ABSTRACT
Nearly two-thirds of our samples of known ex-patients exhibit no unusual behavioural characteristics for firms to react to. We suspect that more still, having successfully concealed their history of illness, also pursue their course, as do colleagues who have not been thus afflicted. But the eccentric conduct of a minority in our samples has evoked a variety of responses of which the only predictable one is the tolerant treatment accorded to long service employees. In general, it looks as if management’s understandable concern to get the work out is less pressing than their fear of upsetting the workforce. Foremen, in their recognized double-bind situation, have to weigh production demands against the humane personnel policies to which in all probability they have also been instructed to adhere. Organized labour seems more apprehensive about what it regards as a potential cheap labour threat than about oddity of behaviour, though there are notable exceptions to this attitude. The individual worker is quite likely to take the line encountered in more than one visit: ‘Why shouldn’t the poor b——be allowed to earn a living same as us?’
