"Work is the inescapable starting point for all social inquiry." — Robert Heilbroner
A full-time American spends roughly one-third of their waking hours working, about 90,000 hours of a life. Something that consumes this much of human life leaves a footprint on everything. Adult identity, schedule, social world, sense of purpose. Values like dignity, ambition, productivity. The school day, the family form, the city, the weekend as moral category. All shaped by work.
AI's impact on work is accelerating, and soon that arrangement will break. People not far from now won't recognize the social world that work built. The skyscraper, the cubicle, the open layout, direct reports, Excel sheets, the performance review, PTO, and OOO are all becoming archaeological.
My aim with this project is to document and understand this while it is still ordinary. The audience includes future readers who won't have lived it, and present readers who can't yet see what they're inside of.