From the Vault: work in the postmodern era
Petar Vujosevic
Examining how wider culture impacts the workplace. Practical output: DEI & employer brand strategy research & training.
Work, in the 20th century postmodern era, was above all else performative.?
A dog and pony show that saw shareholders and business owners recoup the largest share of productivity gains while wage gains slumped.?
Take for instance the USA.?
A global trendsetter in all things work and life.?
From 1979 to 2022, productivity grew by 64.7% while inflation-adjusted hourly pay grew by 14.8%.?
Work, in the postmodern era, is also mostly post-customer work.?
Yes, there are “clients, audiences, users”.?
There are also algorithms for which we optimise our performance.
But there are less and less customers.?
People we share roots, location, community, accountability [and sometimes bedsheets] with.
Smart people are examining these and other corporate decouplings, so “future us” can do better.?
Present day us??We need payback.?
Or at least somebody we can point our fuckin' fingers to and say, "That's the bad guy."?
My pick??Marcel Duchamp.
You can easily picture the end of Bretton Woods & the rise of financialisation being conceived by respectable men in suits staring at that toilet bowl.?
“Everything's just conceptual, pal".
If Duchamp never decoupled art from the retinal experience, would pay still be tied to performance, punishment to crime, meaning to words?
Work, in the postmodern era, has also never been more important to our lives.?
It's how many find meaning when religion, party politics and community break down.?
When old rituals that acted like glue fail us, we tend to cope.?
From “culturally christian & muslim”, to consumerism and workism[1].?
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Yet work, in the postmodern era, has failed to provide sustenance.?
As a source of social mobility and self-worth, work is failing even the most educated [elite overproduction].?
Could we argue that many of us only culturally identify as workers, but are non practising and non-believing??
I especially feel bad for young people, who only get the aftersun.?
The befores are myths to fantasise or cosplay about “that period of time post Mad Men, but pre The Office"[1] when work seemed to work.?More or less.?
All in the hope of finding new routines.?
Routines that might turn into rituals.?
Rituals that might stabilise us.
That might give us renewed meaning,
A sense of progress.?
That might [re]create community.??
Like they did for our [grand]parents.?
More or less.
If ”rituals are to time what homes are to space”[3] then, given how much time we give to work, anybody wanting to improves the lives of workers has a clear briefing going forward:
Work, in the 21 century postmodern era, must intentionally be about the performative.