Stiff Smiles

In December 2012, LifeTouch: Perspectives & Reflections, an online journal produced during Maribor's status as the European Capital of Culture (or rather, European Culture of Capital) came to a close. UMco published a selection of columns from the journal in a book entitled The State of Matters: Anthology of Perspectives & Reflections.


The anthology includes the (unauthorized) English translation of my last column written for them. The Slovene version, Togi nasmehi, was included in Stanje stvari: Antologija Perspektiv & refleksij (Ljubljana: UMco, 2012, pp. 82-85), the one in English can be read below.


Stiff Smiles 
Two years ago at a flea market, I bought a journal published in honor of the 35th anniversary of the establishment of the Iskra Kranj work organization. As it often happens to occasional publishers, they forgot to equip the booklet with the year, but I had no difficulty in guessing that the journal stemmed from socialist times. A modest cover, socialist self-management language, grainy photographs: everything had the aroma of age. I spent the majority of the time staring at photographs of the work collectives. There were dozens of them with a group of twenty, thirty workers in work robes awkwardly posing under the neon lights. The bulk of their bodies blocked the view of the conveyer belt in the background of a large hall.

It reminded me how long it has been since I saw a group photograph of work. I can verify that there are none in the daily newspapers. These days, the pages dedicated to careers and employment mostly show independent entrepreneurs, usually ones that started from nothing or created a new market niche. Team work is represented by photographs of three or four people sitting behind their laptops smiling sweetly. They are dressed in a business manner: no blue robes, no workman’s shoes. And no one is over thirty. I thought, I do not have any group photos from my workplace, even though I have gone through many – if the term workplace is even suitable for short-term project jobs that are paid through a student order form or a copyright contract.

The fact that photographs of working collectives have been replaced by images of project teams really should not surprise me. With whom are you to be photographed, if you are a contractual worker and jobs (even that word does not seem appropriate) come and go? With whom, if your co-workers are constantly changing? And with whom, if you work from the employer’s home or even in your own room? When I am not working alone, I am jumping between projects, which are usually so intense that there is no time for informal socializing with co-workers and if there is any spare time, I do not really want to spend it with them. They are interesting, but with every project I wonder: why keep meeting always new people that will go their separate ways after the work is done and the group has dissolved. If we ever meet again, the circumstances will most likely be just as intense. We will ask each other, what is new without knowing the prequel, without knowing what was old. This superficiality, new beginnings, this running in place: it is exhausting.

With the Iskra journal in my hands, I tried to imagine the image capturing my work experience. As it appeared before my eyes, I saw the perfect flexible worker. In it, I was alone, sitting at my computer, which, together with my cellphone and an old-fashioned paper notebook, represents my mobile office. I was surrounded by unrecognizable traces of people, rushing through the shot. The prints of those who stopped for a chat for a moment were clearer, but still looked like ghosts from emails, accidentally finding themselves in real space.

Sociologist Richard Sennett states that one the characteristics of flexible forms of work that started establishing themselves in the west during the seventies and in the early nineties in post-socialist countries is a short-term orientation (instead of a long-term one), encouraging competitiveness (instead of solidarity) and social exclusion (instead of inclusion). In places where people are still sharing a work space, the teams are smaller and the sense of community is weaker due to the constant rotation of workers. It simply takes time to develop mutual trust, loyalty and firmer bonds. The fact that workers perform the same work under different conditions and for different pay in the same company only further diminishes the possibility of a collective forming that would join forces to resist the pressures with more ease. It is not difficult to imagine that it is easiest to manipulate with unconnected workers, who, on top of everything else, compete among each other.

Sennett lists a variety of reasons why the term collective has been replaced in manager manuals with terminology (but not ethics as well), characteristic of group sports, where there the used term is team. The main reason is, of course, ideological, as the declared wish for collaboration and cooperation is merely a front, behind which the demand for rivalry is hidden. Instead of workers defending their interests to their bosses, they fight against each other. Even the control over the effectiveness and discipline of the co-workers (similar to our own diligence) is of late being done by ourselves as well.

