No Way To Make A Living is a sociological space about work, generating discussion and exchange on what work, paid or unpaid, is like in today’s world

The open­ing scene of Con­flu­ence (Akram Khan and Nitin Sawney, Sadlers Wells 2010) is a story about hav­ing your pass­port taken away for check­ing. The bor­der guards watch you, their eyes con­tain the power of the state. You watch your pass­port leave the room, you hope it reappears. Akram Khan and Nitin Sawney, the dancer…

This sign has been on the door of my local chip shop for 9 months now: I sus­pect it wont be reopen­ing any time soon. Nowayto­makealiv­ing is tak­ing a break too, we’ll be back in August. 

You can find all sorts of jobs at Job­centre Plus, the stat­utory agency that helps the unem­ployed back into work: it’s the place to look if you fancy a work­ing as a driver, check-out assist­ant, nanny or adult model. Yes, that does say adult model. You could also find work as a ‘web­cam per­former’. “Duties…

In Bri­tain, Chan­cel­lor George Osborne has just presen­ted his first budget, announ­cing 25% cuts to most gov­ern­ment depart­ments. Last week, pro­posed gov­ern­ment invest­ment in leis­ure, social ser­vices and man­u­fac­tur­ing was removed. A visitor’s centre at Stone­henge, a health­care centre in Leeds, and fin­an­cial sup­port for the Forge­mas­ters plant in Shef­field were some of a number…

One of my favour­ite flickr groups is ‘Taxis of the world from inside’. I like the glimpses of the city in these shots, and the con­fu­sion between the out­side spaces and the mobile indoors of the car. The car in the city rep­res­ents a super­mod­ern­ity (Augé, 2009), a non-place, neither pub­lic, nor private, fluid without…

Two signs pho­to­graphed in a depart­ment store that’s about to close.  To the left, big, bold let­ters and col­ours: the store is clos­ing down and everything must go, “step right up, bar­gains galore”. Thrill at 20% off a new kettle. Take home a pot­tery owl, only £42.99 (down from £59.00). It’s an excit­ing chance, you consumer…

Early in the film of Blake Morrison’s mem­oir And When Did You Last See Your Father (dir Anand Tucker, 2007), Blake (Colin Firth) accepts an award for his poetry (it might be that the defin­i­tion of ‘real’ work is that it’s the sort of activ­ity you’d never attend an award cere­mony to mark).  At the risk…

Rou­tin­isa­tion is usu­ally seen as deskilling, as ali­en­at­ing, as the oppos­ite of cre­ativ­ity (Braver­man, 1998; Leidner, 1993). Aus­trin and West (2005) sug­gest that the rou­tin­isa­tion of how casino staff manip­u­late cards acts as mech­an­ism for sur­veil­lance. Stand­ard­ising and con­trolling how staff hold their thumb and fin­gers lim­its the chances for them to cheat. Routines are supposed…

After my father died, I dis­covered a film he had dir­ec­ted in 1938 for the his­tor­ic­ally fam­ous GPO (Gen­eral Post Office) film unit. It was called The Islanders, and in it, to my amazement, was a short sec­tion about Guern­sey and the once-renowned Guern­sey tomato. The film shows how toma­toes were grown in ster­il­ised soil…

In these pho­tos taken by Mar­tin Argles for the Guard­ian, we see Gor­don Brown and his team pre­par­ing to leave Down­ing Street. These pho­tos interest me for what they show about the spaces and exper­i­ence of work. In the first pho­to­graph, there are three mem­bers of staff huddled round one phone.