Michael: Your dream job might be a trap. The promotion you're chasing? It could be making you sicker. Today, we're exploring the radical idea that even 'good' work under our current system is designed to break you, and why slacking off might be a revolutionary act. Kevin: Okay, that’s a bold start. Slacking off as revolutionary? My old boss would have a heart attack. Where is this coming from? Michael: It comes from a really sharp and timely book called Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism by Amelia Horgan. What’s fascinating is that Horgan is a philosopher finishing her PhD on the very nature of work and feminism, and she wrote much of this book while she was sick with COVID, seeing firsthand how the pandemic was exposing all the cracks in our relationship with work. Kevin: Wow. So this isn't just abstract theory; it's forged in the fire of a global crisis. That adds a whole other layer of urgency. So what's this 'grand illusion' you mentioned? I thought the whole point of life was to find a good, fulfilling job. Michael: That's the exact illusion Horgan wants to shatter. The idea that there's a perfect, fulfilling, secure job out there for everyone who just works hard enough. She calls this the 'work fantasy.'

Kevin: The 'work fantasy.' I think I've been living in that fantasy my whole life. It’s what our parents, our teachers, everyone tells us. So what’s wrong with it? Michael: What’s wrong is that the fantasy is colliding with a brutal reality. Horgan paints this picture of the modern job search that is just painfully accurate. You have graduates sending out hundreds of applications, getting nothing but automated rejection emails. You have experienced professionals laid off and finding it impossible to get back in at the same level. The landscape has fundamentally changed. Kevin: I can definitely relate. It feels like you're screaming into a void. But you still see people who make it, right? The ones who land the amazing jobs at cool companies. Isn't that about individual drive or having the right skills? Michael: That's the trap! The political establishment loves to frame it that way. Horgan talks about something called the 'aspiration-deficit model.' The theory is that people are stuck in bad jobs because they just don't aspire to enough. If we could just inject them with more ambition, they'd magically find their way to a better career. Kevin: Huh. So it's the worker's fault for not dreaming big enough? Michael: Precisely. And Horgan calls this a "particularly vicious moment of cruelty." Because it completely ignores the structural reality: there simply aren't enough good jobs to go around. The labor market has polarized. You have a small number of high-paying, secure jobs at the top, and a massive, growing number of low-wage, insecure jobs at the bottom. The middle is vanishing. Kevin: So it's like a lottery. The system sells tickets to everyone, promising a jackpot, knowing full well only a handful can ever win. And then it has the nerve to blame the millions of losers for not picking the right numbers. Michael: That's a perfect analogy. And the tickets are getting more and more precarious. Horgan points to the rise of things like zero-hours contracts. In the UK, in sectors like hospitality or support services, these now make up around 20% of all contracts. That means one in five workers in those fields has no guaranteed hours, no sick pay, no stability. The 'flexibility' is all for the employer. Kevin: That’s terrifying. It’s a power imbalance baked right into the contract. But what about the people who do have the 'good' jobs? The well-paid professionals, the creatives, the ones who supposedly love what they do. Are they exempt from this? Michael: This is Horgan's most radical point. She argues that work under capitalism is bad for all of us. Even in the secure, well-paid jobs. Because the fundamental problem isn't just low pay or precarity; it's the lack of control. At work, you are subject to the will of someone else. You have to sell your time to survive, and in doing so, you give up a huge portion of your freedom and autonomy. Kevin: I see. So even if your cage is gilded, it's still a cage. You don't get to decide how you spend eight, ten, twelve hours of your day. Someone else does. Michael: Exactly. Your life's possibilities are curtailed. And this is why it's so hard to criticize work. Our identities are completely wrapped up in it. We're told to 'love what you do,' to live the company's 'values.' So when you criticize work, people feel like you're criticizing them. Horgan says there's a genuine fear of a loss of self, because for so many, work is the only place they can find respect or a sense of purpose. Kevin: That makes so much sense. If your job is your identity, an attack on the nature of work feels like an attack on your very being. It's a deeply personal thing. Michael: It is. And the cost of that personal investment is far higher than we realize. It's not just about our time or our freedom. Horgan argues that work inflicts these deep, often invisible wounds on us as people and on society as a whole.

