A case study of on-the-job training in a factory stockroom took a close look at the working milieu, the way experienced people did their jobs within it, and the means used to induct (train) newcomers into work activities. Stockroom work and stockroom training were considered to represent two different activity systems; the interplay of these two activities in the work environment was explored. The training study was conducted at a manufacturing plant that produced radio-frequency connectors and that had implemented a computerized inventory and production control system known as Manufacturing Resource Planning. As new persons were hired, they were assigned to experienced workers who took on the responsibility for their training. Training was a subsidiary to work and a dynamic construction into which these factors entered: supervisors' views of how to train; level of management implementing the training; composition of the stockroom work force; and union policies. Training was not planned but "took shape." Since training was assimilated into ongoing work practices, trainees were exposed only to routine work events. Analysis of the technical and communicative processes that structured training-and-work within training dyads showed that trainers incorporated talk into the training process and explained the work as it was done. Talk and work performance went on in tandem. (70 references) (Author/YLB)