Janus : Part 2 : Quality Of Life (Marta & Gallanol Ch.4)

Marta & Gallanol Chapter 4 Janus

Janus Part 2 Quality Of Life

Some people work very fast if they have a short time to work in, but if they are working for so many hours they inevitably need a break or a few breaks to keep going. The Directors and Managers of the modern economy had devoted themselves to the general goal over many decades and centuries of increasing work targets and improving management methods, all in the laudable aim of reducing costs and increasing profits.

At times, modern management theories had been developed which incorporated the human need for rest and diversion into working models. Scientific studies had been conducted many times over the centuries to determine the most efficient methods of work organisation. It had often been found that workers in many different industries and occupations needed to be given adequate breaks in the day to keep their morale strong. It had been found that varying the pace of work in occupations and even giving individuals some variety of tasks tended to keep them interested and capable of performing their work. Giving them responsibility over their own work and in some occupations flexibility in the way they performed their work helped them to do it more efficiently in many cases, and certainly kept them happier in the work they did. The participation of workers in groups with sensitive or hardworking “group leaders” could improve their performance, while bad leadership or influences within a group of workers could damage performance.

Many of these lessons had been noted by management but over the centuries, many aspects of them had usually been ignored by most managers. It was in the nature of business and management to give targets and production/output performance more priority than human beings’ needs and aspirations.

He cried out at the restrictions upon him. He knew he was gifted. His talents had been nurtured secretly, developed over many years as others around ignored them or recognised only a certain childish simplicity in what he did. But there was no help for him. Society crowded him, particularly the social obligation to work for a living, and to support himself, but also the demands of many lonely or hard-worked friends and colleagues who recognised in him the open spirit of friendship.

Ideas blossomed within him of a hundred works of history, social study and escapist novels, diverting his energies from finishing any of them quickly. Presently some of his works did near completion but there were many others to distract his thoughts and he worked on them all, hoping one day to fit his many jigsaw pieces together, when he could find the time.

Why must he always feel guilty for not having worked hard enough, when that hard work was not natural? What person could work well for ten hours or even half that, a day, when the work was not entirely of his own choosing and he wasn’t very interested in it?

‘All very well, we must work,’ he excused himself, ‘we must all play our part to ensure that we are all looked after. But why must we be driven so hard to achieve what is so unnatural? Why is it so important to achieve this productivity which spoils our days and sours our work, making so much of our lives joyless, driving us well beyond the balanced existence which would so invigorate us if only it were granted to us?’

Work could never satisfy. He would finish one piece of work only to be told it had not been prepared as fast as his managers thought possible. There were always others who could do the work faster than he. At one place where he had worked for a while that had seemed true. All around him were bright young people who could do the work faster than he, many of them younger than him. But then there had been another place where the employers could not have afforded anyone better than he, unless they had been lucky to find someone willing to work for less than their market rate. He had been valuable there, not easily replaceable because he had been willing to work there without earning very much. At present he seemed valued because he could do the work, but he feared that it might be only a matter of time before his employers began to realise that his heart was not completely in the work, and he could therefore not do it as fast as they wished. He felt secure there but, like many workers, he felt under pressure.

He would return from his day of rest with a little freshness of mind for the change he had had. For a morning or perhaps even a whole day, he might find his work fairly inspiring for a time. But then on the next day, only the morning would be bearable and he would start to wish he could escape or just do something different. The day was far too long to be enjoyed. A whole week of this he had to accept conscientiously. The tasks he performed were not unpleasant. They were even interesting to a certain extent, but due to the long hours spent doing the same thing, he would become very dulled.

If it were not for the stimulant drinks most workers drank he might easily have fallen asleep, and been rudely awoken to find either he had lost his job or to find some of his responsibilities taken away from him. Part of him might have rejoiced at a reduction of responsibilities, and especially so if it came with a significant reduction in the time he was expected to work. But he would not have relished a return to less interesting work or more simple forms of work. It would have been a retreat for him to return to work he had done before, or maybe had never done, because he had been deemed to be intelligent. He would have become all the more bored with his time at work. At the place where he had been surrounded by bright young people, he had been given less stretching work to perform most of the time and therefore the work had bored him.

He wanted to be in charge of something, a work requiring some intelligence and judgement at least. He wanted to do something useful and important, something that would be worthwhile, which would give his life meaning, and help to give others’ lives meaning. He wanted to do something that would rise above the mercenary greyness of ordinary life and achieve valuable things.

