Introduction
In any list of essential office components, paper must take a prominent place. Office work is paper-based, and paper is an integral component of both process and product. It is used by the office workers to develop and record their ideas, the medium by which they create their own history, and forms part of their strategies to protect themselves against unforeseen contingencies. The workers don't think much about paper however. They are continually holding it, reading the words upon it, crinkling it up into tight balls and throwing it into plastic bins, putting it in piles and putting it away for safe keeping. But its importance is lost to them. It is so much a part of mundane existence, as necessary for their work as air for their lungs, that they pay it virtually no attention. It is simply there for them, like air, the unnoticed compliment to their thoughts.
As overlooked as paper is to the workers themselves, so is it equally invisible in the literature of offices. I have not found a single analysis of this, the ultimately mundane and ubiquitous office object, in all of the literature reviewed in this thesis, a pity since such an analysis can reveal much about the underlying process of social organisation there. Departing from the earlier chapters, this will be wholly concerned with the analysis of a class of material object in an ethnographic context. I will approach my analysis of this object, and therefore the social relations in which it is embedded by first considering its physical nature and how it embodies ideas of professionalism and competence. I will then move on to consider how its use is limited by formal
role in the hierarchy. I will conclude with a brief insight into how it fits into the daily lives of the office workers.
Paper
There are many forms of paper in the office, each serving a certain set of functions. The most important, most often used, is "blank" and white. It feeds the photo-copying machine and the printers attached to the computers. It is delivered to the office in bulk, and every three months about 22 boxes arrive on the doorstep. Each box contains 5 reams of paper which are composed of 500 individual sheets. From this it can be calculated that this office consumes over 4000 sheets of blank paper each week. The bulk of the white paper is stored in the paper closet, unpacked from its boxes, the reams stacked two deep on the shelves. People take one or two reams at a time as they fill machines, dispersing it throughout the office. White paper is everyday and common. It is nothing special and is used for nothing special. It is routine and unthought of.
White paper and its sister lined paper, which differs from it in that script is not applied mechanically but manually to its surface, is typicaly reserved for "inside" purposes. Most of this paper never leaves the office except as photo copies. More often than not it is either used to progress an idea and becomes "scrap" paper after a short time, or it is stored for later reference. A different calibre of paper is used to visit the outside world. Like children dressed by their parents in their "Sunday best" when they are taken to church where they will be seen by other parents, so the office's letters are dressed in fine inks and textures designed to reflect well on their authors.
As the name implies, letterhead stationery is used for correspondence sent officially from the office as an entity to other offices or individuals within them. Personal communications do not find their way onto these sheets because what is official is also public. Letterhead forms part of the office's wardrobe. Just as every individual has his or her own unique and often recognisable taste in dress, so every office has its own style of letter and printed report, a "house style", made up of grain, quality, logo, text and colour.
Each firm or organisation, and sometimes departments within them, have their letterhead that it is hoped will not be confused with that originating elsewhere.
Letterhead fosters recognition in regular recipients of written communications from the office. As will be shown presently, most of what is received in the post by an office is first distributed to individuals then somehow acted upon, and finally in most instances, put into storage. If a letter is easily identifiable as coming from a particular place or person it is easier to locate. When people try to find a piece of paper, they try to match what they imagine its sensory qualities to be against the real qualities they encounter. People remember what letter "looks like" not because of the words written on it, which are so small, numerous and regular as to require slow concentration to make distinctions between them, but by impression. Therefore, what a letter looks like is determined by its colour, the way light bounces off its surface, the shapes of things that cover part of its surface with a colour different from the paper itself, and the amount of printed area. The way a paper feels to the touch also helps it to be distinguished from other papers in a file or pile and thus makes it easier to locate. Each office's written communications thus manipulate the human senses slightly differently and leave their own traces on memory.
Enough of the surface of letterhead stationery has nothing printed upon it so that significant numbers of words can be applied. The office workers thus consider them to be another form of "blank" paper. The paper is high quality bond that is slightly closer to the colour of cream than white: it is thicker than the paper used for the photo-copier and has tiny bumps and ridges along the surface. Everything about it says "special purpose": it doesn't flop around as much as other papers and the little ridges make it feel rough between the fingertips that hold it. The printing upon it is olive green, a colour that most of the workers find unappetising, but even though they are usually eager to offer advice on how the office should be run, nobody ever suggests a change to another hue. The recognising and remembering has
been going on in other offices for a long time and it is assumed that the outside recipients have come to expect it.
