Work: Salairiat Vs Precariat

Extract from Guy Standing's The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

I was speaking with one of my neighbours on the bus about the value of work. She made a pretty common remark about how work can help your self-esteem.

Having worked in many a soul-crushing job, I just said "well, that depends on the kind of work doesn't it."

Her and her family do a lot of the kind of work Guy Standing sees as available to the salariat as described below. I don't think it occurred to her how the type of work available to the precariat might make one feel. I've done a lot of those jobs over the years, and just enough work in jobs available to the salariat to know the difference.

I didn't last long in those salariat style jobs. After working my butt off out of fear of under-performing in other jobs, I was unprepared for the culture I would face in salariat style positions. I made the mistake of trying to work in the same way I did in the precariat style positions and got up the nose of those who were doing less work.

When I left they accused me of being too salesman-like (code for: you're working too hard and making us all look bad you idiot).

Anyway, that's a brief summary of my experience. Most of my work has been in precariat positions such as call centre work, retail, trades and the like.


Here's what Guy Standing has to say about it:


"In many modern offices, employees turn up early in the morning in casual or sports clothes, take a shower and groom themselves over the first hour 'at work'. It is a hidden perk of the salariat. They keep clothes in the office, have mementos from home life scattered around and in some cases allow young children to play, 'as long as they don't disturb daddy or mummy', which, of coarse, they do. In the afternoon, after lunch, the salariat may take a 'power nap', long regarded as a home activity. Listening to music on the iPod is not unknown to while away those hours at work.

Meanwhile, more work or labour is done outside the notional workplace, in cafes, in cars and at home. Management techniques have evolved in parallel, shrinking the sphere of privacy, altering remuneration systems and so on. The old model of occupational health and safety regulation sits oddly in this blurred tertiary work scene. The privileged salariat and the proficians, with their gadgets and specialist knowledge which they can disguise how much 'work' they do, are able to take advantage of this blurring.

Those nearer the precariat are induced to intensify their effort and the hours they spend in their labour, for fear of falling short of expectations.

In effect, the tertiary workplace intensifies a form of inequality, resulting in more exploitation of the precariat and a gentle easing of the schedules of the privileged, as they take their long lunches and coffee breaks or interact in bonding sessions in hotels constructed for the purpose. Workplaces and play places blur in a haze of alcohol and stewed coffee."

You can get your hands on Guy Standing's The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class here:

https://www.amazon.com/Precariat-Dangerous-Class-Bloomsbury-Revelations/dp/1474294162

Alternatively, if you are in Hobart, Tasmania, as I am, you can order yourself a copy from Richard at Cracked and Spineless New and Used books, who you can find here:

https://www.facebook.com/CrackedNSpineless/