Hiding Out: Creative Resistance Among Anonymous Workbloggers

275 Pages·2008·4.22 MB·English

HIDING OUT:
CREATIVE RESISTANCE AMONG ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGERS
by
ABIGAIL SCHONEBOOM

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York

2008
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© 2008
ABIGAIL SCHONEBOOM
All Rights Reserved
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This manuscript has been read and accepted for the
Graduate Faculty in Sociology in satisfaction of the
dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

4/4/08 Professor Stanley Aronowitz
Date Chair of Examining Committee

4/4/08 Professor Paul Attewell
Date Executive Officer

Professor William Kornblum

Professor Mitchell Duneier
Supervisory Committee

THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
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Abstract
HIDING OUT:
CREATIVE RESISTANCE AMONG ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGERS
by
Abigail Schoneboom
Adviser: Stanley Aronowitz
Anonymous workbloggers – employees who write online diaries about their work
– are often simultaneously productive workers and savage critics of the corporate cultures
in which they toil. Writing under an assumed identity, these workers create satirical
portraits of their supervisors and colleagues, rail against management gurus and corporate
buzzwords, celebrate time-wasting capers, and daydream about quitting. Their irreverent
and fictionalized accounts of work, which are shielded from the gaze of co-workers and
supervisors, reveal how office workers critically negotiate a labor process that,
increasingly, demands their hearts and minds.
This study, which comprises an overview of media and organizational responses
to the phenomenon, ethnographic case study of a small group of anonymous
workbloggers in the North West of England, and analysis of a broader sample of
workblogs from both sides of the Atlantic, explores anonymous workblogging as a
window on the nature of dissatisfaction and alienation among knowledge workers.
Considering these workers as authors, it reveals that a small yet vocal group of cynical
workers are engaged in sophisticated, creative, and networked forms of resistance,
exploiting the knowledge workplace's decentralized structure to reclaim time and creative
space from corporate culture’s encroachment.
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Paying close attention to the artistry and craftsmanship that workers employ in
writing blogs, this study draws attention to the diversion of significant creative and
intellectual resources away from the labor process. Treating employee dissent as an
intellectually and technologically sophisticated phenomenon that emerges from the
contemporary white-collar labor process, this dissertation argues that – in concert with
ecologically and ethically driven sustainability mandates -- the creative activity of a very
small and disparate number of talented and disaffected workers can produce a counter-
hegemonic force in the cultural realm. However, using the literati of the past as a guide,
the study also highlights the intellectual thrill of unrealized dreams and foiled ambitions,
which makes the postponement of the end of capitalism, and oppression itself, a source of
exquisite fulfillment for those who pursue their art clandestinely.
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Acknowledgements
This dissertation is dedicated to workers everywhere who exercise their right to be
lazy. I want to thank all the bloggers who helped me with my research, in particular, Tim
and Beth, to whom I owe many beers. This dissertation would not have been possible
without my brother Jonathan’s dangerous writings and insights, and both of us are
grateful to John and Isabelle Baker for teaching us to be troublemakers. I would like to
thank my committee: Stanley, Bill, and Mitch, for all their help and advice. I am
particularly indebted to the inspiring teaching and intellectual guidance of Stanley
Aronowitz, who enabled me to bring this project to fruition. I want to acknowledge the
tireless support of John Schoneboom whose cleverness and belief in not working too hard
made the dissertation-writing process bearable. Finally, I dedicate this project to little
Oscar Schoneboom, who was conceived alongside the dissertation, and who spent
enough of his first six months sleeping to allow me to finish the first draft.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: THE WORKER AS AUTHOR...................................................1
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1
How the Study is Organized............................................................................7
The significance of this study..........................................................................9
FEATURES OF A BLOG.........................................................................................11
BLOGGING AS LABOR.........................................................................................16
The corporate vision of emancipated labor..................................................20
The promise of technology.......................................................................25
Anonymous Workblogging as a Safety Valve..........................................28
Critical perspectives on corporate culturism and knowledge work.............30
The Logic of Containment........................................................................32
Anonymous Workblogging as Containment.............................................38
The Logic of Separation and Transcendence............................................40
Anonymous Workblogging and the New Class Critique..........................44
The Revival of the Recalcitrant Worker...................................................46
A THEORY OF CREATIVE RESISTANCE...............................................................49
CHAPTER 2: ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGING IN CONTEXT............56
