For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Joined: Jul 25, 2004 Posts: 681 Location: Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:36 pm Post subject: Re: How much Gasoline save in US if telecommute?
pstarr wrote:
I believe that what we call 'work' today is really a form of low-level class warfare.
Yes, I'm sorry to say that you are quite correct in your estimation.
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The owners of the company do not like being near the production people. They are gruff and all too willing to point out that the bosess are pompous, smug, and typically full of crap.
Unfortunately, this is also as true of the management as of the "owners". In many ways it's truer of the "management"; most of whom Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) described as the "Adminisphere":
Adminisphere: (noun) That rarefied layer of management that exists above the workers. Most of the decisions and / or advice that falls from the adminisphere is either plainly wrong or profoundly inappropriate for the problems those decisions are supposed to solve.
They are the ones I call the Corporate Psychopaths.
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The owners are scared of the populous.
No, I'd say they are not scared so much as utterly contemptuous.
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That explains an entire apparatus of low-level job foreman, mid-level functionaries and middle-managers, and upper-end division vice-presidents. This entire structure is designed to seperate the masses from the owners. It is a luxury that the incredibly wealthy might no longer be able to maintain.
Before the Renaiisance that structure did not exist (much)...The Renaiisance allowed the structure to come into being, and evolved into what we have today.
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nth wrote:
Management concerns over worker productivity is not really an issue. Just because you work from home does not mean managers don't know what you have done. Work will be judged by results and interactions. Just like now.
In rare cases (perhaps programming) work is measured mathematically and rewarded appropriately. In most cases 'work' is judged politically and personality.
Absolutely, I could not agree with you more.
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Offices are notorious popularity contests. If you are not in the office making face, and back-slapping your superiors, then you are out of the loop.
It's actually more serious than that: one of the most effective ways of bullying someone is something called Social Articulateness. This has had various names, the modern one seems to be "popularity", but Social Articulateness goes beyond that. It's the ability to be marvellouslly Machievellian, and thus corner, isolate and reduce to powerlessness those in the work-place who have a chance to stand up to you, while getting everyone else to either side with you, or at least take a stand against the isolated ones. Lawyers are often Socially Articulate, as are the Politically Correct and the Economic Rationalists. Social Articulateness may thus be seen, not just as being able to talk a good line, but to have a hidden agenda behind it. Females fall for this one more often than men, I don't know why (think of those girls you know who have rotten partners).
Take team-work: one of the most instructive things I've ever read on team-work and it's so-called benefits is in The Art Of Demotivation (link). In truth, the team-members are usually beset by problems of which the saying "We Keep Minutes But Waste Hours" is a neat encasulation.
Firstly: time-wasting through Enthusiastic Foolishness. Everyone has been on teams where those who are enthusiastic fools will promote ideas which everyone feels uncomfortable with, but (because the enthusiastic fool is Socially Articulate) cannot come up with objections to there and then.
This leads to the second most common problem with a team: Lucid Passivity. Most people are painfully aware of their own lack of expertise. This means that when someone else talks a good line (Social Articulateness) they might not think the idea good, but they go along with it, as they cannot come up with a good, Socially Articulate objection. So they either remain silent or simply acquiesce.
I'm certain that most people have either witnessed or even served on teams where 70% of the members have said something along the lines of "Works for me..." or "Sounds Good..." or "I don't have any questions..." or any number of equally worthless expressions knows how frustrating this can be.
To quote from the book:
EL Kersten's 'Art Of Demotivation' page 200; 2005 edition wrote:
Interviews done with 569 employees who had disengaged from their team's decision-making process yeilded a variety of reasons. The three most common causes in descending order were:
(1) There was present on the team someone who they beleived was an expert (Social Articulateness);
(2) They were silenced by "compelling" but inadequate ideas;
(3) They lacked the confidence in their ability to make a contribution.
Clearly, the first and third reasons are evidence of Lucid Pasivity, while the second is evidence of Enthusiastic Foolishness. Team Members who are technically competent are unlikely to have any of these responses. They are aware of what they know and there is no reason for passivity. Consequently they lend their expertise to the team. Similarly, they know enough not to be duped by compelling inadequate ideas and they check the errors of the enthusiastic fools.
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As for our society degenerated into manual labor society, that is hard to fathom when prior to industrial age, there are many non manual labor bureacrats. I doubt they will ever disappear.
Do you really think that there will be office-buildings full of people yapping on the phone and pushing computer buttons when the economy slows. Fuel goes to important things not heating pointless office parks.
I don't doubt there will be still some self-appointed busy-bodies who will try to keep up appearances. And everyone else will then have the luxury of ignoring them, totally. Barking orders into a telephone may look good now, but it loses it's effect when everyone knows the telephone does not work.
Joined: Sep 29, 2004 Posts: 2330 Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:57 pm Post subject: Re: How much Gasoline save in US if telecommute?
In the past, a good, experienced software developer could work from home making good money working from home, but as Lutherquick as pointed out, India has spirited away a lot of those jobs, but not all. The key is to work as a contractor who goes on site and deals with customers, they havent figured out how to export that to India yet, but give them time.
I read the link about HP, they guy who it doing away with telecommuting is from walmart, figures. _________________ "That's the problem with mercy, kid... It just ain't professional" - Fast Eddie, The Color of Money
Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:46 pm Post subject: Re: How much Gasoline save in US if telecommute?
We'd need to burn more coal to make more electricity to create telepresence instead of telcommuting, like doctors (or coal miners, etc, etc) that do remote operations. It'll be safer and we won't need as many telepresenters.
To save us gasoline. Yeah, that'll work.
I'm positive all of this video gaming skill will eventually come in handy operating hovertanks through the plains of Saudi Arabia in one of many resource wars.
Joined: Mar 18, 2006 Posts: 1142 Location: Last outpost of Civilisation
Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:30 pm Post subject: Re: How much Gasoline save in US if telecommute?
Kingcoal wrote:
In the past, a good, experienced software developer could work from home making good money working from home, but as Lutherquick as pointed out, India has spirited away a lot of those jobs, but not all. The key is to work as a contractor who goes on site and deals with customers, they havent figured out how to export that to India yet, but give them time.
My main problem as a developer (even in an IT company, maybe 10% of the workforce) is dealing with the other 90% of the company that knows all about software and how it should be done, but can't actually write the stuff ;o)
Now outsource all of THEM off to India and just let me get on with my job, and I would be one happy guy )
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