The watercooler became a cult symbol in the 1990s. It is, of course, a wholly American phenomenon, given that nation’s predilection for bottled water and banter. So how did I know? Through an episode of Seinfeld, of course. The very object and Americanisms aside, the watercooler is a symbol (or signifier?) of the post-industrial workplace with its cubicle partitions, work segmentation and specialization, and computer-mediated communications: the transformation of white-collar clerical work into assembly-line information management and knowledge production. Is something similar happening in academia?

There are defintely differences and academics are still a privileged lot elevated above the common-man-woman information specialist. But take a walk through the department’s 3rd-floor corridor and you won’t exactly feel the warmth of collegiality, though sometimes an interesting and audible conversation would bring out the curious inhabitants behind closed office doors. The closed office doors are more effective partitions than cubicles; our disciplinary sub-field specializations are harder to cross than white-collar work segmentation; and emails and the Internet have made us more connected to our own specialized networks than to each other in the department.

I am not complaining though, as I get my fill of collegiality at department functions such as the seminars, meetings, and wine and cheese and tea events, not to mention the small conversations at the mailboxes, corridor, toilet (this is gendered though), lounge and pantry. But these are fleeting and nothing like the famed watercooler exchanges that have spawned business ideas and collaborations in the fertile soil of extended small-and-big talk about nothing and everything.

Recently, I realized that the department has such a watercooler and it is the shared printer in the general office. And the manner of my discovery? Eric saw my paper on patrimonialism that I printed out while collecting his printout and emailed me with all humor, telling me he wanted to swipe it because he was interested in the topic but got the scruples. Of course! I know that he works on patriarchy, but because of the post-industrial organization of academic work and despite our relatively frequent friendly and professional interactions with each other, I have not connected my own interest in patrimonialism to his work. But a chance encounter at our watercooler changed that; we are now exchanging notes on the topic and he is reading my paper for postcomprehensibility =). I’ll put up a draft of the paper here soon for anyone who is interested to download and comment.

The oasis is relative to the thirst. Ink is obviously the life-giving resource of an academic community addicted on words, text and paper. If I have my way, I would think of a way to position our watercooler printer in such a way as to increase the probability of such serendipitous encounters and exchanges, all in the name of productivity and creativity (though the marxist in me would wonder about the extraction of labor value and whether this applies to us). And I would encourage everyone to steal a read of the printouts while collecting yours (oh yes, I wanted to ask Anne about her forthcoming publication in Journal of Historical Sociology because I stole a read the other day =).