0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction

Buy Now

The Physiology of the Employee (Paperback) Loot Price: R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
You Save: R53 (14%)
The Physiology of the Employee (Paperback): Honore De Balzac

The Physiology of the Employee (Paperback)

Honore De Balzac

 (sign in to rate)
List price R383 Loot Price R330 Discovery Miles 3 300 You Save R53 (14%)

Bookmark and Share

Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days

If Honore de Balzac's "Treatise on Elegant Living" addressed one crucial pillar of modernity--the "mode" itself, fashion--his "Physiology of the Employee" examines another equally potent cornerstone to the modern era: bureaucracy, and all of the cogs and wheels of which it is composed. Long before Franz Kafka described the nightmarish metaphysics of office bureaucracy, Balzac had undertaken his own exploration of the dust-laden, stifling environment of the paper-pusher in all of his roles and guises. "Bureaucracy," as he defined it: "a gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs." In this guidebook, published for mass consumption in 1841, Balzac's classic theme of melodramatic ambition plays itself out within the confined, unbreathable space of the proto-cubicle, filtered through the restricted scale of the pocket handbook. The template for such later novels such as "The Bureaucrats," and one of the first significant texts to grapple with the growing role of the bureaucrat, this physiology reads like a birding field guide in its presentation of the various classifications of the office employee, from the Intern to the Clerk (all ten species, from Dapper to Bootlicker to Drudger) to Office Manager, Department Head, Office Boy and Pensioner. The job titles may change over the years, and paper-pushing has perhaps evolved into email-forwarding, but the taxonomy remains the same. In our twenty-first-century crisis of employment, jobs continue to be themselves a form of currency, and the question continues to loom: when will it be quitting time?

General

Imprint: Wakefield Press
Country of origin: United States
Release date: October 2014
First published: September 2014
Authors: Honore De Balzac
Dimensions: 180 x 120 x 13mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN-13: 978-1-939663-04-7
Categories: Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > General
Books > Fiction > Special features > Classic fiction
LSN: 1-939663-04-0
Barcode: 9781939663047

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!

You might also like..

Bad Luck Penny
Amy Heydenrych Paperback  (1)
R350 R255 Discovery Miles 2 550
Only The Brave
Danielle Steel Paperback R365 R260 Discovery Miles 2 600
Die Man Wattie Kinnes Vang
Nathan Trantraal Paperback R290 R215 Discovery Miles 2 150
The Finish Line
Gail Schimmel Paperback R340 R240 Discovery Miles 2 400
A Sicilian Affair
Susan Lewis Paperback R390 R260 Discovery Miles 2 600
God's Pocket
Sven Axelrad Paperback R320 R229 Discovery Miles 2 290
The Hunter
Tana French Paperback R380 R297 Discovery Miles 2 970
Crooked Seeds
Karen Jennings Paperback R340 R249 Discovery Miles 2 490
The Child
Alistair Mackay Paperback R335 R245 Discovery Miles 2 450
Day One
Abigail Dean Paperback R390 R260 Discovery Miles 2 600
The City is Mine
Niq Mhlongo Paperback R300 R219 Discovery Miles 2 190
The Comrade's Wife
Barbara Boswell Paperback R280 R205 Discovery Miles 2 050

See more

Partners