Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Talking about Machines : An Ethnography of a Modern Job / Julian E. Orr.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: Collection on Technology and WorkPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2016]Copyright date: ©2016Description: 1 online resource (192 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781501707407
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 305.9/6864 23
LOC classification:
  • HD9802
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Vignettes of Work in the Field -- 3. Territories: The Geography of the Service Triangle -- 4. The Technicians -- 5. The Customers -- 6. Talking about Machines, and Bits Thereof ... -- 7. The Work of Service -- 8. War Stories of the Service Triangle -- 9. Warranted and Other Conclusions -- References -- Index
Summary: This is a story of how work gets done. It is also a study of how field service technicians talk about their work and how that talk is instrumental in their success. In his innovative ethnography, Julian E. Orr studies the people who repair photocopiers and shares vignettes from their daily lives. He characterizes their work as a continuous highly skilled improvisation within a triangular relationship of technician, customer, and machine. The work technicians do encompasses elements not contained in the official definition of the job yet vital to its success. Orr's analysis of the way repair people talk about their work reveals that talk is, in fact, a crucial dimension of their practice. Diagnosis happens through a narrative process, the creation of a coherent description of the troubled machine. The descriptions become the basis for technicians' discourse about their experience, and the circulation of stories among the technicians is the principal means by which they stay informed of the developing subtleties of machine behavior. Orr demonstrates that technical knowledge is a socially distributed resource stored and diffused primarily through an oral culture.Based on participant observation with copier repair technicians in the field and strengthened by Orr's own years as a technician, this book explodes numerous myths about technicians and suggests how technical work differs from other kinds of employment.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781501707407

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Vignettes of Work in the Field -- 3. Territories: The Geography of the Service Triangle -- 4. The Technicians -- 5. The Customers -- 6. Talking about Machines, and Bits Thereof ... -- 7. The Work of Service -- 8. War Stories of the Service Triangle -- 9. Warranted and Other Conclusions -- References -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

This is a story of how work gets done. It is also a study of how field service technicians talk about their work and how that talk is instrumental in their success. In his innovative ethnography, Julian E. Orr studies the people who repair photocopiers and shares vignettes from their daily lives. He characterizes their work as a continuous highly skilled improvisation within a triangular relationship of technician, customer, and machine. The work technicians do encompasses elements not contained in the official definition of the job yet vital to its success. Orr's analysis of the way repair people talk about their work reveals that talk is, in fact, a crucial dimension of their practice. Diagnosis happens through a narrative process, the creation of a coherent description of the troubled machine. The descriptions become the basis for technicians' discourse about their experience, and the circulation of stories among the technicians is the principal means by which they stay informed of the developing subtleties of machine behavior. Orr demonstrates that technical knowledge is a socially distributed resource stored and diffused primarily through an oral culture.Based on participant observation with copier repair technicians in the field and strengthened by Orr's own years as a technician, this book explodes numerous myths about technicians and suggests how technical work differs from other kinds of employment.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)