Work not working

Professional Vampire Hunter

2010-06-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

It's occurred to me over the years, that possibly the most challenging job existing over the ages is the position of Vampire hunter, or the Dhampir, as they say in the Southern Balkans.

This professional or semi-professional vampire hunter is employed by local government, who pays the Dhampir to remove any unwanted vampires from the area. Depending on the way you look at it, you would hope that you were offered not only good overtime rates for the uncomfortable hours of 20:00-05:00, but also that medical insurance, and possibly some danger money, were thrown into the deal.

But alas, not just anyone can apply for this position. The Dhampir's post must be filled by a person who is half vampire themselves. So if any of you out there has a mother or father who is a vampire, and you don't mind hunting down those who are partly your own kind, this could be the job for you.

Day and Night Job

2009-12-06T03:19:00.000-08:00

In the middle of trying desparately to finish one lot of work in order to start on another, I found myself typing the words "Job of the Day" into Google. Low and behold I get a list of search results linked to "Day Job". Upon clicking the Wikipedia result (the link above), I find this explanation:

"A day job is a form of occupation taken by a person in order to make ends meet while working another low-paying (or non-paying) job in their preferred career track. Archetypal examples of this are the woman who is working as a waitress for her "day job", while she tries to become an actress, and the professional athlete who must work as a laborer in the off season because he is currently only able to make the roster of a semi-professional team."

Well, I wonder how this works in practice. I haven't once had a 'day job' that hasn't kept me working into the nights and weekends, and am still struggling to get through the tasks of one of my day jobs (on this fine Sunday afternoon), to get one job closer to my professional job.

Ummm....

Art as Experience - John Dewey

2009-04-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

I was reading 'Art as Experience' today by John Dewey, whilst trying to figure out exactly what it is that we like when experiencing art. I came across this paragraph, which I felt expressed the essence of the 'Work not Working' project:

"The intelligent mechanic engaged in his job, interested in doing well and finding satisfaction in his handiwork, caring for his materials and tools with genuine affection, is artistically engaged. The difference between such a worker and the inept and careless burgler is as great in the shop as it is in the studio. Often-times the product may not appeal to the esthetic sense of those who use the product. The fault, however, is oftentimes not so much with the worker as with the conditions of the market for which his product is designed. Were conditions and opportunities different, things as significant to the eye s those produced by earlier craftsmen would be made." (5)

Hmmm... think about that the next time you get your oil changed.

Office with a View

2009-04-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

"You've just gotta love an office with a view. For me this is the best job in the world." This was said by the truck driver on Season 1 of The Axemen. You've just got to love it. I'm even tempted to try out my tree legs. Yii haaaa!

Very important work

2009-04-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

I was listening to a lecture by Stephen Billett today, and was taken back by the fact that someone actually realised that there is no such thing as s(fee/sees)t work. I am glad that he took the time to explain to his professor friend that to people undertaking unskilled labour, the labour is quite important - even if he did mention that his professor friend still thought it was s(fee/sees)t (I wonder what he teaches).
I started thinking long and hard: Billett is a vocational teacher educator, he has spent the latter part of his career researching on the job learning, and I am glad that his research has shown the skills and expertise people acquire when undertaking 'unskilled' work. I wonder whether he has ever thought about exactly how important the work of a cleaner or greengrocer is to the people, and how much job satisfaction they really get. I thought that there are two sides to this coin. If we leave professionals who have pursued their 'vocation' out of this equation, we can compare:

a) The greengrocer or cleaner who really enjoy what they do, they can see the progress and meet different people, versus the professor who has pursued a career for status (and then what kind of satisfaction or enjoyment does he/she have after all?).

or

b) The greengrocer or cleaner who only has to go to work, earn their money, be cleaners and greengrocers while their on the job, but after hours they get on with the rest of their life and noone thinks of them as the 'cleaner' or the 'greengrocer', versus the professor who does not just go to work to earn money, they also come home from work to keep working, and they are always known as the 'good', the 'atrocious' or the 'nutty' professor.

I do not know. Which work do you think is the most important?

North Carolina bound...and the campout begins!

2009-03-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

Yee hah! Looks like it's North Carolina for me, and I guess many others as Yahoo! news explains that the good old NC is one of the lesser touched places of the recession. There might be a bit of a wait as economic growth isn't expected to be that extreme this year. But, by 2010 more jobs will be appearing.

