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On Point On Slacking
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed May 31, 2006 12:00 PM
from the stuff-to-listen-to dept.
from the stuff-to-listen-to dept.
Wellington Grey writes "This week the NPR show On Point has an excellent episode exploring slacking and the American work ethic. (note that it's audio) It touches on some issues that may be of interest to geeks such as outsourcing, the church of the subgenius and the eternal conflict between wanting to be a lazy bum and wanting to work hard. What do slashdotters think: does America need more slack or more work?" It is summer vacation after all, right?
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slack or work? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm. Which category does slashdot fit into? That's what I thought...
Re:slack or work? (Score:3)
Re:slack or work? (Score:5, Funny)
j/k. I fully realize that slashdot can actually be a valuable asset at times. I mean, today alone I've learned that my company shouldn't install a giant glass elevator, that including a BluRay drive in the PS3 may not have been such a good move, and that the PirateBay was shut down. I'm expecting a nice bonus when I write the summary up for my boss...
Re:slack or work? (Score:4, Funny)
Dude, where do you work? I'm sure there's lots of people who'd jump at the chance to take advantage of an employer naive enough to measure productivity in terms of commit logs.
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I guess I'd have to be careful, though - I might end up being so productive I get promoted.
That this question is even being asked (Score:5, Funny)
I say this WHILE posting to slashdot.
Europeans (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Insightful)
I've managed to scratch my way up to 5 weeks of vacation over the years. I've had that for 2 years now. Sounds great right? Yeah, if I could actually freaking take them. You try taking 5 weeks throughout the year when your stupid manager only gets 3. It's pretty easy to see that time slip through your finger tips. Sure, you must get compensated, but I don't want an extra 2 weeks of pay that just gets taken in taxes fer christ sakes!
We absolutely work too hard. I'd be more inclined to be happy with very little time off if I was responsible for saving peoples lives every day. But when I do this to line some assholes wallet? Is it worth it? HELL NO!!! The problem is, it sure beats the lines down at the soup kitchen.
bloody f'ing capatalist society.
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Insightful)
My company recently instituded a use-it or lose-it policy wrt vactions. We used to be able to carry over past the fiscal year, now we can't.
Now, at the start of the fiscal year, we file a plan for the next 6months, and file a second one half way through the fiscal year that leaves us at zero balance by end of fiscal year.
I'm taken a 'screw you' policy -- if I've booked vacation (because they made me) and they won't allow me to carry it over, their deadlines are their problems.
Admittedly, they can and do give special permission in a few cases to carry over. But if I had to book it 6 months in advance, and I actually scheduled/paid for something, I take the position that if you hadn't forced me to book it so long ago, I wouldn't have paid for it and be on the hook for it.
It's a stupid policy, but I'm happy to make them die by their own sword as it were. "Oh, sorry, I've got a flight booked, you should schedule your deadlines when I schedule my vacation. You've known for months I wouldn't be here."
Take your vacation. It's good for you.
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Insightful)
This last year though, it was my 2 weeks over christmas that got pissed away, not a planned booked trip to hawaii or anything. Point to note, and for my own ref in the future: The company has NO FUCKING BUSINESS knowing WHAT I do with my time off. It doesn't matter whether I've got a flight booked, or am spending 2 weeks at home with my family, but they WILL take advantage of a perceived difference if given half a chance.
Trust me, next time they ship late, and it's their own fucking problem, NOT mine.
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Insightful)
A simple solution to that "problem" exists, which I've personally used for years (I don't get five weeks, but I don't really want more than one or two full-week vacations per year anyway) - First, allocate the time you specifically want; Then, set aside two or three days as "emergency sanity vacations" to use whenever; Next, literally throw darts at a calendar to pick another five or so random days (sounds stupid, but when you hit one, you will enjoy those random days more than just about any other holiday or vacation time you will ever take); finally, counting back from the end of the year, take every Monday (or Wednesday if you prefer a mid-week-mini-weekend) off to use up the rest.
IT managers frequently can't live without certain people for weeks at a time, but it takes a lot of damned gall to refuse you one day per week (even if it takes you three months of four-day weeks to use them all up).
