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WORK & LABOR - Coggle Diagram
WORK & LABOR
BUREAUCRACY & ABSURDITY OF WORK
Dehumanization:
Workers reduced to functions.
Names blur together.
Individual identity fades.
“Orientation”: rapid-fire listing of employee behaviors = shows replaceability.
“Bartleby”: “I would prefer not to.”= passive resistance within bureaucracy.
Connections::
Both feature office spaces.
Both depict emotionally sterile environments.
Both highlight monotony and repetition.
Both show systems that suppress individuality.
:
Texts:
“Orientation” – Daniel Orozco
“Bartleby, the Scrivener” – Herman Melville
WORK, CAPITALISM & ECONOMIC PRESSURE
Texts: Articles from Nobody wants to work anymore
Myth of Laziness
Workers are not unwilling — conditions have changed.
Wage stagnation vs. rising cost of living.
Shifting Labor Expectations
Pandemic impact.
Remote work.
Work-life balance re-evaluation.
Exploitation
Corporations framing labor shortages as worker moral failure.
Economic precarity.
Connections to Literature:
Bartleby’s refusal anticipates modern “quiet quitting.”
Orozco’s hyper-controlled workplace mirrors corporate surveillance culture.
“Nobody Wants to Work” rhetoric blames workers rather than systems.
RESISTANCE & AGENCY
Forms of Resistance
Passive resistance (“I would prefer not to.”)
Refusal without explanation
Non-participation disrupts authority
Resistance does not have to be loud to be powerful.
Limits of Resistance
Bartleby becomes isolated.
The system cannot tolerate non-productivity.
Capitalism removes what it cannot use.
Resistance without community leads to erasure.
Modern Labor Resistance (“Nobody Wants to Work”)
“Quiet quitting” as boundary-setting.
Workers rejecting unpaid emotional labor.
Social media gives workers collective voice.
Refusal to overwork challenges corporate control.
Contrast with “Orientation”
Hyper-controlled workplace leaves no room for resistance.
Surveillance and gossip regulate behavior.
Obedience is normalized before resistance can form.
Orientation shows a system where agency is minimized.
MEANING, IDLENESS & THE VALUE OF WORK
Work as Identity
Workers defined by job roles.
Productivity replaces individuality.
Personal life reduced to office information.
Is a person valuable only if they produce?
Idleness as Threat
Bartleby’s stillness makes others uncomfortable.
Refusal to work is treated as moral failure.
Idleness disrupts social order.
Non-productivity exposes the fragility of the system.
Moral Judgment of Labor (“Nobody Wants to Work”)
“Lazy” as a moral accusation.
Work framed as virtue.
Wage stagnation vs. rising cost of living.
Workers are blamed instead of economic systems.
Shifting Values of Work
Pandemic caused reevaluation of priorities.
Work-life balance over blind loyalty.
Fulfillment prioritized over survival alone.
Labor is no longer unquestioned moral duty.