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Efficiency Is the Enemy

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Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#121

Post by hunter-gatherer »

scruple wrote: post #117
enraged_camel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every well-run family-owned business like this, there are a dozen that are hell holes full of nepotism and corruption. That is to say, I think you're pretty lucky to have found one of the rare good ones.

I've worked for one and consulted for another. Both were as you describe. The CEO was the grandson or son of the original founder and were little tyrannical despots.

I wonder if you work with my mother... But seriously. She works for a guy who over his career has made a net-worth of ~50 million (deals in real estate). He has always kept his employee's salaries just above minimum wage, kept the employee numbers down to avoid having to dish out benefits, and so on... Nice guy, but basically made his wealth by treating him employees like pseudo-slaves.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#123

Post by scruple »

ryandrake wrote: post #99
TeMPOraL wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the same happened to everyone else too, just with smaller dollar amounts. During my high school and early university years, I was in love with the concept of being able to run errands over the Internet. Why go to the bank when I can order a transfer on-line? Why make orders over the phone when I can choose what I want on a webpage with few clicks? Why ask anyone to do anything, when I could just click or type my…

Same with self checkout at the grocery store: I know a lot of people like it, but whenever I do it I’m thinking “this is someone else’s job! Why the hell am I having to do it now? ?”

And inevitably there are always at least 2 employees standing around the self-checkout helping customers that are having problems with the machines.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#124

Post by nonameiguess »

mauvehaus wrote: post #41

And this is why you schedule flights in the morning: there's so damn little slack in the system that if things go wrong at 10:00 AM at O'Hare, flights for the whole rest of the day are screwed up owing to the cascading delays. At least in the morning the airlines have had the overnight to unsnarl the previous day's mess because of the reduced revenue traffic overnight and the corresponding slack that accrues as a hap…

Been seeing this with UPS after the Texas snow storm. Packages were canceled or delivered late, often missing parts of it, for over a month. It's an obvious problem with homebuilders, too. I keep seeing all these constructions just halt all work, sometimes for a few weeks or months, sometimes for a couple years. They seem to operate with absolutely no margin for error and run out of money really easily.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#125

Post by whall6 »

Here’s a counter argument: maybe Gloria doesn’t need to have defined tasks for every hour of every day, but it absolutely could not hurt for her to make proactive decisions that fill her time when she isn’t busy tending to Tony’s schedule.

Ideally, an organization would be able to attract the candidates that would spend their free time doing constructive things. This _would_ be an org where everyone is busy all the time.

Suggesting that it’s always OK to be doing nothing when we don’t have a pressing task in the name of “Slack” is not what the author intends (in my interpretation) and absolutely a waste of the extremely powerful minds we have as humans.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#126

Post by ErikVandeWater »

burnished wrote: post #91
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt you will ever see even firefighters with low utilization. They can use extra time to do inspections to make sure there aren't any fires, or put on presentations at neighborhood association meetings teaching the public about fire hazards. If they aren't doing those things and there aren't any fires, they're just lazy.

Absolutely not. Not that those things aren't great, and hopefully already being done, but there is zero need to ask firefighters to be at 100% utilization at all times. There is value in having some one perform busy waiting in the event of an emergency. Did you know thats a training drill they perform? How fast they can be out and on their way from the moment of getting a call.

> there is zero need to ask firefighters to be at 100% utilization at all times.

That's why I didn't call for it.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#128

Post by createmyname »

Laarlf wrote: post #84
allenu wrote: post #79

Something that I've noticed recently is that in my work life, I'm finding there's more bureaucracy in what I do, mostly in the name of "efficiency". When you encounter a problem to solve, there's often a process already defined that is most efficient (or at least thought to be most efficient), when accomplishing tasks, there's a pre-defined way of laying out the tasks (i.e. tickets), updating them, reviewing them, an…

Overregulation and bureaucracy are the downfall of the west. The sooner we realise that, the sooner we can fix it.

this is the best thing you as a person have. believe me. the point you lost all those regulations etc. some idiot will come and make you miserable... you won't even be able to believe you are controlled and manipulated by a idiot bunch! until then have fun...

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#129

Post by throwaway6734 »

spoonjim wrote: post #112
periheli0n wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to put this is: where would you rather make a long-term investment?

How long term? For 10 years I’d invest in Google but for 100 I’d invest in his company.

How do they handle picking new executives? How will they replace this person when they are no longer able to perform the job at a high level?
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