Efficiency is the enemy
May 6, 2021 11:16 AM Subscribe
Why people and organizations need to not look busy "Any time we eliminate slack, we create a build-up of work. DeMarco writes, “As a practical matter, it is impossible to keep everyone in the organization 100 percent busy unless we allow for some buffering at each employee’s desk. That means there is an inbox where work stacks up."
"”Many of us have come to expect work to involve no slack time because of the negative way we perceive it. In a world of manic efficiency, slack often comes across as laziness or a lack of initiative. Without slack time, however, we know we won’t be able to get through new tasks straight away, and if someone insists we should, we have to drop whatever we were previously doing. One way or another, something gets delayed. The increase in busyness may well be futile:
“It’s possible to make an organization more efficient without making it better. That’s what happens when you drive out slack. It’s also possible to make an organization a little less efficient and improve it enormously. In order to do that, you need to reintroduce enough slack to allow the organization to breathe, reinvent itself, and make necessary change.”"
The article is a summary of Tom DeMarco's Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency.
"”Many of us have come to expect work to involve no slack time because of the negative way we perceive it. In a world of manic efficiency, slack often comes across as laziness or a lack of initiative. Without slack time, however, we know we won’t be able to get through new tasks straight away, and if someone insists we should, we have to drop whatever we were previously doing. One way or another, something gets delayed. The increase in busyness may well be futile:
“It’s possible to make an organization more efficient without making it better. That’s what happens when you drive out slack. It’s also possible to make an organization a little less efficient and improve it enormously. In order to do that, you need to reintroduce enough slack to allow the organization to breathe, reinvent itself, and make necessary change.”"
The article is a summary of Tom DeMarco's Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency.
A well-known result of queuing theory is that as the time taken to service a task approaches the time between arrival of tasks, the average length of the queue of pending tasks tends to infinity. This means that to avoid catastrophic delays, systems have to be over-provisioned (have enough spare capacity to handle random fluctuations in demand) or apply back-pressure (refuse tasks before capacity is reached).
posted by cyanistes at 11:52 AM on May 6, 2021 [68 favorites]
posted by cyanistes at 11:52 AM on May 6, 2021 [68 favorites]
I think sometimes I have a bad habit of only liking things that agree with me, but man, I agree so hard. I watched the slack disappear from areas of my work previously and what happened and it wasn't positive.
Thank you for sharing.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:20 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
Thank you for sharing.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:20 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
This is why I urge everyone to change the lyrics from "hey joe, are you busy / i said no" to "hey joe are you busy / fuck yes, i'm absolutely swamped here, are you kidding me, do I look like I'm just sitting on my hands" because if you can't pushback on the queue the whole business will ultimately burn down.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:23 PM on May 6, 2021 [21 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:23 PM on May 6, 2021 [21 favorites]
pushback on the queue
Semi-relevant Simpsons quote
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:29 PM on May 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
Semi-relevant Simpsons quote
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:29 PM on May 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
I like this a lot. I am constantly advocating for us to have time at work to dream and come up with new ideas and new processes.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:37 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by joannemerriam at 12:37 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Interesting how this seems to apply to everything from health care to road maintenance. When you see a road crew standing around waiting for a piece of equipment to show up, you see "waste" but if they were working on something and the equipment showed up, it'd be sitting there -- costing money -- until they were ready. If you were to see surgeons standing around shooting the shit, you'd think the same, right?
Health care* waits are designed into the system because any resources unallocated are "excess capacity" which in government terms** transliterates to "waste" and in doctor terms translates into "lower wages." When there's a "shock" (as the article puts it) the solution is for everyone to paste hearts and "thank you" signs in their windows, not to re-engineer the system with under-utilized capacity which -- let's be realistic -- would probably end up being used for improved doctor-patient relations anyway, because that would be a fantastic reservoir for "slack."
* N.B. I don't know anything about health care -- I'm speculating.
** I'm Canadian.
posted by klanawa at 12:44 PM on May 6, 2021 [22 favorites]
Health care* waits are designed into the system because any resources unallocated are "excess capacity" which in government terms** transliterates to "waste" and in doctor terms translates into "lower wages." When there's a "shock" (as the article puts it) the solution is for everyone to paste hearts and "thank you" signs in their windows, not to re-engineer the system with under-utilized capacity which -- let's be realistic -- would probably end up being used for improved doctor-patient relations anyway, because that would be a fantastic reservoir for "slack."
* N.B. I don't know anything about health care -- I'm speculating.
** I'm Canadian.
posted by klanawa at 12:44 PM on May 6, 2021 [22 favorites]
I can't help but believe that hierarchical organisations largely exist (in functional, if not intentional terms) to fulfill people's psychological need to exert the power accorded to their position in the hierarchy. As social norms have changed, naked expressions of power have become increasingly unacceptable in workplaces. It occurs to me that one way you can still freely express power, however, is by exerting control over other people's time and attention. I am pretty sure that keeping people busy is a managerial psychological need justified as a business need. Many people think they want happy and productive workers, but are strongly resistant to the kind of change that would enable this.
posted by howfar at 12:50 PM on May 6, 2021 [46 favorites]
posted by howfar at 12:50 PM on May 6, 2021 [46 favorites]
Hear, hear. There's a number of reasons we set new folks' available time to 90% in our scheduling tool (and monitor people to adjust it, usually down, depending on how they schedule their time). Scheduling at 100% is unhealthy and unsustainable: you have to be basically perfect at planning, perfect at executing, and be in such an unimportant role that no one ever goes "oh hey, can you help me with X for 15 minutes?"
No one should have to live like that!
posted by introp at 12:50 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
No one should have to live like that!
posted by introp at 12:50 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
Leveraged private equity buyouts are basically a way of mining all this slack out of a resilient business and turning it into money, leaving behind a brittle organisation that can't handle the first bump in the road afterwards.
posted by xiw at 12:56 PM on May 6, 2021 [79 favorites]
posted by xiw at 12:56 PM on May 6, 2021 [79 favorites]
Hard agree with the article.
I'm pretty rigid about not entertaining fire drills at my job unless they're legit. I've had people argue with me "but you should always be ready to jump on a last-minute request!" Yeah... if it's actually important and unavoidable. The way I maintain the ability to do that - and do the rest of my work - is by refusing to reshuffle everything to make room for your thing because you failed to plan adequately.
