Quote by Sam Byers

“But what aren't you doing already? What more can you possibly do?’ ‘I guess he means the team stuff’, I said. ‘The bonding. The camaraderie I've never really been –‘. ‘Don't start judging yourself’, she said sharply. ‘Don't start seeing yourself in the light of those kinds of standards.’ ‘No, but it's true. There's always been the part of work I've struggled with, the unquestioning side. The feeling of joining in. I've always tried to do it at this kind of remove. Maybe what he's saying is –‘ ‘Of course you've done it at a remove. How else are you supposed to do it and still be you?’ ‘But maybe those days are gone’, I said. ‘Maybe I have to accept that. Maybe there just won't be those kind of jobs anymore - the ones where you can roll out of bed and staggering without speaking to anyone and keep your head down and just do it, you know? maybe this is what work is, now’ […] ‘Definitely. Simple tasks can be automated. They've already almost got the machine learning to do what you do. It's about what else a human can bring to the table, which is, literally, their humanity.’ It was possible, I realised, to imagine. A semi-global future in which the bulk of paid human employment would revolve not around hard skills, but around the messy, blurry business of interpersonal success. A new divide would open up, between the well liked, The easy to get along with, and the awkward, The rude, the unfriendly. I pictured the encampment on which I had lived, filled not as it was then, with migrants, unfortunates, hard drinkers, the out of luck. But instead, the abrasive, the poorly adjusted, the excessively reserved and painfully shy. (p.136-7)”

Quote by Sam Byers