Ruth doesn’t actually make glass. Actually no one at the plant exactly makes glass. Machines mix up raw materials, and machines blow and press the molten glass into ware. Machines cool and reheat and recool the ware. Machines do the decorating, applying decals to the glass with sprays of coloured ink. What people do is tend the machines. This is the case most everywhere except in one department, Select and Pack, of which Ruth is a supervisor. In this department people tend the glass. They look at it, they pick it up, they handle it, label it, lower it into cardboard departments. (Hagar-Cohen 1997:31).
This efficiency often is at a cost to the humans who operate the machines as they can be hurt. In the hurry for efficiency, many times the employees in the factory sacrifice their own safety for the sake of this efficiency. As Hagar-Cohen writes “Sometimes they [the employees] burn themselves a little on a piece of fresh glass. Sometimes they cut themselves a little on a shard of broken glass. Sometimes they remember to wear gloves” (1997:31). This rush for efficiency is a process of the McDonaldization effect. In the rush to streamline everything, the victims are often those who through no fault of their own must do these things in order to survive. Though efficiency is clearly presented in the work of Ruth, she also participates in McDonaldization through normal routine activities in her daily life. Hagar-Cohen writes about supermarkets that are open twenty-four hours a day, another surer move at efficiency. People can shop at these supermarkets whenever they want, without worrying about time.
Ruth herself in fact relies on Big Bear and Kruger’s, both twenty-four-hour supermarkets, to do
Her shopping when she gets off work on the fourth day of her rotation. Their parking lots at five A.M. are vast oceans of macadam… and the products costing and tasting the same at any time of day, Ruth hardly notices the hour. Although the butcher’s counter is dark, even Shenna’s bone may be had…All a person could want seems available here. A peacock mosaic of cardboard boxes and metal cans, like thousands of sirens, croons mutely to Ruth, who rolls past with her cart like the captain of a metal ship”(Hagar Cohen 1997:43)
Efficiency in itself is not all that bad. It does have its good aspects. We now can get anything we want at these supermarkets, anytime of day. As Ruth is the captain of her metal ship, Ritzer argues that the new chain of supermarkets has “imposed work on the customer” (2000:58). By making the shopper the “working customer”(Ritzer 2000:58), the stores save money and time, by making the customer spend more time looking for things themselves, weighing things etc, the process is only efficient for the supermarket and not the customer. In all reality this example of efficiency is really an inefficiency. As Ruth experiences McDonaldization in her work and daily life so too does Brent in his way.
Brent is a lumberjack in the woods. Though one could say that because he works in this age old profession, this makes him immune to efficiency, this is not true at all. In order for him complete his work more efficiently,
“Brent bought the harvester and porter at the same time. Together they cost six hundred thousand dollars. Brent put in some money and the bank put in some money and then Brent set out to see if those machines would return the investment. Five years later, he’s still undecided” (Hagar-Cohen 1997:24)
As we can clearly see, Brent was a willing part of the rush of efficiency, and at a high cost to himself, he is still not sure if it was worth it. This is also a part of the efficiency dimension of McDonaldization. The idea of progression and advancement is a very much part of the reason why efficiency is as popular as we can see in Brent’s case. “The idea of taking a risk, being an adventurer, trying something new, appealed to him. Mostly, though, the decision just made sense environmentally as well as economically” (Hagar-Cohen 1997:26). The downfall of Brent’s pursuit of efficiency is that he gets trapped by it. The harvester, a machine, breaks down at times and as a result of being a new age machine “…all sorts of glitches and breakdowns kept occurring” (Hagar-Cohen 1997:139). Because of this more time is spent trying to fix this machine and that is one of the reasons why Brent remains undecided as to whether his investment was a sound one or not. Although the dimension of efficiency is apparent in the process of McDonaldization and influences the lives of characters, so too does the dimension of calculability.
Ritzer defines calculability as “calculating, counting, quantifying” Quantity tends to become a surrogate for quality” (2000:62). This dimension has entered our daily lives and thus is also a part of the hold that McDonaldization places over us. Ritzer goes on to say that even in the work place this can be seen for employees where “calculability often means obtaining little or no personal meaning from their work; therefore, the work, products and services suffer”(2000:63). In the case of Ruth, this calculability is clearly defined in the plant of Anchor Hocking. Everything is calculated, right down to the shifts of the employees.
