Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-04
Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Thomas Simon, Assistant Professor, Montpellier Business School
Does repetition at work wear out only the body, or does it also erode the mind? From factory chains described by the philosopher Simone Weil to contemporary open spaces, professional routine can become an alienating mechanism. But writing and literature may offer an unexpected way to break away from this daily confinement.
“A specialized laborer only shares in the automatic repetition of movements, while the machine he operates encloses, imprints, and crystallizes in the metal all the aspects of combination and intelligence involved in the ongoing manufacture. Such an inversion is unnatural; it is a crime.”
It is with these words that the philosopherSimone Weildescribes the daily work of a “machine operator” at the beginning of the 20th century in French factories.
From 1934 to 1935, Weil is immersed in the working-class world atAlstomIn Paris, atBasse-Indre forgesthen at Renault in Boulogne-Billancourt (in the current Hauts-de-Seine, ed.). These days spent on the production lines gave rise to several writings gathered in 1951 under the titlethe Working-class Condition. Because he depicts with great acuity the repetitive, mind-numbing tasks and the toxic confinement of his workdays.
The tyranny of clocks
It is at this same period thatCharlie Chaplindenounces the repetitiveness of assembly line work in his filmModern Times. He particularly condemns the reduction of the worker to a mechanical gesture, but above all denounces the tyranny of clocks that impose a frantic pace and rhythm in the factory.
In sum, Chaplin uses repetition, automatism, and the dehumanization of daily gestures as signs of work now reduced to a succession of mechanical movements, emptied of all consciousness.
This omnipotence of routine is found again in the writing ofAlbert Camusin his essayThe Myth of Sisyphus(1942). He specifically mentions the cyclical nature of workdays:
“Getting up, tram, four hours of office or factory work, meal, tram, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the same pace.”
Through this accumulation of daily actions and the enumeration of the days of the week, Camus stages the monotony of a repetitive and deadly life. The regular rhythm emphasizes the confinement in a routine that ultimately brings forth the feeling of the absurd.
With Camus, routine turns into existential questioning. We are no longer just in the organization of mechanical work, but in a repetition of existence itself. Has this repetitiveness of tasks denounced by Weil or Chaplin thus disappeared from our 21st-century jobs?
Also to read:
“Metro, work, sleep”: from the absurdity of routine to the emergence of meaning
When repetitiveness wounds the body
In the secondary sector, where industrial and manufacturing activities dominate, the incessant repetition of movementsuse the body deeply. Screwing, lifting, assembling, or carrying heavy loads for hours exposes workers to constant fatigue. In the long term, repetition causesmusculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), such as tendinitis, lower back pain, orcarpal tunnel syndrome, turning temporary pains into chronic suffering.
In the tertiary sector, physical hardship often remains invisible, but its effects are far from negligible. Behind the apparent sedentary nature of office jobs lies a continuous strain on the body, subjected to the incessant repetition of the same movements and the prolonged maintenance of static postures. Over time, this silent accumulation of constraints promotes the emergence of MSDs and establishes adeep and lasting muscle fatigue.
Relational standardization
In call centers, the professorLaerte Idal Sznelwarand his colleagues establish an obvious link betweenwork disability and onset of MSDs. Beyond repetitive gestures, MSDs originate from the constant effort to suppress one’s own movements, thoughts, and emotions. The rigid organization of work imposes physical immobility and relational standardization that hinder the development of the individual.
Whether it is the assembly line worker or the office employee, the repetitiveness of the movements reveals the same reality: work leaves its mark on the body. For the trainerCorentin Chasles, it is essential to prevent MSDs by proposing concrete solutions that can be applied daily. While theergonomicsallows for arranging the workstation, training in proper movements and adapted postures helps prevent muscle pain.
The psychological impact of repetition
As part of mythesis in management sciencesDedicated to absurd situations in the workplace, some young graduates interviewed emphasized the psychological consequences of repetition at work. Jules* made it an obstacle to desire and commitment:
“What is difficult is motivating people to do routine work.”
Repetition then produces a form of internal wear. Julia*, for example, was exhausted by the small absurd situations to the point that she had become completely disillusioned:
“The problem is that all my jobs, (…) I found it so absurd that, in the end, I really didn’t care at all. (…) My life was really messed up.”
What if we talked about boredom
Which leads todisgustand disengagement, it is a form of wear through accumulation, a repetition of the tiny. From then on, routine is not only formal, it has an eminently corrosive psychic effect.
Also to read:
The “blasé” person in a company, a victim of routine?
The young graduates interviewed ultimately highlight that repetitiveness at work is not limited to a cycle of tasks, but unfolds as a repetition of lived time, journeys, gestures, and interactions, producing a feeling of confinement, fatigue, and loss of meaning.
Getting out of the loop through literature
At first glance, the development of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) is aadequate solution to issues of repetitiveness at work. Thecobotsand other algorithms ensure the automation of physical and repetitive tasks while reducing fatigue and errors, but this is not the path we choose here to break free from mechanical confinement.
It is rather writing and literature that appear among the main means of breaking away from the repetitiveness of work, not by materially eliminating routine, but by transforming it into an object of thought, of distancing, and sometimes of self-reinvention.
Pause the automatisms
The first effect of writing is that it breaks the automatism of daily life. Repetitiveness at work functions like a series of connected gestures: metro, office, tasks, return, fatigue, and starting over. This rhythm gives an impression of being swallowed up, as Guillaume* reminds us in one of his interviews:
“You are drowning in it.”
Writing, on the contrary, requires stopping the flow. This is wonderfully highlightedJoseph Ponthusin his autobiographical novelOn the line(2019) which is a true cantata in free verse in which he precisely inventories the gestures of assembly line work,
“fatigue, confiscated dreams [and] the suffering [of] bodies”.
If Ponthus is convinced that literature saved his life, it is because he lives his working days through the texts ofDumas, the poems ofApollinaireand the songs ofTrenet.
“It is his provisional victory against everything that hurts, everything that alienates.”
Writing about oneself as a lifeline
Putting daily actions into words is ultimately to suspend the repetitive movement to observe it. From then on, the scriptural gesture converts the experienced ordeal into the observed experience, then into the interpreted and thus reappropriated experience. This is already a first escape from repetition, because what kept coming back tirelessly and mechanically becomes thinkable.
In our recently published article inEuropean Management Journaland co-wrote withGhislain Deslandes, we invite young graduates to keep a logbook to randomly jot down their impressions, observations, and frustrations about their daily life in the company. Writing here is about reclaiming one’s experience. While the repetitive daily routine imposes an external time (schedules, meetings, deadlines, commutes…), the logbook, on the contrary, creates a time for oneself, a personal time. The employee is no longer trapped in the daily grind; they become the narrator of the routine, and it is only under this condition that thecatharsiscan express all its potential.
Writing ultimately allows a symbolic release of what weighs on us. If the daily routine accumulates (fatigue, frustration, and absurdity), writing ensures an exhumation and offers a lifeline for the body and the mind. By managing to name what seemed formless, the writer’s gesture gives shape to the chaos of everyday life just as the potter’s gesture transforms clay into an object of pride.
*First names have been changed.
Thomas Simon does not work for, advise, own shares in, receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than his research institution.
–ref. At work, does repetition kill us slowly?https://theconversation.com/at-work-does-repetition-kill-us-slowly-280322