Boss, You Look Ill
(What We Mean Is:
Beat It, Phlegm Boy)
---
Cold and Flu Season Brings
Plague of Sick Supervisors
Who Refuse to Go Home

"Go home, Germ!" said office manager Alla Smirnova when Mr. Thornton was ailing two weeks ago. "You're going to make me sick."

"Beat it," pleaded sales representative Eric Bocanegra. "You look like an extra from `The Night of the Living Dead.'"

Wheezing and hacking, Mr. Thornton ignored it all. The 29-year-old president of Interdependent Computer Solutions, a New York computer reseller, says he is obsessed with productivity and feared he would lose sales.

The cough and sneeze season has returned, and in tow the workaholic bosses who won't stay home when they are sick. Of course, anyone who insists on spreading germs is an office menace, but bosses are the worst. They are the ones most likely to consider themselves indispensable -- and they are the hardest to control.

No office seems to be immune. At the New York City Department of Health, associate commissioner Steven Matthews readily admits to showing up at work when he is feeling under the weather. "I grew up in a house where you had to be really sick before my mother would let you stay home," he says. "I guess I ended up with the same kind of work ethic." Indeed, he started the new year by nursing a nasty cold in the office.

Meanwhile, his office manager, Linda Ciecirski, has just returned from being out sick. She says she doesn't blame him for her own recent miserable bout -- but she has taken to spraying her phone with Lysol (sometimes he uses her line).

Even authorities on the flu, the people whose job means they know better, breeze into work like walking petri dishes. Nancy Cox, the Centers for Disease Control's influenza expert, says she can't succumb to the flu season, because that is just the time she is under intense deadline pressure to formulate the next season's vaccine. "That motivates me to come to work even if I'm sick," she says. She maintains she would be loath to show up with something serious, but adds: "If it's only a cold, I might risk exposing co-workers."

At least Dr. Cox keeps to herself. "If she's not feeling well, she pretty much stays in her office, which is a far cry from other managers I've had," says microbiologist Cathy Bender. She adds that her last boss, a department head at Atlanta's Emory University, not only routinely came to work "sick as a dog," but brought his sick children into the office, too.

"I'm sure he passed a bug on to me," declares Ms. Bender. But aside from telling him he had no business spreading his family's ailments around the office, Ms. Bender says she felt helpless to do anything about it.

She is one of the brave ones; few employees concerned about their careers want to tell a sickly boss to get lost. Lots of people simply suffer in silence; others say it doesn't matter if they do complain, because the boss ignores them anyway.

A few take desperate steps. When one haggard but stubborn magazine editor in Connecticut refused to go home -- he had viral pneumonia -- an office worker went to the head of the company. The chief executive then marched into the editor's office and pointed him toward the door.

"That was the only thing that would make him leave," confides the subordinate, who felt too timid to confront the editor. "Unfortunately, he had already infected another worker."

Of course, in a world of crowded restaurants and drooling toddlers, it's virtually impossible to avoid exposure to germs and viruses somewhere. Plus, trying to stop the spread of a "bug" in an office is like trying to curb gossip -- but experts say there's good reason to try.

"Office buildings can be incubators for infectious disease," says Rupert Burtan, a Denver-based expert in occupational medicine. He blames everything from poor ventilation to dirty utensils, but sneezy executives top the list. "I've seen 40% of a 1,000-person work force call in sick mostly because people insist on staying at work," he says.

To send diligent but pestilent bosses packing, Dr. Burtan recommends giving them a dose of their own medicine: "Tell them how inefficient it is to have half the office out sick. It's simply a matter of cutting your losses. It just doesn't pay to stay in the office."

Stanley Bing, author of the book "Crazy Bosses," recommends more extreme measures. "You've got to employ a little counterterrorism," says Mr. Bing, himself a manager. "When he comes in your office, put on a surgical mask or wear a bandana over your face."

Not that such blunt messages would work with Mr. Bing. "When I get sick, the only way to get me out of the office is to physically eject me," he says. "I literally walk around the office honking and wheezing until everyone asks, `Why didn't you go home two days ago?' I can't make that decision on my own; I need consensus. It's part of being a bureaucrat."

Ellen Bravo, executive director at 9to5, a national association of working women, favors a gentler approach. "Managers rarely welcome criticism about their business decisions, let alone their personal behavior," says Ms. Bravo. "I'd suggest being low key, sending them a personal note of concern about their health and maybe add a little suggestion that you don't want to get sick, either."

Ms. Bravo talks a good game. But she sheepishly admits to having had such a bad cold at work last week that she emptied a subordinate's box of Kleenex. Ms. Bravo says she replaced the tissues the next morning. "I believe the top people should set an example," she says. Yet she believes a manager's insistence on coming to work sick points to a deeper management problem: "This is really about a failure to broaden authority and empower workers," she says.

At Interdependent Computer Solutions, the only worker empowered enough to curb Mr. Thornton, the relentlessly sick boss, was his spouse. Theresa Rivera-Thornton, the company treasurer, scheduled a doctor's appointment for her husband and shoved him out the office door.

Healthy again, Mr. Thornton says his recent illness did teach him one valuable lesson: "My drive to stay productive backfired on me when other people got sick after I did. Now I'm shorthanded."

So will he go home the next time he is feeling under the weather?

"No way," he says. "I just won't get sick."

Workplace:
Memo 4/8/97,
FYI: Messages Inundate Offices

What these busy professionals do, as often as a dozen times a day, is check their messages: voice and electronic-mail, faxes, overnight packets and, yes, even conventional mail. "It's out of control," says Mr. Hero, a telecommunications consultant who is a vice president of American Management Systems Inc., a Fairfax, Va., consulting company. "And it's getting worse."

Mr. Hero isn't alone in his dismay. The average person sends and receives a total of about 178 messages each day, according to a recent study of 972 workers at large companies. The communications barrage interrupts them three or more times an hour, leaving three quarters of those interviewed for the Institute for the Future/Gallup Organization study feeling overwhelmed.

"It's more than frustration," says Nancy Ozawa, director of strategic planning at the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. "Critical thinking and analysis get lost in an interrupt-driven workplace."

"Interrupt-driven" is a term that was initially applied to personal computers, nearly all of which are programmed to do a job until they are interrupted and then return to the task at hand. But while computers can mindlessly pick up where they leave off, humans often find themselves distracted and unable to concentrate when they return to tasks. "You lose that level of centering and attention because you are very reactive," says Mr. Boni, an information-security expert at Amgen Corp. who schedules important meetings at nearby hotels to shield himself and his subordinates from interruptions.