When there's a legit emergency, I can usually "drop everything" and tend to it because I build in some buffer on purpose and actively enforce reasonable timelines to turn material in to get it processed.
I'm not a complete jerk about it - if I am not super-busy and it's the first time somebody's turned up with an "emergency" I'll try to be flexible with the proviso that it's a one-time thing. But I won't enable repeat offenders.
As a benefit of practicing this long-term I'm generally able to do more work, and I'm less stressed. Happily I have a manager who supports this approach.
posted by jzb at 1:03 PM on May 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
I'm pretty rigid about not entertaining fire drills at my job unless they're legit. I've had people argue with me "but you should always be ready to jump on a last-minute request!" Yeah... if it's actually important and unavoidable. The way I maintain the ability to do that - and do the rest of my work - is by refusing to reshuffle everything to make room for your thing because you failed to plan adequately.
When there's a legit emergency, I can usually "drop everything" and tend to it because I build in some buffer on purpose and actively enforce reasonable timelines to turn material in to get it processed.
I'm not a complete jerk about it - if I am not super-busy and it's the first time somebody's turned up with an "emergency" I'll try to be flexible with the proviso that it's a one-time thing. But I won't enable repeat offenders.
As a benefit of practicing this long-term I'm generally able to do more work, and I'm less stressed. Happily I have a manager who supports this approach.
posted by jzb at 1:03 PM on May 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
I was just thinking about this earlier today. One of the difficulties I had at a previous job were these recurring sprints where each person was assigned work to be completed by the end of the sprint. If it was a 3 week sprint, you would be assigned a project that would be 3 weeks long. If things came up during the sprint that needed to be fixed, you were just expected to magically find time to fix them while still meeting that deadline.
If your work was not done by the end of the sprint, that was Very Bad because it would bleed into the next sprint, ruining planning. But -- if you finished your work before the start of the next sprint, even a few hours before, you would be given a list of extra low-priority, unappreciated projects that would most likely eat into the next sprint, screwing you over for your next sprint deadline.
You might say, "Well just slow down your pace of work so that you're finishing precisely at the end of the sprint", but because the review process for work could last an indeterminate amount of time, you needed to get that process started as early as possible. There was definitely "efficiency" because every moment of every person's time was accounted for, but most people were constantly stressed. There was also no reward for finishing your work quickly -- instead of being able to study some new technology or explore a new idea, more work was piled on, forever.
posted by rogerroger at 1:48 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
If your work was not done by the end of the sprint, that was Very Bad because it would bleed into the next sprint, ruining planning. But -- if you finished your work before the start of the next sprint, even a few hours before, you would be given a list of extra low-priority, unappreciated projects that would most likely eat into the next sprint, screwing you over for your next sprint deadline.
You might say, "Well just slow down your pace of work so that you're finishing precisely at the end of the sprint", but because the review process for work could last an indeterminate amount of time, you needed to get that process started as early as possible. There was definitely "efficiency" because every moment of every person's time was accounted for, but most people were constantly stressed. There was also no reward for finishing your work quickly -- instead of being able to study some new technology or explore a new idea, more work was piled on, forever.
posted by rogerroger at 1:48 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
Reminds me of the novel about manufacturing processes and efficiency: The Goal
There was a section where a manager was upset when some workers were sitting around with nothing to do, when, in fact, at that point that's exactly what they should have been doing so that they were ready when needed.
posted by eye of newt at 1:49 PM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
There was a section where a manager was upset when some workers were sitting around with nothing to do, when, in fact, at that point that's exactly what they should have been doing so that they were ready when needed.
posted by eye of newt at 1:49 PM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
A well-known result of queuing theory
Another result of queueing theory is that the most effective setup for multiple processors is to have a single queue, not one queue per processor, but every time I start ranting about queueing theory in the grocery store they ask me to leave.
posted by GuyZero at 1:51 PM on May 6, 2021 [74 favorites]
Another result of queueing theory is that the most effective setup for multiple processors is to have a single queue, not one queue per processor, but every time I start ranting about queueing theory in the grocery store they ask me to leave.
posted by GuyZero at 1:51 PM on May 6, 2021 [74 favorites]
Another result of queueing theory is that the most effective setup for multiple processors is to have a single queue, not one queue per processor, but every time I start ranting about queueing theory in the grocery store they ask me to leave.
Yet another example of perfect in theory but ruined by human behavior and feelings.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 1:55 PM on May 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
Yet another example of perfect in theory but ruined by human behavior and feelings.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 1:55 PM on May 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
This is why I love the self checkout lanes at grocery stores now: they are usually arranged with one line and multiple registers. Same for stores that established aggressive COVID spacing requirements: you stand back so far that they end up feeding multiple checkouts from a single line.
posted by migurski at 2:09 PM on May 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by migurski at 2:09 PM on May 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
I read (& loved) Tom DeMarco's book Slack nearly 20 years ago.
Is this a new edition, sequel, or just somebody newly discovering the older book?
posted by cheshyre at 2:10 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Is this a new edition, sequel, or just somebody newly discovering the older book?
posted by cheshyre at 2:10 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
When I negotiated my new job position my percentage billable was the main negotiating point - not salary, not benefits, but the number of hours I’d be expected to be “productive”. This is after burning out hard previously with the same company. It’s made everything better, both at work and elsewhere. I have time for hobbies and family and side projects and exercise - it’s like the whole world is brighter.
The amount of time I asked for? 10%. I can’t believe what we do to people in this economy. People are not a resource.
posted by q*ben at 2:21 PM on May 6, 2021 [16 favorites]
The amount of time I asked for? 10%. I can’t believe what we do to people in this economy. People are not a resource.
posted by q*ben at 2:21 PM on May 6, 2021 [16 favorites]
Whenever there is a single line of people queued for multiple checkouts, one asshole will approach and attempt to wheedle their way in as if alllllll those people were standing waiting for ONE spot instead of efficiently going to the next available.
If they are a good person: They will look abashed when you say, yes, we're all waiting for the next spot.
If they are N O T G O O D: They will scurry in without eye contact, similar to how my cat tries to steal a bag of tortilla chips or fish off the counter.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:41 PM on May 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
If they are a good person: They will look abashed when you say, yes, we're all waiting for the next spot.
