<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Unlike some of my teaching counterparts – and many others that don’t work in offices – I’m very wary of lambasting the life of the office worker. I spent a few years working in offices and it can be rewarding, fulfilling and fun. Obviously that depends upon your role and the company, but it’s certainly not necessarily true, as a friend of mine, bored with her own office job, said in a email to me recently, that “..they drain your soul”.

On the other hand, sometimes it is true. The cruel would say that those that choose a life of drugery – an unrewarding functional job in an anonomous grey building – don’t have a soul in the first place. I don’t know if they’re right, but I do know that some – and one in particular – of my business students fit this tragic stereotype all too well. She arrived early today and, as we waited for the others, was soon lamenting the situation she finds herself in. “Do you ever think of leaving?”, I asked.

Until that point she’d understood all my English and conversation had run smoothly. Even if it’s decontextualised significance was lost on her, what she said next was horribly poignant: “I don’t understand”.

Comments: Post a Comment