The Timed Office

In the early 20th century, scientific management left the factory for the office. Typing pools aligned dozens of employees whose every gesture was measured, standardized, and timed.

In 1911, engineer Frederick Taylor published Principles of Scientific Management: break each task into elementary movements, eliminate useless gestures, set an optimal rhythm. Born in the workshop, the principle quickly reached expanding office work. In the early 20th century, scientific management left the factory for the office.

The typing pool was its embodiment. Identical machines, aligned in rows, allowed cadences to be compared; keystrokes per minute were counted, mail flows planned like a production chain. The continuous noise of keys became, for management, the audible sign of output. Typing pools aligned dozens of employees whose every gesture was measured, standardized, and timed.

This rationalization had a human cost: monotony, surveillance, loss of autonomy. Yet it durably shaped modern administrative work, whose today's digital productivity indicators are direct heirs.