The message overload, Mr. Boni says, can lead employees to believe that they are perpetually putting out "all these little fires." He adds: "But if you were taking enough time to be strategic, you might figure out ways to avoid the fires altogether."

Indeed, out of the 70 to 80 electronic messages Mr. Boni typically receives overnight, he usually only responds to four to 10 of them. He uses his cellular phone to check his voice mail while driving to work, and clears his e-mail over his first cup of coffee. "You know it's going to be a bad day when the phone starts ringing and you don't have time to clear the e-mail," he says.

Electronic messages emit a siren song. Their instantaneous nature creates a false sense of urgency, not to mention a convenient excuse for procrastinating workers to set aside what they don't want to do. Meanwhile, advances in technology seem to worsen the problem. For example, the latest e-mail systems not only provide immediate communications, but also let senders know if the message has been received and whether it's been read yet. "They can measure how long it takes you to respond," Mr. Schrage says. "So you feel like you have to respond immediately."

The telephone is easier to ignore. "It used to be that voice mail was the vehicle to answer calls when you're gone or busy, now it's the vehicle that lets you not answer the phone," says Mr. Schrage, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. "And now with caller-ID, you can actually see who it is and choose whether or not to take the call."

Says Mr. Boni: "If I'm in the midst of a call, and I see another call coming from a number I recognize, I'll try to get off. I'm sad in a way because that's not really courteous. But I don't have that much time to be courteous anymore."

The Institute for the Future/Gallup study was sponsored by Pitney Bowes Inc., maker of postage meters and other products. The study found that e-mail isn't replacing older kinds of messages but is "layered over existing methods, increasing the communication message load."

Part of the problem is that many people trust their computer networks even less than they trust the U.S. Postal Service. Or they figure the best way to get through is to send the same message via every method available. "Some people will send me an e-mail, then leave a voice-mail message to tell me that they've sent me an e-mail," says Mr. Schrage, who receives more than 150 messages a day. To cope, he ignores copies of messages sent to a primary addressee. He also has programmed his voice mail so that callers can't leave more than a 30-second message.

Fallout from the message explosion is everywhere. "A plane ride is no longer a time to work quietly or read the trashy novel," says Ms. Klein, president of Klein Associates Inc. a human-resources consultant in Boston, Mass. "It's time to be scheduled and invaded." Not that she'd rather do without the intrusions. "My clients rely on being able to get through to me, wherever I am," she says.

Yet some professionals thrive on the interrupt-driven work ethic, even seeing a competitive advantage for those who can master it. "If you can respond immediately, you're in your own league," says Mr. Beirne, an executive recruiter who prides himself on his ability to return every contact. "I dial into voice mail after every meeting because something might have happened in that last hour and a half." Moreover, it is the only way to ward off clogged in-boxes. "There's nothing worse than dialing in to find 30 new voice mails and knowing that each one is two minutes long," he adds.

But his quick responsiveness has wreaked havoc on his personal life. "There is no line between work and home," he admits. "I put my pager next to my bed. . . . I have to."

Racist E-Mail Messages at Donnelley
Show Pattern of Bias, Attorneys Claim

The documents include a list of 165 racial, ethnic and sexual jokes that allegedly were passed through an electronic mail system at Donnelley's financial printing unit in Chicago, and possibly at other facilities around the country, beginning in 1987. The derogatory messages were created at a Donnelly facility in Lancaster, Pa., according to plaintiffs attorneys.

Donnelley officials say senior management had no knowledge of the documents, which are printouts of the electronic messages. "If such lists did in fact exist, it would be a clear violation of explicit company policy," said Jonathan P. Ward, executive vice president of Donnelley. "We take these papers very seriously. We encourage employees throughout the company to come forward if they see any type of this activity or behavior."

The lawsuit against Donnelley, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago in November, claims that African-Americans were discriminated against when Donnelley closed a Chicago printing plant in 1994 that employed 1,000 people. The plaintiffs allege that nearly all of the 575 black workers at the plant were laid off, while about 30% of white workers were given transfers to other Donnelley facilities. The company denies the charges.

In pursuit of class certification, which was filed Dec. 19, the plaintiff's attorney was contacted by workers at Donnelley's 60 major locations nationwide. So far, more than 500 black workers have joined the action. A copy of the electronic messages, meanwhile, was turned over to plaintiffs attorneys in recent weeks by a former Donnelley employee.

The documents show how plaintiffs in discrimination suits increasingly are wresting evidence for their cases from electronic records. They also demonstrate the potentially embarrassing consequences of such lawsuits for companies. Legal experts say the filing of these broad-based lawsuits, which have been on the increase since 1991, often cause workers who have never filed discrimination grievances to step forward and sign on to existing lawsuits.

"A lot of times it's not until a class-action case is made public that people come out of the woodwork," said Cyrus Mehri, an attorney who represented plaintiffs in a recent racial discrimination class-action suit against Texaco Inc. That suit was recently settled for more than $176 million.

The accusations against Donnelley could prove embarrassing to the new president of AT&T Corp., John R. Walter, who was chairman and chief executive of Donnelley until last October.

"I knew nothing about these joke lists," Mr. Walter responded. "I'm extremely disturbed and I'm upset about it. It's totally inconsistent with the values and integrity of Donnelley and with my personal views and policies."

Donnelley isn't the only business facing accusations of racist electronic messages being sent through company computers. Two black employees at Morgan Stanley Group filed suit in federal court in New York last month, saying they shouldn't have been subjected to racist jokes sent via electronic mail. They also contend they were denied promotions when they complained about the messages. Morgan Stanley has denied the accusations and a lawyer for the investment banking firm said at a court hearing recently that the electronic mail originated outside the company.

The plaintiffs in the Donnelley suit have received help from Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose Rainbow/Push Action Network has organized support groups for Donnelley workers and helped locate other Donnelley workers willing to come forward with charges of racism. "We're working to expand the base of the class beyond Chicago," Rev. Jackson said in an interview.

Plaintiffs attorney H. Candace Gorman said the company's statistical records clearly show discriminatory employment patterns. She cited personnel records showing that after Donnelley closed the 1,000-employee printing plant in Chicago, transferring some employees to other locations, only 1.2% of those who received transfers were black, compared with 30% of white workers. Moreover, she says black employment at Donnelley was far below the corresponding population figures in the places it operated and that blacks were rarely promoted into management.

