Alienation
To understand Rinehart's claim about work and alienation, we must first have a clear understanding of the definition of the two terms. According to Rinehart, "Work has always had a profound impact on the lives of those who perform it." (Rinehart, p1). It can offer a sense of accomplishment or meaninglessness (pride or shame) depending on the view we have on the tasks involved. Presuming the type of work you do, it will affect the way in which you spend your free time (Rinehart, p1). The second term we must clearly understand is alienation. The development of this term can be credited to Karl Marx, "who used it to describe and interpret the organization of work that emerged with the industrial capitalism." (Rinehart, p11). In Rinehart's book, The Tyranny of Work, he refers to alienation as "...a condition in which individuals have little or no control over (a) the purposes and products of the labour process, (b) the overall organization of the workplace, and (c) the immediate work process itself." (p14). In order to evaluate the argument contained in the Rinehart text (The Tyranny of Work), I will compare my work experience with the three major sources of alienated labour and conclude that with my experience of work, it suppo
The second major source of alienated labour is markets in land, labour, and commodities. To understand these concepts completely, we must first define what markets are. The term market, according to Rinehart is, In order to understand my evaluation of the argument contained in the Rinehart text, I must briefly explain my current job sphere. I am currently employed twenty hours a week at Pitney Bowes. This company is a major supplier of office equipment such as fax machines, photocopiers and mailing products. My job would be classified under white-collar traditional services, which operates in domestic and local markets. I hold a customer care position for new customer acquisitions. My job duties would include; responsible for sales of company products, and to give information about leasing and price plans. The work environment is relaxed, and it requires that I follow a formal dress code. I am given my own office space, which includes three walls, a desk with a computer and a phone (with voice mail built in), and a chair. My entire job is done sitting at the desk with the computer in front of me. I am on the phone most of the time talking to customers. Everything done is through the computer, I place orders on an online form (which can be directly viewed from the shipping department). With this brief job description, I will now continue with a description of works functions and meanings. The last major source of alienation, according to Rinehart, is the division of labour. At my place of work I do the same tasks over and over again. Each day seems to be getting more repetitive as I go on. Just to list a few, these are my daily procedures; I come in to my office and turn on my computer, log in to my software and start making calls or taking calls. As Rinehart would explain this, the most important types of division of labour are, "...specialization and the separation of mental and manual labour, or, more accurately, the separation of the conception of the work from its performance." (Rinehart, p16). The specialization of work that would occur at my job would be the repetitive calling of customers. I say the same spiel to every customer that I call or take calls from. Nothing changes, the questions are always the same, and if they want the product another department is responsible for shipping out the merchandise. I never actually get to see what the product I am sending out looks like. All I do is enter what type of product the customer wants on an online form, from there the form is read by some one in shipping (who I will probably never see), and they are responsible for taking over from there. The separation of manual labour is what makes my job boring. I would not mind taking a call from a customer who would like to have a product shipped out to his/her company, and from there going to the stock room and finding the product, then shipping it out. Instead, It is like I am in a fantasy world. I pretend I enjoy selling these products, I pretend I like the cus
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Approximate Word count = 2033
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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