The New Yorker: Last September, a very twenty-first-century type of story appeared on the company blog of the ride-sharing app Lyft. “Long-time Lyft driver and mentor, Mary, was nine months pregnant when she picked up a passenger the night of July 21st,” the post began. “About a week away from her due date, Mary decided to drive for a few hours after a day of mentoring.” You can guess what happened next.
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What a fantastic article and congrats to Mary on the birth of her daughter! Sadly, this is all too common in the entertainment industry. Long hours, many days back to back with little to no time off. It is an ongoing struggle just to keep you head above water in many cases and for those people who relay on gig work to survive it can literally be life or death. Most gig workers do not have access to quality insurance or they can’t afford the high deductible that many plans come with. Companies like Lyft exploit this and to see that they used Mary and her daughter in a PR campaign does not help the case. Parents of new children should never have to worry about working during those bonding stages of new life but as we see far too often across our world, in some cases, that just is not possible. We have to continue to work to keep food on the table, the bills paid, a roof over our head and so forth. Companies like Lyft should be helping to support people like Mary, not using them for advertising.
This reminds me of me and my classmates averaging about four hours of sleep each night this week in order to finish a project we were working on. At the time, I felt completely willing to do so. I enjoy my work and I want to make something worthwhile: that is why I go to school here. It is why I study theatre and art. I am dedicated to this craft and I am going to do well at it, no matter what it takes. I recognize that this can be unhealthy, but looking back on it now, I think it was worth it. We all made really good projects that would have been far lesser had we not put in the extra over time hours we did. And now, I have time to rest. A few days off with nothing to worry about (except comments), and it feels good. The wave has crashed and we all survived, actually landed on our feet for the most part. I do not know if I am trying to glorify this or extrapolate it into something that it is not, but I am willing to suffer for my work, if that is what it takes. It is what I love. It is what I am good at. And I will not stop.
Also, I do recognize that this is a rather privileged, big leap from Mary's story, but hey, it is how I relate.
This article makes me angry because it's so very right.
This woman was experiencing one of the most meaningful moments of her life, but she felt driven to sneak more work in, make a few more bucks. This isn’t a judgment of her, but of a culture that glorifies productivity and work over life. As the article says, “This is the jargon through which the essentially cannibalistic nature of the gig economy is dressed up as an aesthetic.” This culture, this jargon, this “aesthetic,” does nothing to benefit workers and does everything to benefit those at the top of an exploitative economy.
It’s mass manipulation. How does one get workers to work more hours, take less time off, accept more demands on their time, be paid less, and receive fewer benefits?
1 You glorify overwork. You call it go-getting. You raise the exhausted worker up as an example of endurance all the while exploiting them. You train them to think the same of thing of themselves and other workers.
2) You sell them on the dream that if they just keep at it long enough, if they just push hard enough, they’ll reach fortune and permanent comfort.
Maybe I have the overzealousness of a convert. For most of my life, up until just a few years ago, I defined myself by the endurance of my work ethic. Working consistently 60-70+ hours per week made me feel useful and satisfied. I was proud. I bought the glorification of overwork. But unless you’re one of a very rare breed of people, that stamina doesn’t last forever. And it shouldn’t have to. People should be able to have lives. They should be able to sleep well, eat well, and spend time with their partners. It's grim, but we're all gonna die... and I want to do a lot more than work in the time that I have.
Why do we value working ourself to the bone and not taking the time and space for our own sanity? I cannot believe a women was driving around for Lyft while 9 months pregnant and then continued while having contractions, but then again it is something I can totally see happening. This author does a good job explaining the mindset of so many now a days as the self reliant doer. I think part of it comes from a social pressure, that if that woman can work while in that condition, then I better be working too. I have not seen advertisements like the ones they describe in the glorification of that work ethic, however I have seen it on almost a daily basis around Purnell. So often it becomes a glorified competition on who can function and sleep the least, because it means more hours being productive and if you choose to sleep than that is a weak choice. I do hope that we as a society and as peer can start to change this mentality and actually really value and appreciate people who sleep and take breaks.
