REGIONAL REPORT : Anxiety Level Eases a Bit in Workplace

The television set in the employee break room was already switched to Gulf War news coverage when Alfredo Vela showed up for work early Monday morning at City Hall in the City of Commerce.

Vela watched reports of the massive allied ground offensive with a handful of other workers--a far cry from the anxious crowd of more than a dozen employees who used to gather during the early days of the war.

“The war is still a big topic, and (this morning) we were discussing the outcome and making our predictions,” said Vela, a 31-year-old systems analyst. But “we are all pretty much agreed that there were not going to be many problems. It probably made us feel a lot better.”

The start of the workweek for most Southern Californians began with talk of the Gulf War ground offensive. But perhaps steeled by weeks of war or the early success of allied ground troops, the mood at many of the region’s offices and factories was less tense and more optimistic than when hostilities began last month.

“My concern hasn’t really lessened,” said Alexandra Cook, a receptionist at the Saturn auto dealership in Monrovia. “But I’m not as preoccupied as I once was.”

Although the ground war was the center of conversation at the dealership, employees had not abandoned their tasks to watch television news and there was less anxiety in the air, she said.

“Everybody realizes we still have things to do here,” said Cook.

“When we first struck at war with them, it was a major shock,” said Jim Stapleton, vice president of operations for Advantage Life Products, a Laguna Hills company that sells items designed to help people stop smoking. “Now, I think it’s seen as another part of the war, part of the overall campaign.”

Many workers have turned to their jobs as a refuge from the constant war coverage and worries about loved ones in the military. Sherry Kleven, who coordinates the trauma care unit at Northridge Hospital and Medical Center, said working helps keep her mind off the war and the fact that her son, a 27-year-old pilot of Apache helicopters, could be shipped to the Gulf at any moment from his post at Ft. Hood, Tex.

The war is “on my mind 100% of the time,” Kleven said. But her job, she said, is a demanding one and “it helps to be busy.”

At Birtcher Construction in Laguna Hills, which is near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the mood is sad but resigned, said Meg Epstein, marketing coordinator.

“The general feeling is that it’s unfortunate it had to come to this, but now that we are involved, it has to be finished,” said Epstein, who has a friend serving as a medic in the Gulf.

Many workers kept tabs on news reports at the behest of their employers. Orange-based VTN Corp., an engineering and construction firm that was active in Kuwait during the 1970s, has asked employees to listen to the radio and note damage reports to the tiny kingdom’s infrastructure.

“Our marketing department is trying to log in what structures have been blown up for possible future work for us,” said Daniel Montano, VTN’s chairman and chief executive. “We’re calling everybody we know that has anything to do with what’s going on over there.”

Meanwhile, at a Sears store in Northridge, employees gathered in the television department Monday to watch the latest developments--not of the Gulf War, but of a soap opera. That is a big change from the opening days of the war when people packed around the TV sets to watch the news, said sales associate Todd Phifer, 23. “I couldn’t tell who was a customer and who was just watching (in those days),” he said.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Patrice Apodaca in the San Fernando Valley, and Cristina Lee and Anne Michaud in Orange County.