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Mistakes at Work*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Everett C. Hughes*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Extract

The comparative student of man's work learns about doctors by studying plumbers; and about prostitutes by studying psychiatrists. This is not to suggest any degree of similarity greater than chance expectation between the members of these pairs, but simply to indicate that the student starts with the assumption that all kinds of work belong in the same series, regardless of their places in prestige or ethical ratings. In order to learn, however, one must find a frame of reference applicable to all cases without regard to such ratings. To this end, we seek for the common themes in human work. One such theme is that of routine and emergency. By this I mean that one man's routine of work is made up of the emergencies of other people. In this respect, the pairs of occupations named above do perhaps have some rather close similarities. Both the physician and the plumber do practice esoteric techniques for the benefit of people in distress. The psychiatrist and the prostitute must both take care not to become too personally involved with clients who come to them with rather intimate problems. I believe that in the study of work, as in that of other human activities and institutions, progress is apt to be commensurate with our ability to draw a wide range of pertinent cases into view. The wider the range, the more we are forced to find a fundamental frame of reference.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1951

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association at Montreal, June 7, 1951.

References

1 The colleague-group does not in all cases succeed in getting and keeping this right. Perhaps they do not always want the full responsibility of convicting one another of error and of applying sanctions. It would be more correct to say that a kind of jurisprudence of mistakes is an essential part of the study of any occupation. Professor Norman Ward has suggested that a study of the official error in baseball would throw light on the processes involved.