If they are N O T G O O D: They will scurry in without eye contact, similar to how my cat tries to steal a bag of tortilla chips or fish off the counter.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 2:41 PM on May 6, 2021 [13 favorites]
q*ben, do you mean that you bill 10% of your available hours or that you have 10% of your time to do whatever you want?
My company just makes up billable hours I believe cause lol fraud.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 3:27 PM on May 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
My company just makes up billable hours I believe cause lol fraud.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 3:27 PM on May 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
In a previous job, I was the lone designer serving the marketing department. Not a real problem until the CEO got highly interested in the company’s “messaging.” Suddenly, I was getting barraged by some new flyer/brochure/graphic/whatevs every day. The problem with all that was each new brainstorm from the CEO was now the priority job. Thus, I’d get partway into job A, when job B would be handed to me with the order that job A was now back-burner. Then job C would arrive the next day putting jobs A and B on the back burner. Continue in this manner for jobs D and E.
The kicker came at the end of the week, when the CEO would ask where we were with job A?
posted by Thorzdad at 3:37 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
The kicker came at the end of the week, when the CEO would ask where we were with job A?
posted by Thorzdad at 3:37 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
You say slack, I say safety margin.
posted by mhoye at 3:41 PM on May 6, 2021 [24 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 3:41 PM on May 6, 2021 [24 favorites]
> the most effective setup for multiple processors is to have a single queue, not one queue per processor
That's how they ran things at the Fort Belvoir commissary back in the mid-late 90's, back when pistachios were red.
As you say, worked quite well.
posted by genpfault at 3:43 PM on May 6, 2021
That's how they ran things at the Fort Belvoir commissary back in the mid-late 90's, back when pistachios were red.
As you say, worked quite well.
posted by genpfault at 3:43 PM on May 6, 2021
Sorry, not clear. Our company already had a 90% target set, but what this means is in reality everyone gets staffed for 100% with the idea that vacations and other events will decrease that number. I've found that, for me, the difference between liking and hating my job is an additional 10% of "unproductive" time (due to the nature of my job the understanding is that this time is spent on mentorship, leading training, or other efforts that help others in the office be more efficient and effective, so it's not even really "free" time just "unbillable".)
From my vantage point it seems like we've calibrated our economic engine to drive people just hard enough to burn them out, which seems insanely counterproductive.
posted by q*ben at 3:52 PM on May 6, 2021 [9 favorites]
From my vantage point it seems like we've calibrated our economic engine to drive people just hard enough to burn them out, which seems insanely counterproductive.
posted by q*ben at 3:52 PM on May 6, 2021 [9 favorites]
I need to tell my brain this. This is so timely bc I've been suffering from really bad anxiety every time I run out of things to do it just kind of fills me with debilitating dread for weeks and then a day or 2 ago I'm just like... maybe it's just some downtime and that's ok? Perhaps you are a known good actor who will do the things when they come along? Then today I had a breakthrough, perhaps we can just relax at our desk today & play switch & answer slack messages & it won't be the end of the world if you're not also panicking the entire time for no reason? Wow, what a concept, what a mind...
posted by bleep at 3:57 PM on May 6, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by bleep at 3:57 PM on May 6, 2021 [16 favorites]
There was a section where a manager was upset when some workers were sitting around with nothing to do, when, in fact, at that point that's exactly what they should have been doing so that they were ready when needed.
That's my exact problem as a manufacturing technician. My main job is "fix it when it breaks" but don't tell that to my bosses who insist I look busy even when everything is working fine.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:57 PM on May 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
That's my exact problem as a manufacturing technician. My main job is "fix it when it breaks" but don't tell that to my bosses who insist I look busy even when everything is working fine.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:57 PM on May 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
You say slack, I say safety margin.
This reminds me of what motorcycle safety trainer Keith Code taught about the "attention economy". Basically, if you have X amount of attention available (which seems to be the case), whatever you're putting towards something else is then unavailable for responding to emergency situations.
posted by Lexica at 4:49 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
This reminds me of what motorcycle safety trainer Keith Code taught about the "attention economy". Basically, if you have X amount of attention available (which seems to be the case), whatever you're putting towards something else is then unavailable for responding to emergency situations.
posted by Lexica at 4:49 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
Great article. Yes- it's been a pandemic struggle that did not affect me when I worked in the office. Somehow working from home I put this pressure on myself that was crushing. I am working on normalizing lightening up, and not letting every damn day fill me with anxiety.
When I feel myself succumbing to the stress, or reacting disproportionately to someone else's poor-planning "emergency", I just go from my office area to another part of my house and ground myself, fold laundry, watch a video, etc. It's getting better. I'm fortunate to be able to do this.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:54 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
When I feel myself succumbing to the stress, or reacting disproportionately to someone else's poor-planning "emergency", I just go from my office area to another part of my house and ground myself, fold laundry, watch a video, etc. It's getting better. I'm fortunate to be able to do this.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:54 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
I used to be creatively-minded at work, and interested in learning, etc. and I have lost all that. It's just about getting through the day. I hope that also improves.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:56 PM on May 6, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:56 PM on May 6, 2021 [9 favorites]
Praise “Bob”! Slack is what we all need.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:01 PM on May 6, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:01 PM on May 6, 2021 [18 favorites]
This is so frustrating. No matter how many KPIs are created or what Sprint velocity is achieved how many tickets are closed or whatever other metric is used to measure progress, bosses will always assume any moment of respite constitutes time theft. And if overloading the team correlates with those metrics getting worse, then those metrics are cast aside.
posted by Reyturner at 5:17 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by Reyturner at 5:17 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
I worked for a man who made us fill out time sheets billable to projects.
He'd tally up the cost of each project by the hours, so that he could tell us we were spending either too much time or just enough writing each report, because he worked out a value for each item based on our time. Spending too much time on each report was bad, because it supposedly made the per-report cost higher. That said, we had to bill the entire rostered day against something, obviously, whether or not there was actually work to be done. I want to stress this as an important part: we were on salaries, and had to spend the 8.30–5.30 time at the office billing time to something, regardless of busyness. It was obviously, and explicitly, a means to make his staff feel bad both about spending time working, and not spending time working, since both were our faults. Genius really, if you're a horrible person.