So, let's go and camp out on the lawns of the great NC, in wait of the opening positions.

Crumby breadlines and golden handshakes

2009-03-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

Volunteers at Iceland's Fjölskylduhjalpin can't complain, they've had plenty of unpaid work to do. As the economic situation rapidly deteriorates, these happy workers are inundated with demand. In fact, according to Teppo Tiilikainen of Suomen Kuvalehti, the lines keep growing and growing. It's not just the unemployed and students who are lining up to get a bit of Fjölskylduhjalpin's good stuff, but also employed families who just don't seem to make 'ants meat' with what they're getting from the workplace.

So, if you're bored and looking for something to do, pop over to Iceland and take up a post at Fjölskylduhjalpin. Business is BOOMING, and they need all the hands they can get. And, if you happen to see David Oddson, send him Iceland's love.

Picture right taken from Suomen Kuvalehti: http://suomenkuvalehti.fi/Haku/?q=islanti

Work, home and beauty to all

2009-02-15T00:18:00.000-08:00

I was at the Alvar Aalto Museum here in Jyväskylä the other day when these words called to me: "Work, home and beauty to all". These words are the premise of the Scandinavian model of welfare, inspiring the Swedish Folkhemmet (House of the People), and spurring the productivity and success of Nordic industries - particularly the Finnish design industry.

In this phrase 'work' is in first position, meaning that home and beauty comes afterwards. Of course, if we look back to Adorno and Horkheimer (and even Mr Bourdieu) we see that particularly 'beauty' was a way of inspiring 'work' and the workers. In today's stagnant economy 'work' is now beautiful, hopefully providing a home to all.

Something to Mill Over

2009-02-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

While I was busy reading articles on the screen today I suddenly remembered the fate of the paper mill workers, particularly is I happened to save too much paper. So I started printing everything out single-side... and now I feel much better.

The Internet Marketeer

2009-01-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

I just had this wonderful idea, why not put valuable time and effort into taking up a job in the very respectable field of internet marketing?

And not just internet marketing, but, as I like to see it, email to email, email knocking. The most wonderful thing about this job is that I will never have to deliver bad news - all of it's good! Imagine telling people everyday that they have won the lottery, you need to give them $10,000,000 urgently, or that the uncle they have never had has just left them $3,000,000 in their last will and testament?

I say this is a pretty good deal, a win-win situation! I think I'll apply for this little beauty:

Happy New Year and Here's to Your Health!

2009-01-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

After a very wonderful Christmas and New Year's of drinking, eating and laughing too much, I am deciding to enter the field of health. After all, this should be a field that will always be in demand. Especially considering our current recession, I would imagine that health care and products would be in even greater demand than ever before. The area I have particularly in mind is medicine, or pharmacy for short. Here is a wonderful looking job advertisement for a full-time pharmacy assistant.

...hang on a second, I just found this article from today's news. Apparently Finland's largest pharmaceutical company Orion is letting go of 200 workers. For those of you who read Finnish, check out the article to the left:
All I can say is, 'What the?'.

Job of the Week

2008-12-14T09:37:00.000-08:00

Now it's official, there are no jobs of the week...

Christmas break

2008-12-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

Ahhh... Christmas is coming, what a good time to take a break. Some might take one or two weeks, others might take just a little longer. Well here's some food for thought... click the present to the right.

Child's play

2008-12-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

It's child's play really. I mean, what do we do at Christmas and birthday times? Well, we buy the our kids toy tools, toy computers, toy kitchen sets, toy ironing sets, shops....

Why not save the hassle and get them the real things? Kill two birds with one stone.

http://www.childjustice.org/html/journal_issue06.htm

Much Cleaner than Clean

2008-12-07T09:37:00.001-08:00

Well, today's job is much cleaner than clean. It's a cleaning job, that starts in the kitchen and ends in the living room.

It's full-time and only exceptional cleaners are welcome to apply (isn't that handy?). The resident cleaners are to be well-presented, are to have excellent communication skills, and have the willingness and desire to work in the cleaning industry.

The applicant should have a current driver's license and a police clearance - gosh men are expecting a lot in this day and age...

Dangers of over employment

2008-12-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.dea.org.au/node/100

To be a waitress

2008-12-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

Today's job is waiting. I see that the Opteam in Jyväskylä is looking for an A La Carte waitress. Well I don't have a cart, but I do have a car, which will be going straight to Tourula McDonalds at 19:40.

