In the 1970s, IBM was in many ways a strange place to work. Every twelve minutes was a new "start time" for coming to work, so that the crush of 6000+ arrivals at the main plant in San Jose could be spread over about a 90 minute period. A large on-site cafeteria helped keep people from wandering offsite for long lunches. The lunch break was set at 42 minutes. I wrote this song, meant to be played with a twangy banjo and a nasal voice, in 1974-75, after 7 years of working for IBM in San Jose and observing the things mentioned here.
IBM was really a good place to work, with fantastically good people to work with. But the corporate culture was very strange, and I often thought about leaving, although I lasted 13 years until I left in 1980.
My very first day on the job in 1967, fresh out of college with a Math degree in my hands, my manager said "We've got to get you some schooling", and by that afternoon I was in a limo headed to the airport, then on an airplane for a six-week stay in New York City, where IBM had a lease on several floors of the Belmont Plaza Hotel, for in-residence programmer training. A week later, with my first paycheck, I rushed to Saks Fifth Avenue to buy my first-ever business suit, in the requisite IBM black. Immediately on return to San Jose, I was put on a Task Force, a group of about a dozen people from various departments, assigned to solve a particular corporate problem. My office space was a Dilbert-type cubicle, and I observed that higher-level people would get, first, a nicer chair, then a nicer desk, then an extra bookcase, then a real office space, then a round table with an extra chair for visitors, then, at 4th level or so, colored chairs and a simulated-wood-grain desk top.
The Inhuman Zoo
You dress like a turkey, and you work in a zoo
and when the day's all done you're still not through
'Cause when you get on home you can't unwind
and when you sit on the john you're still in a bind
Well, the carrot's all covered with moldy mildew
it ain't even fit for a hobo stew
You go to work at seven-thirty-six
an' you better not leave 'til four-eighteen
And forty-two minutes is all you've got
for a little bit o' lunch in between
Yeah, the carrot's all covered with moldy mildew
it ain't even fit for a hobo stew
As the days roll by, the money rolls in
they got a few billion in the money bin
An' you got a telephone you can't use at all
'cause it costs a nickel for a local call
There's a Task Force here, and a Task Force there
I think they had one for the telephone scare
They all get together and tell a lotta jokes
drink a lotta coffee, light a lotta smokes
Every year or so they re-org the whole place
put new people in, give others the chase
The management shuffle is somethin' to see
it's a lot like the shuffle of Muhammed Ali
Itty Bitty Machines, I'm Bein' Mis-used
Itty Bitty Machines, I've Been Moved
Itty Bitty Machines, It's a Big Morass
Itty Bitty Machines, It's a Blubbery Mass
At least once a year, you get appraised
an' about as often, your salary's raised
You'll get that promotion to a colored chair
if you dress just right an' trim your hair
There ain't no way you can ever get fired
it's Mother and Child from the day you're hired
Jus' keep movin' 'round with a pencil in your hands
they'll think you're workin' hard on the Company plans
You can make a choice to be a technical hick
or smile jus' right an' join the management clique
You lay it all out in your Career Path Plan
ya' got your chance to be a Company-made man
Itty Bitty Machines, I'm Bein' Mis-used
Itty Bitty Machines, I've Been Moved
Itty Bitty Machines, It's a Big Monolith
Itty Bitty Machines, It's a Broken Myth
'Cause the carrot's all covered with moldy mildew
it ain't even fit for a hobo's stew
So I'm all done, I'm all through
I can't go back to the inhuman zoo
