NOVEMBER 2025 – The WSJ’s Chip Cutter, a NYC-based business reporter, did some old-fashioned, man-in-the-street reporting and came away with 10 nicely packaged mini-profiles (one with two Ford factory workers) of people who’d been in their jobs for decades. Kind of a throwback to Studs Terkel’s 1974 book “Working”, an oral history of working people.
As you’d expect, the workers’ insights in Cutter’s piece are at once obvious and surprising – many of the workers’ comments centered on the pace of technological change in their workplaces, and the near-constant demands of their work today. Another notable aspect of Cutter’s piece is that he included a wide range of private-sector workers, from a Merrill Lynch financial advisor to a cashier at Target. Many of the workers profiled are still showing up at the office well into their 70s and early 80s.
The daily news grind makes it difficult for big news organizations to focus on these kinds of pieces – when they get around to publishing them, they have a real impact. The piece remained on the WSJ index page for three days – an eternity by today’s news-publishing standards.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/long-tenure-employees-workplace-changes-2054605f