In my daily work practice as a design ethnographer I am lending users my ear. Taking this role I often hear about complaints and frustration about insufficient products, services and workplace ergonomy. Users seem to be glad to have somebody to unload their annoyances and to channel their negative experiences. They often perceive me as their voice especially when I am alone with them without the superior manager. I hear about manufacturing workers who intentionally destroy computer screens or scratch the manufactured goods. The most common reasons for this are boredom and alienation from the work place.
Such behaviour can be perceived as weapons of the weak. Workers oppose an inhuman working climate and try to resist external control. They sabotage the assembly line if it is dictating the work speed by inserting some tool into the gears. The whole production machinery then stops and generates a feeling of instant relief. By this behaviour the workers turn the power conditions upside down. They make sure that they are under control of the working conditions at last.
I also notice side activities by which the workers often seek distraction from their work routines in order to escape monotony. In his book ‘dignity at work’ Randy Hodson, an American sociologist, explains:
Such peripheral, meaningful activities are important strategies for holding back the boredom of too many hours spent on the same activity. Even the often inherently interesting tasks of professional employees can become boring when done to excess. The pursuit of independent meanings can thus be expected to be widespread across workplace.
During the interviews I often find my interview partners to be full of irony when they comment on their work practice. The American cultural anthropologist Gabriel Torres examined this phenomena further in his study among Mexican tomato workers. These workers often pair irony with little subversive acts of destruction. He interprets this irony under a functionalist perspective explaining it as a valve for anger and poor working conditions on the tomato farms.
What is the use of a gun in a crane?
I share this view. Irony, same as any kind of humour, helps people bearing rigid working conditions. Another aspect is creativity, simple solutions in order to ameliorate working conditions instantly. Emblematic is a study of rail crane workers I conducted some time ago. These workers sit high up in a glass cabin and what is indispensible for them is a 360° view in order to place containers on their exact position. One crane worker I was interviewing had a basic problem with the view through the glass windows of his cabin. There was simply no chance to clean the windows from outside. All his anger was directed towards the pigeons and the leftovers from their excrements. A simple air gun was the solution to his problem. Simple, fast, effective he explained in the interview and I admit this was unexpected.
View from the glass cabin in a container crane
References
Hodson, Randy, 2001, Dignity at Work, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 46
Torres, Gabriel, 1997, The Force of Irony. Power in the everyday Life of Mexican Tomato Workers, Oxford, Berg, pp. 168-192
