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"Hello all!" "Good morning!"
"I'm feeling rather fragile today..."

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]

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Brenda: Yes. It's the little things that matter.

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I love shopping! And Monday's always my catalogue day, sorting everyone out.
[phone rings]

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It's not just the big things that are important, it's making sure

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you get enough paper clips and tippex and such like.

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Now that's efficiency!

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I'll just see what I need.

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[CRASH!]

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Polly: This filters out harmful radiation,

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and the chair is adjustable to prevent R.S.E. Repetitive strain injury.

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These aren't luxuries, they're absolutely vital for efficiency and happiness.

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And finally, in any healthy building you'd be able to open the window and let in real fresh air.

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Brian: Above all, clients respect status!

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They like to know they're dealing with the top man. *chuckle*

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I haven't room to swing a cat here. It's pathetic!

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Miss M: Basically people are the problem.
[typing]

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Look! Machines are loyal servants.

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Quiet. Efficient. Streamlined.
[typing]

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No rows! No muddles! No long tea breaks!

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Am I asking too much!?

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Tim: There is no consensus about how an office should be organised

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but you'd never guess it from the confident assertive facade of the modern office building.

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While researching why the office machines in this series have become so successful,

25
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I became increasingly intrigued how offices themselves had achieved such enormous scale and affluence.

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Funding wonderful extravagances such as this voluptuous Venus.

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It's not obvious though, what all these offices are actually doing.

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Despite my researches, this still baffles me,

29
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but I did discover that the history and evolution of the office is a curiously quite fascinating subject.

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150 years ago, there were no office blocks, and the only office workers were Dickensian clerks.

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They wrote letters and financial ledgers, but all other business was conducted by word of mouth.

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There were no memos, reports, printed forms and orders.

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Man: Y'all go right along there now.
[hoot]

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Driver: Yeah, but how about the 10:42?

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Tim: Recent research in America suggests that the introduction of printed forms

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stemmed from a series of fatal train crashes in the 1840s.

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[CRASH!]

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[scribbling noises]
The forms, initially introduced to increase safety

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soon spread to every aspect of the Railway company's business.

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This was a period of rapid expansion in America,

41
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and many other companies adopted the formal procedures pioneered by the railways.

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New technology, the typewriter, the telephone and the filing cabinet,

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surprisingly not introduced until 1892, were introduced to cope with all the new paperwork.

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Putting America firmly in the lead of office practice.

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A vast new workforce was also needed.

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In contrast to the Dickensian clerks, the new office employees worked under a bureaucratic hierarchy.

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They were generally tied to their desks, ploughing through the mountain of paper.

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They weren't usually even allowed to talk during working hours.

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Some of the most influential ideas about organising it all

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came from a Steel foundry engineer called Frederick Winslow Taylor.

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Tim: In 1900, Taylor had discovered that by adding minute amounts of

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tungsten and chromium to steel made it much harder.

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Cutting tools made of this steel could cut metal 5 times than had previously been possible.

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[drilling]

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Taylor's high speed steel has been used for drill bits ever since.

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Taylor then concluded though, that the most inefficient part of drilling and practically any other process,

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was not the materials or the tools, but the person doing it, the worker.

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Worker: Oooh Aaaah.

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Tim: Taylor was convinced there was one best way for every job.

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[watch ticking]
Taylor: You could be working a lot faster than this...

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Look at my eyes and work twice as fast!
Workman: sigh.

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Tim: After training one worker to treble the amount of pig iron he could load in a day,

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Taylor was forced to abandon his experiment.
[men sound annoyed]

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Workmen: Hey! Off with you. How dare you teach us our jobs!

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Tim: His time and motions techniques remained unpopular.

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But his writings on the subject became very influential.

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Lenin and Hitler were among his fans.

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Taylor: My theory of work is that there's no limit to which the human body

69
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cannot be pushed, as long as the leader has a moustache.

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Tim: Some scientific management disciples applied Taylor's ideas to offices,

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stuggling to organise the mountain of paperwork.

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James Bunker Gilbreth made extensive use of photography,

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these are some of his original films.

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He even repeated Taylor's experiment with the pig iron.

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Gilbreth believed in analysing every movement, to find the one best way.

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Here a champion typist is being trained, particularly to keep her eyes on the copy, not on the keys.

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One of his favourite techniques was to tie light bulbs to his subjects.

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I can show you his technique with this camera.

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If I set it on a long exposure...

80
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I can for instance collate or put together a number of bits of paper.

81
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The light's tracing the, exposing the film, so tracing the movements of my hands.

