The current American workplace - a venerable institution of post-modern human society - appears to wear the catcher's mitt for both of society's best pitches and worst curve balls. The whiff of baseball aroma pervades the air. Our very own Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants had just hit a record setting 73 homeruns relegating Mark McGuire to second place. Yet some brave heretics demote the same hitting performance by the legendary Roger Maris and Babe Ruth to mere mortal reference markers during their daily water cooler sports repartee at the office. As of this writing, the Arizona Diamondbacks just won their first World Series Championship. This makes my use of sports metaphor quite irresistible.
Over the years, the workplace has taken the form of a variety of mixed images giving it a schizophrenic character. For some time now it has been at the receiving end of both sanguine and malign treatment. To most people the workplace is a source of livelihood that fulfills the cherished American dream. To some, it is a place where professional and creative expressions are made to blossom. To others, it has served as an escape in which one can bury the cares of the day. To others still, and quite abominably, it is a site upon which terror can be savagely unleashed.
I take special mention of the last description because of its gargantuan impact on American lives. Nowhere was this made evident than during that fateful event on September 11, 2001. It is this murderous curve ball that changed every worker's perceptions and attitudes about the once serene and seemingly innocuous workplace. Clearly, those treacherous acts represent a head-on assault on humanity and the American psyche. Worse, to hard-working folks in the US, it typifies a blatant rape of the workplace.
On the flip side, for generations, great efforts have been expended by both employers and employees alike to make places of work become peaceful, safe, comfortable, and quite unabashedly, profitable. In fact, the American workplace is by far the most humane and sensitive institution in the modern working world. The following are but a few illustrative images that underscore this claim.
First and quite obvious is how the disabled are provided appropriate treatment. The American Disabilities Act (ADA) makes absolutely certain that developmentally challenged workers are provided an equal if not higher quality of life. One can search far and wide, high and low, and no working institution anywhere on this blessed planet can come close to how disabled Americans are treated with auspicious concern. This can be seen from the most prominent names in the Dow Jones Industrials - the "Who's Who" board of American capitalism - such as GE and Microsoft et al., to the most inconspicuous upstart in the Silicon Valley. Noteworthy of these organizations is the insconspicuous Kansas Department of Human Resources (State of Kansas) who established an internal arm called The Commission on Disability Concerns, a rather innovative move by a traditionally bureaucratic-laden enterprise. What's significant about this employer is not so much its compliant nature to the statute as its novel desire to be the "number one state in the nation for employment of people with disabilities". This establishment unequivocally declares that those who are developmentally challenged, physically or otherwise, are and will be afforded physical provisions that can allow them to work and perform as productive members of society. Such is the humane face of the American workplace.
Second, bolstering this humaneness in the workplace for people with disabilities is the Equal Opportunity Employment (EOE) rule that provides that no worker or applicant shall be discriminated because of their race, color creed, religious, or ethnic status. This offshoot of the Hart-Cellar Act passed in 1965 that ostensibly ended discrimination based on national origin molded the American workplace into various ideological shapes. Today, workers find freedom in expressing their political and religious views at work essentially unimpeded. Giving further teeth to this statute are prophylactic laws like Affirmative Action. This provision along with militant watchdog groups offer comfort and recourse to those who feel that if employers are not in compliance with EOE stipulations they can be called on the carpet. Worse, with the assistance of the liberally slanted media, offending organizations may truly receive a humiliating expose` akin to a town plaza caning found in some notable developing countries. Ward Connolly, the University of California Regent who spearheaded the abolition of affirmative action in the UC system and the state of California sure has his own views to the contrary. To date, it appears that the jury is still out inspite of his extremely public efforts now aimed at the state of Florida. This face of the American workplace that trumpets freedom and equality hasn't really changed much since the famed seaport of New York welcomed millions of immigrants in 1886 and the time the lady with the burning flame declared "…give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…". This indeed is one enduring spirit that has found a cherished spot in people's daily working lives and to date still permeates contemporary workplaces.
Compared to the imperious and authoritarian working atmosphere practiced in other societies, it is no wonder why the American workplace is yet still the biggest draw among the hardworking, the adventuresome, and the entrepreneurial-minded souls around the world.
Third, worker empowerment has helped transform the workplace into personal sanctuaries of some sort. As well-meaning workers thirst and yearn for their lives to be well and be filled with peace and harmony, they make no exceptions either with their external environments, much less their workplaces. To this end, Feng shui (pronounced "fung shway") practitioners exert great efforts to teach business owners and executives how to systematically organize their workspaces. Included in this practice are means that enhance energy flow, building design, furniture placement, color schemes, etc. This Chinese art brings to the workplace age-old eastern practices on how to simplify one's surroundings in general and one's personal life in particular thus creating a distinctive, naturalistic countenance.
