ABSTRACT
In the 1930s, during my apprenticeship as a marine engineer, I spent some years in an engineering workshop. This experience brought home clearly to me the influence of customary workshop standards of conduct upon individual behaviour, and the subtlety of the sanctions employed to enforce conformity. It was the custom of the workshop in which I served my apprenticeship for the workers to cease work some fifteen minutes before the official finishing time. During the second day in the shop I was given a job by the foreman which completely absorbed my interest. I became oblivious to my surroundings and to the passage of time. I was disturbed by the sounding of the ‘buzzer’ which announced the official finishing time, and when I looked up I found myself surrounded by a group of men who had obviously been watching me for some time. They were all ready to go home. Nothing was said, but their looks made it clear that I would soon become unpopular if I persisted in observing official times. The lesson was quickly learned, and not unwillingly. In time I learned other lessons about the customs and usages of the shop. To work too quickly was to be labelled a ‘teararse’ and to be at least partly shut out from the friendly give and take of the shop and from the spontaneously formed ‘scrounging groups’ which, in defiance of management rulings, assembled in secluded corners of the shop for unofficial tea breaks and discussions. Here, the latest sporting and political news was argued about and highly coloured accounts of sexual adventures were retailed.
