Falling Through the Net

No-Collar samples the bitter aftertaste of the dot-com boom.

by Maura Johnston

Urban bohemia and office culture collided in a strange way in the late 1990s, and tales of the magical mix ran rampant around the business journals of the time: Work could, at last, become a worthy, ennobling paradise. Or could it?

To investigate these claims of utopia, NYU professor Andrew Ross was given full access to two Silicon Alley companies: Razorfish, a New York City interactive shop that dabbled in art shows and party planning; and 360hiphop, the online brainchild of Def Jam impresario Russell Simmons. Ross called these two offices, and many others like them that sprung up during the late 1990s, no-collar workplaces, thanks to the "nonconformist spirit" dominating the workplace mentality.

On the surface, these workplaces looked almost utopian. Workers were treated as near-equals to management, while flexible scheduling and high pay allowed them to pursue their own interests; one Razorfish employee operated a burlesque club in her off hours.

But Ross looks deeper than the fawning writers of the time, glimpsing the problems endemic to the no-collar culture. Flexible hours? Sure, but only if you were flexible enough to stay late and keep up with a manic deadline pace. (How high is "high pay," really, when you're putting in an 80-hour work week?) Near-equals to management? Everyone sat together, resulting in low-level workers' stress levels being just as high as the managers' sitting next to them. Not to mention that the chronic use of business jargon -- which many no-collar workers claimed was intended ironically -- made these workplaces seem more conformist than not.

The irony was dropping away, but with good reason: As these workplaces went public, they had to be taken seriously by potential stockholders. Collars moved in on no-collar territory, and the aspects of the workplace that had been so attractive began to fall by the wayside. Management structures were altered, but stress remained high at all levels. About the only aspect of the no-collar ethos that remained, as Ross describes it, was the desire to keep producing, no matter how many hours were being logged.

No-Collar focuses mostly on Razorfish, but it is the chapter on 360hiphop that better describes the sad fate of many creative Net enterprises. Guided by the principle that hip-hop was more than a lifestyle, the site expanded its focus beyond music to politics and culture. Many of the employees came to the site from journalism and activist backgrounds, and content went beyond the normal music-and-artists fare. Sadly, the dream wouldn't last. The purchase of 360hiphop by BET was, as Ross tells it, the beginning of the end. Going to 360hiphop.com now redirects you to Bet.com; a search there for features from the old site comes up empty.

Some may argue that the lasting effects of the no-collar workplace, such as the disregard for the 40-hour work week, have caused more harm than good. And they may be right: a Department of Labor report released last week declared the 40-hour work week, along with the concepts of the minimum wage and overtime pay, "antiquated." Others claim that the egalitarian management structures of the no-collar workplace were bound to perish with the boom that created them.

Yet the aftertaste of the no-collar mentality isn't sour for everyone. One need look no further than the NYT bestseller list for proof of that. Business writer Po Bronson's book-length mea culpa for inciting so many to enter the dot-com world, What Should I Do With My Life?, entered the hardcover charts last week at No. 5. It's a collection of oral histories from those who abandoned the trappings of everyday "success" -- including, in some cases, high-paying gigs in no-collar workplaces -- and gambled on their dreams.

One hopes that there will be enough publicity for this new generation of workplace nonconformists to inspire Ross to write another book scrutinizing these newfound utopias.

No-Collar: The Humane Workplace and Its Hidden Costs

By Andrew Ross Basic Books, 288 pp., $27