I don't work there any more. He has a certain reputation in my industry in my city.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:19 PM on May 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
He'd tally up the cost of each project by the hours, so that he could tell us we were spending either too much time or just enough writing each report, because he worked out a value for each item based on our time. Spending too much time on each report was bad, because it supposedly made the per-report cost higher. That said, we had to bill the entire rostered day against something, obviously, whether or not there was actually work to be done. I want to stress this as an important part: we were on salaries, and had to spend the 8.30–5.30 time at the office billing time to something, regardless of busyness. It was obviously, and explicitly, a means to make his staff feel bad both about spending time working, and not spending time working, since both were our faults. Genius really, if you're a horrible person.
I don't work there any more. He has a certain reputation in my industry in my city.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:19 PM on May 6, 2021 [8 favorites]
We have a "concierge" at my small local grocery, so anytime we get a horde of tourists in town and they all start queueing to the back of the store, she directs them from one single line to the cashier where they will be checking out. It's so simple, it hurts, but it works. If the line gets some pushy asshole busting the front ranks, she's six feet tall, and an operatic soprano, and they receive "an experience."
May God bless you and keep you if you're "important," or "in a hurry."
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:25 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
May God bless you and keep you if you're "important," or "in a hurry."
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:25 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
I worked for a man who made us fill out time sheets billable to projects.
Oh, Christ. One of my worst jobs ever was one where I had to fill out a timesheet in fifteen-minute increments. Were there actual projects? External clients? Billable hours? No, none of those things. It was a standard office IT monkey job where I just kept people's computers going, but the person I worked for was a micromanager of the worst type.
At one point I took a month off (because I had that much vacation time accrued). When I pulled into the parking lot my first day back and my stomach immediately knotted up, I knew it was time. I had my resignation letter typed up and on my boss's desk within the hour.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:37 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
Oh, Christ. One of my worst jobs ever was one where I had to fill out a timesheet in fifteen-minute increments. Were there actual projects? External clients? Billable hours? No, none of those things. It was a standard office IT monkey job where I just kept people's computers going, but the person I worked for was a micromanager of the worst type.
At one point I took a month off (because I had that much vacation time accrued). When I pulled into the parking lot my first day back and my stomach immediately knotted up, I knew it was time. I had my resignation letter typed up and on my boss's desk within the hour.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:37 PM on May 6, 2021 [15 favorites]
This just came up at work this morning before I saw this post, coincidentally. On the one hand, scheduling people's time 100% is a crunch-time emergency, not a sustainable normal level. That's because the load cycles up and down, wave-like. Do you staff for the average, the low, or the high?
For production work, we shoot for about 10-15% calculated overtime required. That is, we overbook on purpose. That DOESN'T mean we expect people to kill themselves to get all that work done, though. It's just accounting for if a job stops for some reason (and they do, whether you plan it or not), there is something else "on the shelf" for them to switch to. If you scheduled exactly at 100% capacity, and then a job stopped, you'd have idle capacity. If by some miracle everything goes perfectly, then we choose whether to work the overtime to get it all done or slip the schedule on something lower-priority. It happens. It's ok.
But the question was about overhead overtime. Admin, management, etc. We've been running about 4% overhead overtime, but never really had a target for that. Should we lower our staffing and work more? Raise staffing until nobody ever has to work overtime? I think we decided we're pretty happy with how it feels now, so now 2-4% is our target.
posted by ctmf at 5:41 PM on May 6, 2021
For production work, we shoot for about 10-15% calculated overtime required. That is, we overbook on purpose. That DOESN'T mean we expect people to kill themselves to get all that work done, though. It's just accounting for if a job stops for some reason (and they do, whether you plan it or not), there is something else "on the shelf" for them to switch to. If you scheduled exactly at 100% capacity, and then a job stopped, you'd have idle capacity. If by some miracle everything goes perfectly, then we choose whether to work the overtime to get it all done or slip the schedule on something lower-priority. It happens. It's ok.
But the question was about overhead overtime. Admin, management, etc. We've been running about 4% overhead overtime, but never really had a target for that. Should we lower our staffing and work more? Raise staffing until nobody ever has to work overtime? I think we decided we're pretty happy with how it feels now, so now 2-4% is our target.
posted by ctmf at 5:41 PM on May 6, 2021
I worked for a man who made us fill out time sheets billable to projects.
That's what we do. I mean, it's really the only way to estimate and then assess how you're doing and forecast schedule and budget on really big, tens-of-thousands of person-day projects. But that's for direct labor on discrete tasks, like repairing a specific pump. Things like "keeping the computers running" are considered a constant service and budgeted at a flat rate.
So we do have to charge people's time to something, but it could be a project, one of those continuous services, or "overhead". Nobody's really being nitpicked on individual charges, but managers are held responsible for the totals coming out reasonably close to estimated or having legit reasons why not. It's not as bad as it sounds.
posted by ctmf at 5:52 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
That's what we do. I mean, it's really the only way to estimate and then assess how you're doing and forecast schedule and budget on really big, tens-of-thousands of person-day projects. But that's for direct labor on discrete tasks, like repairing a specific pump. Things like "keeping the computers running" are considered a constant service and budgeted at a flat rate.
So we do have to charge people's time to something, but it could be a project, one of those continuous services, or "overhead". Nobody's really being nitpicked on individual charges, but managers are held responsible for the totals coming out reasonably close to estimated or having legit reasons why not. It's not as bad as it sounds.
posted by ctmf at 5:52 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
They seem to be saying that we must have Slack
Praise “Bob”! Slack is what we all need.
We must needs J.R. "Bob" Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius slpwyt (single link paywalled YouTube)
posted by otherchaz at 5:53 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Praise “Bob”! Slack is what we all need.
We must needs J.R. "Bob" Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius slpwyt (single link paywalled YouTube)
posted by otherchaz at 5:53 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Poor is the person without Slack. Lack of Slack compounds and traps.- https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/
Slack means margin for error. You can relax.
Slack allows pursuing opportunities. You can explore. You can trade.
Slack prevents desperation. You can avoid bad trades and wait for better spots. You can be efficient.
Slack permits planning for the long term. You can invest.
Slack enables doing things for your own amusement. You can play games. You can have fun.
Slack enables doing the right thing. Stand by your friends. Reward the worthy. Punish the wicked. You can have a code.
Slack presents things as they are without concern for how things look or what others think. You can be honest.
