Across the Divide
“Head of Female Worker Seen Over Office Cubicle, Standard Oil Company of California, 1976–77” by Chauncey Hare.
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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.
€40,000
A decade ago, we celebrated the story of a guy who sued his workplace for boring him half to death.
I found myself wondering what came of him. Did he win his case? Did he find another job? Did he take his winnings and live on a yacht?
The myth-busting website Snopes has part of the answer:
a court in Paris ruled that Frédéric Desnard’s employer had subjected him to “moral harassment” and bullying, including deliberately subjecting him to “bore-out” at work.
And:
Mere boredom was far from the only mistreatment suffered by Desnard, who argued he was deliberately marginalized and humiliated at work for four years, causing him to become withdrawn and clinically depressed.
But:
While Desnard had asked for hundreds of thousands of euros in damages and compensation, the court ultimately sanctioned just €40,000.
It’s a pretty good moral victory and 40k is certainly a healthy escape fund to get you on the road, but I’m worried about Desnard now because 40k probably wasn’t enough to retire on (though maybe it was?) and because all that comes up when you Google his name now is his kooky employment tribunal. This help him to get another job.
I decided to do some modern “journalism” and ask him. I found his LinkedIn page, which was plastered in profile updates about bore-out, which made me wonder if he’s become working some sort of anti bore-out consultant. But when I tried to befriend him, he deleted his page. Good!
We respect your right to disappear, Monsieur Desnard. Good luck wherever you are.
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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.
On the Lamm
August Lamm, the anti-tech artist we interviewed in the still-just-about-available Issue 18, has a new book out called You Don’t Need a Smartphone.
And you know what? You probably don’t need a smartphone. Personally, I’ve made peace with having one, but it repays to rethink these things. The considered life and all.
In August’s latest newsletter, she explains that publishers no longer send authors on book tours, so she’s decided to cross the USA on her own terms and at her own expense.
For a book like mine, addressing the decline of culture in the digital age, in-person events are crucial. Only by convening in a physical space can we escape algorithmic pre-determination and open ourselves up to the organic, unpredictable unfolding of Real Life.
This is great. Her position of integrity reminds me of my favourite Jaron Lanier quote, which I find genuinely empowering. I carry it in my heart:
You, you, you, have the affirmative responsibility to invent and demonstrate new ways to live without the crap that is destroying society. Quitting is the only way, for now, to learn what can replace our grand mistake.
If you happen to be America, please consider visiting August on tour and buying the book. It’s one in the eye for the supremacy of boring digital business practices that are wrecking the world and a vote for personal integrity.
Prison Break!
Friend Fabian writes to tell us about a German law allowing for a prisoner’s right to escape.
Sure enough, Wikipedia explains:
Escaping from prison isa criminal offense in countries such as the United States and Canada, and usually results in time being added to the inmate’s sentence … In Germany and a number of other countries, it is considered human nature to want to escape from a prison and it is considered as a violation of the right of freedom, so escape is not penalized in itself (in the absence of other factors such as threats of violence, actual violence, or property damage).
The countries who see the desire to escape as human nature include:
Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Iceland, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil
“Isn’t it interesting,” writes Fabien, “how they recognise our desire to be free from confinement as a natural given?”
It is. It’s something I’ve often wondered about because the alternative seems So disingenuous. Other illegalities I’ve wondered about are suicide and “resisting arrest.”
It’s unsporting if nothing else. Catching and retaining people the law sees as guilty is surely the law’s job, not that of the so-called criminal.
The only reason to obey these laws is the fear of legal consequence. There’s no moral reason for laws like these; they exist only to make rozzers’ jobs easier. I don’t think they should exist and I salute the legal systems who respect this.
The Wikipedia page for prison escapes, by the way, is great fun. It’s full of great stories about how people have busted out of prisons using spoons and helicopters.
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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.
Back to Nature
Friend Joe sends us this painting, “Back to Nature,” by Robert Storm Petersen or “Storm P.” Look at those anonymous grey trudgers!
Petersen was a pipe-smoking Danish humorist whose writings and cartoons regularly portrayed vagabonds as philosophers. Our kind of guy.
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Escape with the best of them by reading New Escapologist Issue 19.
