Chapter 2. Appendix: The records read

In a team where finishing work quickly brings more work, may I teach my colleagues the knack I have learned?

To whom should the gain from raising efficiency go?

A hypothetical office worker who has found a knack for repetitive tasks.

Conditions in which one gains slack in proportion to the improvement and can also share the knowledge.

Saving time only increases the workload.

The problem of improving efficiency and of distributing its reward.

The wish to help colleagues and the concrete risks of the work.

It asks only about distributing the gain and misses the quality or safety of the work.

If I hide the knack, what happens to colleagues who bear the same burden?

The joy of becoming skilled overlaps with the fear of extra work. The rules that set the workload decide whether knowledge is shared. It asks whether there is a choice to turn gains in productivity into leisure. It does not measure a person's concentration and recovery by a machine's operating rate. Saved time can move into other consumption and other labour. The expansion of efficiency is not in itself the definition of a good life.

If every time a short-term contract ends I must explain my career as if to someone I have just met, where does the trust we built together go?

How does trust accumulate in work that comes in short stretches?

The question of a hypothetical technician who moves from site to site.

A channel through which the ability and relationships shown on site can carry on.

When the contract ends, trust is reset along with it.

The problem between the break in employment and the continuity of experience.

The breakdowns fixed together and the help that colleagues remember.

Stressing accumulation alone can reduce the freedom to start afresh.

Could a record of trust not turn into a stigma that cannot be erased?

It keeps together the fatigue of proving oneself every time and the room for a fresh start. It looks at who owns evaluation records and whether they can be corrected. The mobility of work need not force breaks in a career. It does not confuse the trust gained in relationships with biological ability. It asks whether careers that cross borders are read in the same way. Rather than the fantasy of a perfect record, the right to be forgotten should also be left.

I like seeing the joy of customers who have their old shoes mended to wear again, but is it success only if I grow my small repair work bigger?

When is success in work judged by lasting and by satisfaction rather than by growth?

A hypothetical neighbourhood repairer weighing whether to expand.

A choice that keeps a manageable scale and good work.

A successful business must keep growing.

The choice between expansion and satisfaction in the work.

The greetings shared with customers and the skill of mending a single pair.

It lets the standard of satisfaction alone stand in for actual income and working conditions.

Does keeping the present scale not pass its costs on to the people who work alongside?

It tries telling apart the amount of work one likes and the income one needs. Rents and trading practices decide whether a small shop lasts. It asks whether to limit the model of good work to a single growth curve. It looks together at the conditions of things used for long and of bodies that work for long. It does not assume that repair saves resources but looks at the actual materials. Even if it is not an achievement that leaves much behind, it can change one person's day.

Is the dash of a rider who gets an ultra-short dispatch alert from a delivery platform at 2 a.m. and starts a motorbike flexible free labour, or night-time exploitation mortgaged to an algorithm?

In a hyperconnected platform economy, how does the apparent autonomy of choosing one's working hours turn into invisible 24-hour on-call labour?

A delivery environment in a hypothetical smart-mobility city where an artificial intelligence lures riders onto late-night roads with night surcharge promotions and makes them compete.

The flexibility of labour: wanting to work when I want, get paid at once for what I have worked, and earn a living.

The criticism that behind the formal freedom of being able to switch off and rest at any time lies a compulsion worked by the pressure to earn a living and by algorithmic inducement.

The deceptive contradiction between the liberation of labour that platform technology promised and the 24-hour neoliberal capture of time.

The trembling handlebar of a rider who runs a signal on wet asphalt in the rain while staring at a countdown in seconds on a smartphone screen.

The concern that it wholly turns platform workers' efforts to diversify their livelihoods into victimhood and erases the individual's active agency.

Is the very chance to work night or day as one's circumstances allow, without fixed hours of starting and finishing, not a precious job for vulnerable groups?

Am I aware of which worker's perilous dash lies behind the late-night snack I ordered with such convenience? Can I express gratitude by handing a bottle of warm drink to a delivery rider who arrives late at night? How should labour law count and protect late-night waiting time summoned by an algorithm as paid working time? What is the effect on the city's night-time air quality of the exhaust and fine dust from hundreds of thousands of two-wheelers racing along the roads day and night? How will on-demand capitalism, running 24 hours without rest, be turned back into a human-centred society of rest? Even in a future where all manual labour is replaced by drones and androids, will humans be subordinated to another form of 24-hour cognitive labour?

What dignity is kept, amid a flood of cheap mass-produced shoes, by the day of a shoe repairer who polishes and stitches worn-soled shoes in a one-pyeong booth on a corner of an alley?

How is the social value of repair labour, which extends the life of things, being devalued within a system of endless production of cheap consumer goods?

The moment when, beside a main road in a hypothetical old city centre, a craftsman who has repaired shoes and bags for 30 years receives a redevelopment demolition notice and strokes the edge of the old iron last.

