No Longer Mad Men, Welcome to Elsewhere
Dalton Conley
A year ago, I read an article in Newsweek magazine that changed my perspective on my life. It was called “Welcome to Elsewhere” that really hit home. Have you ever read an article or a book that described you perfectly? This article is me. Read on:
“Today’s professional, is constantly dogged by a feeling that he or she should be “elsewhere”—back at the office, at a party full of potential clients, home with the kids or at a social function with the spouse. Always on the go, we feel like we are in the right place at the right time only when in transit, moving from point A to B. Constant motion is a balm to an anxious culture where we are haunted by the feeling that we are frauds, expendable in the workplace because so much of our service work is intangible.”
On Business Insanity Talk Radio today, I talked with
Dalton Conley who is currently Dean for the Social Sciences, as well as University Professor at New York University. He is also the author of Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms and Economic Anxiety
1.How life is a blend of work and pleasure and we are never quite in the right place. How did we get here and should we all wish to go back to the days of the Mad Men?
2. How the ubiquity of information in today’s “knowledge economy” makes each occupation’s claim to unique expertise flimsy. Dalton says that “We all should worry—rightly—that Google, Open Source and Web 2.0 will make us as obsolete as professional travel agents.”
3. How we are working more today than ever before.
4. How women moving into the workforce has affected us working harder.
