Abstract Based on fieldwork among Roma/Gypsy groups in Slovakia, this essay explores the concept of ‘activation (to) work’ along the shifting lines of economic precariousness and the new politics of social assistance targeting formally unemployed subjects in the context of a neoliberalizing state. Focusing on how ideologies and policies of activation operate in everyday practices, the essay dissects lived experiences and the forms of sociability emerging in these spaces constituted by the centrifugal forces of the state. Particular attention is paid to the contested meanings, politics of waiting, and acts of compassion elicited by subjects’ labour and work simulations.