TH<sub>E</sub> DIG<sub>E</sub>RATI WORK<sub>E</sub>R
Just as capitalists assume the role of workers, workers, too, perceive themselves more like capitalists and entrepreneurs. As we have seen in Chapter 3, market flux and instability render work more flexible and dynamic. Work for the digerati no longer follows the industrial-age model of a stable career path, which entails a lasting time commitment between workers and companies and opportunities for advancement within the firm. According to Kevin Kelly, the decreasing ratio of companies to workers in the market reveals a trend in which more and more individuals become involved with more than one workplace, or job: “So many workers double- or triple-dip, moonlighting, part-timing, consulting, or running a startup in their garage.” This signifies a qualitative transformation in the world of work from the old employment model to what Kelly calls “polyemployment” (Kelly 1999). Work is redefined in terms that are more individualized and privatized, virtually eliminating the distinction between worker and company, employment and entrepreneurship, and—as a corollary—the distinction between classes. After all, workers can freelance as consultants and, on top of that, be entrepreneurs running their own start-up.
These new conditions inevitably make the experience of a career more liquid, precarious, insecure, and fragmented. The fictional story “Microserfs” reveals the digerati’s anxieties that stem from unpredictable career prospects in the new economy. While being comparatively well paid (with a compensation packet that often includes stocks and options) and enjoying a high social status, the digerati are threatened by no less (perhaps even more) job insecurity than wage laborers in other sectors. Thus, at some moment in the story, the protagonist of “Microserfs” laments the ageism prevalent in the digital sector. After a visit to the Nintendo headquarters, located right across from Microsoft’s, he comments, “It’s like the year 1311, where everyone over 35 is dead or maimed.” Elsewhere he makes the same observation about Microsoft, saying that there are “maybe twelve fortysomethings on the Campus” (Coupland 1994). Another article describes one Matthew Clark, who left Microsoft, following “a severe case of corporate burnout” (Glickman 1999), when he was only twenty-seven years old.
Network Work
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