About grim restrooms in the workplace, Arthur Cordell wrote:
ac> There is an MA or Ph.d thesis here on the ergonomics and intellectual
ac> ecology of the total workplace.
and Gail Stewart asked:
gs> Have we so thoroughly abdicated our responsibility to develop
gs> good policy advice that, in a human world of many languages, we
gs> will only listen to those who speak science?
[....]
gs> Have we installed a discourse of the deliberately selectively
gs> deaf between ourselves as citizens and our elected
gs> representatives? How might we have got ourselves into such a
gs> situation?
Consider theat ubiquitous tool of policy implementation: the form --
credit application, job application, tax report, work order, whatever.
A form isn't so much a means of *transmitting* information as it is
one of *selectively limiting* the information transmitted in a given
transaction. True, some computerized forms won't process a
transaction until every field is filled -- my local Canadian Tire's
computer won't process returned brakeshoes without a phone number but
is happy if I give it the store's number which is conspicuously posted
nearby. More important is that there is no way whatever to inject
into that transaction any special problem or circumstances, personal
opinion or complaint that I might have. The "discourse" is
stringently limited to what it has been calculated to be in the
interests of the store to process. Similarly selective forms
implement government policies as well as commercial ones.
Admittedly, that's implementation but doesn't the same problem arise
at the policy-making level that gives rise to the procrustean form at
the user interface? The policy maker is confronted with demands from
competing interests and with contradictory assertions of one thing or
another from very heterogeneous sources. Whatever the policy
established, it is sure to be challenged by those who oppose it and
especially by those with evidence that they've been disadvantaged by
it. The *language* of science lends the aura of papal
imprimitur when it's time to butress a policy, rebut a critique or CYA
after a disastrous outcome.
The current issue of SciAm has a piece on the "precautionary
principle". It makes it fairly clear that the language of science is
entrained in the PR campaign for technologies, the widespread
introduction of which may have globally disastrous sequellae. Caution
exercised in the introduction of a technology with an unknown,
possibly unknowable, probability of creating stupendous calamity is
"not scientific".
So far as I know, the majority of policy makers don't know much
science. (I've been shocked to discover that many people with
degrees in a science don't know much science.) But they can employ
"the language of science" in a footnoted document.
gs> ...in a credible vocabulary for modern society -- the
gs> vocabulary of science....give credibility to notions long held
gs> as common sense." (Clyde Hertzman, "The Case for an Early
gs> Childhood Development Strategy"
I don't know anything about "childhood development strategy" but we've
all seen the stuff about workplace ergonomics. Real science has been
applied to ergonomic keyboards and chairs. The "language of science"
speciously justifies everything else -- cubicles, nasty lighting,
hotdesking, surveillance etc. But Dilbert gets a better handle on the
modern workplace with hyperbole and anecdote.
Personally, I'm real keen on science but I think you have to double
track your science back and forth with anecdote, intuition and story
across CP Snow's great divide.
[How'm I doing on my 40 points, Gail? :-)
Ray Harrell wrote:
reh> It is an old Cherokee saying that the only control you have
reh> over your future is what you choose to surround yourself with.
Indeed. And those things have their stories, those things are the
tools made or selected just to suit you. As a teenager I worked in a
warehouse, packing cheap plastic boots for shipment. No computers, no
fancy equipment, just a huge barn of a place stacked to the ceiling
with big cardboard cartons of boots. And hand tools: brown paper tape
dispensers, Exacto knives, stencils and some guys who were (excepting
the boss) mostly school dropouts. But every one of those guys built
his own workstation one of the cheap rolling worktables provided.
Built an "office" out of cardboard and brown tape -- the only supplies
available -- to hold stencils, pencils and crayons, brushes, inkpots,
tape dispensers, staples, shipping forms, purchase orders and all the
tools and sundries. Every one was different and designed to suit the
workstyle and whim of the guy who used it.
If your last or only experience with hand tools was a 7th grade shop
course, you may never have had an opportunity to notice how a
craftsman personalizes his workspace. As a blacksmith, I've gradually
embodied a great number of ideosyncracies in my shop and tools -- too
many to even recall off hand. Hammer handles are shaped with a draw
knife to suit my hand and style; anvil height just so; distance from
anvil to fire just so; certain tools placed where I can pick them from
a rack without looking, etc. All of this might be put to the account
of "efficiency" but it is efficiency of a very subjective sort and one
that would hardly appeal to Frederick Taylor. Of course I don't want
to bash a big piece of iron a hundred times if I can accomplish the
same with fewer blows but bashing huge pieces of iron isn't the
typical task. The subjective efficiency is more in the nature of
dance, one that feels good, is pleasing to me, leads to the fewest
annoyances, the least interruption of my train of thought, unbroken
rhythms of work.
The last time I did a smithing demo at MIT, the students came to the
blacksmith shop (of which more infra) from a class that discussed
Taylor and, as part of the demo, I told them that no self-repecting
smith would have anything to do with Taylorism. Sadly, that elicited
no questions or comments (although I thought the professor looked a
bit annoyed).
Were it not that my smithing visits to MIT led to an invitation play
with the computers, I would almost be unable to imagine doing real
work of any kind in an environment dictated in detail by management.
But I did spend a great many hours sitting at a workstation (Unix, not
anvil) and I was gradually horrified, even in the relatively relaxed,
academic hacker atmosphere. There were career hackers there more
weird than I and of course I couldn't look at myself but the
procrustean nature of the workspace was brought into focus by a new
intern who showed up while I was hanging out there. I noticed that he
had some kind of gadget in his cubicle desk drawer with which he did
somthing or other rather furtively. Eventually I discovered that
had just returned from several years living in a cabin in Alaska to
resume his education. He was a tobacco chewer and had built a stealth
spittoon in his desk. MIT is, of course, a no smoking workplace but
there are no rules against a good chaw.
Even the blacksmith shop ("lab" at MIT) was a problem. A metallurgy
professor interested in smithing had, with considerable effort and
paper work, arranged to set up a two-forge shop and arranged for
forges, blowers and minimal other tooling. Only the forges weren't
really usable. I suggested changes but, I was informed, they would
require budget items, work orders, electricians, safety supervision,
material requisition and more. [1] I went dumpster diving on the campus
for materials and, with the aid of a sledge hammer and cutting torch,
made modifications to compensate for poor design and grossly oversized
blower motors. The professor was quite pleased. The management never
knew.
Well, I *said* I liked anecdote and story. Brad's discovery of
decline in the work environment with loss of a pleasing men's room is
just the tobacco chewer, the tip of the iceberg that sticks up high
enough that you (finally) notice.
sally> Who would have guessed that the nature of workplace toilets
sally> would spark so much interest!? Are we into the symbolic
sally> realm here...(your choice of symbols: power, control,
sally> privacy, escape, etc.)?
Embodiments of mind. There are jobs -- laying under a bulldozer in a
puddle of slush in a snowstorm trying to weld up a heavy steel plate
comes to mind -- that are just slogging and endurance. But work
should be, insofar as circumstances permit, an embodiment of mind.
And however bright, clear and logical, mind is messy and messily
implemented in body and in space. Work, worker and workspace are
synergistic.
Ray again:
reh> It is in the ability to place my own things on the wall and to
reh> fill my eyes and ears with the things that I want to be a part
reh> of the rest of my life, and a wonderful wife business partner,
reh> that makes me comfortable with seeing my future around me.
Right.
- Mike
---
[1] For a specious account of modifying your space in an institutional
environment, see
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/alien/bulb-mit.html
---
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