Job posts 27.11.2008

2008-11-27T10:07:00.000-08:00

The Researcher 2004-2008

2008-11-27T08:19:00.000-08:00

The Researcher has been the latest, most intensive component of the 'Work not Working' project. In this project I have examined the role of education and the institutionalisation of culture, in supplying, distinguishing, specialising, entertaining and segregating the workforce. It is a multimedia project comprising print, photography, literature and performance, and the subject matter itself is quite complex. On the one hand the piece was created to talk about the never-ending repetition of academic jargon, and the constant need to re-educate (as I have seen it - society's way of covering over unemployment). On the other hand, through performing the piece issues of language and imperialism have come most boldly to the fore.

This is an ongoing project which won't be abandonned, but after performing 'The Longest Lecture Marathon' several times internationally, I find that I want to pick up some of the other strings that I have left loose. Some of these other strings are:

The Applicant
This is a project I began in 1993 with an application for a local hardware store. I took the role lightly, strolling into the manager's office, calmly explaining that I didn't really need the job (although I did) and that I was only there for practise (which I found out - I was - and was to get much much more). The Hardware Store Assistant project never took off, however two years later I began The Waitress project which meant that The Applicant project was temporarily on hold.

In 1997, The Applicant project took off again, with an application for an overseas camp counsellor project. The short-term Counsellor project was an exciting and pivotal point in the development of the subsequent projects. The Applicant project was interrupted several times between 1997 and 2005. However, officially as of 2005 this has been an ongoing series of dramatic performances, extensive written texts and waste bin installations.

The Bureaucrat
This began in 1998 with an office job at a well-known logistics company. The Bureaucrat operated as a series of performances 5 days a week until 2001. The performance was briefly interrupted by several months of The Student project, but as of 2002 it continued constantly until the end of 2004 in another well-known agency.
The Student
Or should I say, The 'Good' Student project began at the beginning of 2001 (The Student project in its entirety had begun in 1996), whereby I did my damned best, to be the best student possible. This was a performance that was lavished with awards and perks, and was received well by various organisations and departments.

The Work Experience Person
The Work Experience Person project was a 12 month project (2003) in which I was a serial work experience person. I started by working as a stage-hand at a well-known theatre, then turned into a journalist for a well-known television station, then transformed into an arts manager for a well-known music event, and then was re-arranged into the role of installation person and arts worker for a well-known art centre.

The Gallery Attendant
Was a project that I undertook from 2004 to 2005 in which I stood and looked at artworks, sometimes for 10 hours a day.

The Arts Worker
This was a lot more fun. In this project I stood outside events and handed out leaflets, placed posters on walls and light posts, and then finally got to serve drinks and food to artists. The Arts Worker project (2003-2005) even offered me the opportunity to occasionally see performances.

The Childcare Worker
The Childcare Worker (subtitle: I had so much fun I couldn't believe I was being paid) was a project I undertook from 1997-1998 in which I would arrive at a childcare centre took look after children whilst their parents were at work. The project went smoothly, without many hitches. The only obstacle that I remember was the "Johnny, your parents are going home without you" scenario in which one of the audience members did not want to go home after the performance.

The Waitress
The Waitress project took place at a very well-known restaurant, in which I served drinks and food, stocked up buffets, cleaned up tables, did the dishes and cleaned up at the end of the day. Sometimes drinks were spilled over customers, and the wrong orders were taken, but this added to the dramatic impact of the pieces.

The Counsellor The Counsellor project saw me walking around a building with children who did not want to be brainwashed with nature studies jargon. It also included several performances in which I, with several disabled children would go on canoing adventures around a wind-swept lake, clinging to our paddles and singing to the heavens that we would make it back to shore before sunset.

Welcome to work not working

2008-11-27T08:03:00.001-08:00

This is a blog that is dedicated to a long running project I have been developing called "Work not Working". This performance projects takes a multi-levelled approach to looking at work from the perspectives of changing roles (changing faces), class and status and issues of unemployment and marginalisation.

Over the next few months I will be updating this blog with material and thoughts related to work, not working. So, if you're interested in issues of employment, and would like to discuss your views regarding any of the above mentioned topics, feel free. I would like to hear from all of you.

All the best,
Rebekah