Christian names are so much the norm for office life these days we find it hard to believe that those ‘Take a letter, Miss Smith’ or ‘Right away, Sir’ exchanges ever took place. But they did, and not so long ago.
In May 1969, Jim Handcock, personnel manager for Texas Instruments described the so-called ‘all-staff’ system in operation at TI’s wafer fab in Bedford.
“Christian names are used in both directions at all levels”, says Handcock, “a rather senior manager once reflected that it seemed strange to have a mini-skirted 15 year-old call him by his Christian name, but it made him feel ten years younger once he became accustomed to it.”
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