Impersonality in Bureaucracy: is it really so bad?

Impersonality is often one of the main complaints in dealing with bureaucracy. Since we are individuals to ourselves, it is difficult to wrap our heads around the fact that other people do not automatically see our uniqueness and distinctive qualities. However, those workers at the DMV and the secretaries in the College of Charleston administration dare to group “me” (the individual) with the rest of people who visit (the rest of society). How could they do something like this? I am an interesting, unique girl with experience and a personality that differentiate me from all the rest of those identical clones that ask for assistance. I AM AN INDIVIDUAL! And then I remember my first real job.
It’s nothing fancy, just a few days a week stapling brochures together at a printing press for $6/hour. Since I’m 13 and don’t yet have my working papers, getting paid $6/hour under the table is like a dream come true. There are about 5 other teens in my group, all of us stapling paper together and avoiding eye contact with each other. There’s a woman that oversees my group; she sits with us and makes sure that we don’t talk too loudly and that we’re completing our brochures properly. Another woman comes around and whispers with her every so often, discussing progress and performance, and she answers to one last person, a big man named Marcus who talks very loudly and ignores us as a whole.
Although I wasn’t aware of it, this is a stereotypical bureaucracy, as defined by Weber. There is the division of labor – a few different groups of teenagers settled around the big building, doing a multitude of different jobs. Some staple papers, some assemble pamphlets, some fold brochures, etc. We are not the ones who take inventory, dole out paychecks, or speak with customers. There are other usually older workers who take care of that. And then there is the hierarchal structure. I was part of the wide bottom crust. There were probably 20 teenagers employed at the printing press during this school vacation. The next level was occupied by the women sitting with each of the 4 groups of kids. They were our direct superiors, our supervisors. Above them, there are two women who oversee everyone. It is their job to make sure that all the pamphlets and brochures are assembled correctly and that everyone arrives on time and is paid accordingly. They are also allowed to interact with the customers. On the highest level, Marcus resides in all his glory. His biggest job is to deal with the customers, especially when complaints are filed, but he also takes care of the business. Rent, water, electricity, these are all his responsibility as owner of the Millbrook Central Printing Press. The written rules and regulations were all inside the employee handbook, even though it was only 3 pages. And employment was based on what skills you had or didn’t have. For example, I never would have dreamed of interacting with customers or taking inventory. There were people trained to do this. I was content just to daydream while my fingers worked by themselves assembling the endless brochures. And the biggest bureaucratic characteristic I witnessed was impersonality.
At the time, I wondered why Marcus didn’t interact with the teenagers. After all, what middle aged business owner doesn’t adore sullen sleepy kids? He would say a brief hello in the morning, and then the two overseers would give us any orders that he had from us. If a mistake was committed by one of the floor workers, the women always reacted in the exact same way; it didn’t matter who committed the error. It could be the youngest girl there (me) or the oldest woman, we received the exact same treatment. I was never late, but I witnessed a few boys get soundly chastised one day for slipping in 15 minutes after 11:00. They tried to explain themselves, but the older women did not want stories or excuses or anything of that sort. They just wanted the work to get done. In a work environment, personalities don’t really matter. Beyond the pleasantries exchanged, the superiors didn’t really care how your day was going or what your favorite color was or where you wanted to go to college. I was there to work, and nothing else.
The social structure in the printing press was a basic bureaucracy. The definition of the situation, as defined by W.I. Thomas, was uncomplicated. We were in a warehouse, with employer/employee relations, and there was no leeway. We were not to act in any manner unbecoming to an unskilled laborer; even talking loudly was frowned upon. We were to work quickly and finish unthinkable amounts of brochures in any given day. It was just the way things were.
And is there a problem with that? Is impersonality an issue? I think not! When interpersonal ties and bonds develop, that’s when problems start in the workplace. In a capitalist society, the personality of a business does not matter outside customer service. What matters is efficiency. And impersonality is a helping hand in developing efficiency. I may not know your name, but I can tell you what you’re doing wrong. This is the mentality that many employers have. It may not be this extreme, but impersonality still exists. Even in the Office Space blurb that we watched, the movie made fun of extreme impersonality when the main character was reprimanded about 17 different times for making a slight error. While it was annoying and probably unnecessary, I can guarantee that he will never again make that particular mistake.
Take the Office on the other hand. Michael Scott, the boss, is trying to get rid of all impersonality in the workplace. He insists on referring to his employees as friends, instead of the workers, or even coworkers. While this may sound like a more humane place to work, he glides over major mistakes that harm the company overall. This is not the way a business should be run, and I am fairly certain that were a company in real life run the same way, they probably would not survive for a very long time.
So, overall, while I am not a big fan of being a nameless human being in certain circumstances, I understand that impersonality and maintaining distance are important factors in the ways enterprises are run. And I understand that when the DMV worker, or the secretary addresses me as ‘miss’ instead of Nancy, I shouldn’t be insulted. It’s not their job to know my life story, just to help me as a consumer.