Work

When and where do we work? What used to be a very simple question is now a great matter a concern. Not only because a lot of workers have a mobile computer with which they can check their e-mails at home, after supper or during breakfast, but also because these days the very definition of what is work seems to be moving. For instance, some think that posting a post on Facebook, or writing a comment on Amazon amounts to working, for the two companies are able to extract value from these operations. The success of the GAFA would thus draw mostly on a huge digital labor machinery, through which users who they have fun or enjoy a service, are actually exploited without even noticing. Some others think that when you bring your Ikea furniture home and assemble it yourself, you’re working as well. Does this activity creates more added-value than when you used to pay for the delivery and take a half-day vacation to wait for it? Duh, hard to say. But once you have been confronted to these ideas, it’s difficult not to see work where you didn’t use to. And when in a restaurant the waiter brings you the menu with a blank sheet you are supposed to fill in with your order, you can’t help but thinking that you’re asked to do part of is job. And then again, you doubt. You’re so hungry. Maybe the time this will make you save worth it.