THE THIRD WAVE
programmers, technicians, clerical or managerial personnel. They work in a huge, high-ceilinged open space. One wall is a giant picture window that frames an imposing view of Pikes Peak. The other walls are painted bright yellow and white. The floors are light-colored vinyl, gleaming and hospital clean.
The workers at H-P, from clerks to computer specialists,, from the plant manager to assemblers and inspectors, are not separated spatially but work together in open bays. Instead of shouting to one another over a machine clatter, they speak in normal conversational tones. Because everyone wears ordinary street clothes there are no visible distinctions of rank or task. Production employees sit at their own benches or desks; so many of these are decorated with trailing ivy, flowers, and other greenery that, from some visual angles, one has the fleeing illusion of being in a garden.
Striding through this facility, I thought how poignant it would be if I could magically lift some of my old mates out of the foundry and auto assembly line, put of the racket, the dirt, the hard bruising manual labor, and the rigidly authoritarian discipline that accompanied it, and transplant them into this new-style work environment.
They would stare in wonder at what they saw. I doubt very much that H-P is a workers’ paradise, and my blue collar friends would not be easily fooled. They would demand to know, item by item, the pay schedules, the fringe benefits, the grievance procedures, if any. They would ask whether the exotic new materials being handled hi this plant are really safe or whether there are environmental health hazards.They would assume rightly that even under the seemingly casual relationships some people give orders and others take them.
Nevertheless, my old friends’ shrewd eyes would take in much that is new and sharply different from the classical factories they knew. They would notice, for example, that instead of all the H-P employeesarrivi ng at once, punching the clock, and racing to their work stations, they are able, within limits, to choose their own individual working hours. Instead of being forced to stay in one work location, they are able to move about as they wish. My old friends would marvel at the freedom of the H-P employees, again within limits, to set their own work pace. To talk to managers or engineers without worrying about status or hierarchy. To dress as they wish. In short, to be individuals. In fact, my old companions in their heavy steel-tipped shoes, dirty overalls, and working-men’s caps would find it hard, I believe, to think of the place us a factory at all.
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