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Efficiency Is the Enemy

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Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#151

Post by Jtsummers »

scruple wrote: post #123
ryandrake wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

2 employees assisting with 6-12 self-checkout stations is still a net-win for the employer if the objective is cutting "overhead" of personnel. It's only a problem if the self-checkout system is flawed in a way that requires frequent and lengthy intervention by the employees, versus the occasional ID check for alcohol purchases and item check for something not scanning correctly.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#152

Post by [deleted] »

knuthsat wrote: post #78
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…

Yep, I started my programming career optimizing stuff (traveling salesmen, roster, schedules) and the optimizing criteria in academia is very far from reality. The effects of not having slack are disastrous. Although, the effects start showing after the optimization makes people believe they can squeeze even more work. The initial optimized schedules create more slack than handcrafted ones.

[deleted]

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#153

Post by underdeserver »

whall6 wrote: post #125

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 t…

Counter-argument to that - Maybe Tony wants Gloria to "slack off" so that she has 100% of her mental energy available to solve whatever problem he needs to her to solve.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#154

Post by jl2718 »

whall6 wrote: post #125

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 t…

The value of your employees voluntary contributions are capped at the least valuable thing you put on their list of things to do.

If your employee’s best chance at success are in the success of your business, they’ll do great things without being asked, that you don’t even know about. If not, it doesn’t matter what you ask them to do.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#155

Post by kippinitreal »

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…

The Goal is one of my favorite “business” book (it’s written as a novel). it addresses all of the wasted energy when you target efficiency at the expense of hitting your true goals.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#156

Post by whall6 »

jl2718 wrote: post #154
whall6 wrote: post #125

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 t…

The value of your employees voluntary contributions are capped at the least valuable thing you put on their list of things to do. If your employee’s best chance at success are in the success of your business, they’ll do great things without being asked, that you don’t even know about. If not, it doesn’t matter what you ask them to do.

I can’t really see how the value of employee contributions are capped at the least valuable thing they have the responsibility to do.

As for the second part of your reply, I entirely agree. When employees catch the vision of the company as a whole, it makes sense that they would be motivated to bring something to the table on their free time. Much harder to do within larger orgs.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#157

Post by HWR_14 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #120
periheli0n wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a whole spectrum of bureaucracy and overregulation in the “West”. The EU is probably worst. The US are quite relaxed in comparison. The UK is somewhere in the middle.

> The US are quite relaxed in comparison. This is basically a myth at this point, bolstered by how much more we complain about it. The US made the colossal mistake of trying to do regulation at the federal level, basically equivalent to doing it at the EU level, which the EU is now attempting to do more of and discovering what a trash fire it is. And one of the big reasons for that is that the more centrally the regu…

Federal regulations prevent a race to the bottom for things like pollution, labor rights, etc. And IP, internet, and other regulations only make sense at a federal level.

But, in terms of how to lay out a town in terms of residential zones vs. commercial zones, sure that should be local.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#158

Post by whall6 »

underdeserver wrote: post #153
whall6 wrote: post #125

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 t…

Counter-argument to that - Maybe Tony wants Gloria to "slack off" so that she has 100% of her mental energy available to solve whatever problem he needs to her to solve.

Hmm if it’s a question of mental capacity, I don’t really have anything to add. That’s a good point.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#159

Post by GuB-42 »

Isn't that a well studied problem, applicable to many fields?

Here the article is about people, but the same reasoning can be made with computers or service centers. I mean, no sysadmin will expect their network to be a 100% capacity all the time. We have mathematical models for that, the stuff with binomial laws and Poisson distributions.

So how can we expect people to be 100% efficient if even machines can't be 100% efficient?

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#160

Post by spoonjim »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #146
spoonjim wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO I spoke to was at least the fifth or sixth. His son was the CEO in waiting and that guys son was a teenager doing dirty jobs on the factory floor so that when he is CEO he will have the workers’ respect and know how the business is done.

This sounds like an interesting model for choosing future leaders but also it seems very risky as it is entirely dependent on a very small selection of people (those in the hereditary line) being able to lead and grow a company. Based on the fate of monarchies around the world, I wouldn't bet my money on it

There are two advantages that the family business has: they get to pick the son (In South America, it's usually the son, but in China it's frequently the daughter), it's not always the oldest, and sometimes when there are no suitable sons they go outside the family. In contrast, succession to monarchies is usually fixed, but crafty monarchies often pick the successor as well, such as Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
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