9. A willingness to consider alternatives to the TV-like CRTs that computers use to flash out words and numbers. Flat-screen computers—with thin panels rather than bulky tubes—may eventually be easier on the eyes.
10. Sensible use of wrinkles like the mouse—the hand-sized gizmo you use instead of the arrowlike keys to move the cursor on the screen. (See Backup X, “Of Mice and Men—and Touch Pads, Touch Screens, Etc.” Also see Backup IX, “Window Shopping.”)
11. A related ingredient, good software—the topic of earlier chapters.
“How,” I asked a consultant, “do you know if someone is trying to offer a constructive suggestion about computerization or to get in the way?”
“Consider the source,” he said. “Is it coming from a researcher or a union?”
To some extent the man was right. Some people, unionized or not, may be no more than twentieth-century version of the Luddites, the English workers who, during the 1800s, smashed the mechanical looms that were taking away their livelihoods. Indeed, Dr. Michael Colligan, a NIOSH psychologist, says, “Opposition to computers is usually kind of veiled or disguised under more general complaints about eyestrain, headaches, and physical discomforts often associated with video display terminals (VDTs).[34]
“But,” Colligan warns, “if you talk with workers awhile, major concerns begin to surface.” Legitimate concerns. Whether it’s individual workers or unions, don’t tune out gripers. Listen to people like Joan.
The Colligan quotes are from Joel Makower’s useful book _Office Hazards: How Your Job Can Make You Sick_, published 1981 by Tilden Press, Washington, D.C.
Joan started out around 1980 as a model employee in a northeastern office of a major insurance company, whose officials declined to be interviewed. “I averaged ten hours a week overtime,” she said, “and I came in when I had pneumonia and a fever of 102.” In a modest way, helping to unravel the mysteries of the machines, she aided computerization. Later, however, in a not-so-modest way, she aided something else: unionization.
By the time I reached her, she had quit her $10,000-a-year job to go into business with her husband. For more than an hour she poured out her anger against the terminals and the company that now used them.