E in life with and in work, that’s somehow nothing. Of course, you have to work, it’s a contribution to society and at the same time finances your own expenses, actually quite practical if you have a job. And if the work is meaningful, which happens rarely enough because it’s fun, then there’s nothing at all to be said against work as such, after all it supposedly makes you free, as it once said scornfully somewhere, I’ve forgotten where, but who doesn’t want to be free in the end.
The problem with work is that it is usually organized in a traditional way. This means that you have to be in certain places at certain times, where you then have to be classified in certain hierarchies, because that’s it. The other problem is, on the one hand, the employees to whom one is socially exposed, and on the other hand, the subordinates, i.e. those who are the opposite of the subordinates, the bosses. They are often stubborn and cling to outdated principles that make work unnecessarily difficult, and like many parts of society, you have to wait until the elders finally give up their chairs for anything to change for the better, even if only slightly.
On Monday, a striking tram driver from Freiburg was portrayed on television. He went on strike for night pay because his work was more difficult at night because of the darkness. Cyclists without lights, the lack of light in general, is bad for the eyes. Even before the coming agreement, his collectively regulated income was twice as high as mine.
Don’t be jealous, I said to myself on my sofa, after all the man probably works twice as long. And it is likely to be a rather dull activity in the long term in a rather isolated environment and while sitting. Well, as a freelance author and editor, I sit a lot, but if I want, I can just stand up. Now for example.
Tram drivers drive cars
Back there. But what I asked myself was, what does the man with all that money want? Does he drive to work? Does he fly on vacation four times a year and spoil the environment? Does he live in an ugly terraced house in a Freiburg suburb and tend to his lawn on the weekends? Does he collect used tram seats and use them to equip his townhouse bowling alley?
I think people out there just work too much. The tram driver from Freiburg should go on strike to have to work less for the same money – until his job outlives itself, because the AI is already waiting. I bet he would rather go bowling more often with his few friends in the terraced house basement than just go back and forth on line 6 or 7. Doors open, doors closed, drive away, look in the mirror, announcement, off to the next station. Something like that wears you down in the long run.