I feel like this gig economy is becoming increasing prevalent in our society throughout all different vocations and walks of life. I can speak from personal experience that gig economy is perpetuated in the CMU DP program. Sometime people brag about pulling all nighters or compare the lack of sleep they get for weeks on end. I have even hear how people work between rushing to puke. And I can say for myself that I have used sleep deprivation as a marker of accomplishment and n illustration of dedication to mu classwork and craft. But I should not be doing this and I think my class is trying to make a conscious effort to get out of this habit of encouraging and praising sleep deprivation and overworking. I’m looking around at my classmates and we are trying to encourage each other to get sleep when we can and I think we are doing a good job at encouraging others to take care of their mental and physical wellbeing in the midst of this environment where it is very easy to push yourself so hard to the point of illness or exhaustion and say that that is success and dedication.
This promotion of the gig economy as praise for those who never stop working is at once disturbing and expected. As the article points out, these same themes were happening during the great depression. The idea that you can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps is part of the American Dream/ American Myth. This is a holdover from the Puritan work ethic that somehow oddly connects wealth with God’s favor. This idea is persistent in American politics and work. There is this idea that if you are poor, you just aren’t working hard enough or are too stupid to know how to escape poverty, not that things may be stacked against you. I think the gig economy is a branch of this thinking: If there are no jobs, you should be able to create your own work and take care of yourself as long as you are a good person. If you can’t, clearly there is something wrong with you, not with the system. The problem is that this way of thinking has been drilled into Americans since the first settlers came, and even though people can see the flaws in this logic, they still at a deep level believe it and are constantly getting gaslighted by their own beliefs.
The growth and spread of gig economy's praise and glorification of those who never stop working is something that is becoming ever more prevalent in a variety and large number of work places. It's so sad that it's true that those who are known to be able to work off of little to no sleep are praised for their efforts. I think as the world gets more and more competitive people are pushing themselves to do more and more in order to stay ahead of the rest of the field or at-least keep pace. The ability to work more hours is one of those easily most quantifiable things that presents the most work if you work longer or more hours you must be better. But this sadly still isn't always that case. This past week is proof of that to many students in the DP area of the SOD the myth that just because you are working longer not necessarily smarter doesn't present better work and just because it turns out well in the end makes that the best option for you moving forward in your work.
This article brings up a really strong point in its criticism of the gig economy, it honestly is really dangerous to and human being's long term health. Unfortunately the theater industry is pretty much made up solely of gig work and I honestly believe that this fact is while there is high levels of stress and burn out in the industry. I have many friends who pull crazy long days to be able to make enough money and I have seen first hand the detrimental effects that this has had on them. I also see a lot of correlation between the gig economy mentality and the mentality that we are almost forced to have when it comes to working in the School of Drama. The fact that most people in the School of Drama have done more than there fair share of all nighters because there just isn't enough time in normal school day shows this fact. While I think it is harmful to people I honestly don't see the industry or even this school changing, which is kinda depressing.
I definity see where this article is coming from, and I think it holds true for theater as well. A lot of theater jobs and gig based jobs require long hours or incentive to work harder because it isn’t steady. While that is the nature of the industry, it is also unhealthy for workers. Often especially in a situation when someone needs money, it can be difficult to hold a balance between getting the money you need and not working yourself to death. I think to some degree that culture pervades into Purnell, because we say to ourselves, “Oh just one more hour, I only need 4 hours of sleep. Even though the motivating factors are different, the mentality holds the same: That the grade (or cash) is more important than your health because of the ultimate goal. I know that I say that to myself (in different ways) all the time.
Never have I witnessed such a clear differentiation in the working class culture the article spoke about than when I visited Greece three summers ago. It is an incredibly beautiful country, with vast green oceans and sprawling mountains. However on my two-week visit there I noticed something shockingly different from the culture of the United States-- the Greek people put much more importance on the value of leisure time than I had ever seen in my own country. That is not to say that Greece doesn't work hard, or contribute to their economy. Yet there simply wasn't the same "work hard until you die" mentality that is present in America's consumerist society. The shops in the lazy summer town I visited in Western Greece were only open two days out of seven. My friend's Greek relatives told me it was common to have doctors recommend a daily swim in the ocean to improve health and reduce stress. While I understand that the economic situation in some places of the world are so bad that people cannot afford to take leisure time, the summer I visited Greece was in the midst of an economic collapse. This just goes to show how the thought process of working hard your whole life as the article points out greatly differs from culture to culture in the world.
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