You can do some of these things, and choose not to do others. Because you don’t have to.
posted by are-coral-made at 6:01 PM on May 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
re: queuing theory, theory vs application
Mathematical modelling is a double edged sword: we can chop away irrelevant details of some messy real world situation to focus on one aspect of how a system operates, throw some theoretical machinery at it, and discover ideas of how we might be able to run that aspect of the system better. But there's a chance we also chopped away relevant details, and our abstract theoretical model is a poor approximation of reality. Often an theoretically optimal solution to an elegant, simple, theoretically tractable model that's a poor approximation to reality gives much worse real world results than a theoretically sub-optimal solution (perhaps obtained by some mix of analysis, trial and error in the field, brute force computation and witchcraft) to a messier gnarlier semi-intractable model that captures more aspects of the real situation.
> Another result of queueing theory is that the most effective setup for multiple processors is to have a single queue, not one queue per processor, but every time I start ranting about queueing theory in the grocery store they ask me to leave.
In the grocery store, processors, queues and items all consume two dimensional floor space. Items in queues have limited ability to maneuver without inflicting wounds on ankles, especially if they are trolleys swung in arcs by small children. Floorspace isn't free, there's rental cost as well as opportunity cost to using it - it could have been shelves displaying another range of products. Having the queuing-theory-theoretically-optimal single queue dispatching to multiple processors may consume more floor space than multiple independent queues - how are you going to arrange the processors and leave enough space for shoppers to maneuver trolleys when they are dispatched from a single queue to a processor? Multiple queues may be a superior design for grocery stores when you consider more aspects of the real situation.
posted by are-coral-made at 6:33 PM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
Mathematical modelling is a double edged sword: we can chop away irrelevant details of some messy real world situation to focus on one aspect of how a system operates, throw some theoretical machinery at it, and discover ideas of how we might be able to run that aspect of the system better. But there's a chance we also chopped away relevant details, and our abstract theoretical model is a poor approximation of reality. Often an theoretically optimal solution to an elegant, simple, theoretically tractable model that's a poor approximation to reality gives much worse real world results than a theoretically sub-optimal solution (perhaps obtained by some mix of analysis, trial and error in the field, brute force computation and witchcraft) to a messier gnarlier semi-intractable model that captures more aspects of the real situation.
> Another result of queueing theory is that the most effective setup for multiple processors is to have a single queue, not one queue per processor, but every time I start ranting about queueing theory in the grocery store they ask me to leave.
In the grocery store, processors, queues and items all consume two dimensional floor space. Items in queues have limited ability to maneuver without inflicting wounds on ankles, especially if they are trolleys swung in arcs by small children. Floorspace isn't free, there's rental cost as well as opportunity cost to using it - it could have been shelves displaying another range of products. Having the queuing-theory-theoretically-optimal single queue dispatching to multiple processors may consume more floor space than multiple independent queues - how are you going to arrange the processors and leave enough space for shoppers to maneuver trolleys when they are dispatched from a single queue to a processor? Multiple queues may be a superior design for grocery stores when you consider more aspects of the real situation.
posted by are-coral-made at 6:33 PM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
The article is interesting in that it seems like it's challenging the idea of efficiency, but really it's arguing that true efficiency is more complex that simply busy-ness. I.e. we're doing efficiency wrong. There's definitely some truth to what it's saying, that it's possible to over-optimize, but I think it's more important to challenge the concept of efficiency itself.
Here's a useful little brain habit: any time you hear the word "efficient", tack on "...for whom?" The concept of efficiency tends to obfuscate a whole lot of relevant info: it's a ratio, for starters. It's all too easy to conflate "improving the ratio" with "good things happening to people affected by the numerator and the denominator." That is sometimes true, but far from always true.
The classic example of this is economic productivity: when we increase outputs relative to inputs we increase our productivity and grow the economy. Of course, if we do this in a way that concentrates wealth instead of spreads it out, the vast majority of people may be worse off. Or if we don't measure things like environmental impact or mental well-being in our ratio we may be making this worse that way.
posted by ropeladder at 6:46 PM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
Here's a useful little brain habit: any time you hear the word "efficient", tack on "...for whom?" The concept of efficiency tends to obfuscate a whole lot of relevant info: it's a ratio, for starters. It's all too easy to conflate "improving the ratio" with "good things happening to people affected by the numerator and the denominator." That is sometimes true, but far from always true.
The classic example of this is economic productivity: when we increase outputs relative to inputs we increase our productivity and grow the economy. Of course, if we do this in a way that concentrates wealth instead of spreads it out, the vast majority of people may be worse off. Or if we don't measure things like environmental impact or mental well-being in our ratio we may be making this worse that way.
posted by ropeladder at 6:46 PM on May 6, 2021 [12 favorites]
If there was another version of TV Tropes that is Workplace Tropes, then the top trope would be: "Bending down to pick up nickels while dollars fly over your heads."
Efficiency experts sometimes get their comeuppance in Reddit r/malicious compliance (mixed with other sagas).
posted by ovvl at 6:53 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
Efficiency experts sometimes get their comeuppance in Reddit r/malicious compliance (mixed with other sagas).
posted by ovvl at 6:53 PM on May 6, 2021 [2 favorites]
"Operations" is the relevant field for this, with some level of stochastic math involved.
It's widely used in manufacturing / other business operations.
Typical problem would be modelling a gas station: customers arrive at the station according to some random stochastic process Q which also varies depending on time of day, each customer takes variable time X to complete filling up their car generating Y revenue.
You have A number of pumps costing B per day to run, and customers are willing to queue up 2 deep at each pump. If the queue is "full" they don't bother and leave for a different station.
Any "profit optimizing" gas station will have significant periods where pumps are idle, because they need the capacity for the random times they have more customers. Sure, you could also optimize your pumps for closer to 100% utilization by reducing how many pumps you have but it's definitely not profit maximizing.
posted by xdvesper at 7:57 PM on May 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's widely used in manufacturing / other business operations.
Typical problem would be modelling a gas station: customers arrive at the station according to some random stochastic process Q which also varies depending on time of day, each customer takes variable time X to complete filling up their car generating Y revenue.
You have A number of pumps costing B per day to run, and customers are willing to queue up 2 deep at each pump. If the queue is "full" they don't bother and leave for a different station.
