specified work, but as was noted in the previous discussion of bureaucracy, he or she tries to boost personal satisfaction within the formal structures of the office hierarchy. One means of achieving this though idle talk is to form friendships. Another is to counteract apathy and listlessness through chat.
Work can be both boring and stressful. Every worker occasionally experiences times when he or she is simply not motivated to do what is expected, though they are motivated enough to be on the job in order to accrue time towards pay. It may be the first thing in the morning, and the unpleasantness of the journey to work must be overcome by taking time out for a cup of coffee and friendly word, or it may be near the end of the day, and there is neither energy nor interest remaining to “work” the remaining hours. Work can be avoided during statutory coffee, tea and lunch breaks. Little times out are created while passing in the hall-way or on the stairs, and during chance meetings over the sink in the Ladies. Nothing is more diverting than idle chat. Gossip is a favourite form of entertainment for those who are avoiding work. It is easy to do and easy to hide, may be done in large groups or between two individuals, shrink and expand to fill vacant time, cover any topic and so be interesting to anybody. It can be adjusted to fit any mood. Different configurations of people tend to cover the same ground again and again each time they engage, elaborating favourite themes as they go on. As each participant becomes more familiar with the subject, creative evolution can exhibit social skill and wit.
There is a ritualised flavour to these in t e r a c t io n s! 2 and a relationship
between topic and time of d a y ! 3 can be identified. Over the years that I worked in the office, I observed the following ritualised interactions. In the morning, almost without fail, as the numbers of those present grew, the young men would congregate into a small group to discuss sports scores. They
! 2 See Goffman (1967: 33-40) for a more detailed discussion of ritual rules of talk in situations such as those just described.
! 3 Roy (1973) noted a similar phenomenon in his own fieldwork where one man ritually produced a banana from his lunch bag at a certain time every day, proclaiming to his co-workers that it was "banana time" to justify a break from his labours.
were typically thus engaged for 5 to 10 minutes before they began to work, and before the managers arrived. The talk was predictably along the lines of "my team is better than yours” and “I would rather die than associate with those losers the way you do." This would then be countered by some retort, some excuse. Jokes would go back and forth and scores of other teams would be compared. The conversation would drift to what each person had done the night before, and what they planned to do by way of after-work entertainment for the rest of the week. Nobody was actually interested in what was discussed. They would not have missed these standardised interactions if they had had the day off, and they probably would not be able to remember what they had discussed the previous morning. Their daily reiterations of the same conversations are evidence that this was only their means of winding up for the day, getting ready, and getting used to being together again.
The next ritualised time-bound interaction was the morning tea break. Each day, everyone worked until about 11.00 a.m. when it was at least an hour until it was time to leave for lunch. It was mutually understood that a break was called for. Somebody would walk over to the kitchen area where these interactions invariably took placei4 and would begin the preparations. In a few minutes, after it was certain that somebody else had gone to the trouble of boiling the kettle, cleaning the dregs out of the pot and taking a bottle of milk out of the refrigerator, the remaining staff would gather around the table, cups held in expectation. They talked about making the tea, asked whether there were any good biscuits in the tin, somebody would mention something about work, they would discuss it, asking questions even if it wasn't their project because it was vaguely interesting and they may have needed to know about it at some later date. The talk filled the time and was a good excuse to be away from work. A telephone would ring, and somebody would leave the table to answer it. They would all soon drift back to their desks.
The same thing happened at about 3.00 p.m., but by then, everyone was tired .. There were nonetheless two hours to work before leaving the office. This was the time that a diversion would be most welcome. So, somebody would offer to make a pot of tea, and again, they would congregate around the table, managers, professionals and admin alike. By this time, they were too tired to talk about work, so that was not a favourite topic at this time of day. Instead, they would begin airing complaints and theories about the efficacy of their superiors (provided that they were out of earshot). This was closer to the popularly understood meaning of gossip as they discussed others who were not present with at least some malice. It was vastly more entertaining than what awaited them at their desks. If they did not talk about things directly related to their jobs and the people who made them work, they would discuss topics designed to maintain interest such as the sexual exploits of previous employees who were not there to defend themselves, or speculation about how much money a former colleague was earning. Sports scores were not compared at this time of day: something stronger was called for.
Idle chat to pass the time also occurs outside these highly ritualistic situations. Each day upon first meeting, it is common for people to ask questions from those they are friendly with such as "How are you today" or "What did you do last night". Just as with the exchange of football scores described above, these questions are meant to illicit conversation though not necessarily meaningful responses. They are questions designed to open up the floor to grooming by gossip and are generally reserved for situations or times when informal behaviours can be acted out with impunity. Busy people do not make small talk and can resent the intrusion that is presented when a colleague attempts to initiate it. Office chit chat is markedly reduced during busy times or with groups of people who habitually work hard. Because of this, the propensity to talk idly is considered by the managers as proof of a lack of commitment since it is surmised that having the time to talk is due to low motivation in the employee. It therefore becomes necessary to hide these social activities. There are a number of methods used to hide gossip:
outside the coffee areas, it can be done in a secluded place such as the toilets or behind closed doors; whispering and lowered voices draw little attention; people pretend to discuss a paper held in hand while their conversation bears no relation to its contents.
In contrast to the time-filling sociality described thus far, gossip can help to form social bonds between co-workers of a stronger sort. The people of the office only spend time together because they must. The traditional cohesive ties of blood or obligation are missing from their relationships. They are there to work, and if they wished, they could do their jobs to perfection and never speak a casual word to anybody throughout their careers. They are not required to make friends with their colleagues but choose to. Making friends requires a great deal of knowledge. They find friends by talking around, by asking questions and showing interest. In conversation, they can discuss the person addressed, or talk about somebody or something else. During the course of the speaking, the personality e m e r g e s i s . Once they are on the firm ground of understanding, their talk can venture into unknown territory. They can begin to speak about things that have nothing to do with work and build knowledge of what they have in common in areas where the commonalties aren't necessarily direct and obvious. But to reach the point where casual conversation branches out into the personal requires trust. One means of earning this trust is by participating in the act of gossip itself. Gossiping bears with it an element of danger. Social information is very valuable and hard to come by, in some cases forbidden. There is a risk in passing it and a risk in hearing it. It is black market news. One must therefore be careful who one gossips with and only when there is a fair chance that some form of reciprocation will be offered. By gossiping together, people establish that first, the others who gossip are endangering themselves as
1 5 Gossiping as self-revelation can be a sincere means of forming sociai bonds. Tannen noted that women tend to discuss personal problems with many other women, be these problems large or small, and they do so continuously. Men, if they discuss their problems as all, will either discuss them with women or with a very limited group of men. Much female bonding is based upon the sharing of grief (1990: 96-122).
well, and second, that they won't pass on what they know to those who don't, without risking their own positions.
Gossip is a means of forming social bonds and of providing subversive entertainment in lieu of working. Most of the office workers do this in the ritualised situation of the coffee or tea breaks but the activity is limited to those in lower status positions outside them. Those in lower positions have more time available for this sort of activity and are less socialised into bureaucratic identities. The only relationship between this form of gossip and formal bureaucratic structures is that it is hidden from persons who are adopting bureaucratic identities.