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hyperdimension

You don't even have to go that far back!

RIP:

- Hewlett-Packard (err...Agilent, I mean Keysight)

- Tektronics

- IBM Thinkpads

- Screws and modular assemblies

and the declined quality that nearly brings a tear to my eye of:

- Craftsman (the real Craftsman)

- the manufacturer of my old clothes dryer with a schematic of the whole thing taped to the inside of the front panel (at least my new one has WiFi and NFC!)

You can certainly accuse me of rose-tinted glasses, and I probably shouldn't even have nostalgia for a company, but it does really just make me a little sad. Just look at Tek's old employee handbook: https://vintagetek.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/EmployeeHa...

Signed,

A life-long tinkerer

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That Tektronix manual is a gem. Also... a very different age. They set aside 22.5% of gross revenue for profit sharing and 7.5% for a retirement fund. They boasted about a technical library made largely of contributions from the employees. Obviously a white male-dominated roster. The explanation of the phone/paging system is baroque and sort of cryptic, taking 13 steps.

When I was young I wanted to start a company like that (not the white male-dominated part, duh). Then I was sued unjustly in two different cases under California law. I will never have an employee again.

Yeah it always rang true to me as a company that did right by its employees, a mutual respectful relationship. Not to mention engineering was definitely seen as a priority. They even drew little doodles in the schematics.

But yes, an absolute gem and a nice little snapshot in time.

That's a shame about the lawsuits. I'm only bringing up (not blaming at all!) lawyers since it's the example you gave, but thinking about it, I think a sue-happy culture is just one of the symptoms or maybe foreshadowing our slow descent into not assuming good faith on the part of others or trying to lift everyone up rather than extract as much as you can from everyone else. It's as though we've moved from cooperation to being adversarial (in very general terms.)

I suppose that might be why that employee handbook attracts me so much--the contrast between their relationship with their employees is stark against what we seem to have today. Like before, it's a relationship of mutual benefit vs. the asymmetry between employers/employees we have now.

I'm awful with words and getting my ideas out, and I reiterate that I've nothing against law as a profession. It just serves as a nice exemplar.

I dont think you emphasized the "white male dominated" part enough

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