No bell rings to signal the completion of her twelve-hour lock shift. No machine shuts down, no motor hushes. The line workers are on an eight-hour rotation, and the current shift didn’t come on’til eleven last night, so Ruth’s departure does not even get market by a collective mobilization…Around her now the tow motors manoeuvre sluggishly lifting and conveying pallets of ware, their perpetual whistling pulses sounding haggard and sorrowful. But maybe it’s just a projection of the state of her own self at the end of a four-day, forty-eight hour work week. (Hager-Cohen 1997:5)
The state of the employees and the effects of this calculability are clearly defined from the quote above. From the hours of the workweek being set, to everything being controlled in the work environment, the employees are the ones that suffer. The effects of calculability make the employees ill and tired as they are subjected to this endless monotony of bureaucracy. Production is reduced to numbers and the employees have no choice but to follow this through or suffer the consequences. Some may say Ruth is not so much a victim of this calculability, that she lets it run her life. Although that may be, she has no choice in the matter, she must participate in it in order to survive. Although calculability exists in the workplace of Ruth, so too does it exist in the work of Brent.
Although Brent works as a lumberjack, calculability is clearly evident in his day to day work. From the cost of his harvester, to the number of trees he must clear before the winter, calculability rules his daily life as it does all of ours. Money becomes a part of this calculability in Brent’s life as “Brent had just invested more than half a million dollars (of mostly the bank’s money) in the harvester and porter. In order to pay back the loan on time, Brent decided the machines had better operate around the clock” (Hagar-Cohen 1997:139). Because of this calculability and need for efficiency, Brent purchased this machine, needing to pay back the loan that was needed in order to purchase this calculates piece of machinery, he now suffers by working all the time, in efforts to repay the bank. He must now calculate his trees to cut and forests in order to do this. This need for calculability placed on him has made him a victim of his own need for calculability. Though the need for calculability is also a part of the dimension of McDonaldization, so too is the dimension of predictability.
The need for predictability is fast becoming a part of our modern-day society. As Ritzer defines predictability, “In a rationalized society, people prefer to know what to expect in most settings and at most times. They neither desire nor expect surprises. They want to know that when they order their big Mac today it will be identical to the one they ate yesterday and the one they will eat tomorrow”(2000:83).”It involves an emphasis on discipline, systematization and routine so that things are the same from one time or place or another”(Ritzer 2000:102) This need to know how things will turn out rules us in every way so that we must create predictable settings. In the workplace this works by creating predictable settings for employees an example of this would be the creation of the assembly line. The worker becomes so routinized used to earning that same wage, doing that same job, that they in some ways feel lucky and take pride in the predictability of their job. In Ruth’s case this can be seen when she discusses her job as an assembly line worker and other such professions:
She was glad to be there, stationed at the checkpoint as it were, guarding the frontier between the chance piece of faulty ware and the consumer. Glad to be making eight twenty-five an hour, good golly, more than she’d ever made in her life…But there have been so many little miracles. Going from selector and packer to quality control technician from hourly worker to salaried-these things were beyond Ruth’s fondest dreams (Hagar-Cohen 1997:32)
This predictability of being a line worker and earning this wage became so imbedded into Ruth’s life that she considers herself lucky to have gotten these chances and lucky to be gainfully employed by the company. This predictability in her life has given her a sense of goodness and she would be lost without it. From moving from one assembly line position to the other, she did not lose much. Although they may have been different positions, they all involved standing for long periods of hours and doing the same task. The assembly line workers quickly become involved in their tasks, not needing to think and this is a part of the process of predictability. Although the process of predictability exists in the life of Ruth, it also exists in the working life of Brent.
Brent’s occupation of a lumberjack involves the same predictability as the assembly line work of Ruth. Though one may argue that he is not as affected by this predictability as Ruth, it is still boldly present in his day to day occupations.
