From: eye2@interlog.com (eye WEEKLY)
Newsgroups: eye.news,alt.fan.bill-gates,alt.books.reviews
Subject: BOOKS: Microserfs
Date: 16 Aug 1995 20:20:17 -0400


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eye WEEKLY                                              August 17 1995
Toronto's arts newspaper                      .....free every Thursday
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BOOKS                                                            BOOKS


                              MICROSERFS
                         By Douglas Coupland

                                  by
                           NINA KOLUNOVSKY

The title of Douglas Coupland's first book, Generation X, is the 
origin and therefore bears the burden of responsibility for an utterly 
overused demographic term. This all-encompassing, nearly meaningless 
euphemism is no longer bandied about in connection with the several 
million North Americans born after the late-'60s. It can now refer to 
careers (telemarketing), aspirations (to make as much money as your 
parents did) and food (Ramen noodles).

If in Generation X we were all underemployed, self-absorbed, sexually 
frustrated layabouts, the picture depicted in Coupland's latest work, 
Microserfs, is slightly more cheery. We're still sexually frustrated, 
but now we're overemployed and have no life outside of the 15-hour 
workdays at a huge computer-related conglomerate and the IKEA-
furnished homes we share with co-workers. We spend all our time 
working -- or thinking about work -- in order to not think about the 
unstable jobs, dismal futures and absence of meaning that dominate our 
lives.

Entry Level Computer Geek is the quintessential '90s career path. We 
talk about computers taking away people's jobs, but ponder the many 
who have become the tiny cogs that keep the industry circuits buzzing: 
consider the teenagers selling computer accessories at Radio Shack, 
the guy who came up with the floating toaster screensaver, and the 
guys clicking away late into the night trying to out-useless-
screensaver him. Consider the fact that more of us have access to a 
computer than to a life partner.

Think about it.

Microserfs resembles nothing so much as a non-New Age Celestine 
Prophesy. Disregard the overload of increasingly annoying pop-culture 
and computer-geek references; ignore the one-sentence chapters and the 
one-word-repeated-for-two-pages chapters; forget the juvenile 
experiments with font, style and type size. All that's left is a 10-
step program to guaranteed success in love, work and personal 
development.

And beyond the overwhelming coolness, the advice is naively formulaic 
...

Step 1: Fall in love with an entirely inappropriate person.

Step 2: A laid-off father is good for bringing a family together.

Step 3: Working with your friends is more fun than working for Bill 
Gates, but you might not make as much money.

Step 4: A seriously ill mother is a good plot turning point.

Ok, you're cured. Now, use this new-found self-knowledge for good, not 
evil.

Next!

(Which doesn't stop Microserfs from being an interesting read for your 
daily commute.)  

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