Kevin: 'Invisible wounds.' That sounds ominous. What kind of damage are we talking about here? Michael: Let me share a story from the book that just floored me. Horgan recalls being a child and seeing a fight break out between two women outside her primary school. One woman worked at the school's reception, and she also happened to be the cleaner for the other woman, a wealthy mother. Kevin: Okay, I'm leaning in. Michael: During the argument, the wealthy mother, in a moment of pure contempt, yells something like, "You clean my toilets!" And Horgan describes how this one sentence just hung in the air, exposing the raw, hidden injury of class. The cleaner wasn't just a person; she was defined and devalued by her low-status job, even by the very person who relied on her labor. Kevin: Wow. That's heartbreaking. It’s the kind of thing you witness as a kid and it just sticks with you forever. It’s that feeling of shame being weaponized. Michael: Exactly. Horgan calls these the 'hidden injuries of class.' It's the psychological fallout of a system that codes some jobs as worthy of respect and dignity, and others as beneath contempt. And this has real, measurable health consequences. She cites the famous Whitehall II study of British civil servants. Kevin: What did that find? Michael: It was staggering. The study found a threefold difference in death rates between senior and junior civil servants, even when they worked in the same building. And the single biggest factor explaining that difference wasn't smoking, or diet, or exercise. It was control. The degree of control a person had over their daily tasks was the most powerful predictor of their health and longevity. Kevin: Hold on. So having a boss breathing down your neck, micromanaging your every move, is literally more dangerous than smoking? Michael: According to that study, yes. A high-ranking civil servant who smoked had a better chance of survival than a low-ranking, non-smoking colleague. The stress, the powerlessness, the lack of autonomy—it grinds people down physically and mentally. Kevin: And this extends to our emotions too, right? I'm thinking of what you said about 'loving your job.' Horgan talks about emotional labor, doesn't she? Michael: She does, and it's a huge part of the modern workplace. She builds on the work of sociologist Arlie Hochschild, who studied flight attendants. They are expected to produce an emotional state on demand—to be cheerful, caring, and calm, no matter how they actually feel or how terribly they're being treated. Kevin: Right, when a flight attendant has to smile through a 10-hour flight with a rude passenger, that's what she means. Michael: Exactly. And Hochschild warned that this creates a 'separation' between a worker's 'face' and their 'feeling,' which is potentially estranging. You become alienated from your own emotions because they've become a product to be sold. And this isn't just for flight attendants anymore. It's in retail, in customer service, in management—anywhere you're expected to perform a certain personality for profit. Kevin: It's exhausting just thinking about it. And the damage isn't just individual, is it? Horgan argues this affects all of society. Michael: On a massive scale. She uses the history of the garment industry to show how the drive for profit not only exploits workers but reshapes the entire planet. The constant demand for cheaper clothes led to outsourcing, sweatshops, and horrific conditions. But it goes even deeper. She tells this incredible story about a bacteria called Acinetobacter baumannii. Kevin: A bacteria? How does that connect to work? Michael: This bacteria used to be a harmless soil microbe. But with the mass production of antibiotics for industrial agriculture—a direct result of capitalist food production—it started developing resistance. Then, during the Iraq War, it became a superbug in American military hospitals, so much so that it was nicknamed the 'Iraqibacter.' A once-benign organism was transformed into a deadly pathogen by the combined forces of industrial work and military conflict. Kevin: That is absolutely wild. So the way we work is literally changing the microbial landscape of the planet, creating new threats to our existence. Michael: That's her point. The consequences of capitalist work are planetary and profound. It reproduces inequality, it damages our communities, it hurts our bodies, and it's actively harming the Earth. Kevin: This is all pretty bleak, Michael. If the system is this broken and the damage is this widespread, what can anyone even do about it? Are we all just doomed to be cogs in this destructive machine?

