Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job
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...
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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.
ForewordAcknowledgments1Introduction12Vignettes of Work in the Field143Territories: The Geography of the Service Triangle624The Technicians665The Customers786Talking about Machines, and Bits Thereof...897The Work of Service1048War Stories of the Service Triangle1259Warranted and Other Conclusions144References163Index167
