Taoffi's blog

prisonniers du temps

Back to basics: the Team vs. the Crew!

“If you don’t vent the drain pipe like this, sewage gases will seep-up through the water in the toilet, and the house will stink of shit”!

That seems to be a ‘clear standard’ taught to an apprentice.

Around such clear, understandable and concrete reasoning, you can build a product (or at least a knowledge) that is reusable and sustainable.

In his book “Shop Class As Soul Craft”, Matthew B. Crawford revisits the meaning, structure and alienation of Work and Knowledge in the modern era (particularly after World War II) and delivers a fresh and inspired view of the question.

One of the discussed subjects is the ‘Team’ rhetoric which appears to be the modern form for trying to definitively remove the individual from the image of ‘Work’.

 

“There is a sort of friendship or solidarity that becomes possible at work when people are open about differences of rank, and [where] there are clear standards.”