Personally, I have the career goal of someday getting 10 weeks of vacation, so I can make every week a four-day week (which, since most companies give 60-80hrs of holidays usually falling on a Monday or Friday, will still leave me my full one or two weeks to take "long" vacations).
Not gonna hold my breath, though. And in IT, if I managed to get all 4-day weeks, that means I'd only end up working around 40hrs per week.
Re:Europeans (Score:3, Informative)
If you truly choose NOT to take your vacation time, but had every opportunity to do so, you're SOL. (Why would you do
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Interesting)
"Learn to speak chinese, because these people are going to take over the world!"
It's not the Europeans we have to worry about, it's the Chinese and the Indians (from India, not the reservation!) that are going to rule the world.
They aren't "held back" by the same morality and environmental issues we are. When they want to build the largest dam in the world (which is an engineering marvel that will put out as much electricity as 15 nuclear power plants combined), they just do it, and don't worry about the environmental, social, or historical implications.
China has 35 people for every one of ours, so they could invade with nothing but chopsticks and probably win. But they also have huge natural resources and are progressing very, very fast. Their navy will be as big as ours by 2012 (though not as advanced).
Be afraid, be very afraid. (I say that only partly in jest)
Oh, yeah, and they're bringing the bird flu with them...
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Interesting)
It's exactly that type of attitude that will keep them from succeeding. They cannot continue to abuse their native population without reprecussion. There WILL be an uprising, which will cause more than enough instability to take them down a few rungs of the super power ladder. It might not happen tomorrow, or even in the next decade, but it will happen.
The environmental problems, well, that partly goes along with abusing the population. The people will get tired of having to blow all of the soot out of their nose first thing in the morning; people will continue to get pissed when they're forced to move because a regions about to be flooded by a huge hydro-elctric dam. And sooner or later, some big project is going to result in some sort of ecological disaster which the gov't there won't be able to cover-up and ignore.
Of course, regardless of what happens in China and India, the US is going down the tubes.
Re:Europeans (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed one - they're also (mostly) ignoring that it crosses a significant fault line. I've yet to hear how they are going to address this. But, hey, that's progress, right? Didn't I also hear last night on NPR that they're just now recognizing that one of their rivers (yangtze, I believe) is going to be "dead" in just five years given the state, and increasing, pollution dumped into it? Progress, indeed!
Re:Europeans (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Europeans (Score:4, Interesting)
We used to be that way, too. Not 100 years in the past, more like 50.
I'm sure the chinese will follow a similar pattern. Sure they will be a huge force in the near future, probably stronger than the US in both economics and military power and very close to the EU (which is still growing in number of participating nations, remember). But even as a strong force, they will start to feel the impact themselves. The dam will be built, but they probably won't build a 2nd one once all the shit hit the fan. Anyone remember the Nile dam? When it was built, it was a marvel of engineering, too. Today it is widely regarded as a bad idea and if it weren't for the fact that Egypt needs the electricity, there would be talks about tearing it down.
Re:Europeans (Score:4, Informative)
I think the proper term for differentiating the Indians would be a "Dot" or a "Feather" Indian.
Now, isn't that an easier way to distinguish them?
Re:Europeans (Score:3, Funny)
News at 11. . .
Oh really? (Score:3)
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure those Europeans will be crying themselves to sleep in their beach chairs while you are in your cubicle.
Re:Europeans (Score:4, Interesting)
Me? Oh, I get zero paid days off. I run a small engineering firm, and when I'm not at my desk (and not reading
Re:Europeans (Score:5, Informative)
30 days is 6 weeks. I'd be surprised if some workers didn't get more than this.
I've had German coworkers who got 10 weeks, including holiday/sick/vacation/personal
Re:That this question is even being asked (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the major differences between Americans and people from other countries/cultures isn't in how much we work but rather in how we spend our free time. Some of us are remarkably sedentary. There may also be stark differences in how hard we work while "on the job", but I've found that, overall, American workplaces are continuing to push for higher productivity from fewer workers. This trend forces each individual worker to be more productive by working harder or working smarter (sometimes both). It's getting hard to slack on the job in many fields.
