Within the past decade, there has been tremendous growth in the number of businesses and not-for-profit organizations which have become equipped with computers and have empowered workers to use them to communicate. This new form of on-the-job empowerment is known as Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). CMC's use has resulted in greater production and performance in the workplace. It has also resulted in an increased amount of tension observed between management and subordinates. This tension is evidenced through accounts of people's behavior in the workplace-- specifically, accounts of members of management who perceive a lessening of their ability to control the actions of subordinates who use CMC to communicate on the job. These members of management have indicated a need for greater control over CMC, to help bring the CMC process and the subordinates who use it into the workplace hierarchial system. Subordinates, on the other hand, have reported that they enjoy the social and technical freedom they obtain for themselves through CMC--and that they want to preserve their ability to apply CMC skills and technology in the workplace as they see fit. Subordinates often report, however, that the management hierarchy stands in the way of this process by impeding access to CMC or limiting its content.