So, what kind of co-worker or team player do flexible work teams require? They expect a person with distance who is aware that the work is of a temporary nature and therefore concentrates only on it and not on the co-workers, with which the worker could form certain kinds of relations. A flexible teammate cannot afford to feel mutual affection, least any grudges, betrayal or jealousy. Since the person cultivates a certain ironic distance towards everyone and everything, they can work with anyone and can immediately join a new team. They will listen and with a smile advise every teammate who plays by the set rules. They move between the projects, teams and individuals like between the windows on a computer screen. Since only the present counts, only the visible results of a recently completed work, a good teammate does not cite past experience. If they do, they risk ridicule: experience means someone must be inflexible – and old.

The only skill a flexible player must master is transitive: they must be able to play anywhere, anytime and with whom ever in accordance with the declared sport ethics. During this, they must bear the mask of cooperativeness and the mask of egalitarianism, which are to conceal the actual balance of power between the workers and their subordination to the boss. The latter no longer commands, but only “directs” the work process. If the directors used to use the argument of power, the project managers and coaches now claim that “we are all in the same boat”. When the boat starts sinking, right before splitting, the most cynical among them dare to say that they were equally hurt by the storm as their workers. The worker, who only lethargically shrugs the shoulders upon hearing this and starts looking for a new job, embodies the ideal of flexibility. May he be bent over and over, he will always bounce back. This kind of player is a player in the theatrical, not a sport sense. He wears a convincing mask, a bright smile and—most importantly—shuts up.

I do not know what kind of terminology was used to substantiate the work discipline in socialism, but the fact remains that the long-term employment ensured a high level of trust and solidarity among the workers, as it offered them safety and social inclusion. People could be proud of their experience, because the company would reward a job well done, even if a person advanced to higher paying levels more slowly – or did not advance at all. Since the moral prestige of work was so great, your loved ones would respect you no matter if you were content with your work or not. Since your time was organized by institutions that seemed immortal, you could string your own life story it them, given meaning by the permanent social relations.

Nowadays, the role of the character test is represented by the willingness to take risks. Even though you realize that the chances of you being selected from the hundreds of candidates, who applied to the same position, are very minute, everyone keeps encouraging you to keep trying. Every time I turned down an offer for a project job that was more prestigious than the job I was currently doing, but the promised pay for it was less and was less reliable, some or other well-meaning acquaintance would pop up to say in amazement: “You could have at least tried it, you deserve more!” I tried to explain to her to no avail that they were offering me a sham, that it was pure lottery. It was more important that I “move on”, even though that would mean consenting to worse working conditions. Clinging to work, perceived as poorly paid or boring, means you must be a bore and an idiot who does not want change and success. The thought of someone being content with what they have is unacceptable.

While leafing through the Iskra journal, everything stated above made it difficult to resist the urge to idealize the working conditions in socialism. You cannot choose a better place for that than the flea market. What do I look for there, if not for patches for my nostalgia? Well, it was somewhat more difficult to romanticize the price the workers had to pay in the state socialism for their long-term safety: Sennett claims it involved sacrificing either their freedom or their individuality; that the “iron cast” of the large, complex and rigid institutions were simultaneously a prison and a home.

The workers in the group photos did appear uniform and stiff. At first I only perceived a cluster of bodies, robbed of their individuality and intimacy. After I started looking for these, I of course found them. At first, I noticed two workers on a photograph from the spinnery (Iskra was a textile factory up to World War II, employing mostly women). They must be close: they are casually sitting on the floor, leaning on each other. Another photograph of the same department is diagonally crossed by a long look. Two workers on each end are silently sharing a titillating secret. A photograph of the weaving room surprised me because of the girls with their proto-punkish hairstyles. They are staring at the photographer so proudly and angrily that I had to avert my eyes. A woman in the first row stands out from a photograph with at least fifty people. She is pointing her finger at a serious-looking man beside her, laughing cheekily at him. On another photograph, I noticed the difference between the women, sitting with their legs squeezed together, their hand folded in their laps, and the worker, sitting next to her co-workers in a mannish manner. There is another girl who has snuck into the shot: while the collective diligently poses, she is peaking from behind some contraption and making grimaces. Another girl appears to be so unhappy that I wish someone could take her out of the factory and pay her college tuition, so that as a grown woman she could afford the nylons that are running away from her now: she works on a conveyer belt in the synthetics spinnery. A skinny looking boy is standing beside her, trying to look manlier, standing up straight, with spread legs and his hands placed on his narrow hips.

