[comp.society.women] Electronic sweatshops

eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene Miya) (06/22/88)

There is a new book out with this in the title.

--eugene miya

[Has anyone out there read it?  What is the argument?  Is it persuasive?
How does it relate to women?  TR]

LAURA@VX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Laura Bagnall) (06/22/88)

Ummm, I remember hearing an interview with someone who I think is the
author of the book that Eugene is referring to on the Fresh Air
interview program on National Public Radio (an EXCELLENT program, BTW).
Unfortunately, I can't remember the author's name (it was a woman) or
the title of the book, although the interview was in the past few weeks.
However, I do remember being impressed by the interview.  A couple of
details that come to mind are:

* data entry shops where people are monitored electronically according
to their keystroke rate per hour, and reprimanded if it drops for some
reason.  This leads to people being afraid to chat even briefly with
their neighbours, and general feelings of paranoia.

* airline reservation agents who have detailed scripts that they follow,
and if the information you are requesting doesn't fit into those
scripts, then they follow them anyway.  Their phone calls are also
monitored.  This often leads to the customer feeling like they're
talking to a computer instead of a person, and probably the agent
feeling like an automaton as well.

I believe the book relates to women in that most of these sweatshop jobs
are filled by women.  The next time I'm in my favorite bookstore, where
the person at the information desk can tell you anything about any book
given very vague information, I'll try to find out more about the book.

I'm sending this message to comp-women-request instead of just com-women
because my information is so vague.  However, feel free to post it to
the newsgroup if you feel it is relevant.

Laura D. Bagnall                          617-253-2621
UUCP: {harvard|rutgers|seismo}!mit-eddie!mit-vax!laura
ARPA: laura@vx.lcs.mit.edu       BITNET: laura%vx.lcs.mit.edu@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
MIT Lab for Computer Science,545 Technology Sq., NE43-232,Cambridge,MA 02139


Article 19 in comp.society.women:
From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene Miya)
Subject: Electronic sweatshops
Message-ID: <11233@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 21 Jun 88 19:02:55 GMT
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There is a new book out with this in the title.

--eugene miya

[Has anyone out there read it?  What is the argument?  Is it persuasive?
How does it relate to women?  TR]

kenf@uunet.UU.NET (7784) (06/23/88)

In article <11233@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene Miya) writes:
>
>There is a new book out with this in the title.
>
>--eugene miya
>
>[Has anyone out there read it?  What is the argument?  Is it persuasive?
>How does it relate to women?  TR]

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I heard an interview
with the author, Barbara Garson, recently.  Sounds like an important
book.  One point she made in the interview was Systems Analysts keeping
management types from doing dumb things.

Ken Firestone   ...mimsy!aplcen!kenf

gcf@uunet.UU.NET (Gordon Fitch) (06/24/88)

} LAURA@VX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Laura Bagnall) writes:
} >
} >* data entry shops where people are monitored electronically according
} >to their keystroke rate per hour, and reprimanded if it drops for some
} >reason.  This leads to people being afraid to chat even briefly with
} >their neighbours, and general feelings of paranoia.

This might be of interest: about five years ago I had to install a
a new data-entry system in place of an old one at an insurance company
here in New York.  The data entry clerks were all women; most of them
were immigrants with varying degrees of ability to speak English.
The new and old systems were radically different in both 'feel' and 
appearance on the one hand, and underlying structure on the other. 
It was necessary for the clerks to _like_ the new system, or (the
management felt) the whole installation would be a disaster.  So a
primary goal of my work was to see that the clerks got what they
liked.  Therefore, I interviewed several of them.  Some surprising
things came out.  The clerks didn't care what the system looked
like as long as the operation was keystroke-for-keystroke exactly
like the system they had been using.  They never looked at the
screens anyway.  (Maybe they were protecting themselves from VDT
radiation.)  They _demanded_ that the new system keep account of their
keystrokes, because they believed that this figure proved to the
management how good they were.  Since the system I was installing
didn't know about keystrokes at the application level, I had to
alter the device driver, which those who have done it will know is
not a trival or cheap task.  The management willingly paid for these
substantial changes.

In observing the operation, I noticed that the women talked with each 
other while they entered the data; their work had become pretty much 
automatic and they didn't have to pay much attention to it.  Their error
rate was lower than mine when, to test the system, I carefully
and with full attention entered some of the data, so I believe their
estimate of their value as workers was correct.  The management was
very careful to keep this group reasonably happy.

By the way, one of the managers of this company, who had managed
a larger data entry operation elsewhere, told me that he had never
seen a man who could do data entry, although he had seen some try,
unsuccessfully.   His theory was that women were more 'flexible' 
mentally, a concept which he was unable to explain.
  

ivan@uunet.UU.NET (Ivan M. Milman) (06/24/88)

>From a blurb sheet sent to the Austin Chapter of CPSR:

"The Electronic Sweatshop:  How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the 
Future into the Factory of the Past"
by Barbara Garson.  
Published by Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-671-53049-6.
$17.95  

Here's a good quote:  "... computer automation downgrades the professional
while it moves control and decision-making higher up the organization.  But
the computer is no more to blame for the electronic sweatshop than the sewing
machine was to blame for the garment sweatshop.  Rather, computers are being
used to serve a mean-spirited management that distrusts human beings and
their idiosyncracies."

Sounds like the flip side to the video "Computers in Context", the Scandinavian
documentary showing how computer technology can help the professional do
a better job instead of replacing her/him.

Ivan





-- 
Ivan Milman:  ivan@sally.utexas.edu  or {ihnp4,ctvax,seismo}!ut-sally!ivan 
"Basic research is what I do when I don't know what I'm doing." - Werner Braun

williams@src.honeywell.com (Sue Williams) (07/07/88)

>By the way, one of the managers of this company, who had managed
>a larger data entry operation elsewhere, told me that he had never
>seen a man who could do data entry, although he had seen some try,
>unsuccessfully.   His theory was that women were more 'flexible' 
>mentally, a concept which he was unable to explain.
>  
This is fairly bunkish, I think.  I was a keypunch (key to disk, not cards)
operator for several summers in high school/college, and although I didn't
think at the beginning that I would be really good/fast at it ever, I
became one of the most fast/accurate punchers in the group.  I understand
the desire to keep the keystroke counters around, the job is so boring that
seeing your "statistics" is one of the few exciting/rewarding aspects of
the job (you also have other punchers who verify your work to tell you how
accurate it is).  I am sort of performance-oriented though, other
people (or keypunch operators) might not be.

Anyway, about men vs. women, keypunching is no different than any other
hand-eye coordination thing, all it takes is patience, practice, and a little
determination.  Plenty of men are good at video games.  I don't think there's
any mental aspect to this, except that maybe women are more willing to
do this sort of work which has little excitement or payoff (unlike a
video game).  You learn to do it automatically and think of something
else, just as you do when you brush your teeth.  I must admit that I have
never met any male keypunch operators.

sue