Our generation is becoming self-aware
of our slavery. Sam Pink with his short novel "Person" and
now Noah Cicero with "Go to Work" are indications of a new
generation of talented young writers carrying on the torch from
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.
Western culture is a culture that
easily enables mental slavery. Its institutions make it easy for man
to enslave itself with "pipe dreams" inspiring him to chase
cookie cutter happiness.
Good grades will lead to college,
career, marriage, big house, kids, suburbia, BBQs...family vacations
which are not all inherently evil but the idea that everyone needs to
follow the same path in order to find lasting happiness is a
falsehood.
There are many things that can be
blamed on this.
The assembly Line turned man into a
robot doing the exact same task in endless repetition. Then normal
food became fast food. Hour lunch turned into half hour lunch.
Highways were built for trucks and urban sprawl was born and you got
Office Space by Mike Judge and hundreds of communities that look
exactly the same with the same houses, restaurants (Chilli's next to
a Friday's next to an Olive Garden) and Office Parks with artificial
lakes.
Now we sit all day staring into screens
doing basically almost the same tasks as Ford Assembly Line workers.
Work is never just work. Work is what
defines us, specially in America.
We are born and pushed into institution
after institution until we are dead inside. Your identity goes
through many transformations.
We are so far from what man used to be,
and now we are turning into something else, a creature that is vain,
distracted, selfish, a kind of mechanical agent clouded by noise
pollution.
Noah Cicero's "Go to work,"
captures the modern workplace as good as the movie Office Space.
We follow Michael as he interviews and
is hired by a prison called NEOTAP. It's the same story - go to
college, get into debt, and then get a job for a company to pay off
said debt, get married, buy house, have kids, and get more debt. Eat
shitty food, get sick, get into more debt then die.
Michael has just acquired his first
debt from college so now he must work like an indentured servant to
pay it back. Of course he's not getting paid all that good but at
least he has Health insurance now.
The first few pages of "Go To
Work" are so perfect they almost read like
As Mike begins his employment with
NEOTAP he is taught about The Five Pillars of Modern Society where
the novel's excellent title comes from:
1. Go to work and do your job.
2. Care for your children.
3. Pay your bills.
4. Obey the law.
5. Buy products.
He is told that "If a person does
these five things every day of their life they will be responsible
and achieve a high level of efficiency. These are the cornerstones of
modern society. If everyone in a modern society does these five
things, then modern society will run smoothly."
This is what we have always been told.
We are worth what we can afford to spend. You are born to consume
products. Acquire debt. Get married and have kids in order to get
into a 30 year mortgage.
Mike is told not to ask questions. Then
co-workers and inmates start disappearing and he is repeatedly told
not to ask questions.
He meets Monica, a co-worker, and falls
in love. They try not to ask questions. More people disappear. They
start asking questions and things start to get quite serious.
Noah Cicero easily goes from The Trial to 1984 then Office Space, followed by a little bit of The Girl With
the Dragon Tattoo in the shorter, but more confident second part of
the novel.
The main character Mike is a full
dimensional human that most people can relate to. Specially if you're
out of college and searching for a job or are already part of the Rat
Race.
As the novel progresses Noah Cicero
turns up the intrigue and suspense which ultimately pays off. His
story challenges and destroys the things that most Americans feel
they need in order to lead meaningful lives just because that's what
their parents told them.
Go to Work is an eye opening fast read
that will make you think about where you eventually want to be in
your own life.
Do you want to be the missing? Do you
want to be the cubicle worker that ignores their own unhappiness? The
revolutionary that risks their life for a better world? The
boyfriend/girlfriend of the missing? Do you want to be you without
having to compare to what society says you should do? Do you want a
job and get paid? Or like the TV on the Radio song, "Red Dress,"
do you continue to "live a life not worth dying for."
This is the novel that will help you
take your first step. Buy it. Read it. Cherish it. Then pass it to
someone else that needs ponder the important things.
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