The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century

Where to start? I read Danish contemporary writer @Olga Ravn s book ”The Employees” in one sitting and I couldn’t let it go. She is part of a Danish group of authors who writes in a minimalistic style about everyday occurrences. Solvej Balle is another one. Both the format and the story of this unique novel, are intriguing and surprising. The general concept is the absurdities of the work-life systems we inhabit in modern times. Ravn’s novel, however, takes place in an undefined future on a spaceship populated by humans, humanlike humanoids and alien things that makes the humans and humanoids feel things. Senses play a big part of the story, especially scent, how life on Earth used to smell. The book goes deeply into what it means to be human, through anonymous workers’ diary-like reflections on how life is at the spaceship. The conversations are held by a dry and cold committee speaking in a dry and cold political organisation-type of language. It’s all very recognisable and you can relate to those types of people you met, from your own work-life, when you think ”Is this a robot or a human?”. Those absurd replies one can get for purely human questions and reflections, as if you were talking to a robot. Ravn enhances some of the absurdities that happens in a workplace and lifts the neuropsychological and social needs of a human being, that doesn’t synch with some of today’s work-life protocols. Wow, just wow, this book is so relatable in the context of how our work-lives could be designed 2026, post-Covid. Ravn writes with brutal precision and warmth at the same time. Is it a utopia, dystopia or thrutopia? At first glance one might say it’s a dystopia because of how it ends. No spoiler alerts! However, if you listen more carefully you can hear the track-finder in Ravn, searching for solutions that could make work-life better. So I’d say a thrutopia.

Wasn't crazy about this one I must say. Cool premise though.

A strange, mildly surrealist story superficially set in a distant future. There is ample skill in the way details unfold and the messy-yet-mostly-understandable prose (the story is told through a series of "interviews"). However, I don't know that I actually enjoyed it. It didn't feel like it knew what it wanted to be. Is it weird fiction, playing with ideas on the edge of comprehension? Is it SciFi? Is it an exploration of humanity and what we could consider "human"? Is it a scathing critique of work culture? Yes. All of these. But none of them felt deeply explored or well integrated.

Written as a series of testimonies from crew of a spaceship, it threw up a lot of questions about what makes a "person".

The concept is interesting, the book is very calming. Don’t expect to understand what is going on though.