Sever Voinescu, Dilemma: To work!

Returning home from a recent visit to China, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the Germans the following: "Simply put, we are not efficient enough. Each of us can tell the others that we work quite a lot. And that may be true. But when you come from China, you have a clear feeling that the work-life balance we have, that the four working days a week, that the prosperity we have can no longer be sustained in the long term. Simply put, we need to work more!" Politico.eu translated Merz's message to the Germans simply and clearly: "Stop being lazy!" Yes, yes, that's right. After the visit to China, the German chancellor tells the Germans that they are a bit lazy for the times ahead and should work more. Here, however, as the old joke from communism goes, the bat blooms a second time. If you don't get the joke, I'll tell it to you on a future occasion.

As far as we are concerned, I believe that we, Romanians, do not realize well what world we live in. We are out of sync, I know that, and maybe for us "the world" arrives a bit later, but even so, I believe that we do not realize the main data of it. The time of the primacy of benefit over contribution has kind of passed. The whole ideology of recent generations, translated into formulas like "I want to live my life, not work my whole life," "I only want a job that allows me to enjoy life," "I want to work a little and then take a sabbatical to travel and see the world," "if they call me from work after 4 PM, I sue for harassment" becomes not only unsustainable but directly harmful. Here, however, it is very difficult to say something like that in public. I can imagine the general hysteria that would be stirred up by a prime minister telling the Romanians what Merz told the Germans. I believe that after a statement of this kind, our government would fall. Romania is a country where everyone complains that they work a lot, "to the bone," but where labor productivity is lamentable. You may not know, but Romania is the European country where people log the most hours worked (over 2,000 hours annually, on average) and produces (GDP) far below the European average. But I don't want to talk about economic indicators related to work. In general, work has long ceased to be a value for Romanians. I don't care what my compatriots answer in surveys when they are asked what they believe in life – probably most say in honest work, in love and family, in God in heaven and in their pure hearts. But I know, as a Romanian living in Romania, how and especially how work is done in my country. Just as you know. There is a perception of daily life that is more real than any statistic. We know how long it takes to find a plumber and what kind of work he does. We know how the garbage collectors do their job on the streets, the construction workers on scaffolding, the drivers in traffic, the officials at ANAF, the teachers in classrooms, the doctors in hospitals, and, of course, the professional politicians in politics. We all live in Romania, and we all work in Romania, and that is an experience that is more real than any statistic.

Well, the German says that the time will come when we will have to work more. The younger generations, in any case, will have to do it if they want to have a future at least as prosperous as our present is now. Are they educated to do it? Used to having four vacations a year, one of which is skiing in the Alps and another at the sea in Greece, subtly ideologized in the name of socialism brought up to date in terms of the rights of everyone and egalitarianism, dependent on public services like air and mobile phones like water, the Romanian generations that are very young today do not seem at all prepared for a competitive and extremely competitive life, for a world where survival requires, as Churchill said, "blood, toil, tears and sweat." (Not everyone is like that, I will be told. Every time I say something negative about an entire generation or about an entire nation, I am reprimanded, I am reminded that generalizations are illegitimate and I am asked for evidence; when I say something positive about a generation or an entire nation, no one opposes, no one invokes the problem of generalizations, and no one asks me to provide evidence. Reflect a bit on this observation, I ask you.)

In Romania, work is no longer appreciated at all as a value in itself, neither socially (cunning, backdoor deals, arrangements, camouflaged absenteeism at work have become more valued than work), nor economically (the payment for work is defective, as salaries do not reflect the quality and quantity of work done, but seek a certain balance within the costs of a business) and not even morally. There is a depreciation of work, from one generation to another, in Romanian society. Even more, by using the word: we call "work" professional activities that require absolutely no effort. And in general, we use the word with a sigh that indicates a burden, something unpleasant, like a chore. Then, through the subtle cultivation of aversion to work: jokes and sayings that say that "whoever is stupid works," the abundance of jokes that show how horrible Monday is and how beautiful Friday is. Finally, through the fear of too much work. They say "burnout." A young doctor suddenly dies in the hospital where he works or a young person has a heart attack in the offices of a multinational – immediately the press and NGOs shout "Burnout! The exploitative system!" What does it matter that, after a month or two, investigations reveal other causes of the tragedies? No one comes back, it remains that work is dangerous and kills people. A nation whose youth are "on relax" does not want to hear anything other than that work seriously harms. And, moreover, it exposes you to exploitation, which is horrible.

I remember well how the generation of our parents integrated work (service) with life. Naturally, the difference between the professional environment and the family one was preserved, but they did not function antagonistically. Life was a whole that included both profession and family/friends/private domain. Work was nothing other than life. It did not exhaust it, but neither was it anything else or, worse, was it the antonym, the opposite of life. It was taken for granted that there is no life without work. And so it is.

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