CERTIFICAT DE COMPÉTENCES EN LANGUES

DE L’ENSEIGNEMENT SUPÉRIEUR
CLES

Langue : ANGLAIS
Niveau : CLES 2

Dossier documentaire (textes)

 Text 1: Food for thought page II

 Text 2: A Bit Rich pages III & IV
 Text 3: You’ve got to find what you love page V
 Text 4: Generation Y page VI

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Texte 1 : Food for thought Page 1 / 1
Protestant Work Ethic

Max Weber (1864-1920) coined the term ‘Protestant work ethic’ to describe a dedication to
simplicity and hard work that the Protestant branches of the Christian church espoused. (…)
Commercial success and personal simplicity was seen as a particular demonstration of piety.
If you can be rich yet resist the easy temptation it brings, then surely you will get into heaven.
In this way, modern capitalism actually grew from religious seeking of wealth as a symbol of
work.
Over time in Western society the temptations of spending money on oneself increased and
perhaps led to the decline in the religious element.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sociology/theorists/weber.htm

Good work

Good work is work that is rewarding for employees, employers and society. For employees,
good work provides secure and interesting jobs; choice, flexibility and control over working
hours; autonomy and control over the pace and timing of work and the working environment;
a say in the critical decisions that affect their futures; and an appropriate balance between
effort and reward.

From a business perspective, good work is productive and efficient; aims to involve and
engage employees; and to encourage their contribution to organisational success. And from a
society perspective, good work is socially aware, ethical, and sustainable.
http://www.theworkfoundation.com

The aesthetic dimension of work and organizational life

The aesthetic understanding of work and organizational life studies how individuals and
groups act in organizations by heeding their feelings, desires, tastes, talents, and passions.
It examines how invented in organizations are the aesthetics of a working style, a leader-
ship style, a form of relationality with others in the workplace, the appearance and fea-
tures of those workplaces, the artefacts produced by the organization, and the symbolic
elements of the organization’s image.

Antonio Strati, University of Trento

Don’t Worry if Your Job is Small

By Anonymous

Don’t worry if your job is small,

And your rewards are few.
Remember that the mighty oak,
Was once a nut like you.
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)

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Texte 2 : A Bit Rich Page 1 / 2

Excerpt from “A Bit Rich”

New Economics Foundation (nef), London
December 2009

Pay matters. How much you earn can determine your lifestyle, where you can afford to live,
and your aspirations and status. But to what extent does what we get paid confer ‘worth’?
Beyond a narrow notion of productivity, what impact does our work have on the rest of
society, and do the financial rewards we receive correspond to this? Do those that get more
contribute more to society? (...)

A closer look at six professions

We have tested our theory by taking a close look at a sample of highly paid and low paid jobs.
We found that some of the most highly paid benefit us least, and some of the lowest-paid
benefit us most. Although this will not always hold, it does point to a massive flaw in the
system and highlights the need for reform.

High-earning investment bankers in the City of London are among the best remunerated
people in the economy. But the earnings they command and the profits they make come at a
huge cost because of the damaging social effects of the City of London’s financial activities.
We found that rather than being ‘wealth creators’, these City bankers are being handsomely
rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse. While collecting
salaries of between £500,000 and £10 million, leading City bankers to destroy £7 of social
value for every pound in value they generate.

Both for families and for society as a whole, looking after children could not be more
important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, childcare workers release
earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. They also unlock social benefits
in the shape of the learning opportunities that children gain outside the home. For every £1
they are paid, childcare workers generate between £7 and £9.50 worth of benefits to
society.

Although the role of an advertising executive has high status, the impact of the industry has
always been a point of controversy. It encourages high consumer spending and indebtedness.
It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress.
In our economic model we estimate the share of social and environmental damage caused by
overconsumption that is attributable to advertising. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12
million, top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they
generate.

Hospital cleaners play a vital role in the workings of our healthcare facilities. Not only do
they clean hospitals and help maintain standards of hygiene to protect against infection but
they also contribute towards wider health outcomes. The importance of these cleaners is often
underestimated and undervalued in the way they are paid and treated. We estimated,
however, that for every £1 they are paid, over £10 in social value is generated.

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Texte 2 : A Bit Rich Page 2 / 2

Determining the right amount of tax payable is a specialist skill and often requires
professional support. However, some highly paid tax accountants’ sole purpose is to help
rich individuals and companies to pay less tax. We found that the positive benefits to society
of these activities are negligible. However, every pound that is ‘avoided’ in tax is a pound that
would otherwise have gone to HM Revenue. In our model we looked at how this lost revenue
could have been better spent. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000 tax
accountants destroy £47 of value for every pound in value they generate.

Waste recycling workers do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing
waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced when goods are
recycled instead of sending them to incineration or landfill. There is also a value in reusing
goods, and we have included this in our model. Our model projects that for every £1 of
value spent on wages, £12 of value will be generated.

http://neweconomics.org/publications/bit-rich

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Texte 3 : You’ve got to find what you love Page 1 / 1

‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says

From the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs at Stanford University in June
2005
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents
garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two
of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released
our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got
fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired
someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year
or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we
had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out.
And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was
devastating.
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation
of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with
David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very
public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly
began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed
that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could
have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of
being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most
creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar,
and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create
the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful
animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned
to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current
renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was
awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head
with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I
loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is
for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be
truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to
love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters
of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better
and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

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Texte 4 : Generation Y Page 1 / 1

Generation Y
The Guardian, 28 May 2008

They don’t live for work ... they work to live

Teenagers and young adults - the so-called Generation Y - have watched with horror as their
parents worked punishing hours in their scramble for money and status. Now, as this group go
in search of jobs, they have different priorities. They care less about salaries, and more about
flexible working, time to travel and a better work-life balance. And employers are having to
meet their demands.

I don’t want my parents’ life

Aditi Horsburgh, 25, works as a PA (Personal Assistant) in London
My dad works in the hotel industry, and that is a 24-hour job. He has always worked really
hard. A lot of the time he could not take holidays or spend time with us. I appreciate what he
did, but I don’t want that to be my life. I don’t want work to be so full-on that you cannot
enjoy your family. I think my father’s attitude came from the fact that he did not have much
when he was growing up. I am in a different situation. My parents worked very hard to give
me what I wanted, and I am really grateful for that. I know that if I want to carry on with that
lifestyle I will need to work, but I want to find a balance. I did a degree in business studies at
Bristol University. Then I went to India to work for two years before doing an MA in media
in London. I was looking for a job and I got in contact with Portfolio, a recruitment and
headhunting firm for senior executive appointments in the leisure and hospitality industries.
They offered me a job as PA to the chief executive and I hope they will train me up to become
a consultant.
Obviously I want something to pay the bills, but I am also interested in the work environment.
I want to work close to home so I don’t have to commute too much. I value my free time and I
love to travel. The company I work for is quite flexible with time off. I am taking three weeks
in the summer to go glacier tracking in India. Others have gone on three-month sabbaticals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/may/25/workandcareers.worklifebalance

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