The form that the letterhead takes has been adapted to fit the prevailing office technology. The first page of the letterhead is printed with the office logo and in small lettering, the name, professional qualifications and job title of the chief, the address, telephone and fax numbers. The upper right corner was the chosen position for this information since it was assumed that letters are fastened into files by holes punched in the left side: the upper right corner would thus be most likely to catch the eye of somebody searching a file. Words are applied to the surface of the paper via a word processing software package which electronically translates codes on the screen into a physical placement of the words on the sheet of paper. The letterhead has printed upon it in green pseudo-questions that can only be answered through the computer such as "Date:", "Our reference:", "Your reference:" and "Contact name:". The computer system was set up with a standard template that allows the author to supply this information with keystrokes, which then perfectly align with their green printed mates. Likewise, the keyed address aligns with a tiny green triangle printed on the letterhead that is 14 lines down on the word processor screen. This little marker in its turn aligns with a "window" in the envelope, saving the extra step of typing or writing the address for the second time on the outside of the envelope. Finally, along the left edge of the sheet are printed two tiny green marks, each the width of a hair and 2mm in length, that divide the sheet into even thirds. These marks are so small that they are unnoticed most of the time. However, their purpose becomes obvious when a letter is folded to fit into the envelope. Folding a letter into equal thirds so that the address fits squarely into the window in the envelope requires practice. By using the little marks as a guide, the letter can be folded correctly the first time, obviating the tell-tale creases of mistakes.
Once all the words have been printed on the page in all the right places, using continuation sheets as necessary which are the same quality of paper as the cover, the single outstanding element is the signature.
Signatures are the what render the standard office letter personal. They are often executed in ink that differs in colour from the printing on the page. People develop their own signatures and often reserve specific pens for writing them. It is not unusual for those who sign many letters and have an image to maintain, to buy themselves or receive as gifts pens which are used almost exclusively for signing letters. These pens are "special", perhaps being distinguishable from others in that they are heavier to hold or encased in expensive materials such as metal or enamel. Their tips are usually also considered to be something different from "ordinary" pens, for instance they are "roller balls" or "gold plated medium width nib fountain pens", as opposed to "felt tips" or "ball points". These pens leave their trails of ink in a different manner: more expensive pens do not leave indentations in the paper and there may be some variation in line width.
The signature is proof that the letter is one of a kind, or at least is being sent to a specific individual or for a specific purpose. If a signature is put onto a letter in any other way, this individuality is lost, and the letter becomes impersonal. A photocopied signature is stale in comparison with a fresh one from a pen and the letter is accorded less attention by the recipient. A letter with an artificial signature, for instance one that is printed onto the page with a rubber stamp or is computer generated, is even easier to disregard. Signing a letter by hand is an act of courtesy which indicates that the sender has some personal regard for the recipient - it is a social act in a bureaucratic context.
From a purely physical stand-point, a letter is "finished" and ready to be sent into the wide world as an emissary of office politics, when the words are all printed in the right places on the special letterhead paper, the margins neat, the paragraphs clearly defined, the salutations properly executed, the bottom signed, the folding at the marks on the edge, the address in the envelope's window, the stamp or franking mark on the envelope. It becomes a tight little package, full of detail and information, easy to recognise, easy to use, discrete in its anonymous envelope, its message hidden from eyes not meant to see it.
Blank white paper and letterhead are the most important types of paper, but not the only ones by any means. An example is the "typing form". Specially printed on blue paper, held together with a gummed hinge to form a pad, these are the forms that need to be filled in when something is to be processed for typing by admin. The form is stapled or clipped to the top of a pile of writing or revised typing to be put into the senior typist's in-tray. There are numerous sections where information is required such as who the author is, when the work needs to be finished, the date it was submitted, if it is required urgently, and where it is filed in the computer system. Most people don't bother to fill in all the sections but supply only as much information as they believe is necessary. The most important message to be obtained from the form by those who will be on the receiving end will be that it is blue and says who wrote it. The former is important because it is easily identifiable as something that must be processed by the typists, the latter so that they can prioritise vyhich request gets done first. There is a positive correlation between author's salary and turn-around time.
Sometimes the most important quality of a piece of paper is that it is not white. White paper is for ordinary work. Paper in a colour other than white stands out and people use it for special purposes to indicate that whatever this piece of paper is associated with should not be considered a part of mundane office functions. The most important colour in the office is blue. Every official letter that leaves the office is copied onto this paper and kept in a filing system separate from that for the white paper. Blue copies are referred to whenever there is some question of when a letter was sent or if it was sent at all. Light green paper is used to summarise the main points of the committee meetings and is sent out to individuals who need to have a quick overview of what the office's main output has been. Yellow paper is used for a form that is a check-list of steps towards completion of public relations procedures. Some members of staff use salmon paper for certain memos and reminders in the hope that their colleagues will notice these messages and not loose them. The problem with coloured paper is that
everyone who wants to make something stand out uses it, and if too many people are using it at once, the uniqueness is lost and it might as well be white.
Everybody's favourite office paper would probably have to be post-it- notes™: little pads of yellow paper with a light adhesive strip along the top of one side. A sheet can be ripped off the pad and stuck anywhere: on telephones, in diaries, on papers, in books to mark pages, on a colleague's back. They are very small, either two inches by two, or two inches by four, so using them does not seem wasteful. They are sticky so they do not need to be stapled onto things in order to get them to stay, but they are not sticky enough to damage what they are stuck to. Because they are yellow, they are easy to see. They are used to make notes to oneself or to give short messages to others. Most of the short messages that are sent around the office are on this form of paper. They have an air of informality and friendliness; they are for jotting not writing. They are to letterhead what a casual comment to a friend is to a speech in front of a large group of people.