sociology of Metra seating

I'm not familiar with too many public transportation systems, but I do know that the Chicago area Metra is differently designed than the Chicago El, New York subway, or Washington DC Metro. The biggest difference is that it's double decker. I took this picture from the top, on a particularly empty train.

If you could see the top, you'd notice that it's single seating instead of double. The first five or six seats up top* are placed so that you face the back of someone's head. The remaining 10-12 seats sit side-by-side. I think spatially, so that's how it looked in case you do too.

I've been riding the Metra for a few months now, and I've been trying to analyze the seating by race and gender, possibly by economic status but that's a little harder. I'll stick to gender for now.

MORE MEN RIDE METRA?

My sample comes from rush hour, either to or from work five days a week. There are arguably just as many men as women who ride, but today up top not a single woman was found in my car. Below there were slightly more men than women, perhaps a 60/40 split. But overall, more men. The question is, in what cases do men congregate?

Time of Day. Anecdotal evidence (that is, I haven't counted) suggests that more men ride earlier in the morning. I think that I see more men than women at 7am than I do at 8:15am. No matter what, the early birds are absolutely more dressed up than than the later more casual workers.

Up top. I usually see two or three women up top on Metra, but the men usually outnumber for some reason. I've considered feminist theories somehow involving the male gaze as to why this happens, but in the end I'd have to start asking people to really find out.

In a couple. Sarah and I ride the Metra together. We both work downtown and our work day begins and ends around the same time. I've noticed that other women and men sit next to each other and talk as well. Especially when these couples kiss each other goodbye at our destination, I presume the riders to be together. Does this mean that less women take the train alone than do men?

These observations lead me to believe that at least I have a case to begin a study. When I decide that sociology is more important than my travel mug of coffee at 7:30am, then perhaps I'll record a few notes.

*When the Metra man goes around to collect tickets, he first collects the bottom seats, yells "Up Top!" as we hand down our tickets. Today the Metra man had a picture of his daughter on the top of his hat.

more on workplace terminology*

Just posting something so that my partner's isolated episode of cursing isn't at the top of my blog. I've been learning lots of new terms at work, ones that are evidently par for the course in some worlds. So let this be a learning experience for us all:

Webinar: A seminar over the Internet. No, "sem" is not a location, so just replacing it with "web" does not make perfect sense. Yet, webinars are terribly common events. I'm sitting in one tomorrow.

Boil the Ocean. Apparently a consulting term, a negative phrase implying unguided research. Why boil the ocean when all you want is a cup of hot water? I made that last part up. Anyway, read this for another good definition by a blog titled non other than "boil the ocean."

Methodology. Ok, now we're just getting into pet peeves. Reminder to everyone: A method is how you do something, a process. Methodology is the study of, or the principle of methods. Wikipedia agrees: "Methodology is frequently used when method would be more accurate."

Review of old terms: Outlook Me! Harvey Balls

*And, now that I look at my post, I think I'm misusing the term terminology! I'm merely defining critiquing terms here, not engaging in a study of their use.

My New Best Friend, the Harvey Ball

So in my new position at The Place Which Shall Not Be Named*, my job is often to present a lot of material in a very little amount of time. In order to accomplish this end, I am quickly learning the wonders of The Matrix.

Not the Meatrix, and not the movie either, but rather an 8x8 chart (or 7x5, or 6x9, or what have you) that usually compares a set of criteria to multiple entities. Here's an example, from a quick image search.

Using symbols instead of words. The most challenging part of using a matrix is that I'm confined to boxes. Not only that, but I'm finding that people like to see pictures instead of words, a further confinement. Sure, I can (and have) developed matrices of text. This works in narrative-style reporting, or in cases when one-to-three words will suffice. It doesn't work so well with the at-a-glance snapshot, however. My solution? A series of checks and check-pluses, stars, frowney-faces** and smiley-faces.

And then I discovered Harvey Balls. Developed by a consultant, Harvey Balls are quick reference indicators of scale. A filled in circle exceeds criteria; an empty circle is akin to a frowney-face. Mostly, I just like saying "Harvey Balls" to people and seeing their reaction, especially in a meeting. There must be a better name for these!

Why "Harvey Balls?" Why not "Criteria Circles" or something resembling the function of the things? Turns out that Harvey Balls were developed by a consultant named Harvey Poppel. Harvey Poppel did not like using check marks on matrices. He had to come up with something that displayed a range for criteria. And then he named that thing after himself.

