pleasure at work

UK Radio 3 ran a show this week about work: there was talk about being 'passionate about work' etc and a literature of work including Melville, Dickens and Grossmith + some research about friends/marriages through work. This literature was narrow and described 'people at work'. The 'Office' has a richer history. Consider Samsa: now an insect his main worry is being late for work; lets stick with the insect theme: Brecht and Benjamin at Svendborg conversed about this and concluded that Kafka saw people at work as antlike separated by their forms of life together. Kundera further develops this idea but adds that Kafka also sees the office as fantastic, a labrynth; writing to Milena he says the office is ' more fantastic than stupid' and that 'he can't drag himself away from it'. K in The Castle will never get a promised job/will wait forever like his cousin in Before the Law and the innumerable other characters whose mission is to 'wait' or like the 10% of staff at Microsoft who are routinely shed each year while the remainder bask in 'pleasure at work'. Any literature of work should start with Kafka and concentrate on his definition of pleasure at work-a place 'he couldn't drag himself away from'