Intrusive in the workers' lives ?

Written by Manon ARZIMAN & Mathilde WINNINGER

15^th December, 2013

Last week, I was contacted by Rebecca Witon who wanted me to write an article about her poor working conditions which led her to a few anxiety attacks and on the verge to quit her job after being fired and re-hired over and over again five times. She has been Paris Hilton’s personal assistant for four months and now she wants to speak up and to denounce the constrainable rules that were imposed to her.

Before I accepted her proposal, I made some researches and what I discovered was quite…interesting! I wondered if this issue Rebecca had been confronted to, was an isolated case or if it was quite usual.

I found a book, whose title was:“A book of Household Management” which tells us about the rules that the servants in the 19^th century had to follow. I compared a few of those rules with the ones, called “10 golden rules” that Rebecca had given.
For example, here is one of the servants’ rules:
“Always “give room” if you meet one of you employers!”

And hope is one of Rebecca’s rules:
“I shouldn’t see you if I didn’t ask for you, so always walk behind me!” quite similar, right?

Here’s another of the servants’ rules:

“Never let you voice be heard by the ladies of the gentlemen of the house!”

And one of Rebecca’s rules:

“Never try to talk to me unless you really need it badly!”

Here again, we can notice some similarities…

I’ve come to the conclusion that I would write this article. No only to bring to light Rebecca’s experience but also to say that though we could think that things have changed in our society, they haven’t.

Indeed, we noticed how the servants’ rules do not only control the servants’ work (which would be normal after all) but also on their private lives (“No servant is to receive any visitors!”). The rules were clear and precise.

Nowadays, there has been improvement on work regulation but as we noticed before, it hasn’t changed that much is some ways. The personal assistants’ rules not only rule the personal assistants’ job (which again would be quite normal) but also the personal assistants’ personal lives. What has changed is the way of doing it, though. It is quite implicit sometimes. By overwhelming the personal assistants with rules and expectations, and work, the employer can have control over the personal assistant’s life in the long run. It is done in a different way, but still.

The rules imposed to workers have always been quite as intrusive in the worker’s life and it hasn’t changed as much, as we  think it has.