micro-economics

Great inventions, company-offices. Conceived to have us acting at our most rational, efficient and disciplined and thus pivotal in the western creation of wealth and order.

Yes, economic productivity demands impersonal spaces, air-conditioning, artificial light, clear objectives, formal organization charts, impersonal dress-codes. A whole universe set-up to squelch irrational human behavior and censor disruptive human needs.
Just imagine the dramatic plunge efficiency & productivity would take , should human sympathy intervene in the objective assessment of an employee’s worth, should personal likes and dislikes interfere with company-projects.
And imagine all the wasted time if people would bask in a shaft of sun-light instead of working calmly in a neon glow, if people would be gazing at the skies instead of their screens, would sniff the autumnal air instead of breathing air-conditioned nothingness.

Well yes, how to get people with the most diverse persuasions, sensibilities and interests working together efficiently, if not by subordinating the subjective and the personal to a system of shared rational calculations?
Gosh, I wouldn't even dare to rebel against so marvelous a system. Great system. Really.


But oh oh oh .... even after all these years … how often do I mumble this Proust-quote at my desk: “I was trapped in an alien reality, one that was not made for me and against which appeal was not possible” (*)

(*) "Je me trouvais dans une réalité qui n’était pas faite pour moi et contre laquelle il n’y avait pas de recours"