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The day FedEx delivered its promise

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Re: The day FedEx delivered its promise

#4
The correct solution for perverse incentives is, believe it or not, more perverse incentives. And if by some unfortunate circumstance those have unwanted side effects, those too can be fixed with more perverse incentives.

Folks, I'll be running for US Senate next year, be sure to vote.

Re: The day FedEx delivered its promise

#8
Not long ago, something similar happened in my country with garbage collection. They noticed that the staff completed all the assigned areas much faster than predicted so... they assigned almost twice the workload to each of the trucks. The result? A massive strike because workers were able to prove that the new schedule was impossible to follow without rushing.

Re: The day FedEx delivered its promise

#9

Not long ago, something similar happened in my country with garbage collection. They noticed that the staff completed all the assigned areas much faster than predicted so... they assigned almost twice the workload to each of the trucks. The result? A massive strike because workers were able to prove that the new schedule was impossible to follow without rushing.

Twice the workload is a pretty extreme example. They could likely have boiled the frog - You're doing 25% longer routes this year, then another 25% the next, gotten real efficiency gains, and gotten reasonable pushback when they did.

A strike is the right option, but strikes are good for nobody. It's crazy how often management these days has just zero clue.

Re: The day FedEx delivered its promise

#10

The correct solution for perverse incentives is, believe it or not, more perverse incentives. And if by some unfortunate circumstance those have unwanted side effects, those too can be fixed with more perverse incentives. Folks, I'll be running for US Senate next year, be sure to vote.

I think there's a whole book about this: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

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