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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?

#91

Post by FLUX-YOU »

exizt88 wrote: post #14
sitkack wrote: 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?

>Why not spend these 2 hours doing some small miscellaneous tasks?

Because that's scope creep and it can create the expectation that it's part of my job, so then I'll be responsible for it. Down the line, if one of those misc tasks becomes the ire of someone else and my name is attached to it (comment, commit, etc.), they'll contact me further down the line, perhaps when I'm dealing with something of my own. Then, at least, I have to explain that I don't maintain that and in the worst case (which has happened), I have to fight to not be responsible for it right then.

There's a balance in having your name associated with 'things' in a business. Some people might be good at being a know-it-all, being well-known, and handling everything (why aren't they running their own company?), but you'll increase your chances of interruption the more wide-spread your name is.

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

#92

Post by 300bps »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #67
floppydisk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried this idea, in America, at the Jamestown Colony. They initially established it in a "socialist" vein wherein everyone received an equal share of the proceeds (food, etc) regardless of their contributions to the colony. The colony barely survived because people lacked the incentive to work and produce because there was no advantage to them working more than their peers. Why should I work to produce an excess w…

There was nothing "socialist" about Jamestown. Many of the initial settlers were aristocrats who had no experience of work, and no interest in it. Unsurprisingly this didn't end well. >If we create a culture that tells people they don't have to work to receive those benefits, it will disicentivize people to actually work. We already have a culture like this. Those who believe they own an entirely imaginary thing call…

Those who believe they own an entirely imaginary thing called "money"

The fact that someone can write this is laughable to anyone that was ever poor in their life.

Money is not at all imaginary. It's quite real. The lack of money can ruin your day, your year, your life.

As for what money is - it is a productivity storage mechanism. Once you've been productive it allows you to store that productivity in a fungible form. It allows you to exchange that stored productivity for the productivity of others, give it away to someone else or basically do anything you want with it.

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

#93

Post by floppydisk »

Anderkent wrote: post #64
floppydisk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried this idea, in America, at the Jamestown Colony. They initially established it in a "socialist" vein wherein everyone received an equal share of the proceeds (food, etc) regardless of their contributions to the colony. The colony barely survived because people lacked the incentive to work and produce because there was no advantage to them working more than their peers. Why should I work to produce an excess w…

>why should they if their excess production goes to subsidizing non-producers who stare at the sky all day? There's a lot of room for manouver between 'everyone gets exactly the same amount no matter their contribution' and 'everyone must be productive (net-positive on the society) to sustain themselves'. So, reasons you might contribute when even the sky-gazers can survive at a decent level: 1. Because the extra pay…

It's an interesting angle, and the possibility exists you might be right, however, for the sake of discussion I'm going to push back a bit.

A thriving economy necessitates people produce more than what they need to live. This excess gets exchanged with peers in the economy and most everyone benefits. Rather than straight barter, we use currency as a mediator to allow people who couldn't barter directly to still exchange goods and services. Consider the case of the USSR. During one of their many social programs, they turned all the farmland in the USSR into communal farms and struggled. Eventually, they relaxed restrictions and allowed people to start farming private plots of land where they could keep everything they grew in addition to the communal farms and things went comparatively gang busters. People had more food and suddenly they had more food to exchange on the market than the communal farms produced.

We are inherently social creatures and if people are surrounded by people who don't work, it creates a social climate that praises non-work over work. I.E. the "extra status" from your contributions is a social construct. Status is a social construct and in this case assumes people value workers and will heap status upon them for their contributions. Take an elite athlete who won a championship and drop him in the middle of grandma's sewing club, he'll have 0 status compared to that group's rock star. Status will only be conferred by people who value it and that might not be the case for people who aren't working.

> 6. Because you don't even consider what you're doing work (you were just playing around with maths and theory, and suddenly new discoveries!)

There's a difference between "new discovery" and "valuable new discovery" and turning that into something useful and productive.

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

#94

Post by marktangotango »

mdpopescu wrote: post #80
Uberphallus wrote: post #13

In my case it's the lack of documentation about a huge system (ecosystem, I'd rather call it), in contrast to an overengineered methodology and process, which involves mandatory code reviews by people unfamiliar with the code and 6 test phases before production. If I crank 10 lines of code a week I consider myself lucky, and it won't take less than 3 weeks for them to hit production. The combination of that with long…

I sincerely hope this (10 lines of code a week) is hyperbole. I would be fine with 3 weeks to hit production - not everybody works on a SaaS, I've had six months release cycles - but... not writing code?

I've probably not even gotten 10 lines a week at some jobs. One gig was mostly all ad hoc reporting stuff, with a lot of cut and paste of previous impls. Another place I and two others spent a year on a project that should've taken 2 months, I didn't write any new code at all for at least 6 months of that project. Specifically there was a lot of back forth, requirements changes from the business owners, on the part I wasn't involved with, before the project went live.

This was typical for the first 10 years of my career until I took a lead position. Now I work all the time, and I focus on organizing and coaching up my team so I don't have to do as much.

