Reading this fascinating thread, I hesitate to add my worms eye view.
In 1969, as a young chap freshly out of school, I was given a temporary job at Filton in the printing shop attached to the Brabazon hangar where the Concorde prototype was being assembled. Things were badly in arrears, so we were on compulsory and lucrative, overtime, working from 7am to 9pm. We had a small workshop containing about a dozen old duplicating machines for drawings and documentation. The foreman was also shop steward and I soon learned that he was in charge, when, after clocking in, I began preparing my machine with paper and ink. He informed me that nothing was to be done until he activated all the machines with his big mains power supply lever, and that was not done until we’d brewed up a leisurely cup of tea. In fact, the tea breaks were often and long, there was absolutely no sign of the urgency that prevailed in the rest of the factory.
Draughtsmen and engineers would leave their work in a hatch with a request for so many copies – sometimes with a note saying URGENT. This would invoke a snarling ‘cheeky bugger’ reaction as the unfortunate man's work was then shoved to the bottom of the pile. This treatment would eventually provoke a protesting manager to come through the door, which separated us from the Design Office. At this, down would go the power lever to the cry of ‘I smell management!’ More tea and lengthy negotiations before work limped on.
The job was of course boring, the printing machines had a variable speed control habitually set of course on the lowest stop, but I found the tedium could be eased by tweaking the many adjustable controls on the paper feed and cranking up the speed until the inevitable inky jam.
The result of my happy experimentation was that at the end of the day, I would have a pile of completed work about 3 feet high while my colleagues would have only about 3 inches. This led to an interview with my foreman in which he pointed out that while I was just a student mucking about, they all had families to support and I was in danger of causing the suspension of overtime. Furthermore, failure to see their point of view would lead to another meeting behind the bike sheds after work.
I am filled with wonder that Concorde was completed at all knowing that the massive dedication of so many was constantly undermined – indeed sabotaged by the bloody-minded working practices of those dinosaurs – now replaced by the print button on every computer.
Sorry, long post.