(PROSOFT) Recibo de otorgamiento o entrega de subsidio

All university staff and students, along with external examiners and partners, have a unique university username, password and e-mail address. They also have access to Microsoft®

Outlook (Microsoft, 2017) to read and send e-mail messages (see Photograph 5 above).

Furthermore, Microsoft® Outlook allows people to maintain and manage a contact list and a calendar, which can be shared with others. The increasing volume and frequency of e-mails for a number of participants can also generate a negative affect, which can be a real "source and symbol of stress" and anxiety (Barley et al., 2011; Kushlev & Dunn, 2015):

I see so many people getting stressed out … some of my colleagues, they'll respond to e-mails or they'll e-mail you at 8, 9, or 10 o'clock at night and that's wrong. You don't want to be doing that. You feel like you're never off-duty if you're going to be like that.

This participant observes colleagues becoming overwhelmed ("stressed out") with work. They believe that working beyond the contractual hours is inappropriate ("wrong"), otherwise there is no respite from work ("never off-duty"). A number of Schools and Faculties within the university have established their own internal student communications policies. These policies set out concise and coherent guidelines for staff and students, which provides clear information as to when students can reasonably expect a response to their e-mail messages. Typically, students can expect a response to their e-mail messages within two to three working days upon receipt. However, some of the participants are compelled to deal with any student e-mails much sooner:

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I mean, I'm always getting told off for going out and looking at my e-mails to stay up-to- date, because I have a fear of not replying to students. So I'll try and reply straight away.

For this participant, "fear" induces another form of negative affect if they fail to reply to student emails in a timely manner. It could be considered as a form of "iDisorder"10 _{(Rosen et} al., 2013). This near-obsessive and repetitive behaviour causes friction ("getting told off")

between the participant and significant others.

However, other participants feel they have a sense of agency over how, when and where they work:

I'm quite happy to e-mail a student back even if it's relatively late. [T]hen there's the whole thing about working hours ... I sort of feel quite content that it's part of the, you know, ongoing support that you give [to students]. The university is very flexible with your time.

It is not just the volume and frequency of e-mails that can be challenging. The author and the content of an e-mail can provoke an immediate reaction from the participants:

What I've learnt from being [at the university], is that you have to read your e-mails that are sent to you from the Administration. If you don't, you are in trouble [...] So when you get an e-mail that says: change of something; you can't just throw it in file because you then won't be able to find the stuff that's online. I've learnt that the hard way.

The e-mail can be used to raise awareness ("change of something") and inform the reader. It offers the reader with another information channel, where existing channels (i.e. corporate website) may be problematic ("[unable] to find the stuff that's online"). There is an implicit expectation that academic staff should be reading e-mails sent by colleagues in an administrative, management or leadership role which relate to institutional processes, procedures and practices. Failure to do so could have profound consequences ("you are in trouble") for the academic. Thus, academic staff have a professional responsibility (towards their colleagues) and a duty of care (towards their students) to ensure their professional knowledge is maintained and kept current.

10 _{iDisorder refers to a proposed psychological condition which suggests a negative relationship between technology usage and}

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5.2.1.6. Physical Interruption: Shared Office Space

Most academic staff will share office space with colleagues. Some academic staff, through luck or circumstance, have managed to secure an office to themselves. However, it is academic staff who hold very senior roles (e.g. Professor) and/or significant responsibilities (e.g. Head of School) who enjoy the privilege of having their own office, which is often associated with their status and authority within the institution.

