Enter the Flagon

Part I: The Pros and Cons of Telecommuting
These are halcyon days for the empire of work, in its colonization of everyday life. It is an almost perverse reversal of the compartmentalization of American lives that has gone on for 100 years. Whereas in the previous century we had succeeded in fracturing our daily lives into the mutually exclusive realms of WORK and HOME (with the subsequent halving of our identities as well), we have now let WORK absorb whatever HOME-life we have retained. WORK can now occur at any time and place. However, it is a different phenomenon than the agrarian model, where work and home were two halves of a compatible whole. Work now takes precedence over our private selves. It has invaded our private spaces. When we telecommute, we are living on someone else���s time; but we are physically at home. We may be sitting at our own desks in our underwear, but we are not really in a private space. Our homes have become cells used by multi-nationals to increase their market-shares. We are being monitored, questioned.

This assault on our sense of self can be thwarted, however. Our reliance on work to define ourselves can be replaced by a reliance on beer. Alcohol is humanity���s savior from psychic enslavement by potential multi-national masters. By drinking ourselves into daily stupors, we defiantly render ourselves incapable of performing even the most mundane tasks required by the workplace of today. Multi-tasking, that hallmark of the modern worker, will be become impossible. Let���s face it, mono-tasking will be a stretch. Imagine an entire population stumbling freely through life, determining their own destinies. Hangovers will become symbols of liberation; gin blossoms will become badges of self-determination; and the alcohol-fueled one night stand���well, that���s always been pretty cool, so that would be more of a lateral move.

So yeah,