Any "profit optimizing" gas station will have significant periods where pumps are idle, because they need the capacity for the random times they have more customers. Sure, you could also optimize your pumps for closer to 100% utilization by reducing how many pumps you have but it's definitely not profit maximizing.
posted by xdvesper at 7:57 PM on May 6, 2021 [7 favorites]
Slack is a good book, and not very long. I try to re-read it every couple of years.
I worked at a company that was massively profitable. It was this profitable because one of the engineers, in his downtime, invented something. Management explicitly told him not to spend time on it, but he had free time, so he did it anyway. Literally billions of dollars, because someone had some spare time.
In today's environment, this invention never would have happened. Efficiency cut-backs and project management approvals and big-A Agile would have demanded an accounting every single day of every single activity.
posted by SunSnork at 7:58 PM on May 6, 2021 [18 favorites]
I worked at a company that was massively profitable. It was this profitable because one of the engineers, in his downtime, invented something. Management explicitly told him not to spend time on it, but he had free time, so he did it anyway. Literally billions of dollars, because someone had some spare time.
In today's environment, this invention never would have happened. Efficiency cut-backs and project management approvals and big-A Agile would have demanded an accounting every single day of every single activity.
posted by SunSnork at 7:58 PM on May 6, 2021 [18 favorites]
Seconding The Goal - Some key points of the book are that that in any system, there is a bottleneck (because the system is not going infinitely fast, there must be something limiting its throughput). There is usually only one bottleneck at a time, because its rare for two separate parts of the system to have exactly the same throughput. Improving the throughput of the bottleneck will improve the throughput of the system until something else becomes the new bottlneck. Improving the throughput of any part of the system except the current bottleneck will not improve the throughput of the system. Latency elsewhere in the system can impact the bottleneck by starving it of work in a sort of indirect way.
So you often see these pathologies where it is "efficient" to do something in a certain way, like "this machine processes batches of up to 1000 items at a time, and it takes an hour to run. Doing less than a full batch is not efficient, so we always wait until we have a full batch before we run it" - except in the mean time, this delays these items from being reached by the bottleneck. Downstream of that machine is another process that does, say, 100 items per hour. By waiting for a full batch, you introduce artificial delay into delivering items to the more constrained downstream resource.
Similarly you see cases where, in order to look busy, people work full shifts making components for products. They can make components at say, 100/h, but those components can only be assembled at a rate of 50/hr, so components and partially assembled products just pile up in inventory.
THEREFORE, the job of Management is to understand the entire system, to measure its throughput, identify bottlenecks, and to prevent people from making "local" optimizations that hurt global throughput, and guiding them towards ways of working that maintain and optimize the throughput of the system as a whole.
posted by rustcrumb at 8:17 PM on May 6, 2021 [10 favorites]
So you often see these pathologies where it is "efficient" to do something in a certain way, like "this machine processes batches of up to 1000 items at a time, and it takes an hour to run. Doing less than a full batch is not efficient, so we always wait until we have a full batch before we run it" - except in the mean time, this delays these items from being reached by the bottleneck. Downstream of that machine is another process that does, say, 100 items per hour. By waiting for a full batch, you introduce artificial delay into delivering items to the more constrained downstream resource.
Similarly you see cases where, in order to look busy, people work full shifts making components for products. They can make components at say, 100/h, but those components can only be assembled at a rate of 50/hr, so components and partially assembled products just pile up in inventory.
THEREFORE, the job of Management is to understand the entire system, to measure its throughput, identify bottlenecks, and to prevent people from making "local" optimizations that hurt global throughput, and guiding them towards ways of working that maintain and optimize the throughput of the system as a whole.
posted by rustcrumb at 8:17 PM on May 6, 2021 [10 favorites]
Wasn't this the plot of the "Temporal Edict" episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks
posted by SansPoint at 8:19 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 8:19 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
Here's a useful little brain habit: any time you hear the word "efficient", tack on "...for whom?" The concept of efficiency tends to obfuscate a whole lot of relevant info: it's a ratio, for starters. It's all too easy to conflate "improving the ratio" with "good things happening to people affected by the numerator and the denominator." That is sometimes true, but far from always true.
The earliest form of this drive for efficiency was motion studies on assembly lines in factories. Way back when it was pretty good for everybody involved because it reduced the effort involved in making each widget and reduced the chance of RSI by bringing the tools and components nearer to hand.
As with many things in our modern world, we've forgotten what efficiency is really about and turned it into some cargo cult mockery of the underlying concept.
posted by wierdo at 8:21 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
The earliest form of this drive for efficiency was motion studies on assembly lines in factories. Way back when it was pretty good for everybody involved because it reduced the effort involved in making each widget and reduced the chance of RSI by bringing the tools and components nearer to hand.
As with many things in our modern world, we've forgotten what efficiency is really about and turned it into some cargo cult mockery of the underlying concept.
posted by wierdo at 8:21 PM on May 6, 2021 [19 favorites]
I work in a publicly-funded emergency department. Even with some slack, things can pile up really fast. The release valve is diurnal rhythm, where 0300-0900 is less busy. It's a constant tension to keep enough people on hand for the ordinary crunches without spending too much on staff. Space is more or less fixed, so it compounds the crunches. The impact of ordinary everyday crunches can be difficult to viscerally communicate to higher-level management, or so it seems. I am grateful that some days I can sit around and chat or catch up on email, but lately I've been run off my feet almost every day there. It would be nice if we could run a bit more like a gas station, but the motivations are very different, with the "profit" being faster and better care, and the pumps (space, gear, staff) being very, very, expensive. In other areas I've worked, the effects of limited slack are obvious, but sometimes understood as normal. Again, backing it up with numbers can be hard sometimes.
Is there a better model for something like a Gaussian distribution where the variance seems much larger than the mean but with a soft ceiling effect? As in, there are only so many people in the city, surely they can't all come in tonight....
posted by sillyman at 8:38 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
Is there a better model for something like a Gaussian distribution where the variance seems much larger than the mean but with a soft ceiling effect? As in, there are only so many people in the city, surely they can't all come in tonight....
posted by sillyman at 8:38 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
As in, there are only so many people in the city, surely they can't all come in tonight....
Well you've certainly jinxed yourself there...
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:44 PM on May 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
Well you've certainly jinxed yourself there...
