work ethic

that's cos they talkin when they should be workin iirc

OTM.

Someone I used to work with often used to talk about his "Slow preparation, Fast Job" philosophy. The prep was painfully slow and the follow up was doubly slow + incompetent!

there's a dude at work whose email signature has been "If you can't commit to perfection, go work somewhere else!" for years. He was the biggest dumbfuck alive and in one week managed to fuck the same thing up twice back in 2013.

Yeah I don't say "work smarter, not harder," but in my writing and teaching I do encourage people to:

1. Let technology do some of the grunt work whenever possible. This would theoretically allow them to do more of the work that requires, y'know, thinking. Examples are people who create their own "tables" with spaces and tabs. Another is people meticulously measuring out a page and trying to even up graphic elements by eye/by hand, rather than using handy little arrange/distribute buttons.

2. Scale effort to time. If you give me a project of size X with a deadline Y days away, I will bring to it what I think is a reasonable level of effort. If you later give me a project of the same size (X), only now the deadline is one-half of Y days, I will probably provide half the effort (rather than the same level of effort in half the time, presumably by omitting sleep).

But another way, if I'm working on two projects of roughly equivalent size and importance, I will probably spend about half my time on each. If you hand me four projects (again, of roughly the same size as the first two)? I'm not going to work twice as much. I'm probably going to work about half as much on each. If you're not satisfied with the result, well, either don't hire me again or accept that the effort will be scaled to fit the allotted time.

Sorry to go on and on - I have to think about this stuff a lot because my employer is in the primarily in the business of selling my time. Basically, she's a pimp. The clients who buy it (the johns, in this analogy) deserve transparency as to what they're getting, so part of my thought process has to be the defensibility of the invoice.

Someone I used to work with often used to talk about his "Slow preparation, Fast Job" philosophy. The prep was painfully slow and the follow up was doubly slow + incompetent!

― calzino, Thursday, April 6, 2017 8:38 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me and writing

plain and simp the systems a pimp but i refuse to be a ho

efficacy/efficiency is a big deal in a lot of industries, like in a car assembly line

but each industry has its share of bad managers that believe if you're being efficient, you're reducing time spent doing your job, which means they can increase your workload

that's not how it works and they don't account for burnout. these are the same type of managers that treat people like "resources"/robots/slaves

That is literally what efficient means tbf

When you reach a certain optimal point of work load you need to start factoring in metal fatigue and must initiate a more active schedule of maintenance to keep the vehicle worker operational. However, in jobs where replacements are cheap, like Amazon warehouse jobs, burning out workers and then disposing of them can be very cost-effective.

xp

it was more a reply to:

In my experience, people who say "work smarter, not harder" end up doing neither.

― Matt DC, Thursday, April 6, 2017 8:06 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i took it to a more supply chain mgmt (scm) way because scm has its own jargon, so there's more to it

efficiency is how well you are putting each resource (not necessarily "human") to work internally in relation to the entire system, not just individually

so if you're having to micromanage a resource a lot because your checking its/his/her weakness, that's not efficient because someone has to monitor that resource "manually," and that's slowing down the process, because scm theory says you're going as fast as your slowest part

this is different from effectiveness, which deals with the processes outside of your "assembly line" so to speak -- how you interact with other teams/people in/outside your org

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

closing on Tuesday eh? well I guess we know what kind of work ethic "System" has

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I always joke with friends that the job where I made the most money (by a large margin) was the easiest job I ever had. I was salaried and worked maybe 5 hours a week (about an hour a day, on average). I still had to be sitting at my desk for about 40 hours, but spent most of my time reading Harper's articles from their archives. Funny thing is my boss would convince all the higher ups how busy our group was; no-one ever checked if she was full of shit. I eventually quit that job after about four years as I had to move to another state.

I now work ~60 hours a week and make 40% less annual salary.

I was promoted 4 years ago to basically a project manager position and I liked it despite the extra hours and restless nights for a bit. but there was one project where the person reporting to me on it continually shirked her responsibilities (and I had no managerial authority over her other than going to her manager), then went on leave a month before, leaving me to do both of our jobs, 65+ hour weeks, and people basically telling me indirectly "your personal time means shit, this project is your life".

after that nastiness I went back to my old position. they kept my salary the same despite it being a lower pay grade. it's still aggravating but it's an aggravating I can handle.

where's that freakonomics piece, or wherever it was from, that explains that the reason associates work completely insane hours while their boss puts in maybe 5-6 hours a week in between golf and yacht rides is because the boss lifestyle is the incentive system? there are 60 associates and 1 VP, the VP is like this, so you all work like this. Drug dealerships supposedly evolved similar systems independently of law firms and management consultancies.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/dec/28/tory-mp-condemns-universal-basic-income-on-moral-grounds

“Mankind is hard-wired to work. We gain satisfaction from it. It gives us a sense of identity, purpose and belonging

Cunt.

work is bogus

"resources"/robots/slaves

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e3/2f/c6/e32fc6e688d4b289c19723c89886bbd5--work-shirts-father-and-son.jpg

god damn commies

I'd probably have a better work "ethic" if I just exercised more and ate healthier

The former. https://t.co/EedAsLS5eZ

— 𝕿𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝕯𝖆𝖞 (@NickPinkerton) February 14, 2019

Do I have a work ethic? Guess it was drilled into me by mommie dearest (my boss for plus 20 yrs). I love my job. Am I good colleague? Not atm. :-(

The bosses anounced we would get a bonus if we exceeded sales by 30 procent. We would received ab 10 euro per month. Laughable. Sorry but that is bad management. (We are a team of four. So sorry, you shldnt have made the bonus like it's so amazing.) That said I don't have to work harder: I am a very good salesperson. I try to learn to be a better one but I still feel I'm very good (and they agree, I'm the best salesperson there).

Btw our manager is paid fulltime but she goes home much earlier. I'm tempted to tell the bosses bec it creates a v bad atmosphere. But I don't I will. :-(

ive always had a strong disposition towards a flaneur lifestyle; procrastinating, smoking weed, going for long aimless walks, surfing the web, just hanging out and wasting the day, with some sort of vague philosophical justification in the back of my mind. but since moving to a new city and starting a phd my social life is so dull that im developing a work ethic, purely because there’s nothing better to do. hoping once my course work is over i can get back to it

some sort of vague philosophical justification in the back of my mind

U&K