Clad in black anodized aluminum and gray-tinted glass, the iconic Mies van der Rohe-designed IBM Plaza rises like a sentinel along the Chicago River. In the early morning hours, shafts of sunlight sprayed into empty cubicles and offices, tracing along carpeted hallways that a week earlier teemed with people. Now, everyone on the floor was gone—victims of a major downsizing spawned by the earliest re-engineering project in American business.
In the wake of the employees’ departures, the floor was cluttered with the personal artifacts of their work and “I-Bleed-Blue” careers at IBM Corp. Huge wheeled dumpsters filled with bulging manila file folders and computer printouts sat in silent testament to the corporate carnage that had taken ...
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