ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a first-person view of high-tech work and workers—a window into the world of high-tech work as I’ve observed it for more than a quarter century as an employee, an independent consultant, and a subcontractor to consulting companies. I started my career at Bell Labs working on usability engineering for software systems—how to make the large computer programs that ran the telephone network easier to understand and use. Five years later I started consulting. I’ve worked with many projects—both short and long term and in both the private and public sectors—to solve problems or build products in telecommunications, environmental sciences, consumer electronics, Web-based applications, and process analysis and improvement.
