Which is worse: office life now or 50 years ago? When this question was put to me last week by a TV researcher I didn’t need to think for more than two seconds before producing an answer. Obviously, it is worse now. We have no job security. We work unbearably long hours. Competition has destroyed the collegiate spirit: every man is for himself. We only turn off when asleep and are still checking emails with one hand as we clean our teeth with the other. The result is stress, exhaustion and alienation.
Reflecting on my answer later that day I realised I had been talking through my hat. To complain that everything is going to the dogs is populist nonsense. Working life in 2014 is not worse than it was in 1964: for privileged professionals at least, it is better than it has ever been. If we don’t feel happy at work, we jolly well ought to – on at least nine separate scores.
For a start, in 1964 I wouldn’t have had a professional job at all, due to being a woman. Working life for half the educated population has improved immeasurably. For the other half, it has also got better as most men (a few bigots aside) surely find that having women around makes things if not more civilised, then anyway more varied.