What was going on when I was born?

In his regular job at the Consolidated Edison Company, Martin Scott sits behind a desk in an air-conditioned Manhattan office, preparing documents for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the Indian Point 2 power plant. But over the weekend, as he shoved heavy work gloves into a pocket of his paint-splattered jeans, he reflected on his new job - oiling heavy equipment, operating circuit breakers, painting and doing other maintenance work at a generating station in Astoria, Queens. They are tasks he will perform for as long as 16,000 members of the Utility Workers of America continue a strike that began at 12:01 A.M. Saturday. ''Mentally, it's totally relaxing, and a change of pace, but physically, it's something else,'' said Mr. Scott, who has been with Con Edison for 20 years. The 42-year-old engineer, a union shop steward during the last strike against Con Edison, in 1968, was asked if he liked his new responsibilities.

The Government warned the Roman Catholic Church today that continued opposition demonstrations during the visit of Pope John Paul II would harm the relations between church and state and delay the lifting of martial law. Shortly before the Government spokesman, Jerzy Urban, made this announcement at a hastily called news conference in Warsaw, the Pope celebrated an outdoor mass attended by about a million people at the sanctuary of Jasna Gora, the guardian of the venerated image of the Black Madonna. Supporters of the outlawed Solidarity union and other banned groups held up banners and cheered as Pope John Paul demanded freedom for Poles. 'Truth, Freedom and Solidarity' In a final ceremony at the sanctuary tonight, the Pope said, ''I am a son of this nation and that is why I deeply feel all its yearnings, its wish to live in truth, in freedom, in justice and social solidarity.'' At the mention of the last word, cheers rang out, and the Pope asked not to be interrupted. His speech also stressed a need for reconciliation.

New Jersey hopes to complete within a month soil tests at eight remaining sites it suspects may be contaminated by the toxic chemical dioxin, the state's Environmental Commissioner said yesterday. ''It's our desire within a month that we've tested all'' the sites, said the Commissioner, Robert E. Hughey, ''and can take corrective action and can put it behind us.'' On Saturday, Governor Kean announced that dangerous levels of dioxin - ranging between 0.04 parts per billion and 11 parts per billion - had been found in the soil at part of a large chemical plant in Clifton. The plant's contaminated portion, which produced hexachlorophene, an antibacterial agent used in hospitals, was ordered closed by Mr. Kean.

Confirmation of Paul A. Volcker to direct the Fed seems sure, but many legislators will use the hearings to raise questions of policy. They acknowledge that Mr. Volcker has curbed inflation but worry about the costs in terms of economic stagnation. (Page A1.)

It seems as if most things here are very small and very busy. There are little vacuum probes that dart up and down, selecting good integrated circuits from bad among hundreds on a silicon disk. A nearby machine whirs and clicks as it stitches each tiny chip to a larger circuit with 40 pieces of gold wire, one-third the diameter of a human hair, in 14 seconds. Soon to come is an assembly machine that will place 256 electronic components on a circuit board in 2.4 seconds. This small northeastern Indiana town is one of the high-technology corners of the automobile industry, the headquarters of the General Motors Corporation's Delco Electronics Division. Starting from raw silicon here, G.M. produces many of the microcomputer chips that go into the command modules that govern the engine operations of modern G.M. cars.

Pope John Paul II's eight-day visit to Poland, painstakingly arranged by the Communist authorities in hopes of bolstering their virtually nonexistent popularity and ending their international isolation, has turned instead into a vast public outpouring of support for the outlawed Solidarity union. The result, in the view of many diplomats and others here, has been a stunning propaganda disaster for the Government that could conceivably have serious political repercussions for the Government of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski. Day ofter day, hour after hour in the first days of his trip, the Pope has been using words and phrases that everyone understands indicate support of the banned union movement and opposition to military rule. At each stop vast crowds carrying illegal red and white Solidarity banners roar their approval and the scene is recorded by the nearly 1,500 journalists welcomed by the Government. The Pope was at it again today, devoting more than four pages of a five-page homily at a rainswept outdoor mass at the Jasna Gora monastary to the subject of ''freedom'' - and few Poles needed further explanation of what he was talking about.