There is a notion that shared academic offices can be an incubator for ideas which, in turn, produce creative hubs for research and development. Academic staff are, therefore, engendered with an "entrepreneurial spirit" (Lam, 2010). However, with shared office space comes an increased footfall of colleagues, peers and students who visit the participants and/or their co-workers wishing to talk, seek advice, pass on work or packages and so on and so forth. These take on the form of what I term as (un)scheduled visitations - the visit will either be pre-arranged or not. As a consequence, a multiplicity of opportunities and obstacles for the participants can emerge from such encounters. Whilst some interruptions are desired (e.g. a break from the screen), others can incur a high cost towards the participant (e.g. an increase in errors)

In the following extract, the participant offers two accounts (the first set in the past, and second set in the present) relating to their different experiences of sharing an office. In their first account:

I was sharing with..., I think it was six people in an office that really should've only had about three. And I really struggled. I would do things like get in early and stay late just so that I could get my work done on my own. My heart would sink if everybody turned up.

For this participant, there is a palpable negative affect ("my heart would sink"), should all six academic staff members turn up on the same day. The anxiety and discomfort felt ("I really struggled") for not being able to do a day's work meant they had to make some temporal

adjustments to their working day ("get in early and stay late") in order to do their job.

However, in their second account:

I think that's why I feel so comfortable now [in my new office], because I know that my colleague is very rarely going to be there... [S]he is a person that just gets her head down because she needs to get work done on the days she is in. We don't really chit- chat. I think we both realise we are just there to get on with things.

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In their new office surroundings, they are much more "comfortable". This creates what I term as a positive affect. It is, in part, due to their office co-worker not always being around. It is also "comforting" to the participant that their office co-worker shares similar values and work ethic ("we both realise we are just there to get on with things"). Another participant has adopted a particular strategy in dealing with excessive institutional noise:

[I]n my own office; I'm often just here on my own ... so I can get quite a lot of work done. But when everyone is in, you get lots of disturbances so you just put your headphones on and you can just get on with things ... [I]f you don't do that, you know, you get interruptions...

Something as banal as a set of headphones can take on many aspects. The participant's use of headphones in the office signals a number of properties and indicators. The headphones can enable noise reduction and allow the participant to focus upon that task at hand ("just get on with things"). The participant does not necessarily need to play any audio output through them. The headphones indicate to the other occupants in the room that the participant is busy and does not wish to be disturbed. Thus, the headphones act as a personal door to the participant working in an open-planned office, a privacy filter to exclude any external noise that might otherwise distract the participant, and as a work mode indicator to the participant's co-workers.

5.2.1.7. Postamble

In summary, institutional noise materialises through the various interruptions and disruptions to the participants by a number of actors that take the form of technology (e.g. e-mail, telephone), processes (e.g. marking), discourses that require the participants' attention, and documents that need acting upon by the participants. Such noise can generate negative affects within the participant. As institutions reconfigure their real estate for different purposes, some academics find themselves sharing office workspace with colleagues. This, too, generates additional institutional noise for the participants as they negotiate a sequence of

(un)scheduled visitations from colleagues, peers and students, whilst developing strategies for

lessening the impact.

Technologies like smartphones and tablets along with work-based e-mail can "technologically tether" (Murray & Rostis, 2007) the participant to the workplace, irrespective of the participant's location or contractual hours. Through the data-communications-machine, the participants are casualties of technological entrapment and temporal entrapment. The

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combination of technology and workplace environment will have material effects upon the participant's body, some will be detrimental to the participant's health and wellbeing.

5.2.2. Vignette #2 – Surrogate and Transient Workspaces

5.2.2.1. New Terms

In this vignette, I introduce the following new terms:

 Surrogate Workspace – This space has been fashioned into an individual's office

workspace. This space is not located at the individual's place of work. This space tends to be permanent and private.

 Transient Workspace – This space has been fashioned into an individual's office

workspace. This space is not located at the individual's home or place of work. This space tends to be temporary and public.

 Mnemonic Space – This is a mental space that evokes particular thoughts and

sensations that have been triggered by a number of multi-sensual stimuli.

 Immersive Induction – This is a particular property of a human and non-human entity,

which facilitates a particular state of mind whereby the individual is fully immersed on the task at hand.

 Reminiscence Induction – This is a particular property of a human and non-human

entity, which facilitates the surfacing of memories and recollections within an individual.

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5.2.2.2. Preamble