Nice Work by David Lodge

The thing I liked about the book was how it was composed. The first chapter tells us about Vic and what kind of person he is and how he lives. Then the author continue with the story about Robyn, how she lives a complicated life with Charles and her work at the university. In the second part of the book, Robyn and Vic lives come together; she started as a shadow at his work and the troubles begins…

In the second part of the book, I really saw the opposite of the characters. Robyn, as a modern woman with new and feminine ideas and Vic, as a conservative man that only wanted to earn money. I think that Vic truly express himself when he says “Won’t pay the rent, will they – ideas, feelings?” (s. 115). In this part are Vic and Robyn talking about boys that study feminine literature instead of mechanical engineering that Vic thinks is much more appropriate subject for boys. I get the feeling that he thinks that boys should work with in the industries and earn a lot of money not study literature and other philosophies.

These two characters struggle with each other about their different thoughts and I think that this book do not really shows how different times where at the time it was written, 1989, because sometimes I can feel that it is the same today. A young man or woman with new ideas, steps in to a new office with elder people. It can be the same here, when some thinks that they should keep the old working way when other have new ideas about it and they want to do some changes. Sometimes changes can be good for a company. How would it if no one did any changes??

Since we only had to read to page 150 in the book (nothing stopped us to continue but..) I wonder how it ends. When I first started to read I had my ideas, of course these two people are going to met each other but how? I voted for a romantic story that he would see her on the streets or they would meet at the supermarket. But know when I know how they met each other I think the story will end with Vic waving goodbye to her when she leaves his factory for the last time. Probably she has changing him and his way of thinking and I hope she also had some new thoughts and ideas of her own. Robyn never had been to a factory before so now she knows how it is like to work in one and I think she did a nice work.

Story of stuff

Today everybody knows that we live in a consumption society, “we shop until we drop” and we don’t do anything about it, this is our lifestyle we are used to, so we keep going. A sad thing about all this consumption is that a lot of people can’t handle it, they shop for money that they don’t have and they loose a lot of things, their jobs, houses, families because of this behavior. In Sweden many of us have probably seen the TV-show “Lyxfällan” where people can get help from experts how they should continue with their loans and bills, how they can pay them of. This TV-show is an evidence of our society, that we have gone too far, that some of us can’t handle it anymore.

I think that many of us are used to consume and we try to recycle instead to compensate for our consumption. A lot of people are very good at recycling but I’m familiar with the feeling “I’m one in a million and I won’t make a different” but that’s not true. I believe that one person can make a different like the man in “Story of stuff” (read the part of 10 recommendations for another way). A student asked a man about how he recycled and he answered “I start to tell one person about recycling and then I tell another person”. This man was familiar with the problems and he told other people about it so they also could help to make a different.

Another thing that I felt was that “Story of stuff” is something for the American people because like Annie said, it’s different between the U.S and Europe, we consume the same thing but in Europe without toxic and pollution. So, why can’t the American people also consume their stuff without toxic and pollution?

Sorry, I'm posted this late. I didn't get the email about blogging in time...

Snooping Bosses

When I first started to read the article I thought: now the maximum of control over the employees is reached, using a GPS to control where employees were if they called in sick.

This is not okay; the employers cannot play “Big Brother” and watch where the employees are when they are not at work. People should have some privacy and this technique with GPS, can be misused by people and they can stalk people from work. For example a relationship between two employees ends and the other person is very jealous he or she can use the system to check up on the other one, too see where that person might be. For that reason I think it would not be okay to have that kind of control over people but the other statement in the article, about checking some websites that the employees use, is okay.

On the other hand I think also that the staff should have the right to some privacy at work, however searching for porn sites during work, it is not okay. Therefore I consider the bosses can block some websites that the employees don’t have to use at work, like they had done on Wall Street and some law firms.

At my work they have blocked websites that not are related to the organization so I cannot check my private email at work, but it is okay, I can do it at home.

In the article it also says that some companies hire people to check on the employers email, I think this would be okay if they suspected someone who sends company information to other companies but otherwise they should leave mail boxes alone so the staff can feel some privacy at work.