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The article provides an opening into an important and increasingly contentious area in computer systems development, namely, methods used in understanding representing and modeling work processes and practices. It describes part of the problem as the relation between normative accounts of how work gets done and actual practice. The article points to dangers of transporting representations between different semantic communities with different practices. The goal of the article is to develop a case against an objective reality that can be usefully captured in a model against an objective reality that can be usefully captured in a model and subsequently used as a sufficient basis on which to develop a computerized system. Critiques relied on the centrality of interpretation in the conduct of work, and also on the fact development of computer-based applications requires the collaboration or involvement of a variety of distinct communities, workers with different skills using different representational frameworks, users, analysts, developers, programmers, among others.