kafka and prague

At the Office

In July of 1908 Kafka found a job at the Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt (Workmen's Accident Insurance Company) that was "without" an afternoon shift, meaning he got off work at 2:00 and so could better dedicate himself to writing. And it was to be for this company, and in this building (built in 1896), that he was to work until his early retirement, putting in some 30 hours a week for another 14 years, doing statistical analyses, processing insurance claims, and representing his firm in court. In this building he also developed another facet to his writing: thus, to works such as "The Trial" we might add his many reports, such as his 1915 "Accident Prevention in Stone Quarries," and the fact that he was the first specialist in the Kingdom of Bohemia to write insurance policies for private automobile owners.