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

#95

Post by floppydisk »

tormeh wrote: post #69
floppydisk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried this idea, in America, at the Jamestown Colony. They initially established it in a "socialist" vein wherein everyone received an equal share of the proceeds (food, etc) regardless of their contributions to the colony. The colony barely survived because people lacked the incentive to work and produce because there was no advantage to them working more than their peers. Why should I work to produce an excess w…

I think there's a middle ground to be found here. What if everyone gets the necessities and some basic niceties, and the most productive get the rest? You'd be working for luxury and status, as opposed to necessity, but isn't that motivation enough?

What qualifies as the necessities and basic niceties? That's a very broad category that fluctuates based on where you live. Necessities + basic niceties in my current area cost a significant multiple of somewhere else like the Midwest USA. In turn, this might incentivize people to move from Midwest USA to other area USA if they're getting more $$$ and thereby raise the total cost of the program.

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

#96

Post by alextgordon »

Anderkent wrote: post #63
benihana wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> espousing your highly conservative viewpoint. I don't ever recall reading either of you or GP's comments before so maybe I'm missing something. But since when is saying "producing things has a cost" a 'highly conservative' viewpoint?

"Producing things has a cost" is n obvious, meaningless assertion; the actual suggestion here is that everyone only deserves whatever they manage to produce. That's a fairly conservative viewpoint.

It's an anarchist viewpoint too, when you think about it.

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

#97

Post by Delmania »

floppydisk wrote: post #82
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing "socialist" about Jamestown. Many of the initial settlers were aristocrats who had no experience of work, and no interest in it. Unsurprisingly this didn't end well. >If we create a culture that tells people they don't have to work to receive those benefits, it will disicentivize people to actually work. We already have a culture like this. Those who believe they own an entirely imaginary thing call…

> There was nothing "socialist" about Jamestown. Many of the initial settlers were aristocrats who had no experience of work, and no interest in it. The parent's quote specifically proposed the notion of people not working. This doesn't disprove the argument or address the point about the structure of Jamestown's initial income distribution mechanism. > We already have a culture like this. Those who believe they own…

The claim that Jamestown was "saved by capitalism" is the typical libertarian/conservative story touted out in discussions about socialism and capitalism.

The situation was a lot more nuanced than that. The setup of Jamestown as between the Crown and the investors, not the colonists, who were essentially indentured servants for 7 years. Also, the climate was not right for the types of crops the colonists were trying to grow, and as someone else mentioned, the settlers were not accustomed to the environment.

"How are you defining work? Money is a proxy for value produced at some point in time and you can either save it or immediately spend it. If someone acquired a reserve of value, how are they living off the efforts of other people? They still must buy goods and services like everyone else."

That's an incredibly naive response. I would venture the author of that comment is referring to CEO and bankers on Wall Street. For the amount these people are paid, it's hard to see how much value they are producing. There is definitely an entitlement mindset.

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

#98

Post by rorykoehler »

LLWM wrote: post #83
rorykoehler wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time there is any thread about anything remotely socially progressive you are there espousing your highly conservative viewpoint. This made me curious and I am really trying to understand what life experiences could have led you to have such views. I have a few questions that might help paint a clearer picture if you would be so kind? If you decide to answer please answer honestly. Where did you grow up? What w…

I'm the child of substinence farmers and have had to go hungry and without shelter for multiple days. Am I allowed to hold such opinions?

Sure, anyone is allowed to hold such opinions. There is no right or wrong. The point is that opinions should be based on critical thought and then articulated in a way that reflects this. Take Marc Andreessen for example. Many of his views are very different to mine but he articulates them well and can back them up by showing his thought patterns. I respect, listen to and learn from him because of this even though I often do not agree with him.

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

#99

Post by rorykoehler »

rayiner wrote: post #86
rorykoehler wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time there is any thread about anything remotely socially progressive you are there espousing your highly conservative viewpoint. This made me curious and I am really trying to understand what life experiences could have led you to have such views. I have a few questions that might help paint a clearer picture if you would be so kind? If you decide to answer please answer honestly. Where did you grow up? What w…

> Every time there is any thread about anything remotely socially progressive you are there espousing your highly conservative viewpoint. I don't think it's a liberal versus conservative issue so much as an individualist versus collectivist issue. I think social conservatives, who have a predisposition towards thinking of communities in terms of reciprocal social obligations, have a role to play yet in pushing forwar…

Everyone has a role to play. I wouldn't think it healthy to ignore or disregard certain view points out of hand just because they are different to mine. That is not the point, rather it is important to base discussion in critical thought and not purely emotional reaction (though this has some value in itself too).

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

#100

Post by icebraining »

sillygoose wrote: post #49
jnbiche wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm guessing his point was that we're so accustomed to relatively comfortable living ( especially here on HN), that we take valuable things for granted. That leads to a sense of entitlement and confusion. We don't see how valuable the things we have are, so we end up thinking they should be "free", without realizing that nothing of value is actually free, because otherwise it wouldn't have value. So if we experienced…

nothing of value is actually free, because otherwise it wouldn't have value.

That's not how it actually works; price is only bounded by the value is brings, not proportional to it. For example, air is literally indispensable to life, but good luck selling it.

things can't just be handed out for free, because the things themselves are not actually free.

Sure they can; they've always have! Roads, cops, healthcare, education; hell, you're European, you should know. And plenty of people already live without working.

Maybe expanding it to the levels of allowing everyone to not work is (still?) unrealistic, but claiming "things can't be handed out for free" is silly.

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