Janet has been working in the Kenyon shops for 18 years. Another five years and she'll retire. Janet is liked by all her co-workers and has a sterling reputation for good work at the College. The past few years have been satisfying for Janet, yet challenging as new computer programs were installed on all the shop's computers. These new programs made Janet's life more complex back in 1998, but now she finds them a great boon to her work. Janet processes workorders, manages the staff who handle all repairs, and makes sure that all the accounting procedures are followed. This job used to involve mountains of paperwork, and it still does involve lots of information, but now virtually all of it is "on-line." Janet spends most of her day on the phone and at her computer, looking at a computer screen that looks a great deal like the web browser on her family's home computer.
Last April, Janet got a call from a professor in the geology department. She wanted to know why the "reolater" in her lab had not been serviced. She had filed a workorder using the new computer system a month ago and was "tracking" it, she said. "Tracking it?" asked Janet. "Why yes. I see from the web system here that you've had my request in your "in-box" for five weeks and nothing has happened. There's not even a note in the comment field telling me why this hasn't moved on."
At first, Janet stumbled, for she'd not heard of any way that someone could check up on her work, let alone talk like they had inside information. She talked with her supervisor who confirmed, tentatively, that this was possible. It was a feature of the new computer systems. Those who filed workorders, or purchase orders, or service calls, or library requests - almost anyone - could track the progress of their request.
In spite of all her years of solid service to the campus, Janet still felt uneasy about this development. She moved the geology professor's request along, but in the ensuing months, she came to realize just how powerful, and difficult, these new web-based computer programs could be. Virtually anyone could see how she was handling their requests. Granted, the requesters could only see their requests, but it wasn't long before supervisors were watching the flow of all requests. Everyone in the office kept up, and once when a co-worker was on leave for six weeks and things piled up, the system alerted her supervisor for the need to hire a temporary replacement. But still, this disclosure of the internal workings of the office changed the working environment for Janet.
Janet retired three years early.