The wish that one's own labour, which breathes new life into old things others would throw away, be treated as an essential and dignified ecological contribution to the city.

The belief that not only labour that produces but the repair labour that tends and fixes things already in the world so that they last is the very spine that holds up the sustainability of civilisation.

The silent craftsmanship and the social alienation of repair labour, vanishing as it is pushed by the waves of consumerism.

The repairer's throat made raw by the smell of glue and the dust of leather, and the grief swallowed before a customer who tries to haggle down a 5,000-won repair fee.

The emptiness of heaping up only moral praise called craftsmanship without structural support to improve repair workers' poor incomes and treatment.

In an age when labour and repair costs exceed the price of new shoes, what reason is there to keep a declining industry that has lost its competitiveness going by force?

Have I thought of visiting a neighbourhood repair shop to have old shoes or bags mended before throwing them away? Can I hand a repairer a fair fee without haggling and show sincere respect for his skilled handwork? Should urban planning recognise alley repair booths as essential urban infrastructure through road-occupancy permits and support their rent? What basic work of survival is the self-repair labour of animals that groom and oil their fur and feathers every day to prevent wear? How will we overthrow the axiological error by which capitalism has given value only to 'producing new goods' and belittled 'repair and maintenance' as unproductive? In a future city where all things regenerate automatically with nanobots and human repairers have vanished completely, where will the tenderness of labour be remembered?

For a baker who opened a bakery because of loving baking bread so much and has come to hate even the smell of bread, worn down every day by dawn dough and the sales ledger, is turning a hobby into a job (doing for a living what one is devoted to) a blessing or a curse?

What does the burnout of passion that happens when the joy of voluntary play is captured by the duties of earning a living and the pressure of capitalist commodification warn of?

The kitchen of a young person in a hypothetical alley bakery who, after turning baking begun as a hobby into a business, has sunk into lethargy, harried every day by rent and review ratings.

The wish to keep the hobby I love whole as a realm of pure joy and rest, without selling it off as a tool for earning a living and polluting it.

The cold law that the essence of play lies in purposelessness and autonomy, and that the moment it is tangled with the market's exchange of money and the duty of deadlines it turns into the alienation of labour.

The collapse of intrinsic motivation brought by commercialising a hobby, and the urgency of preserving a realm of pure play.

The beautiful youthful dream of becoming independent by earning money from what one loves, and the harsh market competition of actually starting a business.

The concern that it wholly denies the positive potential of fusing work and play and takes a gloomy view of all occupational activity as nothing but inevitable alienation.

Is it not a far more worthwhile life to take up what one loves as a job and try, than to suffer all one's life earning money at what one hates?

Do I have the courage to leave my precious hobby as a realm of pure rest without bothering to link it to making money? Can I suggest to a friend who took up what they loved as a job and is now worn out a warm rest that would bring back the first excitement instead of sales? How will social welfare policy provide the basic income and social safety net that let young people try varied experiments without fear of failure? What is the instinctive shift a young lion undergoes, having played with branches in jest, when it enters the hunting labour of killing for survival? How will 'unmonetised play' be defended against the greed of platform capitalism, which exploits even all human passion and play as 'side jobs' and 'monetisable content'? In a future where labour is fully automated and humans can live by hobbies and play alone, how will 'the boundary between work and play' be redefined?

Even if the 'read' mark appears on the work messenger, would an attitude of not hurrying the other person until they have sorted their thoughts and answered raise the productivity of collaboration or lower it?

Does the efficiency of collaboration come from the pressure of immediate feedback, or from the trust that waits for a well-finished answer?

Hypothetical situation: in a design team that works remotely, a planner sent feedback on a draft and then waited until that afternoon without sending further messages, so that the designer could think it over fully and answer.

It is the need to raise the quality of the work and not interrupt the other person's flow of concentration while still managing the project's schedule steadily.

It is the thought that if the other person has read a message, reporting the situation or replying at once is basic manners and working efficiency.

The tension of the 'waiting for' that deep concentration (Deep Work) requires in an always-connected digital work environment is preserved.

The delay in response in urgent crises that need immediate confirmation and the waiting cost for the whole team may be underestimated.

It generalises over the point that the speed of response needed differs with the nature of the work (creative planning vs simple schedule coordination).

Is endlessly waiting out a silence that puts off even a simple word confirming receipt really a responsible attitude to collaboration?

Individual: when a reply does not come at once, can I immerse myself in my next task instead of anxiously staring at the messenger window? Relationship: how can colleagues make a promise to exchange naturally a buffering signal such as 'I've seen it but I'll answer by 3 o'clock'? Society: how will a workplace culture and labour-law guidelines that do not demand messenger replies after hours or during focused working time be established? Other lives: what is the time of coordination like that is kept while social insects such as ants or bees send pheromone signals until the swarm responds? Planet: how should the ethics of asynchronous communication and of slack work when remote workers in different time zones across the world collaborate? Distant future: when superintelligent collaboration tools overwhelm human speeds of response, how will the delay for deliberation allowed to human workers be protected?