In its response to the allegations, the company said its minority employment totals approximately 13%, and that African-American employment rose 7% between 1995 and 1996, and 21% over the previous period. "We are proud to say that 13% of our manager/professional staff is minority as well," the company said in a statement, declining to give further details.

But according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of company records filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, African-American employment fell to 6.7% in 1995, from approximately 8% in 1992. Meanwhile, blacks hold only about 3.3% of managerial positions at Donnelley. Of 179 officials and managers at its corporate headquarters, only 10 are black. And of the 594 total employees at Donnelley headquarters, more than half of the facility's 89 black workers are employed in office and clerical jobs. The company later confirmed those numbers.

Workplace:
A Diversity Program Can Prove Divisive

It can also backfire, particularly in workplaces where resentment and distrust have festered for years. Chicago’s R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. is learning that, the hard way.

Since 1993, when the commercial printer settled a class-action racial-discrimination lawsuit involving one of its facilities, Donnelley has spent millions on diversity training and related initiatives. Yet some of these activities are implicated in two lawsuits alleging widespread racial discrimination and harassment at the company, which has 38,000 employees.

About 550 workers have joined one suit since its filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago in November, including several alleging discrimination and harassment related to their participation in the company’s diversity training. The other suit, filed in the same court in December, alleges harassment related to work by the plaintiff, a former sales associate at Donnelley, to prepare a "diversity plan."

What went wrong? Numbers, for one thing. Thomas Kochman, author of "Black and White Styles in Conflict," says: "For African-Americans, sincerity is measured by what you do—it’s the numbers that count." Yet at Donnelley, which started its diversity initiative in 1993, black employment fell from 8% in 1992 to 6.6% in 1995, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of company records filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; blacks held only 3.3% of managerial positions at Donnelley in 1995.

There are so few blacks that some are asked to attend multiple trainings to ensure diverse groups. That has drawn resentment from black workers, many of whom already view the stressful sessions as a poor substitute for significant improvements in employment practices. "Diversity training was just window dressing," says Roslyn Houston, a former manager who was asked to attend two trainings.

Jonathan P. Ward, executive vice president of Donnelley, disagrees. "The powerful impact of heightening awareness [regarding diversity] has been terrific for this organization," he says.

Former sales associate Ward Campbell, who is black, alleges in his lawsuit filed in December that after management asked him in 1995 to help develop a "diversity plan" he determined that "Donnelley maintained minimal minority-group representation in upper management." During and after his work on the plan, his complaint alleges, his immediate managers made "racially offensive and abusive remarks" about him. Upon completion of the plan, according to the complaint, Mr. Campbell’s managers "were displeased with [his] expressed views and findings" and sought ways to induce him to resign voluntarily.

Donnelley’s Mr. Ward says: "Ward Campbell was fired for cause. It had nothing to do with his race or involvement in the diversity initiative."

In the early 1990s, Donnelley held diversity training sessions at two printing plants where charges of racial discrimination in employment practices had arisen. And after paying $275,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination at its Dwight, Ill., facility in 1993, senior management initiated a companywide program. Since then, officials say, at least 1,800 managers and supervisors have undergone training.

The program wasn’t tied to specific minority hiring or promotion goals. But Ann Weiser, Donnelley’s human resources vice president, says the company "made key hires and placements," including the promotion of a black to president of Donnelley’s telecommunications unit and the placement of other blacks as managers.

There was little progress at increasing black employment, however. For example, although Donnelley agreed to hire and promote blacks at Dwight, the Wall Street Journal analysis shows that between 1992 and 1995 black employment at the 1,000-employee plant rose to only 2.9% of all workers, from 1.85%. And a black manager hired there was the only black among 39 other managers.

In 1994, a shareholder resolution called for Donnelley to release data it files with the EEOC, which show minority and female representation throughout the company. The company declined; in its proxy statement, officials said they regard the information as confidential.

Top officials also balked at several recommendations made by members of company-sanctioned "diversity councils" of concerned employees. For example, in 1995, a group of black employees recommended a review of Donnelley’s compensation practices. But company officials failed to include it in a list of issues to be addressed by the corporate center diversity council, says Ms. Houston, the former manager, who presented the recommendation to the company.

Says Mr. Ward: "We have policies of pay equity at Donnelley. If we find differences, they are addressed on an individual case basis. It’s never based on race, gender, or ethnic background."

At the various diversity-training sessions, the company encouraged participants to speak freely. Recalling a 1995 session, Hellen Harris, a 42-year-old black production expediter in the financial-printing division, says she told the 13-member group, including managers, "how hard it was to work in a place that was so abusive to women and minorities."

But the managers disputed her observations, she says, adding: "It was really draining and stressful." And she recalls that the division’s director "said he had a problem with blacks supervising whites."

The remarks were made in a confidential meeting in which all members agreed that nothing said would be used against those who spoke their minds. Citing this agreement, Donnelley officials said the director declined to comment.

After the training, Ms. Harris says, the manager rejected her application for an open customer-service position, telling her that she was "too direct and too honest." She recently added her name to the discrimination suit.

John R. Walter, who was chairman of Donnelley at that time and now is president of AT&T Corp., says: "The [diversity training] process was intense, unforgettable and a very valuable learning experience. I’ve never heard of negative repercussions on anyone’s career."

To evaluate its diversity efforts, Donnelley recently hired consultant Clifford L. Alexander, former Secretary of the U.S. Army and former chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He is now examining Donnelley’s hiring, pay and promotion practices.

In interviews prior to his assignment at Donnelley, Mr. Alexander said he believes that "diversity training is generally nonsense." "Many managers who go to these [sessions] think they’re laughable," he said -- expressing particular concern with programs that fail to link the training with concrete hiring and promotion goals for minorities. "I have yet to see a diversity-training program that’s led to the promotion or hiring of a woman or minority," he said.

--- Edward P. Foldessy contributed to this article.

Shhh! Napping
Is Trying to Tiptoe
Into the Workplace
---
Sleeping on the Job May Boost
Your Mood, if Not Career;
Holding Calls for Snookums

"It's like when men first started using blow dryers in the 1970s," he says. "It wasn't macho."

What he -- along with others not inhibited by stereotypes -- likes to do is nap. Grabbing 40 winks at work sounds like a great idea to a lot of people, but most employers have yet to appreciate napping's rejuvenating effects. Now snooze fans, backed by a growing body of evidence touting naps' benefits, are nudging the once-taboo subject onto the job site.

