QWhat is the common point between Friday 13the films of the saga Scream, and a bailiff, a bartender in the evening and a darts player at the weekend? No, don’t answer “they all scare me” : they are slashers.
Do you know the slasher movies ? This subgenre of horror film features the methodical murders of a serial killer, sometimes in a house full of innocent young people, often at night, with deep sadism, and a knife that cuts, to slash meaning “to slice, slash”. Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is also one of the first slashers.
So what is the relationship with pluriactivity? None. Fortunately, the etymology has nothing to do with any sharp object or, at a pinch, the ” Swiss knife “. It comes quite simply from the slash, this typographic sign which separates the different activities of the slasher.
The slasher (let’s keep the u to distinguish it from the slasher) therefore chained the jobs in series: most of the time, he chose not to choose. While it is possible to “slash” within the same company (by having a versatile position), this is often done on behalf of several employers, sometimes even under different employment statuses (part-time employee, part-time -time, independent, intermittent, temporary, etc.).
Six million pluriactive workers in France
Marci Alboher, American author of One Person/Multiple Careers (2007), is known for having popularized the expression, which serves to promote this way of working which differs from the norm. She often uses the metaphor of the tapestry: by dint of sewing different different pieces of oneself, one obtains a personalized, unique career… and not an unstable person.
Today there are six million multi-active people in France, according to a study carried out in 2022 for the Salon SME, which brings together freelancers. The status of autoentrepreneur, born in 2009, favored the emergence of the scheme “food job embellished with a passion a few hours a week”. According to the SME study, 67% of slashers are there to increase their income, 29% to derive income from a hobby. Among the slashers knowing how to let go, we will find the firefighter/fire-eater, the dentist/confectioner, the trader/president of a charity association.
Autonomous, the slasher is often presented as enthusiastic and audacious, a symbol of the world of community work, flexible, “uberized”. Without wishing to throw roses, of course, slashers will sometimes call themselves multipotentials or “polymaths”a Greek term meaning that they have skills in unrelated fields, the idol of the polymaths being Leonardo da Vinci.
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