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Gilbreth then showed the final picture to the employee,

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to show how much wasted motion was involved.

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The technique became quite fashionable ,and was widely used.

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Some scientific management consultants were more extreme,

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A Mr Leffingwell published photographs of the contents of office wastepaper baskets.

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On the subject of pencil management, Mr Leffingwell recommended the issue of these metal extenders.

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So the pencil could be used right down to the end.

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The stub was then to be presented to a supervisor before issue of a replacement.

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Leffingwell also recommended spot-checks to ensure that employees could

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lay their hands on less frequently used bits of stationary without any delay.

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[music]

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The strict regimes imposed by scientific management certainly

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contributed to making an office worker's life pretty wretched.

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Voiceover: Follow the crowd. Get the big money, make a pile and raise a pile and that makes another pile for you.

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Follow the crowd, we've reached a million, 2 million, 5 million, watch us grow.

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Going up, it's new, it's automatic, it dictates records seals, sterilises, stamps and delivers in one operation without human hand.

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What am I bid? What am I offered? Sold! Who's next? The people, yes.

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Follow the crowd to the empire city, the wonder city, the windy city, the passion city. The people yes!

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The people, perhaps?

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Tim: Things started to change in the late '20s.

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After a scientific management study on some girls assembling some electrical components.

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[ticking]
Finding no improvement in raising lighting levels.

104
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A Mr. Elton Mayo tried consulting the workers.

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Mayo: How would you like your tea breaks? How long? When? Tell me?

106
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Woman: Well Mr. Mayo, we think that 3 20 minute tea breaks would suit us a whole lot better.

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[clicking]
Mayo: That's progress. Yeah, they're working faster.

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Women: Bye Mr. Mayo...

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However when the girls returned to their normal hours at the end of the experiment,

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their output broke all records.

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Mayo: It must be because I took notice of the poor critters.

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[music]
These experiments founded the Human Relations approach to office management.

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Staff were encouraged to feel more involved.

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Amongst other things, by the introduction of company leisure facilities.

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Voiceover: Rest rooms, where the girls can spend their time off duty, are also provided.

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[music]

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For the more energetic members of the staff, there is a gymnasium with a qualified instructor.

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[music]

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Tim: The human relations approach, liberalising working conditions, coincided with the growing emancipation of women.

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Even if men were reluctant to recognise it...

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[music]

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Voiceover: What is that whipcord resilience that lets the weaker sex play half the night?

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Then bob up clear eyed ready for the next morning's work?
[typing]

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This frail creature strikes her typewriter keys about 40,000 times a day.

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Shifts to capitals, and returns the carriage more than a thousand times each.

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All together a few ounces at a time, she exerts more than

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5 tons of pressure on her dainty fingertips in one day's work.

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And any way you look at it, women's work is not, for sissies.

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[different music]
Tim: The human relations approach to office management,

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encouraging everyone to use their initiative, didn't necessarily make the office more efficient.

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Voiceover: I guess just about every office has someone like Betty.

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A little short on personality maybe, but darned efficient.

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Fact is, many of the procedures and filing systems were set up by Betty in the first place.

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Joan: Oh Betty do you have a minute?
Betty: What is it Joan?

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Joan: Well I'm having an awful time checking anything in this guarantee file.

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It's all alphabetical and there're millions of them.

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Takes forever to find any particular one.

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Betty: Well we haven't been having any trouble.

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Joan: Well the way they did it at Malco, Betty, saved a lot of time:

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There we broke the guarantees down by city, and then alphabetically.

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That way when you wanted to check one, you could do it in a jiffy.

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Seems we could save a lot of time if we do it that way here.

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Betty: But Mr Barnes, she's changed the whole file around, I spent an hour just looking for one report!

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She's tearing down everything I've spent years to build up!

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Mr Barnes: I just didn't expect such resistance to new ideas.

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[music]

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Realising that the human relations approach, focussing on the psychology

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of office behaviour, was a rather unpredictable business.

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Many office experts returned to more practical ways of improving efficiency.

150
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Just as the scientific management disciples had suggested,

151
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surely efficiency must go down if the environment is

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uncomfortably hot, or cold, or humid or draughty.

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Today it's taken for granted that all offices are fitted with air conditioning.

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The air comes out through slots in the ceiling, circulates round the office,

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and then goes back up again.

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The invention though that really made this a practical proposition,

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and also radically changed the appearance of the office,

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was the suspended ceiling.

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This conceals all the air conditioning ducting,

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er, the sprinkler system,

161
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the lighting, and er, acoustic tiles to keep the noise levels down.