"It's important to sensitize people and give them tools to utilize napping," says Mr. Lorelli, who schedules a 20-minute nap into every auto trip away from the office and encourages employees to get some daytime shut-eye, too. "I really believe the body was meant to have a siesta."

To make sleeping on the job more palatable, proponents now refer to it as "power napping." James Mass, a Cornell sleep researcher, says, "I've recommended napping to thousands of overtired executives." During the past year, he has given his "Asleep in the Fast Lane" seminar at companies ranging from Eastman Kodak Co. to PepsiCo Inc. to Seagram Co. Last month, Dr. Mass spoke after International Business Machines Corp. Chairman Louis V. Gerstner Jr. brought together 2,700 top IBM executives for a series of conferences.

"It literally woke up a lot of CEOs," says IBM spokeswoman Cheri Piebes-Schaeffer, who says she occasionally puts her head down on her desk for 15 to 20 minutes. IBM doesn't have a corporate napping policy, she says, "but not because of a lack of caring about these issues."

A few industries are experimenting with napping because of safety concerns. The Federal Aviation Administration just drafted a policy to approve napping for airline pilots, after a 1994 study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration showed that pilots who slept for half an hour during the flight were better at landing. Schneider National Inc. of Green Bay, Wis., a long-haul trucker, is testing a system that monitors drivers' ability to stay in their lanes. If the truck weaves, an alarm goes off, signaling the driver to stop and nap.

Framatome SA, France's nuclear-power company, is in the midst of a one-year trial to allow plant operators to nap, following a study that found increased alertness in night-shift workers who took a one-hour snooze. But the idea of napping nuclear workers is a harder sell in the U.S., where it conjures up images of Homer Simpson asleep at the switch. Richard Coleman, a shift-work consultant, says he has suggested U.S. nuclear plants let backup emergency crews nap on the job, but "the public would be outraged if they found out about it. It's a perception thing."

Indeed, rest has long had an image problem. Plato said, "No one when asleep is good for anything." Even Thomas Edison, famous for taking 10-minute naps instead of prolonged sleep, considered slumber "a deplorable regression to the primitive state of the caveman."

So, some nappers try to hide their habit. Antony Maderal slips across the street from his Washington office to nap on a park bench. When it is raining, the convention organizer tries to be discreet. "I can get myself in a certain position so that when I hold up some important papers, I'm just out of sight," he says.

Other nappers are shameless. Jim Lehrer, of public television's "McNeil/Lehrer Newshour," closes his office door every day at 12:30 p.m. for an hour's nap, while an assistant holds all calls. Even special correspondent Roger Mudd can't get through; he once left a message for Mr. Lehrer saying, "When snookums wakes up, have him call me."

Nancy Tompkins, a staff lawyer at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, simply lies down under her desk. "My feet stick out like the Wicked Witch of the East," she says. "The last time someone came in, he was so frightened he ran right out." An unabashed narcophile, Ms. Tompkins says, "Everybody I know wants to nap after lunch. If you're a hard worker, there's no reason you shouldn't do it with impunity."

Increasingly, nappers can claim science on their side. Studies suggest napping is a preprogrammed part of our circadian rhythms -- those neural timekeepers in the brain that regulate everything from waking times to hormone levels. The rhythms peak and ebb in regular cycles, and one of the gateways to never-never land is typically between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

"If you feel drowsy, it's not lunch or wine or boredom," says William Dement, director of Stanford University's Sleep Research Center. "It's just your circadian alarm clock going off."

Napping is "a hot topic in sleep research," says Lee Brown, professor of medicine at University of Arizona and head of a Phoenix sleep-disorder center. At this month's meeting of the Association of Professional Sleep Societies, one study presented showed the benefits of "preemptive napping" for night-shift workers. Another recent study, from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, found napping can improve mood, alertness and job performance, especially for the sleep-deprived.

"We've found that you get tremendous recovery of alertness -- several hours worth -- out of a 15-minute nap," says Claudio Stampi, who studies sleep strategies for astronauts and pilots at Boston's Institute of Circadian Physiology. "You can get temporary help through stimulation -- coffee, exercise, brighter light, cooler temperatures -- but you're actually fixing the problem by taking a nap."

His lab is testing a product that hopes to cash in on napping, the $4,700 "Relax and Refresh Chair" made by Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. The black leather recliner has a built-in massager, a light-blocking hood and a control panel so you can program your nap's length. The effect is relaxing -- until the wake-up cycle: a flashing light and blasts of cold air. "It still needs some work," Dr. Stampi says.

Others might consider the $2,700 File-A-Way Desk Bed, introduced in April by Sligh Furniture Co., of Holland, Mich., which features a pull-out twin-size mattress.

The gadgets still may not overcome all the stigma of napping. But some advocates refuse to lose sleep over criticism.

"If people have a problem with it, then to hell with 'em," says the ever-refreshed Mr. Lehrer, who started napping 11 years ago after recovering from a heart attack. "It's the only good habit I ever developed in my life," he says. "And it's the best excuse I've found for avoiding a power lunch."

Workplace:
Employers Sabotage Office Computer Games

ZAP! Employers across the country are firing a new volley in their war to stamp out game playing and other unauthorized uses of office computers. With the help of new network management programs that control which software programs can be used and when, managers can hunt down and neutralize game players before they pull their triggers.

Example: After New Jersey’s environmental-protection department began testing its system, "some character decided to send around an e-mail showing people how to hide the games by changing the file names," says George Caporale, the department’s manager of information systems. "He gave an example of how to rename the files using a former coworker’s name." The department’s program not only foiled this ploy but monitored the attempted changes and relayed them back to Mr. Caporale’s computer.

The Draconian measures represent managers’ latest attempt to regain control over the very technologies they introduced to their offices. Purchased as productivity enhancers, the latest souped-up PCs, color monitors, sophisticated software and highspeed modems have simultaneously enhanced workers’ ability to goof off.

Indeed, games often come bundled free with office software these days. Solitaire and Minesweeper, for example, are included with copies of Microsoft Windows to provide new owners a nonthreatening way to learn to use a mouse device. But these, as well as other noneducational games like Doom, have addicted thousands of workers.

At the same time, managers say unauthorized copying of games and other programs has exposed companies to copyright-infringement suits, computer viruses and system overloads, not to mention the long hours spent fixing resulting computer glitches.