The longer I stared at the photographs, the more details I noticed, the more stories and connections between the unknown faces. There were no details on my fictitious photographs of my work experience. Not even a background. You, I decided at the flea market, will be my historical memory, my background for the group photo I am unable to take. If I ever feel truly bad, I will cut my face from a photograph with no background and glue it among your faces. I will make a black-and-white photograph, so that my colorful face blends in with yours.

I asked the lady selling the journal about its price. It was not cheap, she wanted five euro for it. I started haggling, saying I would cut it up for collages anyway. She did not like that prospect at all. She said it was not just any booklet; it contained a picture of her father, who worked at Iskra his entire life. I tried to rescue myself from this embarrassment by asking her to show me his picture. I expected that the journal would automatically open on the right page, but the lady had to look for it for a while. Her father was not posing in a collective; he was alone in the picture. He was not actually posing; he was photographed during his work with the machine, which was the second most common type of portraits that only started to appear in the second half of the journal, dedicated to the seventies and the ushering of new technologies. If the workers abandoned their work on the older photos to pose in a group photo, the newer photographs depicted the workers while working – from the back or from the side. I am not sure whether that was because photographing had become so commonplace by then and the work process was not allowed to stop for every trifle, but the moment the lady showed me the photograph of her father, his machine looked back at me instead of him; the same machine that in a few years made him redundant as a “technological excess”.

I did not have the heart to start haggling again. Or the courage to turn down something so personal. Only after I was home, did I think how strange it was that the lady was selling the book at all. If she were truly attached to the booklet, she would not be selling it. She obviously had a mountain of extra copies left. Of was she proud of the fact that her father, a manual laborer, appeared in a real book? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I actually purchased a patch for my own nostalgia. The lady set the price to my, not her emotions. From that aspect, I convinced myself, that the book was actually quite inexpensive.

A short while ago, while reading Sennett's The Culture of the New Capitalism (2008), the Iskra journal found its way into my hands again. This time I decided the lady must not have insisted on the relatively high price because of her own attachment to the journal or her father, but the meaning he ascribed to his work identity. The work identity corresponded to the best character features in his time; it included responsibility and sacrifice, care for others, solidarity to the co-workers, loyalty to the company and the ability of planning a person’s own future. I thought how unlikely it was that his fifty year-old daughter can combine the listed values, if they even are values to her, with the demands of her work environment. The flexible job, if she even has one, dictates her sloppiness, distance, risk, mobility. Therefore, when she wishes for safety, she feels old. When she wishes or permanent relationships and stability, she feels like a coward. When she commits herself to her work completely, she is regarded as naive, when she tries more than necessary, she gets the feeling of being foolish. When she tries to construct her own life story from countless fragments, she feels like she has nothing to lean on. Sometimes she feels like she does not even exist. How is she to face all this uncertainty? Should she take to intimacy? I wonder whether the lady from the flea market has to try not to idealize those photographs either, even if they seem more restrictive than they seemed to the people on the photographs.


Translated by Živa Malovrh.
First published on the LifeTouch portal on October 2nd 2012.

Togi nasmehi

Pred dvema letoma sem na bolšjem trgu kupila zbornik, izdan ob 35-letnici ustanovitve delovne organizacije Iskra Kranj. Kot se pogosto zgodi priložnostnim izdajateljem, so knjigo pozabili opremiti z letnico izida, a kljub temu ni bilo težko uganiti, da je zbornik iz socialističnih časov. Skromna naslovnica, jezik samoupravljanja, zrnate fotografije – vse je dišalo po starem. Najdlje sem strmela v fotografije delovnih kolektivov. Bilo jih je na desetine in na vsaki je pod neonsko svetlobo togo pozirala skupina dvajsetih, tridesetih delavcev, oblečenih v delovne halje. Z gmoto svojih teles so zakrivali pogled na tekoči trak v ozadju velike hale. 