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Its origins are obscure but by 1950 there was a complete kit of parts to suspend everything by these threaded rods.

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Air conditioning might never have caught on in a temperate country like Britain,

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except that developers realised it could be economically rather attractive.

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Previously, offices had had to be designed in complicated irregular shapes

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so that no desk was too far from a window, both for air and light.

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With air conditioning, developers for the first time, could design deep space.

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So buildings could be put up in simple rectangular blocks,

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that were cheaper to build, and provided more area to let.

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[music]

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This sort of new look office was presented as being glamorous and efficient.

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Voiceover: Those who dream in design are always contributing to our ways of work.

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Working situations benefit from a new kind of layout.

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Bright, open and inviting.

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The modern designer creates beauty through simplicity,

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bringing to active business a look of casualness, a look of luxury.

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Combining to crate a new look to American efficiency.

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[music]

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Tim: German designers went further, in the '50's reaction against Fascism,

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The Schnell brothers, who ran an office furniture business,

181
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started proposing Burolandschaft or office landscaping.

182
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The office was to be fully carpeted, a revolution in itself,

183
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with the desks arranged randomly to break down traditional office hierarchy.

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Shnell1: And vott we need now is some plants!
Schnell2: ...some trees perhaps?

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And ve have Burolandschaft.
Both: Ja Ja!

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Voiceover: At Beecham house, the flora and fauna mix freely in the atmosphere of an English garden.

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Typists type, executives do whatever executives do. And everyone's more than happy.

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What better setting for an English rose?

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Perhaps some enterprising gardener will develop a new flower to mark this breakthrough.

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He could call it floribunda secretaria.

191
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Tim: Despite all these changes in the appearance of the office, it's efficiency still left much to be desired.

192
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The swinging 60s accelerated the liberalisation of office regime.

193
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Creating new distractions.

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Voiceover: What makes the ideal shorthand typist?

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Presentable, but not so glamorous that the big executive's mind goes round like a satellite.

196
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Or yet so plain that he envies his colleagues who are away with Asian flu?

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You sir, in the audience, are you an executive?

198
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If so, have you ever wondered why your ears burn in the girls' tea break?

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Girl: Mr Keanes is the best boss I ever had.

200
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Girl2: I wish they were all like him.
Girl3: All I can say is I'm sorry for his wife.

201
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Tim: Some companies reputedly started adding bromide tablets to the water.

202
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to suppress their employees' libido.

203
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Meanwhile, the office organisation experts had started to put their faith in systems.

204
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Analysing things like communication, and er, decision making,

205
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On a practical level though, they noted that the basic office equipment

206
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the filing cabinet, the typewriter and the telephone,

207
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had remained basically unchanged since 1900.

208
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By 1970, whereas each factory worker operated an average £12,000 worth of plant and machinery,

209
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each office worker only had an average of a £1000 worth of equipment.

210
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The key to improving office efficiency, many experts decided, was automation.

211
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Man: Jan!?
Jan: Well Dennis, I sure am thankful for new technology.

212
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With this equipment, I can do just about anything with a few simple commands.

213
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My work area is organised, allowing me to move about freely.

214
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And to top it off, I can be comfortable all day, thanks to proper lighting and temperature.

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We sure have come a long way!

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Man: Thank you Jan.
[music]

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Voiceover: To most people, this would appear to be an ultra modern office.

218
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Working with sophisticated, up to date, equipment.

219
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But we now realise that this type of office is just

220
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an old fashioned system, dressed up with new hardware.

221
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We know that it's rapidly becoming obsolete.

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Tim: It was felt that until all the new machines were linked together,

223
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with all the information processed electronically,

224
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efficiency couldn't improve.

225
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Woman: We're in a race to keep up with the machines, and we're losing!

226
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The new office, just imagine, an office with no stacks and files of paper.

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It's not futuristic, and it's not far away.

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Now changes like this can be difficult, but they're also pretty exciting.

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And we're all going to be a part of it, as the new office evolves.
[music]

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Tim: That video was made 14 years ago, and in many ways this *is* the office of the future.

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These cool white surroundings, where everything looks efficient and nothing is dirty.

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Every element carefully designed.

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The scientific management disciples would feel proud to see it.

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Their dreams come true.

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[quiet office noise]
Tim: They would have approved of information technology,

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with all the information formally and logically entered into networks of computers.

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The new office buildings have lighting that doesn't reflect in the computer screens,

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extra cooling to remove the computers' heat,

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And false floors to conceal the wires connecting them together.

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These quite simple requirements, persuaded many companies that their offices were obsolete.