"When a game shows up on a PC, it’s almost always an unlicensed program," says Hank Bradbury, an information systems manager at AT&T Global Systems in Salt Lake City. "There are times I spend 20 hours a week cleaning viruses off computers that got infected because of illegal programs."

Aggravated executives have responded by imposing strict antigame rules. Most recently, the governor of Virginia banned game playing on all state-owned computers. A recent poll of large corporations conducted by CIMI Corp., a strategic-planning consulting firm, found that 11% have policies of erasing game programs on company computers, while 4% have reprimanded or fired game-playing employees.

But short of sneaking up on unsuspecting workers and catching them in the act, managers have had little success. To make matters worse, many games now come equipped with "boss keys," which hide the programs behind phony spreadsheets and other applications with the touch of a button.

Until installing the monitoring programs, some managers say they didn’t realize the extent of the problem. "We were amazed at what we found," says Christopher Witt, a network manager who recently installed a program to monitor 200 PC users at Vertex Inc., a maker of tax-compliance software in Berwyn, Pa. In addition to a slew of games, Mr. Witt found everything from personal-finance software to an electronic recipe file. "One person even had a resume-writing program," Mr. Witt says.

While companies buy monitoring and metering programs primarily to help them comply with software-licensing laws, they increasingly use the programs as policing tools. Several products, such as Software Sentry, CentaMeter and SiteMeter, automatically set use limits on software, saving bosses from having to confront gameplaying employees directly. The innovation is especially welcomed by systems administrators, whose jobs have increasingly evolved from training workers and fixing glitches to policing unauthorized use.

"They call us the software police," says Colleen Cunningham, who watches over 200 networked PC users at Vertex. She says she hates to confront workers she suspects of using illicit software. Upon learning of the new metering programs, she excitedly replied: "That would be great! There’s only one of me and 200 of them. I’d like to be considered a nice person instead of Colleen the Cop."

Others say the mere knowledge that employees are being monitored is enough to stop the abuses. "Word about our monitoring started spreading around the office, and the problem began to solve itself," says Scott Lilly, office automation coordinator at Deere-Hitachi Construction Machinery Corp., Kernersville, N.C., a joint venture of Deere & Co. and Hitachi Construction Machinery Ltd. The company recently installed a program that allows Mr. Lilly to view every transgression on his screen. "We could get to the point where we go to blocking, but only if people continue to break the rules," he says.

While bosses may applaud the new software, productivity experts warn against Big Brother approaches. "It’s neo-Orwellianism," says Michael Schrage, a research associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. "In the same way that telephone usage is monitored, computer use can be logged and used to evaluate employees," he adds. The practice "reeks of a violation of privacy."

Some workers privately decry such intrusions, but few are willing to confront managers directly. "If I’m getting my work done, what does it matter if I spend a few minutes relaxing?" asks a resentful worker at an East Coast computer company who was recently reprimanded for playing Solitaire on company time.

When a meeting was convened to discuss a no-computer-games policy in state of New Jersey offices, workers voiced a few persuasive arguments, Mr. Caporale says. He adds: "One man got up and said, `Hey, I have a chair here, I have a desk, and I use them both to eat my lunch. So now I have a PC. Why can’t I use that during my lunch hour?’"

But employers are cracking down anyway. "Our policy is no game playing on state-owned computers," Mr. Caporale says. "And that’s pretty much in stone."

Workplace:
Use It or Lose It: Vacation Time Expires Now

PictureTel employees who have stockpiled vacation days won’t be so lucky after Dec. 31. Like many businesses, the Boston video-conferencing provider is cracking down on workers who carry over vacation days into subsequent years. "People weren’t taking their vacations," says Karen Gauvain, a company human-resources administrator. "And they were accruing megahours."

Tighter "use-it-or-lose-it" vacation policies are pressuring many workers to squeeze in vacations before year end. Taylor Kew, PictureTel’s marketing manager, says the new rule had him frantically trying to finish work and use up 140 hours of vacation time before the New Year.

More than half of all private-sector employees now face losing unused vacation time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. The number increased 8% between 1991 and 1993 alone, the only two years the figure was calculated by the government.

Companies are increasingly folding vacation into the more popular "flexible benefits" packages that lump together vacation, sick days and personal time into one "time-off bank," says Randall K. Abbott, managing director of Alexander & Alexander Consulting Group. Such plans don’t allow workers to carry over their vacation time because of Internal Revenue Service codes concerning deferred benefits. The ironic result: flexible packages that include less-flexible vacation benefits.

Quaker Oats Co. used to allow up to one week of carry-over. But since initiating a flexible-benefit program in 1993, "there’s no carry-over at all," says Robert Penzkover, director of employee benefits. He calls the IRS’s use-it-or-lose-it provision "one of the dumbest things in the tax codes."

Quaker Oats, like many companies, allows employees to sell unused vacation time back to the company, thus encouraging workers to take less time off. But plans are in the works to curb vacation selling to trim cash outlays. "We’re going to cash out less because we really want people to use the time off," Mr. Penzkover says.

Demographics also aggravate the end-of-year vacation scramble. As the population ages, more workers are accruing longer vacations, says Kenneth McDonnell, research analyst at the Employee Benefits Research Institute. Using bureau statistics, he estimates that the number of employees who have worked 15 years or more with their company increased 36% between 1983 and 1993. That group averages 15 to 18 vacation days annually.

But downsizing and mergers often have kept employees too busy to take vacation time. "It’s been impossible for people to use it up," says Nancy Tekarek, spokeswoman for Glaxo Wellcome Inc., Durham, N.C. The company is offering a one-time cash buyout for workers with excess vacation. "We don’t encourage employees to not take time off," says Ms. Tekarek.

Yet many disregard such advice. About 32% of American workers took half or less of their allotted vacation time in 1994, according to a recent poll by Strategic Consulting & Research in Irvine, Calif. And 11% took no vacation at all.

Because of Intel Corp.’s use-it-or-lose-it policy, Tracy Koon expects to lose about 1 ½ weeks of vacation. "But it was really up to me," the spokeswoman admits. "It’s a lesson in taking responsibility."

Benefits consultant M. Michael Markowich says such diplomatic statements hide most workers’ true feelings about such policies. "How would you feel if you lost vacation time right around the holidays?" he asks. "I know a lot of employees who are furious." Mr. Markowich advocates limiting carry-over to 125% of each employee’s annual vacation allotment.

Employers say some workers wrongly see accrued vacation time as a kind of severance pay. Before International Business Machines Corp. eliminated vacation carry-over two years ago, "I had one employee tell me he saw this as an informal insurance policy," says Fred McNeese, a director. "But that’s not how it works."

