Professional Women at Work: Interactions, Tacit Understandings, and the Non-Trivial Nature of Trivia in Bureaucratic Settings

by Jerry Jacobs

Overview

This book looks at the routine taken-for-granted features of work as experienced by professional women in bureaucratic environments. It shows why these trivial features are not trivial, but add up to a good part of what all work is composed of. Finally, it considers why the women interviewed in this study encountered and experienced their professional careers in the ways they did. There are many books on the general subject of women at work and the sociology of work, but few deal with what the work consists of, how it is accomplished, what one needs to know to undertake it competently, and how it is experienced by the worker. This book deals with all these issues, and more, that are typically overlooked in the literature on women at work in particular and on work in general.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897893800
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/30/1994
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	1240L (what's this?)

About the Author

JERRY JACOBS is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Syracuse University and author of 13 books, including Fun City (1974, 1978, 1983), The Moral Justification of Suicide (1982), and The Mall: An Attempted Escape from Everyday Life (1984).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Qualitative and Quantitative Studies of Work: Some Essential Differences
Understanding Work and Workers: A Respect for Trivia and the Need for Rich Description and Subjective Assessments
Office Work: Joan, Publication Coordinator
Good Work and Bad Jobs: Ann, Principal Administrative Analyst
God Bless the Children: Toni, Educator and Child Care Administrator
God Help the Needy: Fran, HIV Clinic Director
Public vs. Private Practice: Freda, Clinical Psychologist
Summary and Conclusions
Bibliography
Index