Composite narrative of Paige
| Composite narrative: Paige | Researcher interpretation |
|---|---|
| The revolution of the speed of communication and organizing in general is just huge – it could be compared to the introduction of the combustion engine. For instance, I heard there used to be only one landline at our office, and a public-address system they used to announce to whom the phone call was for. Although this was ages ago and before my time at NRC, I think life was less busy then as there was no simultaneity of communication. There was more time to do everything | Paige starts by reviewing the change of work pace throughout the history of NRC and anchors the experience of contemporary acceleration to common knowledge and hearsay stories about the past. The past is portrayed as a simpler and slower time which, compared to the simultaneity of today’s communication, is associated with less busyness |
| Just the other day an older colleague who is about to retire reminisced the past and said “in the 80’s when you mailed letters, you would know that the matter is off your table for the next three weeks. Nowadays the matter goes back and forth in three minutes!” | The past and its difference compared with the acceleration of today is further reinforced in present stories as Paige’s narrative continues. The accelerating tempo of communication is thus illustrated in this reference to a memory shared by a colleague |
| Even when I think back over the last few years at NRC, there have been significant changes in the efficiency, fluency and speed of working. We had done hybrid work for quite some time already, but COVID and related meeting restrictions really pushed the change – suddenly all the meetings went online, and it seems like this practice is here to stay. With all the tools we have, our working sure has speeded up! We have smartphones, email, Microsoft Teams and instant messaging channels. Email is the number one channel for nonurgent matters and phone calls are a must for urgent things. The more I think about this, the more I realize how far we have come from the times of mailing letters | Acceleration is also produced in hybrid workers’ firsthand experiences as Paige describes their own and NRC’s recently accelerated work practices and current uses of communication technologies. Paige attributes acceleration to the Covid-pandemic and the uses of various technologies. This illustrates how the present collaboration practices are ongoingly reinforcing acceleration, which emphasizes the temporal gap between slow past and fast present |
| I think the technological development is constant and ongoing: communication and the platforms are going to change anyway. I bet that a few years from now, the current tools will have become outdated, and we will have again found new ways of working | Paige’s narrative then concludes with speculations about the future, where hybrid work is portrayed as an accelerated and constantly accelerating environment where the speed of communication will define the ways of working. From Paige’s perspective, acceleration appears as a given and natural structure to which workers must adapt. The speeding up of the tasks and activities is driven by forces other than hybrid workers’ own agency as it seems that Paige attributes acceleration to the implementation of various technological tools in the organization |
| Composite narrative: Paige | Researcher interpretation |
|---|---|
| The revolution of the speed of communication and organizing in general is just huge – it could be compared to the introduction of the combustion engine. For instance, I heard there used to be only one landline at our office, and a public-address system they used to announce to whom the phone call was for. Although this was ages ago and before my time at NRC, I think life was less busy then as there was no simultaneity of communication. There was more time to do everything | Paige starts by reviewing the change of work pace throughout the history of NRC and anchors the experience of contemporary acceleration to common knowledge and hearsay stories about the past. The past is portrayed as a simpler and slower time which, compared to the simultaneity of today’s communication, is associated with less busyness |
| Just the other day an older colleague who is about to retire reminisced the past and said “in the 80’s when you mailed letters, you would know that the matter is off your table for the next three weeks. Nowadays the matter goes back and forth in three minutes!” | The past and its difference compared with the acceleration of today is further reinforced in present stories as Paige’s narrative continues. The accelerating tempo of communication is thus illustrated in this reference to a memory shared by a colleague |
| Even when I think back over the last few years at NRC, there have been significant changes in the efficiency, fluency and speed of working. We had done hybrid work for quite some time already, but COVID and related meeting restrictions really pushed the change – suddenly all the meetings went online, and it seems like this practice is here to stay. With all the tools we have, our working sure has speeded up! We have smartphones, email, Microsoft Teams and instant messaging channels. Email is the number one channel for nonurgent matters and phone calls are a must for urgent things. The more I think about this, the more I realize how far we have come from the times of mailing letters | Acceleration is also produced in hybrid workers’ firsthand experiences as Paige describes their own and NRC’s recently accelerated work practices and current uses of communication technologies. Paige attributes acceleration to the Covid-pandemic and the uses of various technologies. This illustrates how the present collaboration practices are ongoingly reinforcing acceleration, which emphasizes the temporal gap between slow past and fast present |
| I think the technological development is constant and ongoing: communication and the platforms are going to change anyway. I bet that a few years from now, the current tools will have become outdated, and we will have again found new ways of working | Paige’s narrative then concludes with speculations about the future, where hybrid work is portrayed as an accelerated and constantly accelerating environment where the speed of communication will define the ways of working. From Paige’s perspective, acceleration appears as a given and natural structure to which workers must adapt. The speeding up of the tasks and activities is driven by forces other than hybrid workers’ own agency as it seems that Paige attributes acceleration to the implementation of various technological tools in the organization |
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