Janus considered the people at the places where he had worked, and the grey faces he saw on the trams every day. He concluded that many workers were secretly very dissatisfied with modern life because they worked long hours at jobs that they found dull and often pointless. Janus came to believe that many had no life of their own after work, or had insufficient time to make a life for themselves. They were not in control of their own lives and were not real participants in the improving society so often spoken of by politicians and in the media of Vidnet. Consequently people did not give of their best, and why should they, despite appearances. They did not want to lead their lives doing work that they had little choice in selecting; but they had to take work from the limited choice of options open to them. Jobs were always difficult to acquire, sometimes difficult to keep. To find a job and succeed at work they had to pretend to be keen, show interest and do the bidding of their masters as quickly as possible. There was little room for personal choice. The advice of trainers, schools, colleges, universities, parents, peers, colleagues, would give them the impression that they could be whatever they chose to be, that they could at least choose between varied careers. Janus believed that many who entered the labour market soon found that that was not the case. Once onto a particular career path, it often became difficult to change to another one. Many people were faced with options, all of which they may find undesirable. Nonetheless, they must choose one path from amongst them. There was no other option.

Faced with a career that was highly technical and very dull, a person may think he or she prefers one that deals more with people. This career in turn may prove to be highly stressful with long hours and hidden preparation time. Another alternative may be a less ambitious and more manual career, but this may be paid very badly and/or be extremely physically and tiring.

Janus thought all of these careers might be made far more enjoyable or rewarding to the worker, increasing satisfaction in the job and leading to a more balanced and full life.

The technical or dull career would probably benefit from shorter working hours. Then it wouldn’t be so dull because the worker wouldn’t be at work for so long and he or she might begin to enjoy the shorter time spent working more. The worker might well work more efficiently in the time he or she spent at work if that were the case. The worker would be able to increase the balance in life by doing other activities.

The career that deals with more people but is highly stressful with longer hours and hidden preparation time is surely one which could benefit from shorter hours, allowing the worker to be fresher and not to feel so stressed. The hidden preparation time could become a formal part of work time, freeing the worker for other things, which would bring greater balance in his or her working life. Perhaps the stress could be shared more, or dissipated altogether by having a partner or more colleagues to share the load in the job.

The less ambitious and more manual career could benefit from a better wage/reward and perhaps a reduction in workload – again shorter working hours and more people on the job, sharing the burdens of work. To achieve these goals requires more staff and more money from the employer, but the benefits to the health and quality of life of the employee were obvious to him. The benefits of these ideas ought to be obvious to most people, thought Janus. However, in the real world many people did not seem to see it that way.

Janus was well aware of what stood in the way of moving in that direction, the pressures of business competition, the desire of shareholders to maximise their earnings, the greed of owners and directors, and even the limited availability of public funds.

Today Janus saw a society that was producing goods and services more efficiently than ever before. The cost of products was far cheaper in most instances than it used to be, in real terms. They produced such massive quantities of computer terminals, all linked to the full range of Vidnet entertainment, but the people did not have the time in most cases to fully appreciate them because they were working so hard. Perhaps, therefore, he reasoned, they did not need so many of these wonders of the modern world, products and entertainments. They could, in return for not needing these, perhaps have some more leisure time granted to them.

The large numbers of adults in education and training of all sorts was partly an indicator of the competition required to find good positions in work. It was also an indicator of the technical complexity of so many of society’s tasks, and also of the verbiage and competition which must be gone through by the potential employee just to become eligible to do what may be a very common sense and ordinary job. It was also another indicator that less and less people were required to produce our goods and services, not only what we might call essential goods and services, but including lots of useless goods and services that as a society we perhaps do not need or want, but for some strange reason the system seemed to want to produce them for us anyway.

New ideas were constantly being dreamed up by market creators in order to make money and to expand the already bulbous economy into new areas. Society was producing lots of things we don’t need and doing lots of things we don’t need to fulfil the quest which all have to perform to find paying work and a place, however ridiculous, in the modern economy. Many people were not directly employed in this business rat race, but existed in the education and training system, and were in the process of equipping themselves for inclusion in the modern economy.

Janus became convinced that society needed to take stock of where they were now, to consider their needs and their hopes for self and social fulfilment and how they might best go about organising society to give personal and social fulfilment.

It seemed obvious to him that society was producing goods and services that they did not want or need just to provide work for everyone. And yet most had too much work to be able to enjoy a life of quality. Millions of people were forced into working lives they found distasteful or boring, repressive, stressful or whatever, working too hard or too long to feel that sense of balance to which Janus aspired.