Michael: Well, this is where the book takes a hopeful, and I think, really fun turn. Horgan says resistance is everywhere, often in forms we don't even recognize as political. It starts with the simple, universal act of slacking off. Kevin: Slacking off! Finally, something I'm an expert in. So you're telling me all those hours I spent perfecting my minesweeper skills were a form of political protest? Michael: In a way, yes! Horgan brings up the TV show The Office. Think about the prank of putting a stapler in jelly. It’s a small, absurd act of rebellion against a meaningless, boring, and soul-crushing environment. It's a way of saying, "I am a human being, not a productivity machine, and I refuse to take this seriously." These are tiny skirmishes in the battle for control over our own time and our own minds. Kevin: I love that. The spreadsheet whizz is my new hero. It's these tiny acts of rebellion that are about reclaiming a little piece of your soul. Michael: Absolutely. Horgan tells another great story about a 'spreadsheet whizz' in an office. This person is so good at their job that they can finish tasks in a fraction of the time it takes anyone else. But they don't tell their boss that. They pretend the task is incredibly difficult and strenuous, securing themselves hours of free time that nobody can question because nobody else understands what they do. Kevin: That's genius! It's weaponizing your own competence to create a bubble of freedom. Michael: It is. And it's happening everywhere. People working from home who log in and then go back to sleep for an hour. Call center workers who figure out how to crash the system to get a forced break from abusive calls. Horgan argues these aren't just lazy people; they are actively resisting the intensification of work and the theft of their time. Kevin: But I guess the problem is that these are all individual acts, right? The spreadsheet whizz is free, but their colleagues are still grinding away. The system itself doesn't change. Michael: And that is the crucial pivot Horgan makes. She says these individual acts are important for survival and for denaturalizing work—for reminding us that the way things are is not the way they have to be. But to create real, lasting change, that individual frustration has to be politicized and become collective. Kevin: So, moving from putting a stapler in jelly to organizing a union. Michael: Exactly. She talks about the historical power of organized labor to win things we now take for granted, like the weekend or the eight-hour day. But she's also critical of how unions have sometimes failed, particularly women or minority workers, like in the 1970 Leeds clothing strike where the male-dominated union sold out the striking women. Kevin: So it's not a simple case of 'unions good, bosses bad.' It's more complicated. Michael: It's about building genuine, democratic power from the ground up. And she points to inspiring, radical visions of what's possible. She talks about the Lucas Plan in the 1970s, where aerospace workers, facing layoffs, came up with their own detailed plan to retool their factories to produce socially useful things like wind turbines and kidney dialysis machines instead of weapons. Kevin: Wait, really? The workers themselves designed a whole new business plan focused on social good? Michael: They did. It was a brilliant, concrete vision of worker control and democratic production. The plan was ultimately rejected by the government and management, of course. But it stands as this powerful dream of what work could be if it were organized for human need instead of private profit.

Kevin: So where does that leave us? We've gone from the fantasy of the dream job, to the hidden injuries of all work, and now to resistance, from slacking off to these incredible, radical plans. Is the answer to slack off more, or to join a union, or to dream up our own Lucas Plan? Michael: Horgan's point is that it's all of the above, and more. There's no single magic bullet. The book is praised by many readers and critics for not offering simplistic solutions. Instead, it gives us a new lens. The real goal isn't just to make our current jobs better, but to fundamentally reduce work's dominance over our lives. Kevin: To stop being 'lost in work.' Michael: Exactly. The small acts of resistance, the slacking off, they're important because they're the first step. They're a crack in the ideology. They remind us that we are not just our jobs. But to truly get our lives back, that individual frustration has to connect with others and become collective power. It's about raising the floor for everyone, not just helping a few lucky people puncture the ceiling. Kevin: I like that. It's not about creating more winners in a broken game; it's about changing the game itself. Michael: Precisely. And Horgan leaves us with a powerful, open-ended question that I think is the perfect takeaway: What would we actually do with our time if we weren't so exhausted and consumed by work? It’s not about abolishing all effort or contribution, but about building a world where we have the genuine freedom to decide how we live our lives. Kevin: That's a huge question to chew on. It's almost scary to think about because we're so conditioned to fill our time with productivity. We'd love to hear what you all think. What's one small way you've resisted the grind? Or what would you do with an extra, say, ten hours of free time a week? Find us on our socials and share your story. Let's get this conversation started. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.