arbeitsauszüge ...

personal perspective...

While trying to get into the discussion about work during the past days, as this topic will accompany me for the next weeks it began to dawn on me that work has to do a lot with my identity. My work can tell who I am and when asking me about my work I will talk about myself. I admit, with my actual job this is a special case. Actually this is more than a job, in which working hours, creative project developing sessions with friends, discussing about development cooperation, drumming on demonstrations, reading books and articles about political philosophy or development blur in view of my personal interests. Being so much into all these activities makes it hard for me to draw the line between work and personal interests that I follow voluntarily in my free time. I am lucky! My work corresponds to my interests in a way that some things, even if I did not get paid for them, I would do them anyway. In my concept of living, my picture I have of my identity the identification with my work is very important! I will die somehow by being limited in my creativity by being forced to do boring things, to stick to too many rules and a too narrow structure. Within my little world I have found my concept of work that allows me to flow with my interests and to realize plans I dream of. And I do all this – and this is the best about it – together with my friends!

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my personal concept of work...

1) Work is a creative process. It is the flow of my ideas and the making something out of it. Work allows me to leave a personal mark in every project and on every place I am active. Work allows me to satisfy the needs of self fulfilment.[1] Without doing something I cannot change anything in my environment. Without work I cannot use my creative skills neither the skills I learned during my studies. My ideal work is one I can totally dive into; in which things happen directly out of my creativity.[2] Work motivates and gives sense to human lives. I once had a very bad working situation, right after finishing my studies. I was employed in a hammock store. My only task was to sell hammocks. Although I love hammocks I was not challenged at all and got very unhappy with my whole life situation. This experience was traumatic to me and I really appreciate it to feel well and challenged with my job. At that moment I was even not able to fulfil the small tasks the shop demanded. Having a satisfying job is a precondition for a good life[3] and personal development.

2) Work is the base for economic survival. Gainful employment[4] (German: Erwerbsarbeit) is a word which is very important in our society. The background is capitalist thinking; of course, we all need money to survive. We all need employment to earn money. Gainful occupation is a type of employment that determines our daily life. In societies in which survival is based on money, and thus on employment, every human being is dependent on work. Without work we do not earn money and we cannot survive! Wealth is usually measured by productivity in capitalist societies. The gross national product tells us how much we produce per year. The national production level is the sum of work achieved by every human being! The economy is dependent on work because of productivity and human beings are dependent on work because of money. Unemployment is a constant threat to economies. The absence of work leads to poverty, thinking in terms of national economy as well as regarding the individual level. Important in this discussion is the question of insurance which in Austria is linked to employment and income. The absence of work means having to carry the risk for health expenditures oneself.

3) Work is the base for social networks and social being. Work defines to a large extent with whom I spend a lot of time. The amount of money I earn defines –amongst other things- my recreational activities and hobbies. When I do not earn money I cannot afford going to the cinema or eating out. Without work I would probably be lonely. Many people who are jobless for a longer time are excluded from social life (stigmatisiert)[5]. By choosing a work/job we also choose our social surroundings and possibilities. By choosing a job we choose the place where to stay, the centre of our lives. I have this wonderful opportunity of having partner organisations of the youth exchange program in India and El Salvador. I was fortunate to travel there to visit them and take part in the exchange program. Having the intercultural peace studies environment around me means a lot to me. “So I am lucky, living in a country where these premises where given, I grew up in stable Austrian conditions with my loving family, always had enough of everything with the most support I could get, graduated from university and got every kind of education I wanted to. So I could get the best support to develop my skills and abilities, the most

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work in my culture...

Austria is usually associated with mountains, music, skiing, good food, special sweets, and beautiful landscape. The country’s typical inhabitants are said to know how to do the typical dances, Walzer and Polka, to know how to sing or even to sing Jodler[1], to know how to ski, to be responsible, hardworking, money-savers, reliable and usually catholic. In Vienna there is a long tradition of complaining about ones life and about ones neighbors after all. Vienna, the city itself, of course is associated with the emperors, especially with Kaiser Franz Josef who constructed many important and luxury buildings in Vienna and his charming wife Sissi, around whom the most glamorous stories are told and all kind of trash (Kitsch) imaginable is produced.

So all of this does not mean much to me, neither is it useful for the discussion about the notion development in this context. Well, I am an average dancer and I love to sing, whereas my jodel-skills have never been developed. I find Vienna nice, but too rich and glamorous, lacking an old town where people sit on the squares and music is played in the streets. I hate to dress up typically with Dirndl[2], which sometimes was necessary for a performance with my Choir. I am quite good at skiing; of course I love to eat Austrian cakes and biscuits and can also bake quite good ones. I love the mountains, hiking, I feel happy when the train passes by the landscape that is really beautiful, at least one half of the year when everything is green and the sun shines. I like to complain about the Viennese culture of complaining, about the attitude that everything is bad anyway, and it is always the fault of somebody else. Currently, the news of the crime that one man closed in his family in the basement and threatened and harmed them badly is spread all over the world. Newspapers write as if in every Austrian basement people were locked in and raped. Beside this journalistic nonsense, to my mind there is something true about the fact that Austrian civil society is not very developed. As I am in the leading committee of attac[3] Austria, a political non governmental organization, this fact makes me think a lot. There is something true about it that everybody lives for her/himself and nobody wants to really care for the life of others, neither wants to really look at it. At this point I see a big potential to change something, to do work to enforce Austrians´ moral courage. I wanted to express my thoughts about this current topic, I think it has a lot to do with Austrian culture in fact. And the aim to contribute to the strengthening of Austrian civil society is also a motivation for my own work.

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