“Many have no known purpose at all.”

99. The Factory – Hiroko Oyamada

We can’t all have meaningful, recognizably significant jobs. Someone has to shred that paper and proofread those seemingly useless documents and never get anywhere with either task and never have the opportunity to advance or advocate for their own ambition and to eventually lose all ability to want something more after basically moving in to the factory with an incredibly hard to define purpose. I say this, but The Factory is very short and easy to read and could maybe have also been called Malaise, like that one part in Clerks. It really felt like what work feels like when you have a dead end job you didn’t realize would be a dead end job. It also feels exactly how I’ve felt any time someone said “circle back around” or talked about silos outside the context of farming like that ever made sense, oh wait, that actually annoys me significantly. There are little pops of life still in the perspectives presented here too, the ones who notice things and aren’t quite so numb yet. The Factory is a surreal reminder that being worn down into compliance and apathy is what many workers have to look forward to. Hang in there.

 

Thaddeus never had a job. Can you tell?