Opomnili so me, da že dolgo nisem videla skupinske fotografije z dela. V dnevnem časopisju jih preverjeno ni. Na straneh, posvečenih karieri in zaposlovanju, dandanes pozirajo samostojni podjetniki, najraje taki, ki so začeli iz nič ali ustvarili novo tržno nišo. Teamsko delo zastopajo fotografije treh ali štirih ljudi, ki sedijo ob prenosniku in se sladko smehljajo. Oblečeni so poslovno: nobenih modrih halj, nobenih delavskih čevljev. In nihče ni starejši od trideset let. Pomislila sem, da tudi sama nimam nobene gasilske fotografije z delovnega mesta, čeprav sem jih zamenjala že veliko – če je izraz delovno mesto sploh primeren za kratkoročna projektna dela, ki so plačana na študentsko napotnico ali avtorsko pogodbo.

To, da so fotografije delovnih kolektivov zamenjale podobe projektnih ekip, me v resnici ne bi smelo čuditi. S kom se boš slikal, če si pogodbeni delavec in službe (tudi ta beseda se ne zdi primerna) menjaš kot po tekočem traku? S kom, če se tvoji sodelavci ves čas menjajo? In s kom, če delaš na domu plačnika ali kar v svoji sobi? Kadar ne delam sama, skačem med projekti, ki so običajno tako intenzivni, da ni časa za neformalno druženje s sodelavci, če pa mi ga kaj ostane, ga niti nočem preživeti z njimi. Zanimivi so, a pri vsakem projektu se sprašujem, zakaj bi spoznavala vedno nove ljudi, ki bodo po zaključenem delu, ko se bo skupina razpustila, zopet odšli po svojih poteh. Če se bomo še kdaj srečali, bodo okoliščine po vsej verjetnosti enako intenzivne. Vprašali bomo drug drugega, kaj je novega, ne da bi poznali predzgodbo, ne da bi vedeli, kaj je bilo starega. Ta površnost, novi začetki, ta tek na mestu – utrujajo.

Z Iskrinim zbornikom v rokah sem si skušala predstavljati fotografijo, ki bi zajela moje delovne izkušnje. Ko se mi je prikazala pred očmi, sem zagledala popolno fleksibilno delavko. Na njej sem bila sama, sedela sem za računalnikom, ki vred s prenosnim telefonom in staromodno papirnato beležko predstavlja mojo mobilno pisarno. Obkrožale so me nerazpoznavne sledi ljudi, ki so hiteli čez kader. Odtisi tistih, ki so se za hip ustavili na klepet, so bili jasnejši, a še vedno so bili videti kakor duhovi iz elektronske pošte, ki so se pomotoma znašli v resničnem prostoru.

Sociolog Richard Sennett pravi, da je za fleksibilne oblike dela, ki so se na zahodu začele uveljavljati v sedemdesetih letih, v postsocialističnih državah pa v začetku devetdesetih, značilna kratkoročna usmerjenost (namesto dolgoročne), spodbujanje tekmovalnosti (namesto solidarnosti) in socialna izključenost (namesto vključenosti). Tam, kjer si ljudje še delijo delovni prostor, so ekipe manjše, občutek skupnosti pa je šibkejši že zaradi nenehnega menjanja delavcev. Za medsebojno zaupanje, lojalnost in trdnejše vezi je pač potreben čas. Dejstvo, da v istem podjetju ali javni instituciji delavci enako delo opravljajo pod različnimi pogoji in za različno plačilo še dodatno zmanjšuje možnost za nastanek kolektivov, ki bi se s skupnimi močmi lažje uprli pritiskom. Ni si težko predstavljati, da je najlažje manipulirati z nepovezanimi delavci, ki vrh vsega tekmujejo med sabo.