On the night a large project they had clung to for half a year is finished, when team members share rolling papers bearing each other's names and specific thanks, and plain cupcakes, in a late-night restaurant, where does the fatigue go?

Is a small mutual celebration at work the company's emotional patch that exploits exhausted labour, or a self-directed festival in which colleagues recognise each other's toil?

Hypothetical situation: having successfully finished a new product launch, marketing team members, worn out, gathered in an office meeting room instead of a company dinner, turned off the lights, lit one small candle and read aloud postcards they had written to one another.

It is the psychological longing to have my pain and contribution fully recognised by the colleagues who endured all-nighters with me every day, regardless of the company's official incentives or appraisals.

It is a humane view of labour: that the reward of labour is completed not only by monetary compensation but within the sincere mutual recognition and celebration of colleagues who sweated together.

The collegiality and the moments of warm consolation toward each other that bloom in a working life where one is easily used up like a part of the organisation are vivid.

It may become the management's indulgence for replacing the just material reward that ought to be given, such as an ample special bonus or a substitute day off, with a sentimental party of recognition.

There is a risk of covering the essential rights of improved working conditions and monetary reward with the warmth of private collegiality.

Would not taking a day of annual leave tomorrow and having a performance bonus land in one's bank account be the surest celebration for a worker, rather than an emotional event such as rolling papers?

Individual: what is the experience of the grievance and tears of the past 6 months melting away on reading a colleague's sentence, 'Your slides back then saved me'? Relationship: what is the solidarity like that is formed in the moment when colleagues easily split by competition and evaluation embrace each other's vulnerability and applaud each other sincerely? Society: in a society where overtime and overwork are routine, how is a workplace innovation possible that institutionally guarantees mandatory recovery leave and health check-ups after a project is completed? Other lives: what is the celebration of a pack like when a pack of hyenas or lions that has finished a hunt successfully put their heads together, purring, and share the joy of success? Planet: what would the slowing of the planet's resource consumption be like when the treadmill of endless production and growth is stopped and workers enjoy the reward of work and rest in balance? Distant future: when human managers celebrate meeting production targets together with robots in a fully automated factory, how will the meaning of human labour be celebrated?

Why is a colleague who does different work in a corner of the studio yet eats lunch together a support?

How does small exchange shared while working separately in the same space help the strength to work?

Hypothetical situation: in a shared studio by day, a twenty-nine-year-old video worker is doing subtitle work. Sharing a packed lunch with the illustrator at the next desk, the worker talks about where the work is stuck.

As someone who works alone, the worker wants to know how to work leaning on the colleague nearby.

It holds that light exchange in the same space eases the loneliness of working alone.

The question remains of whether small exchange in the same space helps the strength to work.

The concrete workplace scene, such as the shared studio, the subtitle work and the sharing of packed lunches, disappears.

It draws exchange between colleagues only as support and cannot hold discomforts such as rivalry and noise.

Is light exchange not rather breaking the flow of work that needs concentration?

As an individual, how might the conversation over one lunch lighten the shoulders of the afternoon's work? As a society, how might a space for working together connect people who work alone? As humankind, what if the sight of working separately and helping became a new culture of work? As life, what if it resembled the ways of a herd that seeks food separately yet keeps close? As a planet, what if a place to gather and work, with less commuting, became a kind of breath? As a universe, what if it felt like a constellation in which each shines yet all are gathered together?

When making a paper pencil holder with a colleague to hold the pencils scattered on the desk, what might one choose first between sturdiness and good looks?

What vitality does decorating one's workplace by hand give?

Hypothetical situation: in a corner of the office at lunchtime, two colleagues roll thick paper to make a pencil holder and compare ways of gluing the bottom.

The wish to gain a little vitality by tending the workspace by hand

The fixed idea that office supplies are neater bought and that work goes better that way

The care of tending the workplace by hand and the thought given to choices remain

The jokes shared while rolling and gluing paper at lunchtime and the smell of glue drop out

If one counts efficiency alone, the value of the short rest and the laughter of making it together is hidden

Even if the bottom wobbles a little, if there is pleasure in putting the pencils in every morning, is the satisfaction of having made it oneself not enough?

How will the mind for work change each time I put a pencil in the pencil holder I made? If a colleague's way of gluing differs from mine, how might we mix them and make it more fun? If handmade objects multiply in every office, how will the working atmosphere soften? For the small dust that lives in the gaps of the pencil holder, what kind of cave is the grain of the paper? What slack might the choice to make rather than buy give the planet's factories and roads? If people still make paper pencil holders in the workplaces of the distant future, what story will that touch carry?