Working while people watch

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

At the open studio, I repaired a book binding while visitors stood around the table. I had done the same repair many times alone. With people watching, I began explaining each movement before making it and lost the place I normally found with my fingers. A visitor asked whether the pause meant the book could not be repaired.

I showed her the loose thread and explained what still needed checking. Then I asked the group to give me a minute without questions. The work became slower than it would have been privately, but the visitors could see why a careful repair included moments with no visible progress. I stopped trying to make every movement look confident and let the unfinished book remain unfinished until I knew what to do next.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

A station team demonstrated how a platform notice was replaced during a public open day. The worker who usually completed the task before passengers arrived found herself describing the tools and fixings to a cluster of visitors. When an old fixing would not turn, a child asked whether it was meant to happen as part of the demonstration.

She said it was an ordinary difficulty, not a performance. A colleague held the new panel while she checked the stubborn fixing. The visitors waited, and the demonstration took longer than advertised. Afterwards, the supervisor said the delay had shown something useful: routine work could depend on a small problem being resolved before the tidy result anybody normally saw was possible.

Both texts describe the experiences of doing practical work in front of an audience.

What similarities do the experiences of doing practical work in front of an audience share in these extracts? Use evidence from both texts to support your answer.