Re:That this question is even being asked (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. I've seen this at several workplaces (two professional and one factory setting), and the result is burnt out workers and confused managers wondering why everyone is burnt out! The management is seriously so dense that they can't understand why higher quotas are not a motivational tool. I've also seen an instance where management used the wrong formula to calculate labor needs, and laid off people based on that formula. When people complain, the response is, basically, "deal with it."
I know the overall quality of living is higher now than it was 100 years ago (economic growth, mainly), but the overall feeling I get is that we are moving back towards the 19th century in terms of how employees are valued.
Part of the percieved laziness and fatness of Americans is weight gain due to stress. Many people I know are stressed to the limit and wondering why they are unhappy, in spite of being "well educated" and having supposedly "rewarding professional careers".
Re:That this question is even being asked (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think that's an accurate assessment. I don't know how things are like overseas, but Americans take a lot of pride in their jobs. "What do you do?" is one of the first questions asked after an introduction to another person. We put our own personal value into the jobs we do. That this question is being asked illustrates to me that Americans have been spending so much time working that they're wondering if they spend too much time doing it, and if there's something else that might be more important.
Re:That this question is even being asked (Score:3)
I think USA is a nation of people, first and foremost. People don't produce more by spending more time on work. They produce more by h
Re:That this question is even being asked (Score:5, Insightful)
The serious problem being that some people want to ruin the fun for everyone else by pointing out the obvious. I completely agree.
Suprising that the virtues of laziness are delved into much. Not just in Perl programmers but in all aspects of work, the desire to be lazy leads to getting more done with less effort. That's what the policy wonks in the Fed call increased productivity - which is good for the economy.
There is a reason that the US has done so well despite being lazy assess...
Get back to work you lazy bastards. (Score:5, Funny)
Your boss.
I say this while posting before work (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I feel this has to do with how they grew up. Rarely do I find someone that was spoiled during their life become a good worker. I think that America needs isn't so much more slacking or working, but the kids do need to be raised to earn what they get so that once they get into a true paycheck job they have the mindset to actually work and do their job and be team member.
Re:I say this while posting before work (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting. Are you saying people should do more than they should be paid to do? Personally I subscribe to work smarter, not harder. I find that people that are preceived as working hard do well.
My dad was a workaholic. He was a lawyer in the morning, fixed computers in the afternoon and worked on mainframes at NASA during the night. (He believed what the Navy told him...i.e. that he only needed 4 hours of sleep.)
My parents got a divorce after 24 years. 24 years sounds nice except I was 14 and I have to wonder if I and my mother would have had a better relationship with my dad if he had just cut back on the working....been around the house more.
Then there was my father-in-law. He's dead now. He worked multiple jobs too to take care of the family (3 daughters.) He died at 47 from colon cancer. His big plan was to retire and enjoy life.
Personally I'd rather see less GNP and more GNH (Gross National Happiness) [wikipedia.org] Working hard should never be a goal. Working smart and being happy should be.
Audio???? (Score:5, Funny)
Sheesh! Can't someone post a summary. I don't want to wait to download a friggin' audio stream, I just want it paraphrased for me.
Comments? (Score:5, Funny)
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Lazy? (Score:4, Insightful)
The world is one messed up place sometimes.
Watched a phone company ad recently? (Score:5, Insightful)
When was the first time you regretted hearing the phrase "twenty four by seven"?
How many weeks of vacation do the Europeans get?
Goddam right I need some slack.
Neither. We need more vacation days. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, we need more vacation. If we got more vacation, we wouldn't need to slack off at work at all. We'd be rested enough to do our jobs. But we don't get nearly enough. [infoplease.com] We're not slacking - we're dog tired, burnt out, whatever you want to call it. Give us more time off and I'll bet productivity will go up more than enough to compensate.
And cut out PTO while you're at it. Only thing that does is lump your vacation days and your sick days together. It'd be a good idea if we got enough of them but we don't. So every time someone at the office gets the flu, they think "If I take sick days off I'm losing vacation days - and I want to go to the Bahamas this year" and come to the office anyways. And get everybody sick.
Stop treating time off like a loss to the company - it isn't. Healthy and happy workers make for a better company.
All good things are due to slackers (Score:5, Interesting)
Time passes. Hard-working men are digging a canal with shovels. A slacker stayed home one day and invented the backhoe.
