While perusing the latest URLS making the rounds in the last week, I came on something interesting: Strange Horizon's Fiction Submission Guidelines, specifically #13:
13. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.
Strange Horizons, obviously, has a large number of people writing about their office lives as being "soul-deadening". I suspect, although I could not say for an absolute, that quite a few of these people are writing about this because their lives contain such situations. I myself was putting together a book about the subject, until I realized I really didn't have much to say about it yet.
But I'm in a quandry: simply put, office life is soul-deadening, but it's so commonly well known, it's a cliche.
Why?
I'm not trying to ask this as someone who has an answer. I'm not trying to ask this question to right an injustice. I'm just asking, why is it... maybe not OK, but acceptable or pardonable... for offices to be places we dread so much? And is it any better for non-office spaces?
Comments welcome and appreciated on this.
Posted by Ted Stevko at May 9, 2004 03:12 PM | TrackBack