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:44 PM on May 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
Raise staffing until nobody ever has to work overtime
I think this has to be the right answer. What is "overtime", from a contractual perspective? It's either someone working voluntarily (ahem: "voluntarily") outside of their contracted hours, or a stipulation in their contract that their contracted hours may be unilaterally varied by the employer. Any business which is relying on either of those things in order to be able to function is making itself dependent on exploiting the power imbalance between parties to the contract in order to undermine the certainty which is the very essence and value of contracts as devices to support fair-dealing. I do not think that any business can, conscionably, be intentionally reliant on overtime.
posted by howfar at 2:10 AM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
I think this has to be the right answer. What is "overtime", from a contractual perspective? It's either someone working voluntarily (ahem: "voluntarily") outside of their contracted hours, or a stipulation in their contract that their contracted hours may be unilaterally varied by the employer. Any business which is relying on either of those things in order to be able to function is making itself dependent on exploiting the power imbalance between parties to the contract in order to undermine the certainty which is the very essence and value of contracts as devices to support fair-dealing. I do not think that any business can, conscionably, be intentionally reliant on overtime.
posted by howfar at 2:10 AM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
There are (or have been) businesses that were reliant on voluntary (not "voluntary") overtime, but as far as I know they are/were all union shops and the employees involved weren't misclassified as exempt, so they actually got pay and/or benefits for their extra work.
There are situations in which OT work isn't abusive to exempt employees, but it's pretty rare and comes with flex time or some other benefit and is limited to a few days a month.
posted by wierdo at 2:30 AM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
There are situations in which OT work isn't abusive to exempt employees, but it's pretty rare and comes with flex time or some other benefit and is limited to a few days a month.
posted by wierdo at 2:30 AM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
What is "overtime", from a contractual perspective?
Unfortunately, overtime is just a fact of life in some industries, particularly manufacturing.
Basically, at an assembly line, the entire end-to-end process involving hundreds or thousands of workers have their jobs designed to suit a particular tick time - one product every 30 seconds, say. If you wanted to increase production, or decrease production, you can't "run the line at a different speed" and send through one product every 25 seconds or every 35 seconds - to do that, you would literally need a specialist in physiology / human mechanics to redesign each one of those hundreds of jobs, and vet it as being safe, then retrain those hundreds of workers in their new jobs.
The only practical way to vary production is to increase or decrease the time the factory is running.
The union typically negotiates with management: say demand for the product is high and if you run an extra shift on the weekend, or a longer shift on the weekday, the company could earn extra profit: the union would negotiate for overtime work to be paid at 2x rate, taking a cut of the profits. It's a win-win situation for both.
The reverse situation is far worse: when there is lower than expected demand for product. Workers are typically paid hourly - the company simply stops the production line. This is called a down-day, and the workers then get the negotiated union payout - in most cases, half their regular pay, but they don't need to come to work, so they can go do their other cash jobs. To understand this, there's a level of truancy each day anyway, where workers might have more lucrative cash-work within the informal economy - any kind of trades work, gardening, etc. Because it's an assembly line, you can't run the line if you have 999/1000 workers show up - you need all 1000 seats manned - so you overstaff, and the level of truancy varies by season, etc, so you overbook the workers and assume some won't show up (just like how airlines overbook seats on a flight). Obviously the union wants to know the down days weeks in advance, so it's better for their workers.
For obvious reasons, the union much prefers overtime rather than down days, so the company typically sets their default production rate below predicted demand and then runs overtime as necessary to make up for production shortfalls. The company can't run overtime unless the workers agree to come in after hours or on the weekend, so the company will make an offer to the union bosses - hey, there's some overtime work available, can you rustle up some workers? And the union will contact their members and they get to vote yes / no.... and then the company may have to throw something in to sweeten the deal, etc.
posted by xdvesper at 3:47 AM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
Unfortunately, overtime is just a fact of life in some industries, particularly manufacturing.
Basically, at an assembly line, the entire end-to-end process involving hundreds or thousands of workers have their jobs designed to suit a particular tick time - one product every 30 seconds, say. If you wanted to increase production, or decrease production, you can't "run the line at a different speed" and send through one product every 25 seconds or every 35 seconds - to do that, you would literally need a specialist in physiology / human mechanics to redesign each one of those hundreds of jobs, and vet it as being safe, then retrain those hundreds of workers in their new jobs.
The only practical way to vary production is to increase or decrease the time the factory is running.
The union typically negotiates with management: say demand for the product is high and if you run an extra shift on the weekend, or a longer shift on the weekday, the company could earn extra profit: the union would negotiate for overtime work to be paid at 2x rate, taking a cut of the profits. It's a win-win situation for both.
The reverse situation is far worse: when there is lower than expected demand for product. Workers are typically paid hourly - the company simply stops the production line. This is called a down-day, and the workers then get the negotiated union payout - in most cases, half their regular pay, but they don't need to come to work, so they can go do their other cash jobs. To understand this, there's a level of truancy each day anyway, where workers might have more lucrative cash-work within the informal economy - any kind of trades work, gardening, etc. Because it's an assembly line, you can't run the line if you have 999/1000 workers show up - you need all 1000 seats manned - so you overstaff, and the level of truancy varies by season, etc, so you overbook the workers and assume some won't show up (just like how airlines overbook seats on a flight). Obviously the union wants to know the down days weeks in advance, so it's better for their workers.
For obvious reasons, the union much prefers overtime rather than down days, so the company typically sets their default production rate below predicted demand and then runs overtime as necessary to make up for production shortfalls. The company can't run overtime unless the workers agree to come in after hours or on the weekend, so the company will make an offer to the union bosses - hey, there's some overtime work available, can you rustle up some workers? And the union will contact their members and they get to vote yes / no.... and then the company may have to throw something in to sweeten the deal, etc.
posted by xdvesper at 3:47 AM on May 7, 2021 [12 favorites]
Poisson, not Gaussian.
posted by sillyman at 5:23 AM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by sillyman at 5:23 AM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
Related, exemplary:
Although making one Dogecoin MemeLord Double-Dank Upside Down Frapp can be an annoyance (we made that one up—please don’t ask for it), making nine or 10 of them can have a knock-on effect for the entire store. Customers often ask for them to be remade, because they don’t look like the one they saw online—and all of the extra stuff that gets tossed into a blender can result in too much liquid to pour into a cup, leading to wasted ingredients. Extra complicated Frappuccinos can monopolize the entire bar, causing slow-downs for other orders. “Customers who come in looking for a quick latte are forced to wait along with everyone else,” Chemical-Less said. “It makes our customer connection score go down and reflects poorly on us.”
