I am a slave and I am proud

On the train back I sat in the dining car. A young, business-dressed woman with a primitive prole face sat behind me and made a succession of loud telephone calls to friends and sundry whose point was to inform them, and everyone else, that she was busy busy busy working hundred hours a week for her firm and clients. (Both words, though old, have a new ring in Polish, having not been used under communism at all; 15 years after communism's break up, they continue to breathe novelty, western-ness, capitalism). Like most people who promote such fact, the woman took pride in it, and perhaps expected everyone else to take in it envy, it being to her mind incontrovertible proof that she is -- irreplaceable. Though perhaps more so on account of her willingness to be so exploited than unique ability to do the work: to me, of course, it was proof of something else: that she didn't know how to organize her work. I felt pity for her: for the hours she was obliged to work, and for her inability to imagine better ways to spend her time, or better causes for pride.