Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!actnyc!gcf@uunet.UU.NET From: actnyc!gcf@uunet.UU.NET (Gordon Fitch) Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Re: Electronic sweatshops Message-ID: <11313@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 23 Jun 88 20:10:13 GMT References: <11255@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: InterACT Corporation Lines: 43 Approved: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts) Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu } 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.