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Now, the luxury of being bored on the job
Until recently, workers just wanted to feed and clothe themselves and their families. Now, people have "careers," and simply earning a decent living is no longer the goal.
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How boring is your job? Regardless of your answer, the question is a modern one. Only in contemporary, affluent societies do individuals have "careers," and the luxury to seriously object to a monotonous job. Until the recent past, people struggled just to feed and clothe themselves.
The occupations most reviled as monotonous tend to be clerical ones -- physical labor has the dubious advantage of being exhausting, which leaves less energy to complain. Yet considering how much time overeducated workers spend in dreary offices, there is relatively little fiction that captures the modern workplace and its angst. Several of the best include:
"Office Space," a 1999 movie that quickly became a cult classic for vividly portraying the nerve-racking tedium of a mediocre financial software vendor, which drives several young professionals perilously close to disaster.
"Something Happened," a 1970s novel by Joseph Heller (author of "Catch-22"), describes the melancholy inner world of an upwardly mobile executive in a nameless conglomerate. His meaningless but lucrative job is composed of politics and paperwork, with nary a description of his company's products or customers.
But nothing captures the existential angst that accompanies monotonous knowledge work as well as "Bartleby the Scrivener," a short story written by Herman Melville in 1853 -- 125 years before the Internet economy.
Melville, of course, is most famous as the author of "Moby Dick," a tale of a sea captain's codependent relationship with a troubled white whale.
Bartleby's story is told from the perspective of a New York attorney in the pre-Civil War era, as the Industrial Revolution is starting to boom. The lawyer makes a pleasant income as a contract attorney, but is motivated to avoid risk and associated stress: "I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title-deeds."
From our 21st-century perspective, the attorney serves as a primitive "business process outsourcer" for the backoffice processes of his clients. He employs several scriveners (copy clerks), who spend their days monotonously checking the accuracy of complex, handwritten legal contracts.
Though the attorney goes out of his way to avoid tension, he has managed to create a working environment in his law office that is profoundly stressful. Melville gleefully describes how the oppressive office space felt like it sat at the bottom of a dark well -- a "cubicle farm" before its time.
The stress affects each scrivener differently -- one, an elderly Englishman nicknamed Turkey, becomes increasingly drunk as the day proceeds. The other, Nippers, is young, impatient and irritable, a "victim of two evil powers -- ambition and indigestion."
An increased volume of work leads the attorney to hire a new scrivener, Bartleby, a quiet and initially industrious clerk: "At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents."
Bartleby soon loses his compulsion to proofread and begins to refuse work. "I would prefer not to," he responds to a range of requests.
The attorney expends great amounts of energy attempting to understand Bartleby's motivation. Still, Bartleby refuses to work and refuses to leave, even making the office his home.
The attorney relocates his offices, lacking the nerve to fire Bartleby and have him removed. The next tenant is less conflicted and has Bartleby arrested.
The attorney visits him in jail and brings him meals. Yet Bartleby continues to waste away, and dies in prison.
The attorney isn't a bad man, but he is ultimately projecting his own insecurities onto Bartleby. He is most concerned about shallow issues -- how his insubordinate employee will make him appear to his rich clients and his obsession with being fair and reasonable. When he pleads with Bartleby to reciprocate and be a little reasonable himself, the scrivener marvelously replies: "At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable."
What meaning does Bartleby have for modern office workers? It might speak of the potential for burnout inherent in a relentless corporate culture of continuous improvement.
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