Harvey Ball did not invent Harvey Balls. Most importantly, when referencing the inventor of the Harvey Balls, remember that it was Harvey Poppel, not Harvey Ball. Harvey Ball is another person entirely. Harvey Ball invented the smiley face.

Let's recap: If you, like me, use a smiley face for matrix criteria, then it's from Harvey Ball. If you use Harvey Balls, then think of Harvey Poppel.

This makes me wonder, were Schweaty Balls invented by Harvey Schweaty? Well, they should have been.

*Thanks to Ralph for the title. It's not that I care if you know where I work; it's that I'd rather it not come up in a search engine. Here's a hint.
**I cannot express enough the strength of response to a frowney face.

InaDWriMo (Still a great idea, but)

Ok, so the Thanksgiving holiday ended up taking about 10 days out of my month, throwing a wrench in my academic writing progress for November. Of course I could have carved out time while others were carving turkeys, but instead I took it easy and hung out with family. Hey, what's a holiday for, right?

You'll notice in the sidebar that I've only reached 36% of my writing goal with four days to go. That's 64% remaining, or 3,163 words per day for the next four days, for you stats minded folks. Given that the actual NaNoWriMo people need to write 2,000 words per day to meet their goal, then maybe I could -- well no, that's still a whole lot of writing in just a little time.

I have two options: (1) be satisfied that I wrote over 7,000 words in just 15 days, or (2) write like hell. Since the first half of November was the most productive I've been all semester, I can be happy with option 1. Here are my accomplishments thus far:

• I'm about ready to turn in my field exam re-write. I'm specializing in the sub-field Sociology of the Family (and the sub-sub field of Carework), and hopefully this version will take. This progress feels woefully inadequate to me, but given that I took the summer off, and that really I don't feel behind in my final goal of a 2010 graduation*, I'll take it and be satisfied.
• Through a process of journaling, field research, and even a little blogging, I've changed dissertation topics. This is huge, and it took InaDWriMo to arrive at this point. In short, I was planning - for about the last three years - to focus on paid caring work. I've already written and presented in this area, but my issue is that it places me more within the sociology of work than of the family. My likely new direction will be toward unpaid caring work, specifically of parenting and very likely of fathers in particular**. I'm still blending work with family along with other areas, but I feel much more connected to family research, as you might have noticed through my ongoing delicious links (see sidebar).
• I did not include in InDWriMo the countless emails and other textual organizing work for my session at the midwest meetings. I received enough submissions to break into two sessions, and this has occupied a bit of academic time this month.
  

So there it is. Possibly you'll see the count go up before the end of the week, but I'll be lucky if I reach 50%. I wouldn't trade anything though: InaDWriMo is a qualified success, just the boost I needed.

* Ok so that date originally was earlier, but still I'm fine with 2010 - that includes two years of dissertation research and writing.
** Though I am not a fan of autoethnography, so don't be looking for a study on myself as a father. For that, I'll just keep a blog.

warning: it might be an hour later than you think

So I came into work this morning to find my computer and phone reading 7:30am. Funny, I thought it was 8:30. Two and a half hours later, I forgot about the time disparity and am operating as if it's now 10am, when in fact it's 11.

Why the discrepency? I guess our technology didn't get the memo when we passed a law shifting around the dates for time changes. While it's nice to have three extra weeks of sunlight on the way to work (two in the spring and one in the fall), it might be even nicer to stick with the rest of world on a common time.

In the meantime, I think my Outlook calendar is in kahoots with my PC and Phone, so probably I'll be late for two meetings today.

UPDATE: Hmmm. Blogger says it's 10am too. I just asked my cube mates what time it was, and they agreed with the 10am thing (and looked at me like i'm crazy). I guess our IT folks already won the clock battle, somewhere between when I got into work and now. So nevermind, it's probaby the time that you think that it is after all.

thoughts on the term that is my blog title -or- Blogging is Ordinary

Photo #251 out of 365 photos this year

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned it, but I started this blog - and came up with its title - at about two in the morning after drinking A LOT of caffeine. This is important, because had I been drinking alcohol I probably would not have started this blog. Not that night, at least.

