slave nation

A programme on Channel 4 last night, Slave Nation, explored how we are becoming slaves to the people that we work for. Heavy parallels were drawn with slaves working on the plantations in the Southern US States all those years ago.

It was actually quite scary as the presenter, Darkus, visited the Egg call centre and interviewed various members of staff who all loved working there, considered themselves ‘egg’ people yet all considered themselves ‘individuals’. There is no doubt that they are individuals, but surely working in an organisation that works to a script, where what you say is planned to the word and where ‘the team’ is more important than ‘the person’ cannot give priority to individualism.

The inherent contradiction – that these people who are, essentially, anonymous to their customers (they could be anybody) have become so inculcated into the corporate culture that they truly believe their individualness is important – seemed to be so clear to me, but not to them, that it was scary.

What am I missing..?