Taking this workplace self-design to a further extreme is Jobs & Careers Newspaper, an employment publication based in the San Francisco Bay Area. At one point it allowed workers to define the cubicles with their own self - descriptive leitmotif. The result was one monolithic workplace boldly proclaiming a proud espirit de corps punctuated by distinct, individual worker expressions. One employee who just got out of the army had a camouflage tarp over his booth while his walls were plastered with photos of the latest and most lethal combat weaponry. He, however, tried to temper this look of ferocity by bringing his pet parakeet to work everyday. Further up the hallway was another worker who lived his South-Central days in Los Angeles right within his cube. His work zone typified the graffiti walls sprayed with gang slogans and color montage. Another worker - exemplifying the lighter side - brought her pet poodle to work. It wasn't uncommon to hear subdued and intermittent barks in the office during the course of the workday, not to mention the very identifiable odoriferous canine smell. Feng Shui or not, this face of freedom in the American workplace is one that has become the envy of the world.
An expanded take of this eastern influence is the new age movement that has proliferated in the United States. Advocates of the back-to-nature, inner-transformative movement declare that cleansing ritual, harmonic convergence along with the trails of incense smoke occupy a rightful spot in places of employment. Rocks, plants, and simulated waterfalls have found their place in offices and production halls, thanks to neo- naturalists and their tripartite crusade for body, matter, and mind transmutation. This other face of the American workplace has created an atmosphere unlike no other in the world. Though one can always argue its tangible benefits, it is incontrovertible, however, how work and the freedoms of self- expression intertwine.
John Maynard Keynes, the noted British economist and a demigod in some quarters of the economic literati, predicted at the turn of the twentieth century that technology will someday propel modern economic societies to heights of growth unseen allowing mechanized devices to take over productive work thus leaving workers more free time to pursue other worthwhile interests.
Over the years this Keynesian premise has proven its case throughout the storied episodes of the American work life especially among the mega-rich who found the money game a worthwhile leisurely pursuit. A classic testimony is how the industrial revolution gave birth to such famous surnames as Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan to name a few. Their trailblazing corporate fire allowed them to amass untold fortune, build their industries, and evidently grow the emergent American economy. Later, as financiers and bankers, these big-name industrial icons, in one form or the other, bankrolled other budding entrepreneurs who had nothing more than an idea and an indefatigable effort thus validating that Keynesian proposition. They created a unique and tightly knit workgroup where betting on which gold mine discovery will yield the next mother lode was the favorite past time, not unlike today's daring venture capitalists (VC's).
This current magnanimous face of the American workplace - exemplified by venture capitalist investors - has since smiled upon a number of high-tech and bio-medical companies to the tune of US $25 billion in 2000, up from $2.8 billion in 1996. Although this Silicon Valley financial jugggernaut has visibly slowed down due to the latest economic upheavals, the moneybags of Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park (the unofficial home of the world's VCs) still manage to display the visionary can-do attitude that continues to lure new players into the investment game. Just as there were Vanderbilts and Rockefellers in the past so are there today albeit they are more known through corporate sounding names as Menlo Ventures, InterWest Partners and Mayfield Fund, to name a few. Meanwhile, young entrepreneurs incessantly march into the hallowed halls of VC offices armed with nothing but a brilliant idea and stylishly worn Levi 501's hoping to walk away with a high five and a million dollar commitment and not necessarily in that order. Clearly, the backslapping, hand-shaking collegiality practiced during the Old Economy has never changed much. And for better or worse, this "gold in them thar hills" feature of the American workplace projects the kind of look that characterizes the vibrant, gung-ho spirit of free enterprise capitalism that was as true then as it is real today.
Lastly and sadly, a face of the American workplace that's been seen across the globe lately is a picture of angst, pain, and destruction. In a blink of an eye, the once mighty playground of the rich wheeler-dealers, the financial wellspring of barely weaned dot-comers, and the cradle of the spirit-body-mind practitioners was transformed into a mere physical space of lingering threat and paranoia. As of yet, workers coast-to-coast are still attempting to gain a sense of normalcy in their lives much less a semblance of continuity after September 11. To rub salt to a still open wound, the constant scare of the Anthrax plague and an unrelenting wave of security advisories beat upon the already weary work force.
Despite these vexatious assaults on the American workplace some companies manage to don the corporate smile of patriotism balanced by the tender cusp of sensitivity. For example, Infosys Technologies Limited - going full speed in its software servicing - in partnership with its insurance carrier, Guardian, offers an 800 crisis hotline 24/7 for their workers. In advertising, United Airlines and Alaska Airlines who pulled out their recruitment ads with the Bay Area's most widely read publication immediately after the first reports of terrorism got a sympathetic reprieve. Ordinarily, the price for such a move of pulling out is a painful financial penalty. But in the spirit of understanding and oneness, such penalties have been waived. And as American workers manage to put on courageous faces while unperturbed by the vicissitudes of an unforgiving economy, the workplace is being adorned by patriotic stripes and glittering stars while its foundation is slowly being galvanized by the proverbial blood, sweat and tears of the very men and women who proudly make up the enduring American workforce.