Unfortunately for taxpayers, that is exactly how it works in the public sector. Compared with workers at private companies, state and local government employees face far fewer restrictions on accruing vacations; only 17% are subject to use-it-or-lose-it provisions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Stories of big vacation payouts are pressuring bureaucrats to change. In what critics have dubbed "vacationgate," the Los Angeles Unified

School District is being criticized for allowing $74 million in vacation pay to accrue to school administrators and other nonteachers. School superintendent Sidney Thompson alone stockpiled 36 weeks of vacation time—valued at $111,000. When the previous superintendent retired in 1992, he received more than $100,000 in back vacation pay.

The district’s general counsel, Richard Mason, is now working out a settlement that includes a cap on vacation accrual.

Federal government workers can accrue up to six weeks of vacation time, but some still have trouble using up excess days off. It took less than three years for Kenneth Elliott to reach the limit. With deadlines looming, the Labor Department economist is almost certain to forfeit the three weeks he accrued this year alone. He says he was assured he would be compensated, "but you never know with budget cuts."

(See related letter: "Letters to the Editor: All Work, No Play Is Illegal Sometimes"—WSJ Feb. 1, 1996)

Workplace:
Words of Advice for Vacation-Bound Workers: Get Lost

Increasingly, stressed-out business people are finding that the only way to get away is to find a place with no phones, no fax machines, no modems—indeed, no gadgets whatsoever that connect with offices, bosses, employees and clients. And if complete cessation seems impractical, some advise at least cutting back.

David Williams, director of the Scripps Clinic’s Executive Health Program in La Jolla, Calif., recommends vacationing executives create windows of time—one or two hours a day—to communicate with the office. Dr. Williams says patients who followed his advice told him afterward, "You made my vacation!"

No one says limiting lines of communication is always easy, even under doctors’ orders. For example, when Cooke Bausman III, chief executive officer of Chicago’s Direct Response Corp., was plagued by painful ulcers, his doctor urged him to get away from it all. So he stepped up his visits to his two vacation homes in Florida and Wisconsin and went fishing almost every day—but stayed in touch via phone, fax and modem. The ulcers stayed in touch, too. Then a friend told him about Rancho Leonero, a rustic fishing retreat in Mexico. A major attraction: The tiny coastal compound sits miles from the nearest phone.

"I can’t be in contact even if I want to," says Mr. Bausman, who has largely recovered from his ulcers and now visits Rancho Leonero three times a year. "My doctor would tell you it was better than anything he could have prescribed."

In fact, modern communications being what they are, it takes some ingenuity—not to mention travel expenses—for a workaholic to find a place so out of the way that it’s message-impenetrable. After Chicago attorney Paul Heller spent a vacation in the Cayman Islands burning up the long-distance lines discussing pending litigation back at the office, he chose a more inaccessible spot for his next vacation: the bottom of the Grand Canyon, where he spent a week on a river-rafting trip.

"For one of the first times in my life I was totally out of touch," Mr. Heller says, adding, "I found I really didn’t miss [being in touch] at all. Decisions had been made, but they did it without me. It’s extremely hard to let go, but I came to realize it’s the only way to go."

Some business people argue that even their clients are better off if they stay out of touch while on vacation. "How can you make serious business decisions when you’ve spent all day observing the last pack of wild dogs in Africa?" asks Richard Friedlander, a New York stockbroker who just returned from a safari to remote Botswana. "You can’t do it; it’s not fair to you or to your client."

When he turned 50 several years ago, Mr. Friedlander decided to take a month-long tour—completely out of touch—in the South Pacific. "I came home to find that no one missed me," he recalls. What’s more, he says that by being out of the loop for a while, "I come back fresher. It’s made me a better broker."

There is, however, a downside to the out-of-touch approach. Unreturned phone calls and faxes can result in missed opportunities, and those who go incommunicado sometimes suffer withdrawal from the real world. Paul Leeson, co-manager of Canada’s Purcell Lodge, which is accessible only by helicopter and has no cell-phone coverage, tells of a high-powered guest who had trouble coping with being cut off from the world. According to Mr. Leeson, the guest, who is the CEO of a large Texas oil and gas company, "hit the panic button" after about 30 hours in the woods and radioed the lodge office some distance away.

"He insisted on contacting his company," recalls Mr. Leeson. "I told him the only way was to pick him up in the helicopter." As the man went upstairs to pack his things, his wife got on the radio and pleaded with Mr. Leeson to persuade her husband not to leave. Finally, the executive decided to stay, and later wrote a letter of thanks to Mr. Leeson. "He said it was the first time in his life he’d had a real holiday," says the lodge operator.

Whatever the benefits of transforming a vacation into a disappearing act, some people have trouble making the idea reality because of a major impediment: a demanding boss. Many bosses request home phone numbers as a matter of course; some ask vacationing employees to hand over their travel itineraries and even to wear pagers. "My boss basically said, `Carry this pager seven days a week, 24 hours a day, or find another job,’" says Mark Kaplan, chief architect for a New Jersey school system. He acquiesced, he says, but adds that the pager’s "batteries run out all the time."

Some say the real peril of truly getting away from it all is that it makes life with telecommunications pall. Being out of touch "definitely grows on you," says P.B. Walsh, a former college professor and forensic therapist at a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania.

Ms. Walsh took a week-long retreat to New Mexico’s Lama Mountain where she stayed in a special "hermitage" cabin, purposely situated beyond communication with all humans. "It changed my life," says Ms. Walsh, who has since left her job and moved to rural Colorado -- 16 miles by dirt road to the nearest town. "Mine might be a cautionary tale for anyone considering such a getaway."

Workplace:
Race Issues Create Divide in Corporate Cultures
Blacks, Whites Differ on Lesson Of Texaco Tape

While most whites say they are shocked by the derogatory comments made by top corporate officials about blacks and other minorities, their black co-workers say the remarks simply confirm what they have long suspected: Racism and prejudice are endemic in corporations.

"The other day a white colleague of mine put down the newspaper and said, `Can you believe they said this?’" says Sarah Manning, a black advertising executive in Philadelphia. "I told her, `Yes, I can. It goes on in lots of places. Is it appalling? Yes. Is it surprising? No.’"

Increasingly, work is the place where people meet others of different backgrounds. Schools, churches and neighborhoods remain largely segregated. Blacks and whites often lead separate lives on campuses. But changing demographics and affirmative action have made offices and factories increasingly diverse.

