Verbalize the client. The controllers of the metro. A book of Eleonora Elguezabal (places to be, December 2007 ; 178 p., 12,50 €)
Controllers, a business that is rewarding ? This question may seem preposterous from the point of view of the customers. However, their role in the RATP has actually changed, following the evolution of the goals of the company, carried more towards the profitability and the quality of the service, to the extension of the lines and their frequencies. This evolution is linked to the disengagement of the State in the financing and management of the public enterprise. Thus, the repression, which represents an important source of income, but for which the counterpart is the increase of workplace accidents, is to be preferred to the continued presence of agents for the inputs, more expensive for the company. The investigation of Eleanore Elguezabal is based on an ethnographic articulating this evolution of the logics of control at the level of management with the daily practices of field agents. His approach enables a better understanding of the multiple facets of a business operation and complex practices, and of which the taking into account of the dimensions of interactionism allows you to better understand the positive vision of the controllers. In effect, these agents have a subordinate position, but they also benefit from salary-related benefits (related to the number of fines collected), and career advancement. They are either from teams present at the stations, atms for example, are specialized in the control.
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