He works in the woods in the province of New Brunswick, all day long among black pines, red pines, jack pines, whites; among cedars, balsam firs, white and yellow birch, red and white and black spruce, poplars (called popples here), and larch (called tamarack or hackmatack); among maples and oaks and alders and cherries and hazelnuts; also willows and dogwoods and ferns…To do his work he sits inside a sort of large glass bubble-the cab of his FMG Timberjack 990 single-grip harvester (Hagar-Cohen 1997:14-15)
The monotony and predictability of Brent’s work is clearly presented in the above speech. Brent doing the same hard, labour every day has no choice in the matter. The predictability of his work is what keeps him going. The isolation also clearly presented is also a part of this predictability. As people grow weary and tired of this work before their time, there is always someone there to replace them. Although Brent’s work is very hard and time consuming and does require more thought than that of the assembly line, the element of isolation is the same. People are so used to this predictability, filling their lives with this sameness that they do not know what to do without it. It is a constant comfort to them. It encourages letting go of the unexplained and cling to the common, everyday explainable. Much like predictability, control also is an integral part of McDonaldization that can be seen in people’s lives.
The element of control is clearly present in McDonaldization. It is the fourth dimension and perhaps one of the most startling. Ritzer defines this as “increased control through the replacement of human with non-human technology” (2000:104). This control is increasingly apparent in the case of the assembly line where people are replaced with machines. In the character of Ruth we saw the implications of this when:
Actually no one at the plant exactly makes glass. Machines mix up raw materials, and machines blow and press the molten glass into ware. Machines cool and reheat and recool the ware. Machines do the decorating, applying decals to the glass with sprays of coloured ink. What people do is tend the machines. (Cohen 1997:31).
This replacement of humans by machines has resulted in layoffs and the loss of jobs and livelihoods for employees. The only employees who do not work the machines are those in Ruth’s department who are responsible for “tending the glass” (Hagar-Cohen 1997:31). This replacement of humans can be linked to both the dimensions of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control as employers wish to do all these things in order to make their businesses run smoother. The result of this is that Ruth and employees like her are now more subject to the demands and control of the company. Ruth is a supervisor, controlling others, and in turn she is controlled by her superiors. By controlling employees this makes them easier to manage, avoiding strikes and other costly stoppages of employment. As Ritzer states “employees are relatively easy to control, because they rely on employers for their livelihood” (2000:113). Ruth, as we have seen is a prime example of how this control has ruled her workplace and although one may not expect this concept to apply to Brent, as a fact it is clearly present in his work.
As we have seen the method of control is present in the work of Brent but manifests itself in different forms. Brent purchased this modern form of technology in order to keep up with the times and in return he is now controlled by it. Hagar-Cohen compares Brent’s work as a lumberjack now to that of his Grampy Boyd and the differences of the generations present themselves in different forms when she states “Where once Grampy Boyd might’ve offered water and oats to his team of horses, then hitched them up for a day of forest work, Brent now perches on a tire, grooming as it were, this metal creature” (1997:121). The presence of the technology required now for Brent’s work has replaced both the horses and hand saws. Has this method of control helped Brent? Perhaps in some ways, but not in others. But in all reality when the machine stops working he is still left in the same boat, without any method to cut down his trees.
In Hagar-Cohen’s book Glass, Paper, Beans, the presence of the four dimensions of McDonaldization: efficiency, calculability, predictability and control have clearly manifested themselves in the lives of the characters of Ruth and Brent. The two characters were clearly participants in the McDonaldization, and some would argue that they were even willing participants as both the characters have no choice but to participate in McDonaldization in order to survive. The dimensions of McDonaldization are not all bad and neither are their effects on us. As in the feitiço we are either willing or unwilling participants in this process. We cannot stop McDonaldization; we can only slow its progress. The important thing to point out is that the majority of us are not aware that we are participating in McDonaldization and that is the worry. It is up to us to open our eyes to see how McDonaldization is manifesting itself in our own lives, so that we are not nameless cogs in its wheels of progress.
Bibliography
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Hagar-Cohen, Leah. 1997. Glass, Paper, Beans. New York, New York. Doubleday Publishing Group.
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Menezes de Vasconcelhos José. 1989. Os Marinheiros e Almirantado: (Sailors and Admiralty: elements for the History of the Navy). Lisboa, Portugal. Edições Romanas.
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Ritzer George. 2000. The McDonaldization of Society; New Century Edition. Thousand Oaks, California. Pine Forge Press.
