Working Stiff Provides Information for Working People

Posted on June 11, 1998

Factory closings, sexual harassment, downsizing, cameras in the breakroom. We generally hear from corporate chiefs and "experts" about what's happening in the workplace. But do working people have anything to say? A new website, Working Stiff, launching June 15 under Web Lab's Web Development Fund in association with PBS ONLINE, answers that question with a resounding and spirited "yes."

Working Stiff is a webzine for working people, designed to provide a place for employees from around the country and in a variety of jobs to gather and learn from a lively exchange of information and advice. The site includes a combination of hand-written workplace diaries; in-depth feature articles on issues from privacy to office relationships; a weekly advice column; a stress-o-meter; a resource guide; and active bulletin boards. Working Stiff will be a place where the average Jane or Joe can reflect on and talk with others about the daily grind.

"This is not a 'Dilbert' Web site," said Jennifer Vogel, team leader of the project. "Dilbert encourages people to be passive. Working Stiff is the opposite. We aim to give people what they need to improve their working lives."

"The workplace has really changed over the last 10 years," said Robin Marks, the site's co-producer. "A lot of people are not being treated humanely -- they're being monitored, required to work unpaid overtime, and feeling like there's nothing they can do about it. Working Stiff is more than an outlet for their gripes. It's a place where they can see that lots of people are having the same difficulties, and they can get information and support for making changes in their workplace."

The site's main attraction is the diaries section, which will trace the daily drama and monotony of working life in two different occupations per month. Literally hand written on stenopads by workers (whose identities are protected), the diaries incorporate sound files and other objects from the diarists' workspaces. "I just got my raise," writes a customer service rep with a clothing company. The entry is accompanied on the site by three shiny pennies supplied by the diary writer. The site launches with the journal of a casino worker who wrestles with seedy bosses, zombie gamblers, and constant moral dilemmas and a utility company employee who describes his odd world in which assistants suffer from persistent neural blackouts and bosses log out, never to return.