‘Right, already brewing there’: Arriving to the staff breakroom and beginning interaction with a co-present colleague

Abstract

This study investigates beginnings of dyadic encounters between acquainted persons in a ‘semi-public’ space, namely, staff breakrooms of Finnish work communities. Drawing on video data and using ethnomethodological conversation analysis as the method, we examine the coordinated vocal-bodily exchanges that participants carry out under close mutual monitoring as they establish co-presence and initiate interaction (through greetings and registerings) while also engaging in other, situated, break-relevant activities as part of an oriented-to, established routine of beginning, and being on, a break from work. We show how participants skillfully manage their simultaneous involvements in these activities, and how the specific vocal-bodily practices by which participants open their encounters in the breakroom index their orientation to each other as ‘familiars’ and to their encounters as highly routinized, recurring and ‘expected’ (rather than as ‘special’ or ‘not-everyday’) occurrences. Data are in Finnish with English translation.