THE SCOPE OF THIS STUDY................................................................................56
The absence of a labor organizing agenda...................................................58
Inclusion of heterogeneous workplaces........................................................59
METHODOLOGY.................................................................................................61
A BRIEF HISTORY AND OVERVIEW OF BLOGGING..............................................68
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Blogging platforms, skill, and anonymity.....................................................69
Blogging as a distinctive practice.................................................................71
Measuring the blogosphere and locating anonymous workblogs within it..73
Technological developments in the blogosphere..........................................75
CHAPTER 3: ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGING AND
ORGANIZATIONAL COPING STRATEGIES.............................................78
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................78
FIRED BLOGGERS AND THE MEDIA....................................................................80
TECHNOLOGY POLICIES WITH TEETH: EMPLOYERS RESPOND TO BLOGGERS....89
A Tentative Embrace: Corporate Blogging..................................................90
ANONYMOUS BLOGGING CONTINUES................................................................92
Caution and Renewed Commitment: Anonymous Bloggers Cover Their
Tracks............................................................................................................98
The Case of Petite Anglaise........................................................................100
ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGING AS CREATIVE REFUSAL..................................106
CHAPTER 4: ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGERS IN GREATER
MANCHESTER AND LANCASHIRE...........................................................111
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................111
PART ONE: PROFILE OF AN ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGER: A FREE MAN IN
PRESTON..........................................................................................................112
Introduction.................................................................................................112
Becoming a Blogger....................................................................................114
Satisfying Creative Urges...........................................................................115
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Workplace Realities and Blog Fictions.......................................................118
Colleague Caricatures:............................................................................119
Corporate culture:...................................................................................121
Appraisals and Limiting Ambition at Work................................................124
Separating Creative and Professional Life.................................................126
Writing, Social Change, and Membership in the Blogging Community.....128
A Free Man in Preston and the Literature on Resistance..........................133
PART TWO: A GROUP OF MANCUNIAN BLOGGERS..........................................137
Introducing the Bloggers............................................................................138
Convergent Themes in Anonymous Workblogs...........................................146
Keeping Creativity Separate from Paid Employment.................................150
Anonymous Workbloggers and Social Change...........................................154
CHAPTER 5: VIOLENCE AND POETRY: A BROADER SAMPLE OF
ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGS.....................................................................163
INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY..............................................................163
TIRED OF BLOGGING?......................................................................................170
RANTS, AILMENTS, AND PRO-CAPITALIST SENTIMENTS..................................174
GLIMMERS OF CREATIVE RESISTANCE.............................................................179
The Exceptional Eloquence of Call Center Blogs.......................................188
TOWARD A THEORY OF CREATIVE RESISTANCE...............................................196
CHAPTER 6: THE FABRIC OF CREATIVE RESISTANCE....................201
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................201
CRITICAL ACCOUNTS OF OFFICE WORK: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE...............203
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Anti-work ideas as pseudo self-help, comedy, and interactive art.............210
THE WRITER-CLERK TRADITION.....................................................................214
Franz Kafka: The Archetypal Writer-Clerk................................................214
Elliot, Miller, and Pessoa...........................................................................219
CHAPTER 7: ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGING AND SOCIAL
CHANGE...........................................................................................................226
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................226
THREE SCENARIOS FOR ANALYZING ANONYMOUS WORKBLOGGING................228
THEORIZING THE DESIRE FOR UNFETTERED CREATIVITY................................232
The reality of dissatisfaction and time-stealing..........................................233
Time and creative fulfillment......................................................................236
The ecological and ethical mandate for social change..............................239
BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................243
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT.......................................................262