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Why do people waste so much time at work?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#31
post #22
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say we all agree that the global amount of resources are enough to support all of us without work, just for simplification. Then what about distribution of these resources? I feel many people work to fight over that distribution, not just to produce. E.g., there might be no $1000/h lawyer who would think that they produce even $100/h worth of resources. But they might still work 80h/week (or make the impression…

> Then what about distribution of these resources? The point is that this is an entirely separate question. On a global scale, it's hard to find a worse distribution scheme than the currently used scheme, so any arbitrary distribution is better than the current one (in which the powerful take increasingly more).

On a global scale? I thought all those Hans Rosling "Mind the Gap" videos were telling us the world is increasingly equal.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#32
I'm reading this at the moment:

http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/

Some extracts from the intro:

"And it’s not only at the bottom of the pyramid. There is a dirty secret I have discovered in the fifteen years I have spent consulting and coaching organizational leaders: life at the top of the pyramids isn’t much more fulfilling. Behind the façade and the bravado, the lives of powerful corporate leaders are ones of quiet suffering too. Their frantic activity is often a poor cover up for a deep inner sense of emptiness. The power games, the politics, and the infighting end up taking their toll on everybody. At both the top and bottom, organizations are more often than not playfields for unfulfilling pursuits of our egos, inhospitable to the deeper yearnings of our souls.

This book isn’t a rant about large corporations gone mad with greed. People who work in government agencies or nonprofits are rarely more exuberant about their workplaces. Even professions of calling aren’t immune to organizational disillusionment. Teachers, doctors, and nurses are leaving their field of vocation in droves. Our schools, unfortunately, are for the most part soulless machines where students and teachers simply go through the motions. We have turned hospitals into cold, bureaucratic institutions that dispossess doctors and nurses of their capacity to care from the heart. "

"The way we try to deal with organizations’ current problems often seems to make things worse, not better. Most organizations have gone through many rounds of change programs, mergers, centralizations and decentralizations, new IT systems, new mission statements, new scorecards, or new incentive systems. It feels like we have stretched the current way we run organizations to its limits, and these traditional recipes often seem part of the problem, not the solution.

We yearn for more, for radically better ways to be in organizations. But is that genuinely possible, or mere wishful thinking? If it turns out that it is possible to create organizations that draw out more of our human potential, then what do such organizations look like? How do we bring them to life? These are the questions at the heart of this book. "

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#33

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…

Going back to school and dilly-dallying is mostly only really going to be viable if your parents are the ones who earned a big enough living to support you. I know people like that.

Maybe corporations should adopt poor people or commission huge parties or works of art.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#34

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…

> We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living

Right, because valuable things don't actually cost anything to produce! That's why they can just be (automatically) handed out by some big Magic Nanny-Fairy Machinery.

We should all just get whatever we want, because we deserve it!

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#35

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…

What's an example of a proposed technological break through which can do the work of the adult population?

Self-driving cars, travel websites, self-checkout lines, Amazon's automated shipping centers, the first fast-food restaurant that lets you order with a touchscreen instead of having your order taken incorrectly by a minimum-wage drone, possibly Watson as a replacement for low-level customer service/tech support

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#36

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…

What's an example of a proposed technological break through which can do the work of the adult population?

Past technological breakthroughs: The combine harvester. The cotton gin. The water-powered loom. Factory robots. Clothes-washing technology in general.

Proposed technological breakthroughs: Self-driving trucks and cars. Warehouse robots. Supermarket robots. Automated drones.

Every efficiency advance not matched by an equal increase in demand reduces the need for people to have jobs.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#37
post #27

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…

"Cool story bro. Say that again when you can't pay your rent or even buy some food." - Me. I think everyone should experience that for a few weeks, it changes your perspective on many things.

The quote does not imply this is the way things are, it's talking about what he believes things should be.

Yes, of course many people have to work nonsense jobs now or else they'd starve, but that's because we don't have anything like basic income. With basic income, the lack of food and shelter you refer to wouldn't be an issue -- at least for citizens of the country with basic income.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#38

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…

> We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living Right, because valuable things don't actually cost anything to produce! That's why they can just be (automatically) handed out by some big Magic Nanny-Fairy Machinery. We should all just get whatever we want, because we deserve it!

Indeed, some people don't deserve to survive.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#39
post #14
post #5

Because if they got their job done and left they would be fired. If they got their job done, they would be given more work. So one takes the maximal amount of time to do a task given the requirement that they be in the office for 8+ hrs a day.

If they have 8 hours of work time and finished their tasks in 6, does that mean they have exhausted their usefulness to the business? Why not spend these 2 hours doing some small miscellaneous tasks?

Because if you fill those extra 2 hours Bob's managed to accrue with more work Bob will be sure to inject a few more HN/Reddit/etc visits into his 8 hours next time. There's rarely any motivation, gain or benefit in taking on extra work in your standard 9-5 job

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#40

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…

I don't think that having jobs is the problem. A lot of people can benefit from having jobs. Ideally a workplace should provide a way to develop people, a stable income and clear goals. It is also less risky for the employer (doesn't have to search for someone when a task needs to be done) and the employees (stable income). I personally like to work in an environment where I can decide what has to be done, how to do it, but many people wouldn't want to take this responsibility or would have a far less incentive to work if they don't have to earn a living. In an utopia perhaps we could abolish jobs, if everybody knew what they wanted to do and what they were good at.
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