From: Starbucks Baristas Are Sick of Your Ridiculous Custom Orders
posted by chavenet at 9:40 AM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
Although making one Dogecoin MemeLord Double-Dank Upside Down Frapp can be an annoyance (we made that one up—please don’t ask for it), making nine or 10 of them can have a knock-on effect for the entire store. Customers often ask for them to be remade, because they don’t look like the one they saw online—and all of the extra stuff that gets tossed into a blender can result in too much liquid to pour into a cup, leading to wasted ingredients. Extra complicated Frappuccinos can monopolize the entire bar, causing slow-downs for other orders. “Customers who come in looking for a quick latte are forced to wait along with everyone else,” Chemical-Less said. “It makes our customer connection score go down and reflects poorly on us.”
From: Starbucks Baristas Are Sick of Your Ridiculous Custom Orders
posted by chavenet at 9:40 AM on May 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
There are situations in which OT work isn't abusive to exempt employees
I'm exempt, but I get paid for overtime hours. (At straight time, not time-and-a-half, but still.)
posted by ctmf at 11:27 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm exempt, but I get paid for overtime hours. (At straight time, not time-and-a-half, but still.)
posted by ctmf at 11:27 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thanks for this! I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been so scattered at work - I’ve been to busy for planning and thinking, no slack. Ironically, I was busy teaching a class on queuing theory for Operations - so I just spent a semester explaining this through math proofs, and never once thought it might apply to me.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 2:41 PM on May 7, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by Valancy Rachel at 2:41 PM on May 7, 2021 [8 favorites]
Hear hear Chavenet. I felt bad enough today ordering a Shake Shack burger without the gross sauce. When I worked in a Starbucks I couldn’t believe the bespoke orders. Like put Splenda in for me then make the latte on top. Or half whole milk and half skim. Or one shot and one decaf shot. Jesus Christ. They should just make it themselves at home. Sorry for the derail !
posted by freecellwizard at 3:04 PM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by freecellwizard at 3:04 PM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
When I worked in a Starbucks I couldn’t believe the bespoke orders. Like put Splenda in for me then make the latte on top. Or half whole milk and half skim. Or one shot and one decaf shot. Jesus Christ. They should just make it themselves at home.
But, it’s really hard getting that distinct dry, charred, bitterness of a Starbucks shot at home.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:56 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
But, it’s really hard getting that distinct dry, charred, bitterness of a Starbucks shot at home.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:56 PM on May 7, 2021 [5 favorites]
They should just make it themselves at home.
I think I will! How hard can it be? You just need a blender, some ice, some coffee, an automated espresso machine the size and cost of a compact car... $500 in assorted flavor syrups... wait, how come I can't buy chocolate syrup from a grocery that isn't just Hershey's? And what the fuck is banana powder!? Wow, handwashing a blender suuuuucks!
I give up. Does anyone have some instant coffee? I need a break.
posted by loquacious at 5:09 PM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think I will! How hard can it be? You just need a blender, some ice, some coffee, an automated espresso machine the size and cost of a compact car... $500 in assorted flavor syrups... wait, how come I can't buy chocolate syrup from a grocery that isn't just Hershey's? And what the fuck is banana powder!? Wow, handwashing a blender suuuuucks!
I give up. Does anyone have some instant coffee? I need a break.
posted by loquacious at 5:09 PM on May 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
As soon as people can measure something, they want to maximize it. They may tell themselves at first that enough is as good as a feast, and set reasonable goals. But over time, this impulse wears down resistance and maximization takes over. We talk about this all the time in the context of profit. This is the same thing manifesting in terms of worked hours. In both cases, even if people linger at the "enough" point for a while, eventually, they go for the feast. Willingly, intentionally, people will obliterate their peace, their contentedness. So that they can put up big numbers. Or make money they can't spend (either because it's literally that much or because they no longer have meaningful leisure time).
I am forever resisting this (usually poorly), because my work is billed by the hour. So maximizing income and maximizing hours merge into one overriding imperative. I can't even argue that it is less effective for each worker to be fully occupied, because an ineffective hour is billed out at the same rate as an effective hour. I am a bit of a workaholic surrounded by absolutely bananas ridiculous workaholics. To me, they seem to exist in uninterrupted chaos, and their time is under such enormous pressure, and feels so scarce, that they are unable to meet their own basic needs, much less engage in creative exploration (or emotional labor - and I think some use busyness as an excuse to avoid emotional labor). And I don't look that great either to my saner friends and family members.
It's terrible, and it's also stupid. I am endlessly frustrated and exhausted by it. I can't overstate how sick I think my profession is because of the billable hour.
Not enough to walk away from it, of course. And now, I will return to work. And set an alarm for 5 am so that I can be plenty productive tomorrow.
posted by prefpara at 6:21 PM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am forever resisting this (usually poorly), because my work is billed by the hour. So maximizing income and maximizing hours merge into one overriding imperative. I can't even argue that it is less effective for each worker to be fully occupied, because an ineffective hour is billed out at the same rate as an effective hour. I am a bit of a workaholic surrounded by absolutely bananas ridiculous workaholics. To me, they seem to exist in uninterrupted chaos, and their time is under such enormous pressure, and feels so scarce, that they are unable to meet their own basic needs, much less engage in creative exploration (or emotional labor - and I think some use busyness as an excuse to avoid emotional labor). And I don't look that great either to my saner friends and family members.
It's terrible, and it's also stupid. I am endlessly frustrated and exhausted by it. I can't overstate how sick I think my profession is because of the billable hour.
Not enough to walk away from it, of course. And now, I will return to work. And set an alarm for 5 am so that I can be plenty productive tomorrow.
posted by prefpara at 6:21 PM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
It has only been mentioned once, but Goldratt's The Goal explains this issue better that any other book I have seen out there.
Small batches, eliminate your bottlenecks, develop a value of learning.
Seriously, go out and read The Goal.
posted by kadmilos at 6:45 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
Small batches, eliminate your bottlenecks, develop a value of learning.
Seriously, go out and read The Goal.
posted by kadmilos at 6:45 PM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
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