À l’heure où l’on redécouvre l’importance des « petits » métiers (caissières, préposé aux bénéficiaires, camionneurs, nettoyeurs, livreurs…) cet article de 2016 (Innovation is overvalued. Maintenance often matters more) fait l’apologie des métiers de l’entretien. Toutes ces merveilles technologiques et industrielles qui font la qualité de nos vies quotidiennes n’existeraient pas sans l’important travail de ceux qui entretiennent et maintiennent ces machines en état de fonctionner. Le petit (3 minutes) vidéo de la même époque présente sous la forme d’un « blockbuster », d’un film à grand déploiement, ces aventures qui n’en sont pas: s’il ne se passe rien c’est que nous avons réussi !
« Despite recurring fantasies about the end of work or the automation of everything, the central fact of our industrial civilisation is labour, and most of this work falls far outside the realm of innovation. Inventors and innovators are a small slice – perhaps somewhere around one per cent – of this workforce.
The most unappreciated and undervalued forms of technological labour are also the most ordinary: those who repair and maintain technologies that already exist, that were ‘innovated’ long ago
We can think of labour that goes into maintenance and repair as the work of the maintainers, those individuals whose work keeps ordinary existence going rather than introducing novel things. Brief reflection demonstrates that the vast majority of human labour, from laundry and trash removal to janitorial work and food preparation, is of this type: upkeep.
A focus on maintenance provides opportunities to ask questions about what we really want out of technologies. What do we really care about? What kind of society do we want to live in? Will this help get us there?
Innovation is overvalued. Maintenance often matters more | Aeon Essays
Merci à Patrick Tanguay (@inevernu) et son billet hebdomadaire Sentiers pour cette référence.