Work was invented.
It can be reinvented.
Tracing the origins of the practices, words, and systems the world takes for granted.
1640
Boss
1803
Career
1813
Performance Review
1889
Retirement Age
1926
The Weekend
1956
Mondragon
2006
Buurtzorg
Etymology
Career
From a Roman racetrack to a life plan
Latin, French, English
Invention
The Performance Review
A military invention that became everyone's annual anxiety
United States
Case Study
Mondragon Corporation
80,000 workers who own the tenth-largest company in Spain
Basque Country
Every word has an architect.
Thinker
Mary Parker Follett
She described modern management in 1920, and nobody listened until 1980
United States, 1868-1933
Etymology
Salary
The Roman salt myth everyone repeats and almost no historian believes
Latin, French, English
1926
The year Henry Ford gave workers Saturday off, not for their sake, but because rested people buy more cars.
Invention
The Weekend
Henry Ford gave workers Saturday off because rested people buy more cars
United States
Thinker
Frederick Winslow Taylor
He believed work could be measured to hundredths of a minute
United States, 1856-1915
Case Study
Buurtzorg
15,000 nurses, zero middle managers, highest patient satisfaction in the Netherlands
Netherlands
None of this had to happen this way.
Etymology
Boss
A word America invented because the alternative carried the weight of slavery
Dutch, English
Invention
The Open-Plan Office
A 1958 German experiment in democracy that became a tool for watching people work
Germany
Thinker
Erich Fromm
He argued that an entire civilization could be sick and not know it
Germany, United States
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Follow the thread
Who decided that your working life should have a shape?
Five entries that trace one assumption from its origin to its consequences.
Career The Promotion Ladder Frederick Winslow Taylor Mondragon Corporation Vocation
When did rest become something you had to earn?
Four entries on the invention of time off.
Retire The Weekend Otto von Bismarck Danish Flexicurity
The Japanese word nariwai (生業) combines the characters for life and work as one undivided concept. English does not have that word. Nariway is the reason it exists now.
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