Sennett navaja vrsto razlogov, zakaj je izraz kolektiv v menedžerskih priročnikih in praksi zamenjala terminologija (ne pa tudi etika), ki je značilna za skupinske športe, kjer je govora o ekipah, teamih in moštvih. Glavni razlog je seveda ideološki, saj je deklarirana želja po sodelovanju in kooperativnosti zgolj kulisa, za katero se skriva zahteva po rivalstvu. Namesto da bi delavci svoje interese branili pred šefi, se borijo drug proti drugemu. Tudi nadzor nad učinkovitostjo in discipliniranostjo sodelavcev (podobno kot nad lastno pridnostjo) po novem izvajamo kar sami.

Kakšnega sodelavca oziroma soigralca torej zahtevajo fleksibilne delovne ekipe? Pričakujejo človeka z distanco, ki se zaveda, da je delo začasne narave, zato se posveča samo njemu, ne pa tudi sodelavcem, s katerimi bi se kaj hitro lahko zapletel v takšne ali drugačne odnose. Fleksibilen soigralec si ne more privoščiti medosebne naklonjenosti, kaj šele zamer, izdaj ali nevoščljivosti. Ker do vsega in vseh goji ironično distanco, lahko dela s komerkoli in se nemudoma vključi v nov team. Z nasmehom na ustnicah bo prisluhnil in svetoval vsakemu soigralcu, ki se bo držal omenjenih pravil. Med projekti, ekipami in posamezniki se premika kakor med okni na računalniškem ekranu. Ker šteje samo sedanjost, samo vidni rezultati pravkar opravljenega dela, se dober soigralec ne sklicuje na pretekle izkušnje. Če to stori, tvega posmeh: kdor ima izkušnje, je gotovo neprilagodljiv – in star.

Edina veščina, ki jo mora fleksibilen igralec obvladati, je prenosljiva: kjerkoli, kadarkoli in s komerkoli mora znati igrati v skladu z deklarirano športno etiko. Pri tem mora nositi masko kooperativnosti in masko egalitarnosti, ki naj prikrijeta dejanska razmerja moči med delavci ter njihovo podrejenost šefu. Slednji nič več ne ukazuje, temveč zgolj "usmerja" delovni proces. Če so direktorji nastopali z argumentom moči, vodje projektov in trenerji zdaj trdijo, da "smo vsi v istem čolnu". Ko se čoln začne potapljati, si najbolj cinični med njimi tik preden jo popihajo še drznejo reči, da jih je vihar prizadel v enaki meri kot delavce. Delavec, ki ob tem le letargično skomigne z rameni in si začne iskati novo službo, uteleša ideal fleksibilnosti. Naj ga trenerji še tako upogibajo, vedno se bo pobral. Takšen delavec je igralec v gledališkem, ne v športnem pomenu besede. Nosi prepričljivo masko, širok nasmeh in - najpomembneje - molči.

Ne vem, s kakšnim izrazjem so utemeljevali delovno disciplino v socializmu, a dejstvo je, da je dolgoročna zaposlitev zagotavljala visoko raven zaupanja in solidarnosti med delavci, saj jim je nudila varnost in socialno vključenost. Ljudje so bili lahko ponosni na svoje izkušnje, ker je podjetje dobro opravljeno delo nagrajevalo, četudi je človek v višje plačilne razrede napredoval počasi – ali pa sploh ni napredoval. Ker je bil moralni prestiž dela tako velik, so te tvoji bližnji spoštovali ne glede na to, ali si bil s svojim delom sam zadovoljen ali ne. Ker so tvoj čas organizirale institucije, ki so se zdele večne, si v njihov okvir lahko vpel svojo življenjsko zgodbo, ki so jo osmišljala trajna družbena razmerja.

