Sociology Of Work Analysis

Volti believes that work is the “central activity in the lives of most people.” Understanding the Sociology of work is important, because work takes up so much of our lives. Where we work, what we do at work and who we work for are characteristics of our identities and determines who we make our friends. When work is boring, the workers feel undermined and this perpetuates a culture that exploits the proletariat/workers and adds value to the capitalist/firm. My subject, my mother, described boring work by the monotonous tasks that she would have to do on a daily basis as well as the constant monitoring put in place to remove agency from the workers. These workers would commit small acts of resistance to gain agency over not only their …show more content…
Policies and procedures that limit worker’s agency over human-to-human interactions is a clear example of the alienation of workers from their labor or natural skill. In my mom’s office workers can not leave their desk without a work related reason, they can only have fifteen minute breaks and any time away from the desk is documented by the office manager. By separating the workers, the workers are not able to create a sense of community that usually comes when people are in close proximity to one another. Marx would describe this form of isolation as a form of “Historical Materialism”. Historical Materialism is the belief that society is based off of a social system that has a base in the source of production. Marx describes this theory as a pyramid with ideas and values at the tip and the economy or source of production as the base. This theory suggests that the economy or source is what forms ideas and values. The policies and procedures of the source of production that control social interactions create this ideology or system of values that does not allow the workers to feel comfortable or encouraged to come to work. The importance of worker’s social interactions is suggested in studies done with the workers studied in “Banana Time”– a study done by a sociologist that observed the workers in a manufacturing factory. As described in “Banana Time”, workers would come up with things to pass …show more content…
This is even clear in the way that the workers “prank” each other. In my mom’s office when a worker is late or did is on vacation, the workers put miscellaneous pieces of papers on the absent worker’s desk, in order to give the illusion that the worker had a lot of work to catch up on. “Pranking” such as this does not take a lot of worker to worker interaction nor does it aid in a more social culture that may make the work more enjoyable. The worker culture that is described in Banana Time is based around a culture that the workers created during work and during breaks. Because the workers are separated, work becomes boring when there is not a theme, time or game culture to allow the time spent at work to