Cleavages run deep, though. Seventy-two percent of white men and 70% of white women rated their chances for advancement at work as good or excellent, compared with 55% of minority men and 48% of minority women, according to a 1993 survey by the Families and Work Institute. The survey also found that about 13% of white workers felt discriminated against in their current jobs, compared with 22% of minority workers.

Many whites, while condemning the comments by Texaco executives, believe such attitudes are isolated. "Well, you know, that’s just the oil and gas business. We’re in a totally different industry," Lydia Mallet, diversity director at consultant Coopers & Lybrand, says she was told by white executive clients.

"There are some problems in some companies, but a lot has changed in the past 20 years," adds James Chase, a white manager at a large California computer company.

Some whites believe the tape may wake up whites to the reality of prejudice within corporations. "I’d like to think that white executives will realize that even if they may not be doing this, there are places on the golf course and in the boardroom where this goes on," says Nicholas Derrough, a white manager formerly with FMC Corp.

But Harris Sussman, a Cambridge, Mass., diversity consultant who is white, fears that the Texaco controversy "will increase the skepticism of blacks and the cynicism of whites." White middle managers especially, Mr. Sussman believes, may be reluctant to change their views amid evidence that their senior corporate bosses are "talking trash" behind closed doors.

For many blacks in the workplace, the Texaco case underscores the importance of affirmative action, especially at senior levels. "If this is the way top executives are talking about people of other cultures, they’re not going to be inclined to hire people who are different from them," says Ms. Manning, the advertising executive.

"If there had been a minority at the table, they would have been less inclined to make those statements," adds Melvin Forbes, president of American Communications Inc., a consulting firm. "If minorities like me aren’t there, who is educating these people about what’s acceptable and what’s not?"

"It makes me want to cry," says Nathaniel Thompkins, a black consultant who has worked for several major corporations. "It doesn’t matter how much energy and effort you put into diversity. It seems you can’t change people’s values and attitudes. Blacks and whites still continue to be ships passing in the night."

(See related article: "Circuit City Suit Shows Problems In Proving Bias"—WSJ Nov. 18, 1996)

Workplace:
Consulting Giant’s Hot Offer: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Since separating its operations from accounting giant Arthur Andersen & Co. in 1989, Andersen Consulting has doubled its revenue to more than $4.2 billion in 1995. Its work force has swelled by more than 13,000 people since 1990, to almost 40,000 in 1995 (a head count larger than any other consulting firm’s). Its workers now populate 152 offices in more than 47 countries. And this year, it plans to hire about 8,700 more professionals, at salaries ranging from $35,000 for recent college graduates to more than $200,000 for experienced specialists.

While such companies as AT&T Corp. grab headlines by cutting their work forces, Andersen Consulting is enticing young recruits with the increasingly exotic prospect of relative job security. "I’ve never heard about [layoffs] around here," says Roger King, a 27-year-old recruit who arrived a year ago from Martin Marietta Corp., now Lockheed Martin Corp.

While many of Andersen’s clients are limiting themselves to what they do best—and in the process are eliminating or farming out non-core activities—Andersen Consulting has transformed itself from a specialized business that helped clients connect disparate computer systems into a full-service consulting practice.

The firm isn’t alone in its approach. Electronic Data Systems Inc. and the consulting arm of Ernst & Young have also aggressively, and successfully, diversified. Andersen Consulting partner John Smith explains the situation: "Companies are deciding they need to focus on the core elements and hire expertise to handle the non-core," he says. "And what becomes non-core for them becomes core for us."

At Andersen, this has meant adding specialists in everything from health care to financial services to the latest computer-programming languages and software. Andersen consultants provide chief executives with strategic advice and counsel clients’ workers to adapt to changes that result from that advice.

It’s the only way to go in the consulting business these days, says Allie Young, an analyst at consultants Dataquest Inc., which expects demand for consulting services to increase 17% annually to nearly $200 billion by the year 2000. "Customers want one-stop shopping."

Being that one stop for a multitude of major corporations has enabled Andersen to be among the most aggressive and successful recruiters on college campuses. This year alone, the company will recruit about 5,200 students, most with engineering, computer-science and business degrees.

In addition, Andersen Consulting will recruit about 3,500 professionals from industry. "When the bulk of our work was systems integration, we had a lot of young, inexperienced people," says Carol E. Meyer, Andersen Consulting’s managing partner for human resources, who notes that five years ago fresh college graduates represented 90% of the firm’s new recruits. "When you bring strategists into the business, you need more experience."

But some critics say the move is also in response to client concerns that Andersen’s young recruits may be too green to bill at hundreds of dollars an hour. Bonnie Digrius, an analyst with GartnerGroup Inc., says Andersen has sometimes been perceived by clients as a firm "that unloads a school bus of recently trained employees at a client’s door to do a project."

Mr. King, the recruit from Martin Marietta, is 27 years old—which happens to be the average age of Andersen employees. He came to Andersen after a stint with GE Aerospace, a unit of General Electric Co. that was subsequently acquired by Martin Marietta.

In Andersen Consulting, Mr. King says, he saw a private partnership unencumbered by the demands of outside shareholders—and a history without a major layoff. Not that Andersen promises lifetime employment. "People see stability in our track record," says David Reed, an Andersen recruiting director. "But we’re not offering job security for people who can’t handle the work."

In fact, the firm’s employee turnover rate approaches 15% annually. And though few workers are fired outright, frequent evaluations and intense peer pressure ensure that those who don’t fit in get the message quickly. "You always know exactly where you stand," Mr. King says.

He was also attracted by Andersen’s training programs; at the consulting firm, continuing education is not only encouraged, it’s required. (Andersen Consulting estimates that it spends about $250 million annually, or about $8,000 per consultant, on training.)

He began as an analyst, testing a new computer-software program Andersen had helped design for a client. Now, Mr. King is in the process of moving up a notch to programmer, after completing a three-week computer-programming course at Andersen’s training facility in rural Illinois. In about two more years, he expects to rise to consultant, then manager, and after about 11 years, partner.

Some of the opportunities for Andersen employees come from restructuring clients like AT&T, Bell Atlantic Corp., Procter & Gamble Co. and Chemical Banking Corp. Jackie DeLuca, a 23-year-old analyst with Andersen Consulting, views the merger of Chemical and Chase Manhattan Corp. as "a great opportunity, careerwise." Currently involved with Chemical’s credit-card-fraud operations, Ms. DeLuca says the merging banks will "need a lot of planning and strategizing, and I may get to be a part of that."

