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Efficiency Is the Enemy

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Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#291

Post by smichel17 »

tremon wrote: post #216
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? ?”

Around here we have two self-service checkout systems: one is as described, where you have to take each item individually out of your card and present it to a scanner. I detest those, as it makes me feel like a fool fumbling around with the scanners while the cashiers are 10x faster than I am. The other one is where you pick up a handheld scanner at the store entrance, and you build up your item list while you're in…

Tangent about self checkout -- the versions I've found in supermarkets are uniformly terrible. But Home Depot, has a version I don't detest, for two reasons.

1. You get a hand-held scanner (at the checkout register, not walking around the store) instead of having to run everything over the counter.

2. You don't have to put the items on a certain platform (scale) after you scan; you can stick them back on your cart.

3. Although there is a webcam mounted (boo!), there is no screen showing yourself.

They're really three variations on the same reason: it doesn't treat me like a thief who's going to shoplift at the first opportunity.

I don't really mind doing self-checkout, as I'm nearly as fast at it as the cashiers (unless I have a lot of produce), and it lets me bag my food in exactly the order I want (bag for the fridge, bag for the pantry, etc). But the anti-theft measures (especially when the thing scans wrong and seizes up instead of letting me abort and try again) make it an absolute train wreck, and so I petty much only do self-checkout when I have under 5 items or the line is incredibly shorter.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#292

Post by smichel17 »

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.

The "problems with the machines" are almost exclusively anti-theft "features".

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#293

Post by collaborative »

This is so ironic. I write this message while being chased by colleagues who need me to do something for them that is very important to them but has no merit in my manager's eyes. At the same time, I am hopelessly chasing other colleagues who need to do something for me that is really important to my manager/dept I can't help those who need me because that would set me behind on my urgent tasks. But others can't help me in my urgent tasks because it would set them behind on theirs' Circle of doom

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#294

Post by tigerlily »

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…

Amen

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#295

Post by mlac »

hnick wrote: post #231
mlac wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that kills me about the ticketing systems is that they are often put into place in a way that is locally efficient but does not make sense globally. For example, an application owner might have to submit a ticket to request an upgrade once a year (or when a new OS is supported). What often happens is that the application owner now has to know about, find, and correctly understand a form that they see once (…

> the systems that were designed to take away the need for administrative assistants may once again require an assistant to navigate efficiently This is something that I've lamented over too. Infrequent interactions and setups take so long to do, the people who do it every day don't see a problem because it's easy but it's not a core competency for the rest of us. We need a community liaison role in internal teams th…

I’ve been bumped into SLA hell when incorrectly filling out a form as well.

Go fill the form to make the request - it’s got a 3 day SLA so it shouldn’t be a problem. Day 3 - form rejected due to missing a small detail / something they could call me about. Day 4 - I see the notice the form is rejected and either a) have to resubmit and wait 3 more days or b) escalate because now this is an emergency.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#296

Post by KSteffensen »

hnick wrote: post #283
thesuitonym wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>BTW our time tracking tool is a company wide motivation killer HINT: They all are.

I used to enter 15-30 minutes a day on my timesheets for doing timesheets. It was honest but felt rebellious.

This is the only way to go. If these numbers are ever actually used for something, maybe somebody will realize that the timesheets system can be improved.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#297

Post by pantalaimon »

periheli0n wrote: post #199
pantalaimon wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isaac Asimov describes a similar situation about the downfall of the Galactic Empire in „Foundations“ It's basically the fall of the Roman Empire, but set in the future and with a outpost at the edge of the galaxy to preserve some of the knowledge across the dark ages.

Psychohistory FTW ;)

Or as it's called these days Big Data

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#298

Post by jl2718 »

rsj_hn wrote: post #268
jl2718 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think this is only true if you create a workplace environment that encourages this. If you micromanage your employees with metrics, they will adjust their behavior to maximize the metrics, and you will know exactly what they are doing (but not if they are doing what they should be doing).

No. You will expect them to maximize the metrics, but they will do the minimum, and think you’re an idiot, and the quality of their work will be terrible, and they won’t say a word.

Every new hire is an opportunity to let that person do their best work for the company. Your opportunity to screw up because you think you know better.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, you’re probably in the 60-90% that HBR classifies as negative value managers. We have this idea that management is just a bunch of simple processes, and it is, in the same way that building a bridge is just welding together steel beams. Every struggling engineer wants to be a manager because they think it’s easier work with more power over other people and higher pay, which it is, and this incentive structure creates this reality no matter how hard you fight it.

Think about the opposite. What would happen if each engineer had a budget and they decide how much they want to pay whom for management services? How would your role as a manager change in that situation? To earn a salary, you would have to have an extraordinary competence in helping people to be more effective, or just play politics downward. And the engineers, well, they could choose to be lazy and incompetent, or they could be aggressive and incompetent, or they could be ambitious and disciplined, or whatever they want to be. So you see how the situation is not that different with the roles reversed.

Re: Efficiency Is the Enemy

#300

Post by omginternets »

wott wrote: post #143
omginternets wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you don't want to increase the staff to 20, just in case. That's just a waste of money. I believe OP's point is that you do want the staff of 20, for the once-in-a-lifetime fire that requires 20 people. See also: the recent Texas power grid debacle, or the saturation of ERs due to COVID.

> you do want the staff of 20 No, you don't. Resources are not infinite, and at some point the budget has to be taken from other services which are more useful than a once-in-a-lifetime event. Or you do want the staff of 20, but then it must be a volunteer and/or on-call duty system. Otherwise it is not sustainable. In my country, the shift/switch to professionalisation that started 30 years ago has gradually become…

I think we’re getting hung up on specific numbers.

The general point, I think, could be summarized as: you want some idle resources to handle surge capacity. Whether that’s 5 or 20 firefighters is of course the next question.

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