Danes vlogo značajskega preizkusa igra pripravljenost na tveganje. Četudi veš, da so tvoje možnosti, da te bodo izbrali med stotinami kandidatov, ki so se prijavili na isto delovno mesto, zelo majhna, te vsi spodbujajo k temu, da vedno znova poskušaš. Vedno ko sem zavrnila ponudbo za projektno delo, ki je bilo bolj prestižno od dela, ki ga opravljam sicer, a je bilo obljubljeno plačilo zanj manjše in še bolj nezanesljivo, se je našla ta ali ona dobronamerna znanka, ki mi je začudeno rekla: "Lahko bi vsaj poskusila, zaslužiš si več!" Zaman sem ji razlagala, da mi ponujajo mačka v žaklju, da gre za čisto loterijo. Bolj pomembno je bilo, da se "premaknem naprej", pa čeprav bi to pomenilo, da pristajam na slabše pogoje dela. Če se oklepaš dela, ki velja za slabo plačano ali dolgočasno, si skratka dolgočasnež in neumnež, ki si ne želi sprememb in uspeha. Misel, da bi bil nekdo zadovoljen s tem, kar ima, je nesprejemljiva.

Ko sem listala po Iskrinem zborniku, se je bilo zaradi vsega naštetega težko upreti želji po idealiziranju delovnih pogojev v socializmu. Boljšega prostora kot je bolšji trg si za to res ne bi mogla izbrati. Po kaj hodim tja, če ne po obliže za nostalgijo? No, nekoliko težje je bilo romantizirati ceno, ki so jo delavci v državnem socializmu morali plačati za dolgoročno varnost: Sennett trdi, da je bilo v ta namen treba žrtvovati bodisi svobodo bodisi individualnost; da je bil "železni oklep" velikih, zapletenih in rigidnih institucij obenem ječa in dom.

Delavci na skupinskih fotografijah so res delovali uniformno in togo. Sprva sem videla samo gmoto teles, oropano individualnosti in intimnosti. Ko sem ju začela iskati, sem ju seveda našla. Najprej sem opazila delavki na fotografiji iz predilnice (do druge svetovne vojne je bila Iskra tekstilna tovarna, ki je zaposlovala povečini ženske). Očitno sta si bili blizu: sproščeno sedita na tleh in se naslanjata druga na drugo. Neko drugo fotografijo z istega oddelka diagonalno preči dolg pogled. Delavki na skrajnih koncih skupine si molče izmenjujeta skrivnost, ki draži. Na fotografiji iz sukalnice so me presenetile punce s protopankovskimi frizurami. V fotografa zrejo tako ponosno in jezno, da sem odmaknila oči. Na fotografiji z vsaj petdesetimi ljudmi izstopa ženska v prvi vrsti. S prstom kaže na resnobnega moškega ob sebi in se porogljivo smeji. Na neki drugi fotografiji je opazna razlika med ženskami, ki sedijo stisnjenih nog, z rokami, sklenjenimi v naročju, in delavko, ki sedi "po moško". Tu je še dekle, ki se je pritihotapilo v kader: medtem ko kolektiv zbrano pozira, kuka izza neke naprave in se pači. Neko drugo dekle je videti tako nesrečno, da si želim, da bi ga nekdo odpeljal iz tovarne in mu plačal šolanje, da bi si kot odrasla ženska lahko privoščila najlonke, ki zdaj bežijo pred njo – dela na tekočem traku v predilnici sintetike. Ob njej stoji suhljat fant, ki se trudi, da bi deloval možato: stoji zravnano, z razkrečenimi nogami in rokami, uprtimi v ozke boke.

Dlje sem strmela v fotografije, več je bilo podrobnosti, več zgodb in povezav med neznanimi obrazi. Na izmišljeni fotografiji mojih delovnih izkušenj ni bilo detajlov. Tudi ozadja ne. Vi, sem sklenila na bolšjem trgu, boste moj zgodovinski spomin, moje ozadje za skupinsko fotografijo, ki je ne morem posneti. Če mi bo kdaj resnično hudo, bom svoj obraz izrezala iz fotografije brez ozadja in ga prilepila med vaše. Naredila bom črnobelo fotokopijo, da se bo moj barvni obraz zlil z vašimi.

