Work life balance?

Severance (Miniseries, S1, E1-9, 2022)

Director: Ben Stiller, Aoife McArdle

Apple TV

First, we were told that our vocation determines us; staying true to fulfilling the goals of our job is equivalent to being close to Divinity. But just see what it let us to - a social classification system that essentially pigeon-holes one's future by birth. Karl Marx then asserted that life is more than mere monetising one's labour. Man has to find balance in maximising time spent on Earth by indulging in things that excite him, maybe hunting, art, music, etcetera. And that led to Lenin extrapolating it to stir the working class to rise against their enslavers.

Now we are told that we should find a life-work balance. We should not bring home the stresses of our workplace home and vice-versa. We cannot let our personal dilemmas affect our work performances as well. So what better way to severe these two intertwinings? 

This is the premise of this miniseries. Workers of an unspecified company doing seemingly so much yet nothing agree to undergo this dissociative procedure. A small device is implanted in the brain, which gives no memory of their outside life once they enter the office. Essentially, they lead two individual lives, oblivious of their two lives.

Soon the workers realise that there is more than meets the eye. The latest recruit wants to resign, but she is told resignation is not an option. Pretty soon, the workers discover a way to find their outside life. This leads to many events with a nail-biting cliffhanger at season end. The miniseries is far from over and has built a cult following. Season 2 is in the pipeline as internet sleuths try to identify the Easter Egg cues that may explain the whole meaning behind the story.

On the side, the viewers also sense that the tale also takes a swipe at the modern environment and etiquette of the typical modern workplace. There are plenty of unproductive actions in the name of work, and there is a tendency to self-aggrandise one's frivolous 'success'. This 'success' motivates workers to continue their pursuit to lick the boots of higher management and the imaginative figures of 'Big Bosses'. Non-conformers are labelled troublemakers, and their career paths can be far from smooth.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

 

All you need is a pretty face and the media.

Just to drive home the point of how media sells ideas and influences our way of thinking, look at Elizabeth Holmes's case. At 19, she dropped out of Stanford in 2003 with a one-tracked mind to prove to the world that her painless blood-testing device was going to revolutionise laboratory blood testing. Equipped with only computer knowledge without a medical background, she proceeded with her plan despite the detractors' scepticism. From the get-go, she was faced with opposition from the senior partners and staff employed in her company, Theranos.

Through the benefit of her charm and goodwill, Holmes' company managed to secure close to $6 million in funds through crowdsourcing. The trouble was that the machine that Holmes was selling was not working. It gave wrong results most of the time, and the company ended up using other devices to do the tests instead. Workers who complained of its unreliability were sacked and were required to sign non-disclosure agreements to safeguard company secrets.

The young lassie was actually committing fraud on a large scale. Her reputation, on the contrary, was flying sky high. Her work appeared on TV channels, and her pretty face adorned front covers of business magazines. The fact that senior politicians and Clinton Foundation endorsed her work just added its value. At one time, Theranos was valued at $9 billion. In 2015, the Theranos machine even got FDA approval.

It took a Wall Street Journal journalist and a disgruntled former laboratory director to bring the company's unsafe and unethical practice to the fore. Slowly the investors pulled out, then came the court trials, then the sentencing. Holmes was barred from positions of power in any public company for 10 years.

The media still made a killing. They ran hours of the court cases' footage, interviews with so-called 'experts' on relevant topics related to the Theranos scandal. It went on till the next news that raised the curiosity of the public surfaced.

All you need is a pretty face, a convincing story with a gift of the gap and media coverage, you can sell ice to Eskimos.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes 

Courtesy HBO

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Poverty, a qualification?

American Factory (Documentary, 2019)
Netflix

The Industrial Revolution transformed countries from the Western World by leaps and bounds. That, together with colonisation, it improved their living conditions radically. In the USA, industries flourished. Immigrants trickled in from the world over to work to their last drop of sweat. Being employed was a cool thing to be. The first and second generations were hardworking.

All the way things happened. The subsequent generations became complacent. They did not have to work to survive. Work became optional. After all, the country took care of everybody. 

All these while, the countries in the East missed the Industrial Revolution bus. Not only were they thrown under the bus, they also had to be contended staying subservient supplying the raw material to fuel the big wheels of the machinery of their masters.

Times change. The slaves, looking up at their masters all these while, have caught up. They have learnt the trade and have overtaken their teachers. Poverty, as the New Economic Order defines it, is a good enough motivator to succeed. The sons of slaves have risen to bite the sons of slave owners. The tiger roars again.

This interesting documentary, produced by the Obamas' company, Higher Ground Productions, recalls the time in the late 2000s when many automobile industry workers were out of jobs. The American automobile was in the doldrums. In Daytona, Ohio, a vast glass factory supplying automobile part had been closed for almost two years. A Chinese showed interest in reopening the plant.

Workers initially showed relief in being able to be employed again. The Chinese bosses had a strict set of rules for the workers to follow. The American workers were not happy. Amongst the workers were also Chinese workers from the parent company, who were working like robots. They worked non-stop and went on working even through lunch break. The Chinese went beyond the call of duty, without complaining, endangering themselves and doing the work that generally involved two American workers.

The Chinese boss was unhappy. The American workers wanted to start a workers' union, which was denied. The management tried to expose the top-level American workers to the Chinese workers via a working visit to their parent plant in Mainland China.

The Americans realised that they cannot work like the Chinese. The cry for a union became louder. The workers were penalised for being slow or taking long, sick leaves. The workers talk about human rights. Pink slips started flying. Sales were down. Quality of the end-product was not up to the mark. 

Finally, it came down to automation. Rather than engaging humans with innumerable complaints, the Chinese owners decided to go full-on into automation. Only then did the business started seeing profit trickling.

What started as a noble intention of giving employment opportunities to the jobless American workers, turned out to fall flat. The workers, because of their demands and non-compromise, lost their job to automation. On the other hand, the management needed to see returns on their investment. 

Poverty may not be a qualification, but it is undoubtedly a driving force to reach higher grounds. A growling stomach is good enough a reason to dance for your next meal. The hunger fizzles out when the comforts of life are showered liberally, one starts demanding.  

At the end of the show, viewers are reminded that the East has awoken from their slumber. They are undergoing a renaissance of sorts, and they are out to rule the world, once again. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.