Relying on the panopticon to find my panopticon
September 12, 2013 7:59 AM   Subscribe

Can you help me find an online newspaper article, potentially from the early 2000s, about a workplace in a rural area that had instituted many of the design concepts of a panopticon?

What I remember is that workers were not allowed to speak, had highly regimented/timed (if any) bathroom breaks and the supervisor stood on a raised platform so that he/she could see all of the employees at the same time.

Jobs were scarce in that region, people were desperate for work, it was a low wage job and one of the women spoke of how desperate the workers felt to talk talk talk when they got home -- so much so that it was causing problems for family members, maybe even contributed to someone's divorce.

For some reason I'm vaguely remembering something about M&Ms -- they weren't allowed to keep any snacks or personal items (picture of their kids, for example) on their desks. (It may have been that I read the article while sitting at my desk and reflected on the fact that I really like having M&Ms available on my own desk.)

It was, I think, on the east coast (US)...maybe Pennsylvania or Maryland?

I'm introducing the panopticon concept to a group of students, and would like to share that article.
posted by vitabellosi to Work & Money (1 answer total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
I read a very similar story about working conditions in Amazon's US distribution warehouses. Extremely harsh schedules, limited breaks, no chitchat allowed, and every action tracked and timed through electronic tagging systems. And for a while, Amazon was so cheapskate that people were regularly fainting from the lack of air conditioning in the summer... only to be replaced by equally desperate temps from the failing factory towns the warehouses were deliberately located in.

Here's a lengthy MeFi thread about one such story.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:50 PM on September 12, 2013


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