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Resulting in the lavish office building boom of the '80s.

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However, creating elegant palatial effects like these is enormously expensive and complicated.

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In addition to the control room, there's an entire hidden floor full of machinery.

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In here there are vast cold water tanks, half a million gallons in here

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and another million at the back there, for the sprinkler system.

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And then there're all the pipes for the air conditioning system, er, a sort of workshop.

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And the next, this is where the electricity comes into the building, the switch gear room.

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Separate water tank and heater for the restaurant water.

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The water softener over there, pumps for the cold water, it's all rather like a ship really.

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[pump noise]
Dispensers to add chemicals to the air conditioning water over there.

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Series of pumps for the hot water for the radiators. Large pumps for the air conditioning water there.

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This tank pressurises some of the hot water. The boilers themselves are over there.

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This is the boiler control panel.

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Even the roof is quite busy, with er, control panels for some of the air conditioning,

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ducts and fans to suck air into the building and other ones to take the stale air out.

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Then there are temperature sensors and other weather detectors.

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Emergency extractor fans to suck smoke out of the atrium, in case of fire.

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And a whole battery of machinery over here for the air conditioning system.

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Pumps in there, cooling towers here, all enclosed now to stop the legionnaire's bugs getting out.

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And er, a series of water chillers over here, to keep the computer rooms especially cold.

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Simply keeping the building maintained needs a small army of people.

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However, even if all this expense is justified,

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the value of the information technology itself is unproven.

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In the last 20 years, the number of office workers has almost trebled.

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However, research has failed to find any significant increases in office productivity.

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Perhaps because it's almost impossible to measure.

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There's still a lot of paper about, an estimated thousand billion sheets a year in America alone.

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And so many office activities remain largely unaffected by technology, because they depend on people.

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Talking to colleagues, telephoning, reading and writing things, going to meetings, even thinking.

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Though not so obvious as it used to be, the traditional office hierarchy still exists.

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The conflict between the need to control what the staff do,

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and the need to motivate them by allowing them freedom still remains.

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Perhaps all this high technology is really no closer to creating the perfect office,

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than the scientific management techniques of the 1920s.

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I suspect the efficiency of an office is really more dependent on the 

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personalities of the people who work there, and how well they all get on with each other.

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Possibly just as important as all the technology is the annual attempt to foster better working relationships: The office party.

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Terry: Make your head explode.  Brilliant!

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Miss M: Ooooh.  Gorgeous! Ooooh! You tiger!

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[80s music]

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Joan: Have a savoury Mr Jones?  I won't be eating any of these, I'm allergic to pilchards.

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[balloon expanding]
Brenda: heh heh heh Big one!

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Brian: Plutonia Personnel want me of course, heard of them?
Polly: No!

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Brian: Ahh, the innocence of fresh faced youth.
Polly: You know what Brian? You're pathetic!

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Brian: Oh Brenda, a word in your ear... This is your last chance to pull my cracker before I move to pastures new. 

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Brenda: *giggle* Brian! *giggle* Oooh!

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Polly: I lie there thinking about pollution and global warming and dolphins

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and I can't get a wink of sleep, can you?

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Terry: Yeah, no bother.

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Joan: Just slip them off, and I'll pop them on the radiator...  [unzips]
Mr Jones: Oooh, are you sure?

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Brian: You and I, we know what we want and we go for it eh?

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Miss M: Alright Big Boy, come to my office in two minutes, I'll be ready!

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Brian: *dirty chortle*

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Brian: Oh. Uuum. Errr. I say, Jonesy, the boss wants you in her office, pronto!

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Mr Jones: Oh?

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Miss M: Hell...oh. Oh! Mr Jones! 

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[smashing glass] [fire alarm rings]

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Brenda: Oh. Oooh! What's happening?

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Mr Jones: Oh, what did I do wrong?

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Brenda: Bruce!
Bruce: You're safe with me Brenda!

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Everyone must leave immediately!
Brenda: (dreamily) Bruce!

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Terry: I've got a solar panel in my flat, d'ya wanna see it?

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Joan: I've never knitted trousers before, that'll be quite a challenge.

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Brenda: Oh yes Bruce I will, just name the day.
[Jazzy music: 'Take 5' - Dave Brubeck]

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Brian: Better buy the wife some flowers...
[Jazzy music: 'Take 5' - Dave Brubeck]

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Miss M: Christmas! What a waste of resources!
[Jazzy music: 'Take 5' - Dave Brubeck]

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[Jazzy music: 'Take 5' - Dave Brubeck]