Customer Reviews

The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers are Transforming the Office of the Future

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This 1988 book traces automation at work from the fast-food clerk to the stock broker and upwards, and explains what happens when a job is automated. Computer systems contain the skill and knowledge about a job so it can be done by those with less skill and knowledge. The effect is to centralize control and move decision making to higher levels in the organization. This book does not cover the large data entry sweatshops which are being decentralized ("work at home"?) or moved overseas. While cost-cutting is one result of automation, the guiding principle is an irrational prejudice against people.

Chapter 1 has interviews with workers at a fast-food store. The central computer manages the store. Chapter 2 tells about airline reservation agents. The Canadian unions kept fixed schedules and standard wages; they also prevented monitoring individual agents. Chapter 3 discusses the reforms of Social Work (p.75). Each worker filled out a "penny slip" to account for their time. Were they spending too much time on paper work and less time on social work? Chapter 4 tells about expert systems which codifies current knowledge to control the future. If computers were invented in the 18th century would we still be at that level? Isn't decadence defined as a failure to progress? Chapter 5 explains the origin of Financial Consultants. It is a way to get all your assets for their benefits (p.131). "Wall Street is still the Wild West" (p.145). Brokers like stocks and bonds because "you can expect to resell them in six months" (p.151).

Chapter 6 discusses "manufactured advice", like grids used in probation and "Workers Compensation". Medical patients fill out their forms, not an experienced counselor. [Do some talk-radio shows provide examples of "mass-produced personal advice" (p.159)?] Chapter 7 discusses computer systems that measure management. The purpose of this is to make people cheap and disposable in order to make a higher-quality product (p.166); does it work? Generating more electronic mail is not measurably more efficient than one paper letter; the first increased the amount of labor needed. Automation is one way to send your money to another company. Most personal computers could support multiple users, but most software forbids concurrent usage. More expensive networks are used! A "Word Processing Specialist" won't correct silly errors because she no longer understands the subject (p.199).

Chapter 8 explains how electronic surveillance uses networked computers. Distribution lists help to create junk E-mail (p.210). The author believes individual monitoring should be outlawed. Chapter 9 discusses the trend to piecework and temporary jobs, not full-time jobs with normal salaries and benefits (p.235). Chapter 10 tells about Command and Control, and how it worked in Vietnam. They used numbers to measure the war: body counts, sorties, bomb tonnage. None of them worked (p.249). You can't create an expert system if a human can't do it or explain how it is done (p.254). Page 257 tells how the simpler Japanese numerical control systems outsold the expensive and unreliable American systems. The problem with centralized decisions is they prevent quick decisions in the field, an ultimate inefficiency (p.261). The "Conclusion" can be tested against what has happened in the last 15 years.

I have not finished this book. I paid nothing for the book. I am completely enjoying the book. 1988 copywrite? Very nice. Thank you somebody for putting this in the free bin. There is wisdom and strategy in this little book. Worth a revisit.