Der Office

I. Princeton University Press announces a new title:

Franz Kafka: The Office Writings brings together, for the first time in English, Kafka's most interesting professional writings, composed during his years as a high-ranking lawyer with the largest Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute in the Czech Lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is commonly recognized as the greatest German prose writer of the twentieth century. It is less well known that he had an established legal career. Kafka's briefs reveal him to be a canny bureaucrat, sharp litigator, and innovative thinker on the social, political, and legal issues of his time. His official preoccupations inspired many of the themes and strategies of the novels and stories he wrote at night.

These documents include articles on workmen's compensation and workplace safety; appeals for the founding of a psychiatric hospital for shell-shocked veterans; and letters arguing relentlessly for a salary adequate to his merit. In adjudicating disputes, promoting legislative programs, and investigating workplace sites, Kafka's writings teem with details about the bureaucracy and technology of his day, such as spa elevators in Marienbad, the challenge of the automobile, and the perils of excavating in quarries while drunk. Beautifully translated, with valuable commentary by two of the world's leading Kafka scholars and one of America's most eminent civil rights lawyers, the documents cast rich light on the man and the writer and offer new insights to lovers of Kafka's novels and stories.

(From John Mark)



II. What Would Don Draper Do?

(From Jessica)

Hurry up please it's Time

The New York Times reports that the layoffs will begin in two weeks, yet an e-mail The Big Money obtained from inside Time Inc. does not mention layoffs. We’ve moved from euphemizing job cuts to denying they exist. —Chadwick Martin, Slate

On the stick

You can stick your 9-to-5 livin'
And your collar and your tie
And stick your moral standards
'Cause it's all a dirty lie!"
—AC/DC, "Rock 'n' Roll Singer"


(Quoted in Slate by James Parker)

"Most youth remain uninterested in office politics"

Study Finds Young People Remain Apathetic About Office Politics

Return to sender

Cracked's "6 Most Disastrous Uses of E-mail Ever."

(From Brent)

Office supplies—more than meets the eye

In a tour de force of office supply physics, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have shown that it is possible to produce X-rays by simply unrolling Scotch tape.
—NYT

(From Jane)

EP on the Radio — Tues. 10/21 at c. 8:40 p.m.

Ed will be on WBAI's Asia Pacific Forum tonight (10/21), beginning around 8:40 until 9 or so. You can listen online; New Yorkers can tune in to 99.5 FM.

(More about Asia Pacific Forum here.)

And at 7 p.m. on Thurs., 10/23, he'll be reading at the Asian American Writers' Workshop (16 W. 32nd St., 10th floor) with Monica Ferrell (The Answer Is Always Yes).