I always considered changing the title, but was linked by Feminist Law Professors in the first week, twice*. Ahh, those were the days. After that, I felt a sort of identity with the title so I didn't change.

But really, isn't anyone's blog an everyday life blog? And just what do I mean when I type the words everyday life? I suppose the sociology of everyday life falls within the sociology of culture. Take for example Pierre Bourdieu's expansion of the concept habitus. As defined by Marcel Mauss** the concept of Habitus (pronounced Ha-bee-toos) is

'those aspects of culture that are anchored in the body; or, daily practices of individuals, groups, societies and nations. It includes the totality of learned habits, bodily skills, styles, tastes, and other non-discursive knowledges that might be said to "go without saying" for a specific group.' (cite, my emphasis)

Of course "everyday life" carries with it the baggage that people assume that something in it happens every day. This is where my pet peeve of the term comes in to play. "Every day" (two words) is quite different than "everyday" - with or without the "life."

Everyday Life. Used here, everyday is an adjective. It's describing life, in my case the mundanity of my own life. I suppose this blog is symbolic of my individual habitus, representing daily practices of my life that may or may not be important. The fact that they usually are not important is precisely what makes them everyday. If they "go without saying" then they presumably aren't even worth saying. But we say it anyway, and very often on blog. I think that bloggers epitomize everyday life, creating habitus, expressing that part of our lives that otherwise goes without saying.

And I think that we're all better people for it. In other words, and this might be the title of a future paper, Blogging is Ordinary. This may seem like a "duh" issue, but not when juxtaposed to those who claim bloggers to be the new proletariat***. OK, so bloggers do offer accountability at times, but much more often than not, we blog about what we ate for dinner. Arguably, those are the better posts.

Every day not Everyday. Note that in discussing "everyday" above, I say nothing about actual every single day occurrences. Everyday, the adjective, is more of a code word for "those things that happen frequently in your culture but that you don't often think about." This is very different than what happens literally every day. Take for example:

1. I take a picture with my digital camera every day.
2. I take a picture with my digital camera everyday.

I cringe when people use option #2 to express something that happens every day. First, everyday is an adjective, so this is a grammatical problem. Second, I really do take a picture every single day****. If "everyday" is a way of thinking about daily occurrences, then it's much less accurate in this context. This is a conceptual problem.

Finally, all of this hinges on the fact that I'm attributing the sociology of everyday life to cultural use. It can also be methodological, but I'll save that for another post.

*this one and this one. Read my other first week or two here.
**bit-o-trivia for the soci-nerdy: I found out a couple years back that Mauss is Emile Durkheim's nephew! Or am I the last one to know that?
***You know, those who think bloggers will take the government by storm and reclaim a democratic society.
****Ok I missed August 10, but let's discuss this later.

case studies in structure versus agency: The Doomed Biker

We've been making our way through Six Feet Under, and just finished Season Three*. If you're not familiar with this show about a family living in and running a funeral home, every episode begins with a death scene. This makes the frequent viewer perhaps more comfortable with death scenarios, possibly to the point of desensitization. When I read this article in today's Tribune, I felt like I was starting to watch another episode.

A tragically unfortunate event, a 42 year old man was struck by a train just outside of the Chicago suburbs. The headline reads, "Bicyclist listening to iPOD struck, killed by train." My first reaction before reading the article is that iPOD listening on bikes is akin to talking on your cell phone while driving, and this is one major lesson demonstrating why should not do it.

Then I read the article, especially this part:

The crossing has a wooden sign marking it, but the crossing does not have an audible signal or gates, police said. "He had the iPod on, so we're going on the assumption with no gate or lights there that he didn't hear or see the train coming," Kane County sheriff's police spokesman Patrick Gengler said. (emphasis added)

Obviously if you don't wear an iPOD than you are more likely to hear a train coming, but trains sometimes travel remarkably fast and something like an audible signal or even a gate would help tremendously. In fact, I believe the physical structural element of a gate even supersedes the audible signal in this case.

Nevertheless, this is an issue of blame-the-victim reporting if you ask me. But how can we fault the guy with the iPOD when this intersection didn't even have an audible signal in the first place? Probably this intersection will soon have one, and whatever responsible agency is surely embarrassed, but the reporting does little to assist in any productive change.

I'm just sayin is all.

*And so far no one has leaked anything about future episodes, so don't start now!