The modern worker

Going back to the roots of this blog, and the list of Romanians present in France (do you remember it?), I will talk today about the “intellectual worker”(or modern worker). 

As I was mentioning then, “the intellectual worker” is probably working in La Défense, like most “white collar” workers in France. The majority work in IT or engineering.

What’s interesting about this category is its invisibility. Unlike others that “normal” people could cross in the streets of Paris, like Romanian sexual workers, beggars, thieves or construction workers, no one remembers having crossed the path of a lot of Romanian white collars working in France. However, when I say that I’m Romanian, almost everyone in my friends circle can name at least 1 or 2 Romanians (mostly women) belonging to this category. Which means that they are more invisible than numerous.

Why ?

Several reasons to that :

• First of all, they are nor easily identifiable nor easily “taggable”. They look like everybody else, they dress like everybody else, they behave properly and they are reliable workers. The only way to identify them is through their accent, probably a lot more important in Paris than in London.
• Second, they come in small numbers. Depending on the size of the company, one could count up to 10 such Romanians, more if that company has strong ties with Romania (a subsidiary, a factory, etc.)
• And finally, with notable exceptions that I’ve recently talked about, they are not organized in visible networks. Therefore, their voice is beared by individuals but lacks the strength of a group.

The latter fact is to be linked to Romanians’ culture of distrust and individuality :

• Distrust because, based on their parents’ experience, present generations have been taught not to trust their neighbor, not even their closest friend, as they might turn their back on you. Today this might have little consequences, but in the past, one might have finished up in jail. So the consequences have faded away, but the survival instinct still pushes to act like before. 

• Individuality because they are trained to see that there is no merit to be given to their origin group for their success. They are trained to see that their success is entirely their own. Why not, in the end, as there is no “social elevator” anyways in Romania? (I’ll discuss about this later on but Romanians actually have a great history of resilience and the group is actually more important than we tend to believe today.)

Therefore, when one arrives for work in a foreign country, they are facing two distinct tendencies : one is convergent, pushing people to seek fellow Romanians’ company, go to orthodox churches to find people like them, for friends and spouses – and the other one divergent, as the welcome is not as warm as one would have expected, and distrust is palpable. In France for example, distrust is also based on how the “diaspora” community has formed : mostly built on “political refugees” during the last 50 years, one would expect they would not easily trust the “new guys”, not knowing for sure if they were really refugees or just “political”. (Unlike the US were everyone “starts (almost) from scratch, and the past seems to be less important than the present or the future)

And unfortunately “white collar” workers in France feel that to the extreme : intellectuals, but not enough to get into the artist or literary circles, they are a new kind of people that Romanian diaspora has not known before. And while they might be the last to have arrived, they might also be the first to go beyong distrust and individuality and…get organized.

And you, what is your own experience ? Are you working in IT or engineering in France (or elsewhere) and would like to share how was it for you ?