Etc.
Eli Whitney? Slacker. Too lazy to lift a flail.
Fulton? Too slack to row.
Edison? A slacker with good a good PR department.
From a Canadian Perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know people who work/worked at a certain US hardware vendor where members of the software *engineering* group are forced to work 24 hour on-call as FIRST LEVEL support on over 5,000 servers at various sites around the US in addition to their regular work. Is it any wonder why they keep on loosing members left, right and center, and can't recruit people? Is it any wonder why their engineering work frequently slips and or is badly engineered?
ttyl
Farrell
Since the Baby Boomers (Score:3, Insightful)
The transition from loyalty and hard work all of a sudden shifted to feeling good and rebelling. Since then the mindset is still the same just evolved to match the current time we live in.
Live to Work or Work to Live? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Americans work hard, but I think there's also a selfishness across the board. Corporations are less inclined to care about work/life balance and employees are less inclined to care about where they work or for how long.
No one is really investing in this relationship anymore.
Maybe it's because more people now understand that the only way to make "real" money is to own your own business. Or maybe corporations have become greedy bastards that don't care about our communities anymore.
I think we all know how to work hard, but only do so when the need arises. We're not a country of hardworkers just because that's what you're supposed to do. We cut corners because we can and because we see everyone else cutting corners.
It's probably not a healthy thing for the future of our country.
Both - but It's a matter of partitioning (Score:4, Insightful)
Now it's fuzzier. Technology has done two things - (1) made work ubiquitous and (2) it is allowing us to micro-manage our leisure. Your phone (allegedly a productivity tool) now can be your TV and hi-fi and you can have it anywhere always. Which means you have a personal TV and hi-fi whenever the mood strikes. You used to haev to go home to do those things. iPod even more. I can't remember the last time I fired up an actual stereo stack just to listen to music.
And we take entertainment in smaller bites, because it's available, in many forms. Restaurants are increasingly entertainment venues, as opposed to functional greasy spoons. Your car is now an entertainment center. My instant-on laptop is a theater, hi-fi, arcade, and and and... I have XM radio, and I use exactly three stations - 150, 151, 153 - the comedy channels. That turns my two 45 min commutes into entertainment. So I get to kick back and laugh out loud for a small chunk of time that I can't seem to afford otherwise. Ditto podcasts. That's a change that's far more entertainment than dialing around hoping something comes up, or screaming at Rush for three hours....
I still think we're on a net gain with the mix. but it could turn around in a very short time...
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
My twofold response was:
1. Sign me up.
2. You won't notice a drop in overall output (ie, perceived productivity would go up).
He agreed with me on point #2.
It remains to be seen if he will go through with his nefarious plan. I sure hope he does.
"Slacking" is rarely a problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are certainly times when slacking is an issue. If an air-traffic controller is playing her DS when she should be watching the radar, there's certainly a problem. When people slack so much that they aren't meeting the requirements of their work, there's a problem.
But I'd argue that a little slacking in most industries is actually good for business.
The problems really enter when management sees work as quantitative when it is qualitative. Knowledge workers are typically qualitative workers -- that is, it's more important (in general) to do their tasks well then to get a lot done. These people should be allowed to have some unstructured recreation at work (if they were allowed, it wouldn't be "slacking" any more!
It's pretty unusual for someone to be able to simply sit and work for long periods of time, every day, on something that requires a significant chunk of brain power. Anyone who's done significant development knows that the best way to solve some kinds of problems is to do something completely unrelated for a while. When I get stumped, I play Lumines [ubi.com] for a while. It's usually only a few levels in when I suddenly think of something helpful, and can get back to work.
I've also noticed that the most talented and truly productive (measured in terms of quantity * quality) developers, business modellers, architects, engineers, etc. have long ago recognized this need to "percolate" on occasion. Good management lets people "slack" a little during work time, because they know that these same people are often "working" during their fun time. I know that some of my best solutions have occurred to me late at night while playing Final Fantasy or browsing for fun from home. If work is going to encroach on my "fun time" (and really, it can't be helped in knowledge work, because you can't turn off your brain), then it's reasonable to get in a little fun at work, too.
