Catherwood LibraryILR School

Andrew Ross

"From the earliest days of industrialization to the Company Man of the 1950s, work has long been a source of meaning and identity as well as a source of income. But at the end of the twentieth century, the digital companies of the New Economy promised both. These businesses offered employees creative challenges, freedoms, and an office environment that welcomed leisure and play. An entirely new kind of industrial personality emerged, feeding off the non-conformist work mentality of the hi-tech industries and the creativity of urban bohemia. But was it 'as good as it gets in corporate America,' as some employers and employees said? Or did this humane workplace carry too many hidden costs? The hype concealed a lifestyle in which the line between work time and personal time was blurred beyond hope, and an office where the lowest level employee was as stressed out as the highest-level leader. Far from delivering a promised employment nirvana, the new structure simply created new worries for employees...Features that appeared to be healthy advances in corporate democracy turned into trapdoors that opened on to a bottomless 70-hour plus workweek. For the no-collar worker, every free thought and creative impulse could be enlisted in the service of salaried time. No-Collar is the first book to shine a full light on the realities of this modern workplace--both myth and reality." [from the dust jacket]