Once you work here you can easily go elsewhere, like Google and Facebook! It’s like the Marines of retail without going to the Marines or Wall Street!”

From an article decrying overwork:
So why don’t we ever get it? Here’s a thought: In an era in which decent, high-paying jobs are hard to find, and in which the workforce-participation rate is at lows not seen since the late 1970s, gainful employment turns into something of a status item. That allows us to rationalize the increasing hours we put in on the job—often done because we fear the consequences of saying no—as choice. Then we turn around and demean others who don’t work.

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1. Clarissa
  
  August 17, 2015
  
  I agree that these complaints are quite fake. My own colleagues say very openly that pretending to be overworked is done thing they do on purpose.
  
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Stringer Bell

August 17, 2015

“And hey, people are lapping up these ridiculous articles.”

What did you find ridiculous about these articles? Is the NY Times making shit up about working conditions at Amazon, for example? Are former amazon warehouse workers lying when they say they were only allowed to go to the bathroom at pre-specified break times?

If there’s any labor exploitation going on I’m glad that it gets exposed. I don’t care what the ‘motive’ of the journalist is.

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1. Shakti
  
  August 17, 2015
  
  No, the articles about the warehouse workers are to make the middle class feel bad for them, so when robots and the drones take over the warehouse the progressives feel relief, and the rest of the people are happy that it’s more “efficient” because OSHA is such a drag on productivity and their time to get their toys. When the drones and robots become sentient and rebel, just remember it’s all the unions’ fault.
  
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2. Clarissa
  
  August 17, 2015
  
  The problem with these articles is that they extrapolate the experiences of a few unhappy employees onto an entire profession. And when I see it done again and again, concerning one profession after another, I’m beginning to wonder if the real target here is the concept of a profession instead. I know how easily such stories are manufactured and the purposes they serve. Like that recent fad to pity the poor professors who work 80-hpur weeks. It was a total lie but what a useful one.
  
  As for labor exploitation, it can only be addressed by workers getting together and going something about their own work conditions. Retweeting stories about what somebody said about somebody who said something about somebody else’s work condition is pursuing entirely different goals.
  
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  1. Stringer Bell
    
    August 17, 2015
    
    “The problem with these articles is that they extrapolate the experiences of a few unhappy employees onto an entire profession.”
    
    A few unhappy employees who are willing to talk. There’s a difference. Also, this is a newspaper article (I’m talking about the NY Times article on Amazon for now). Interviewing a few subjects is all they can do. How many pieces of journalism you see where the author interviews every single person employed in a particular industry to come to a definite conclusion about industry practices?
    
    This is news because (a) NY Times published it, and (b) the article focuses on white collar workers. Most of us like to think of tech companies as fairly progressive, so there’s a good amount of cognitive dissonance involved when confronted with the fact that they can be every bit as exploitative as their blue collar counterparts.
    
    People have been writing about it for years now.
    
    http://gawker.com/working-at-amazon-is-a-soul-crushing-experience-1573522379
    
    http://gawker.com/true-stories-of-life-as-an-amazon-worker-1002568208
    
    http://gawker.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-are-treated-like-a-child-a-d-1651376061
    
    “As for labor exploitation, it can only be addressed by workers getting together and going something about their own work conditions.”
    
    It’s not easy in this political climate for workers to get together and do something about their work conditions, but yes, I agree, that would be nice.
    
    “Retweeting stories about what somebody said about somebody who said something about somebody else’s work condition is pursuing entirely different goals.”
    
    I’m surprised at how dismissive you are of the power of the internet when it’s about topics that you don’t care about. You write a blog that influences thousands of people. Don’t you think an article published in the New York Times about labor conditions in the tech industry can create some impact?
    
    Those pesky BLM twitter activists annoying the fuck out of Bernie Sanders? His website now mentions BLM as a salient point in his campaign platform. Social media is here to stay.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      August 17, 2015
      
      The division that matters these days is not tech vs something else. It’s big corporations vs smaller sized companies. They attract completely different kinds of workers. Those who want more progressive, experimental environments should go to smaller places.
      
      As for the mention of the BLM on Bernie’s Web page, do you really think it will bring an ounce of change to the profoundly ingrained racism in this society?
      
      The reason why there is no more political activism is precisely because it has been displaced by the illusion of activism offered by the social media.
      
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      1. Stringer Bell
        
        August 17, 2015
        
        “The reason why there is no more political activism is precisely because it has been displaced by the illusion of activism offered by the social media.”
        
        I can see some truth in that.
        
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        Stringer Bell
        
        August 17, 2015
        
        “Those who want more progressive, experimental environments should go to smaller places.”
        
        Yes, but let us not lower the bar so much that taking a dump in the restroom when we have really have to go is now considered a part of a ‘progressive, experimental work environment’.
        
        ‘I’ve had it with these coddled millennial mama’s boys! They can’t even hold their pee for 4 hours!!”
        
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        Shakti
        
        August 17, 2015
        
        That’s why my Goldilocks sized company is just big enough to follow labor laws.
        
        Clearly I’m not equipped for the gig economy because I believe that you should not multi task and shit at the same time unless someone will die and really going to the bathroom is such a short period of time you cannot reasonably expect to read emails/texts/or answer phone calls.
        
        If your company is large enough to be international, instead of having a night shift IT, you could have a different time zone handle your night time server issues during their daytime. For things that must be handled locally, hire genuine night owls. Everyone wins!
        
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        NG
        
        August 17, 2015
        
        ‘I’ve had it with these coddled millennial mama’s boys! They can’t even hold their pee for 4 hours!!”
        
        Yah, they’re so not macho anymore even in Spain where a recent spike in deaths of men due to bull goring during festival bull runs is blamed on the economy.
        
        “At least 10 people have been fatally gored during bull runs across Spain this summer, including four over the past weekend, in what is shaping up to be an especially deadly fiesta season across the country.”
        
        http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/17/spain-bull-run-deaths-rise
        
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        Clarissa
        
        August 17, 2015
        
        The EU has been dying to go in and “regulate” the bullfighting to death. But you can imagine how much the idea pleases Spaniards.
        
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jeff

August 17, 2015

http://www.inc.com/amy-vernon/is-amazon-really-an-anomaly.html

Seems you are right, it is about the message “work sucks”.

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1. Clarissa
  
  August 17, 2015
  
  And here is yet another addition to the battle on work.
  
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NG

August 18, 2015

“It’s becoming clear how this post-work society (also known as “gig economy”) will function. Those with careers will pacify those without with stories about the tragic victimhood of the people who work. And so instead of protesting, the poor discarded losers will actually feel privileged and fortunate to be excluded from the evil workplace.”

And business pundits in the mass media extol the virtues of your conjecture.

“Part-time work a perk, not a problem, for 6 million in U.S.

While many workers complain firms use part-time employment to cut costs and shirk responsibility, an estimated third of 20 million American part-timers actually prefer it, labour statistics suggest.”

http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/08/18/part-time-work-a-perk-not-a-problem-for-6-million-in-us.html

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Duncan Heuschkel

September 1, 2015

Startups that have foregone the “gig economy” or “1099 economy” in favor of hiring workforces include office cleaning and management service Managed by Q; on-demand restaurants Munchery and Maple; shared-ride service Chariot; and laundry service FlyCleaners. Alfred, a personal butler service that runs its clients’ household errands, also dispatch their own employees.

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