Monotonous, meaningless, and menacing. Are these the aspects of work that we have escaped through out technological wizardry or are we still, like Camus once pondered, kindred spirits of Sisyphus, continually pushing that stone up the hill? Though it is not a stone that we now push, but a new glass sphere of awe inspiring gadgetry. Has the computer with all its offspring in workplace application brought the common laborer to a nine to five self-actualization where in the past it was lacking?

Today I no longer walk home after a long day with white out all over my face, paper cuts tattooed on my hands, or black lung festering in my chest. Technology has taken me out of the traditional occupation of a few decades ago whether it be manual labor or office pencil pusher. The characteristics that define that environment have changed. My fears of on-the-job injury are only raised when the accountants smell a fresh pot of coffee brewing. There isn’t a slab of rock being held over my head by a two-by-four while I dig, nor is there a blur of exposed cutting devices operating next to my hands as I earn a living. In addition, my boxing federation classification of fly weight doesn’t impede me from getting most jobs now found in the want ads. While in the past I would have been turned away at the gates of Pittsburgh, physical strength has ceased to be a requirement. The work place has lost the physical strains it once had and is therefore safe. In addition, a computer now retypes my letters at the punch of a button. The infinite stream of corrections and rewrites are not the demand of monotony anymore, but simply isolated activities. These projects aren’t hampered by a link of twenty corresponding items that then must also be redone. Energy is utilized to its most efficient quotient. Finally, a machine now screws in bolt #5 every ten seconds instead of me. Mind numbing physical labor has been exterminated and the daily struggle against workplace insanity is absent. All of these aspects taken together make the average job today better than the average job of yesteryear. The crappy parts are gone, let happiness ring, bravo tech!

Let us, however, take a closer look at what our eight hour a day jail sentence actually consists of. True, I will not get black lung from the over crowded community office air, nor will I have my spine broken by a flying cubicle wall. There are hazards though, such as long hours of keyboard typing which has brought carpal tunnel syndrome, excessive sitting has spawned the problems of ergonomics, and who hasn’t gotten their arm stuck in a copy machine at least once. None of these things are as horrific as past workplace dangers, but the job environment is still producing physical ailments that malign workers for life. They are just different and often now they include handy devices that allow the sufferer to keep on working. Besides, only the rare and ridiculed philosopher ever argued a life lived longer is by definition a life lived better. And what of monotonous tasks? Damn scanner doesn’t work, or does it? Who knows, but I have scanned the same document ten times in the past hour and quietly stared at the confirmation screen. When the Togo office calls tomorrow to say they didn’t get it, I’ll do the same thing all over again. Yes, it is a different kind of monotony, and a more frustrating one because it is seemingly avoidable. It is expected to work, it is assumed by the superiors to work. It does not. Enjoy.

Then there is our friend the ex-bolt screwer. I am sure he loves eight hours of data entry much better. Might as well get a fat ass as a bonus for time well spent. The extermination was real, but a new mind-numbing beast was born. Technology has changed the workplace, but not as clearly as perhaps we first suspected.¶ The dawn of the computer has given the common, average job a complete face-lift, but the flaws are still there, just as excruciating as before, yet with a new look. Some may prefer the fat ass of data entry to the blister ridden hands of bolt screwing and some may not. The chores have just changed. The options are different - the results are similar. I am not postulating knowledge of true universal bliss from which to make this critique. But let us not be duped by the Pharisees of technology into thinking we have entered the promised land when in reality we’ve simply migrated to a new shiny room in the same house of hell. See you on the hill.

Copyright © 1999 by Charles H. Frey