Andy Szpekman, director of research at Brecker & Merryman, a New York human-resources consulting firm, says that the big consulting firms "are the folks who are making downsizing possible [by] installing and maintaining the computer systems that are replacing so many administrators and middle managers."

Andersen Consulting doesn’t disclose how much of its business comes from restructuring. But company representatives resist efforts to link the firm’s success to client layoffs—with some justification, since decisions to eliminate jobs and consolidate operations are often made long before Andersen consultants arrive.

"We’re not in the business of slashing heads," says George Shaheen, Andersen Consulting’s managing partner. "But where there are problems, there are opportunities. My heart goes out to companies who have massive layoffs, but at least they’re taking steps to refresh their organizations for the future."

The prevailing notion among recruits at Andersen is that change is the only route to success. Most seem to be firm believers in the "new employment contract," in which workers must take full responsibility to ensure their skills are up-to-date. Labor-saving information technology is something to marvel at and embrace.

"People who run away from technology will be the ones who get hurt, based on their own unwillingness to change," Mr. King says simply.

Senior consultants agree. Gene Wright, a retail consultant who came to Andersen in 1994 after 26 years in industry, says he is sympathetic when he gets calls from former colleages confused by a workplace in the throes of change. But he lays it on the line. "There’s a new skill set required," he tells the callers. "And it’s the responsibility of the individual to retool, not the corporation."

Workplace:
Surprise Packages Now Bring Dread,
Not Pleasure, in Wake of Mail Bombings

But after a few days, Mr. Sogard decided to open it. The package held comic books; a publisher was selling ads in them. "I felt stupid for having worried," says Mr. Sogard, "and I was probably stupid for having opened it."

His fears aren’t uncommon—or unfounded. Yesterday, a mail-bomb explosion at BTI, a small long-distance company in Raleigh, N.C., injured two people, one seriously.

For many, recent mail bombs and threats have turned the pleasant surprise of receiving an unexpected package into a scary decision. Many companies are taking such precautions as circulating mail-opening warnings to employees. But in some cases, their actions verge on paranoia, with businesses and people buying sophisticated bomb-detection devices such as X-ray machines even though the odds of becoming a target are extremely low.

EG&G Astrophysics, the nation’s biggest supplier of X-ray screening equipment and metal detectors, has seen sales of its X-ray machines soar this year amid mounting concern over mail bombs. "I would estimate there has been a 40% increase in domestic sales activity" in the first half of 1995, compared with the 1994 half, says John Huey, national sales manager of the Long Beach, Calif., company, a unit of EG&G Inc.

"My business is very good right now," says Tom Felice Sr., manager of the U.S. Counter Spy Shops chain, which usually sells about 300 mail-bomb scanners a year, for about $1,500 apiece. He expects to sell about 500 units this year.

Three New York advertising companies bought package scanners from him two days after the ad executive was killed in December. Insurers, banks, universities, school districts and major newspapers also have bought scanners in the past few months, he says. In addition, a few college professors have bought the units for their homes.

The wide range of people targeted by the Unabomber gives anyone connected with "technology" reason to feel vulnerable. In particular, scientists at the forefront of technology research are scrutinizing their mail.

"I have reason to be paranoid—and I am," says Donald Frey, professor of industrial engineering and management science at Northwestern University’s Technological Institute in Evanston, Ill. The Unabomber struck the university in 1978 and again in 1979. "I used to be carefree as hell" about opening packages, Mr. Frey says, "but not any more." In the wake of the bomber’s recent threats to target Los Angeles International Airport, the university issued its third campuswide alert since December, advising staffers to turn suspicious packages over to the campus police.

United Airlines also has reason to fear serial bombers. Its president was injured by the Unabomber in 1979 when a package disguised as a book exploded at his Lake Forest, Ill., home. Last month, United reiterated its mail-safety guidelines to executives and increased other security measures. United wouldn’t release its guidelines, but other companies’ lists include excessive postage, discolored envelopes, too many stamps -- a bomber may be reluctant to use a postal meter—and a missing return address.

For most people, however, the chance of receiving a mail bomb is infinitesimal. Of about 850 billion pieces of mail sent in the U.S. from 1990 through 1994, only 85 mail bombs have been sent, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. "That’s about a one in 10 billion chance of receiving a mail bomb," says New York postal inspector Michael Kmetz. "You have a better chance of winning the lottery."

The vast majority of mail bombs are sent out of revenge. Postal Inspection Service officials say soured romances, business disputes and crime-linked retribution top the list of reasons. "In virtually every case we’ve investigated, the victim has some idea who did it," says postal inspector Daniel Mihalko. "In one case, the trouble was trying to figure out who didn’t want to kill the guy."

And often, mail-bomb recipients suffer no more than a terrible fright. Only about a third of the 167 mail bombs received in the past decade actually exploded; 51 people were injured and seven died, the Postal Inspection Service says.

Criminology expert Dennis Johnson believes news organizations have overreported the Unabomber story. In today’s society, "visibility equals authority," says Dr. Johnson, a criminal psychologist with Behavior Analysts & Consultants. "The more you see [in the media about Unabomber threats], the more real they seem."

Media organizations themselves are among the most wary. On Friday, the New York Times—which has received past communications from the Unabomber—evacuated part of its headquarters after the mail room detected a suspicious package. (It turned out to be a box of cassette tapes.)

But while the chances of getting a mail bomb remain remote, the number of mail bombs received more than doubled from 1993 to 1994, from 11 in 1993 to 29 in 1994. So far this year, 13 mail bombs have been received.

"I would not be surprised to see further increases," says Dean Kilpatrick of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center in Charleston, S.C., who worries that media attention could inspire copycats.

Such people won’t have much trouble. "It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to do it," says Paul Griffo, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. "They can be made with things you can purchase at your local electronics-supply store." Although mail bombs can be as small as a business envelope, most are the size of a cigar box or larger, he notes. Among the most typical are pipe bombs, fashioned from a length of metal pipe stuffed with gunpowder and shrapnel. Weighing several pounds or more, they often give the package a lopsided feeling when handled.

Experts say security measures—to the extent that they can assuage worker fears—are worthwhile. "It lets employees know that safety is important to the organization," says Dr. Johnson.

Mr. Kilpatrick agrees, though he says people truly concerned about safety might consider focusing on other things. "People would get a lot more safety out of wearing seat belts and quitting smoking," he says.