Gospo, ki je prodajala zbornik, sem vprašala za ceno. Ni bil poceni, zanj je hotela imeti pet evrov. Začela sem barantati, rekoč da ga bom tako ali tako razrezala za kolaže. To ji ni bilo prav nič všeč. Rekla je, da to ni katerakoli knjiga; v njej je na sliki njen oče, ki je vse življenje delal v Iskri. Iz zadrege sem se skušala izvleči s prošnjo, naj mi pokaže njegovo fotografijo. Pričakovala sem, da se bo zbornik sam od sebe odprl na pravi strani, a je gospa dolgo listala, preden jo je našla. Njen oče ni poziral v kolektivu, na fotografiji je bil sam. Pravzaprav ni poziral, slikali so ga med delom ob stroju, kar je bila druga najpogostejša vrsta portretov, ki so se začeli pojavljati šele v drugi polovici zbornika, posvečeni sedemdesetim in uvajanju novih tehnologij. Če so na starejših fotografijah delavci pustili delo, da bi lahko pozirali po gasilsko, so na novejših delavce ob strojih slikali kar med delom – v hrbet ali s profila. Ne vem, če je bilo tako zato, ker je bilo takrat fotografiranje že nekaj povsem običajnega in se delovni proces pač ni smel ustaviti zaradi vsake neumnosti, a v trenutku, ko mi je gospa pokazala fotografijo svojega očeta, je vame namesto njega pogledal njegov stroj; tisti stroj, ki ga je najbrž čez nekaj let odpravil kot "tehnološki višek".

Nisem imela srca, da bi spet začela barantati. Tudi poguma, da bi zavrnila nekaj tako osebnega, ne. Šele doma sem pomislila, da je čudno, da je gospa knjigo sploh prodajala. Če bi bila nanjo resnično navezana, je ne bi. Očitno je imela na zalogi še goro izvodov. Ali pa je bila ponosna na dejstvo, da se je njen oče, navaden manualni delavec, pojavil v čisto pravi knjigi? Bolj sem razmišljala, bolj jasno mi je bilo, da sem v resnici kupila obliž za svojo lastno nostalgijo. Gospa je ceno postavila mojim, ne svojim čustvom. S tega vidika, sem se prepričevala, je bila knjiga pravzaprav dokaj poceni.

Pred kratkim, ob branju Sennettove Kulture novega kapitalizma (2008), se je Iskrin zbornik ponovno znašel v mojih rokah. Tokrat sem sklenila, da gospa pri relativno visoki ceni ni vztrajala zaradi svoje navezanosti na zbornik ali očeta, temveč zaradi pomena, ki ga je svoji delovni identiteti pripisoval on. Delovna identiteta se je v njegovih časih skladala z najboljšimi značajskimi potezami, vključevala je odgovornost in požrtvovalnost, skrb za druge, solidarnost s sodelavci, lojalnost podjetju in sposobnost načrtovanja lastne prihodnosti. Pomislila sem, da je malo verjetno, da njegova petdesetletna hčerka naštete vrednote, če so to zanjo vrednote, danes lahko združi z zahtevami svojega delovnega okolja. Fleksibilno delo, če ga sploh ima, ji zapoveduje površnost, distanco, tveganje, mobilnost. Zato se ji takrat, ko si zaželi varnosti, zdi, da je stara. Ko si zaželi trajnih odnosov in stalnosti, se ji zdi, da je strahopetna. Ko se povsem preda delu, obvelja za naivno, ko se potrudi bolj kot bi bilo treba, dobi občutek, da ravna neumno. Ko iz neštetih drobcev skuša sestaviti svojo življenjsko zgodbo, se ji zdi, da je nima na kaj opreti. Včasih se ji zdi, da sploh ne obstaja. Kako naj se spopade z vso to negotovostjo? Naj se zateče v intimnost?

Sprašujem se, če se mora tudi gospa z bolšjega trga truditi, da ne bi idealizirala tistih fotografij, pa čeprav se ji zdijo bolj utesnjujoče kot so se zdele ljudem na fotografijah. 

Prvič objavljeno na portalu Življenje na dotik (EPK Maribor 2012) 29. junija 2012.