Janus came to believe they needed to share the necessary work out. Work out what actually needs doing and share it out properly, fairly between all of us, and then spend the rest of our expanded leisure time in other tasks of our personal choice.

Janus thought of the millions of people down on the planet below his high rise apartment window. How could they be saved from themselves? They weren’t all to blame, but they were, most of them, parts of a system they were unable to question, albeit to change. Born to a world where parents were corrupted by work from the true human path, what choice had they but to absorb their values and absorb the limitations of their society into their thought patterns. Parents teach their children to play with toys. All too soon toys are replaced by childish stories and computer games, mindless repetitive sports. Parents are hard pressed by work so they don’t have much time to spend with the kids.

Then all too soon education. Minds are stretched and pulverised. Any hope for personal development is set on hold, perhaps forever in the cases of some. Some kids are sent to nursery schools to give them a chance to develop minds in the fast stream. Mathematics turns from common sense teaching to formulas and physics. Learning to read soon becomes devoted towards learning to read in as many languages as possible, presumably so they can read instruction manuals or professional ethics and legal manuals so that rules and regulations can be followed. They all become philistines. Was it any wonder?

Millions dream of escape from their limitations. But they are not all limited by themselves. A terribly highly developed system limits them. Centuries of economic and cultural development have taken them out of simpler and more barbaric times when they were the slaves of hunger, war and exploiting dictators. They have developed to a stage where production and consumption are the goals of activity, regardless of whether the consumption is necessary or the production useful. Everyone must work so he or she can live. Most people work for a system which produces unnecessary outputs but it is not supposed to matter because if a living can be made in something, even if it is useless or unnecessary in simple human needs terms, it has therefore found a meaning. Industries have spawned competition which has spawned a drive to efficiency, which in turn has spawned increased production at low cost and wasteful production. Competition has generated advertising and sales effort, which has spawned duplication of effort and the expenditure of effort on operations which will not necessarily be “successful” but must be undertaken to prevent the competitors from gaining too much ground

Society on the planet has generated government which is a necessary thing to regulate traders so that they work within acceptable margins of fairness. Thus legal concepts have blossomed to create a level playing field and have become more technical as new loopholes opened up and required legislation or decision. As business grew ever more complicated a banking system developed and an investment system, and a trade in investments system. Accounting rules and methods became ever more complex. To disentangle the ever increasing web of technical complication, specialists and experts were required.

Some clever people were able to understand more than one specialism and were able to force the pace of personal competition. The best were in line for promotion up the developing hierarchies of the business and professional houses. Those who were unable to digest the ever increasing barrage of rules and regulations were left to swim somewhere behind, wishing that their leaders were not quite so clever, but nonetheless aspiring to be just as clever themselves, at the expense of more of their neighbours, and trying to master the complexities. Somewhere along the way individualism and artistic licence were lost and people just had to swim on regardless, even if most of what was done was really unnecessary.

Janus was very conscious of how difficult it was for anyone to make a mark in society. Each generation writes its novels and books and makes its music, in part ignoring the output of previous generations, but there is always a need for new output. In a prolific commercial society there is overproduction and many aspirants make a very poor living out of their efforts. Their art must be a mere sideline. Janus took to wondering frequently what it would be like to live in a society where it was possible to follow the kind of career he wanted without having to do all the ordinary work most people had to do.

The changeover from an over driven, economics-driven society to one which is more relaxed, fairer and more sensible, you could even say more efficient in a sense, was something which after a few years on the labour market he was keen to see.

‘What is the purpose of an economy?’ To feed, clothe and produce the things people need to live, he thought. If an economy is successful higher needs will come to the goals of an economy – i.e. quality of life will become a goal. This includes consumer goods, technological entertainment gadgets, health, spiritual and social fulfilment. Who makes the decisions about what the economy will produce? In the modern economy it is supposed to be the consumer who creates demand therefore determines what the economy will set itself to produce. But in participating in such an economy consumers had become its serfs. There was less consumption in these late days. The consumers were too busy working and training.

Janus would have to take the life struggle more seriously. For too long he had bumbled along the path of life, being undecided and uncommitted. He had made compromises in the past, splitting his life into parts and trying to perform a variety of tasks. He had, as was expected of him and every citizen of this world, attempted to be partly the person his elders and superiors wanted him to be, but the entertainments which had so trained his youth had moulded him into an entirely different creature, one who was soft and sensitive, devoted to the dreams of a higher quality life and of artistic expression. He recoiled from the brusque inhumanity of work and the unthinking desire of so many people to impress by performance. He wanted not quantity but quality.