We don't need more work, or more "slacking" -- we need to stop forcing the dichotomy when it doesn't make sense.
These kinds of discussions make me sick. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when only certain, time-critical jobs required people to carry pagers? You could tell someone was a doctor or a stockbroker if he was carrying one. Everyone else left work at work. Nowadays, you're expected to answer your cellphone at any time day or night if the boss calls.
Vacation time gets slowly whittled away. Years ago, maybe you accrued one day of vacation per month. Then it was half a day. Then you couldn't roll those days into the next fiscal year -- use 'em or lose 'em. (You probably lost 'em.) Sorry, it's for "productivity" reasons. We need more "productivity" from our worker bees. I don't think you're typing as fast as you could be. With another 3wpm you could save thirty seven seconds per quarter, you slacker. Is that a personal call I see you making? You're not on the interworldwebnet, are you? That's a productivity loss! Why aren't you being productive? I know you've been here since 8am, worked through lunch, plan to stay late, and probably take client calls from your cellphone while sitting in traffic, but goddammit, be productive!! Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger!
Americans work insane amounts. (I realize we are not alone in this, so cork it.) It's especially insane when you realize that "productivity" hasn't really increased that much. We show up earlier, stay later, take less breaks, but in any given day, the average office yob only has so much to do. Now they just have to spread their bit of work over nine hours, instead of seven or eight.
The push for almighty profit has taken a lot away from society. Contrary to what conservatives love to believe, there is more to life than making money. Not long ago I was listening to some doofus on the radio prattling to the host about what a lazy bunch of losers France was. His justification for this was that their economic growth isn't as fast as ours.
There seems to be an awful lot of this mentality, and it sickens me. Sure, they get tons of free time. What is it, eight weeks of vacation a year? Ten? 35 hour workweeks or something? In other words, time to enjoy life and do something you enjoy? Oh, but their economic growth isn't as fast as America's! WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Most people are not doing anything so important that it requires five eight-or-nine hour days. I have my doubts that most people would admit that, but that's another problem in our culture of profit profit profit -- that we tie our identities so intrisically to our jobs, that it feels insulting to hear that what we're doing really isn't all that important. But I'm telling you, and all the other Joe Timesheets and Eddie Punchclocks out there, that really, if you only wrote TPS reports four days a week instead of five, nobody would notice. Things would still get done.
I take that back -- the only people who would notice are those who directly profit from your efforts. So while 99% of the workforce would like to go the fuck home and enjoy what life has to offer, we're trapped in soul-crushing hellholes by the 1% that controls these things.
Right now it's a beautiful day outside. I can see it from my window. I could be out there sunbathing or reading or falling in the water as I try to learn to use a kayak or getting sighed at by my friend as he tries to explain for the tenth time the difference between these knots as we prepare to go rock climbing. I could be playing with my cats, throwing Frisbees at my girlfriend's dogs, or just taking a nap. Instead, I have to stay here. There is nothing for me to do in the office today, but I have
Re:Lucky you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Myth of the 80 Hour Week (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Myth of the 80 Hour Week (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a slacker, but my dad is not. He's a farmer. His work schedule is as follows:
3:00a
Re:The Myth of the 80 Hour Week (Score:5, Informative)
Then you've obviously never met a factory worker as I used to be, and as such, I have to say this is BS. 30-40 hours? You try that shit on an assmebly line --- the work literally never stops coming, not even for a minute. You don't have time to think, you barely have time to breathe. Don't give me this "you should work harder" shit; you truly cannot work any harder in a job like that because you have to work as hard as you absolutely can to keep up at all. If you don't keep up, you don't keep the job. Vacation? 1 single week a year and you have to have been working there at elast 3 years to get paid for that vacation. Or don't factory workers count? Because if there weren't any factory workers you wouldn't have even half of everything you have now, inlcuding the parts in your computer.
Re:The Myth of the 80 Hour Week (Score:3, Insightful)
And I have yet to see a creative job where it is practical to work more than 20-25 hours
Re:lack of good tech jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When in Doubt... (Score:3, Funny)
Just prop him up in his chair and close the door. Productivity will improve so dramatically that senior management will avoid opening his door at all costs;-)