On Point On Slacking

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?

Comments

slack or work?

[gEvil (beta)]

What do slashdotters think: does America need more slack or more work?

Hmmm. Which category does slashdot fit into? That's what I thought...

Re:slack or work?

[gEvil (beta)]

You keep telling yourself that... : p

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?

[IcyNeko]

I'm from a company that manufactures ninja suits designed to repel robot monkeys and let me tell you, getting firsthand reviews is so critical to the success of our product.

Re:slack or work?

[computational super]

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

[grasshoppa]

That this even is being asked illustrates a very serious problem in this country. We are a nation of slobs and lazy asses.

I say this WHILE posting to slashdot. :D

Get back to work you lazy bastards.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sincerely,

Your boss.

Re:Get back to work you lazy bastards.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny coz I thought you were away on vacation and didn't have network access.

Sorry for slacking off in your absence.

Sincerely,
Your minion.

Thanks for the warning...

[Fishead]

... that it's in audio. Gonna have to wait till my lunch break to listen to it.

Audio????

[gstoddart]

Audio format? What the hell?!

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?

[Wellington Grey]

Comments? How can there be comments already? Clearly these people didn't LTTFP :)

-Grey

Re:Europeans

[juan2074]

China now has more people than the whole planet.

News at 11. . .

Re:The Myth of the 80 Hour Week

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, it sounds like 3/4 of what your dad does is eat meals...

Re:When in Doubt...

[Shadow Wrought]

anyone know a good way of disposing pointy-haired corpses?

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;-)

More slack for WoW

[Chowser]

I need more slack at work. How else am I supposed to kill 30 undead ravagers and return to Brother Anton at Nijel's Point. I keep getting interrupted and it is really pissing me off.

Re:I say this while posting before work

[ksheff]

that's what you get when a man's purpose is to stay a $1 ahead of his wife's spending.

Re:Europeans

[greg_barton]

China has 35 people for every one of ours, so they could invade with nothing but chopsticks and probably win.

It also means we could do 35x more human damage with a single nuclear strike.

Re:Depends a lot on what type of work you do, too.

[epee1221]

Yes, I'll go get ready for all the problems that are going to come up tomorrow. Let's see....
There's this guy a couple cubes over -- his computer will crash, and he's going to come to me for help. I'd better make sure I'm not out of the office at that time. Wait, what time will that be? *engages magcial foresight* It'll crash at about 12:30, so I better eat lunch a bit late.
What's next... My boss is going to finally get the email with the new project specs, but the email is a bit late by now. I'd better start working on that project now -- don't want to push the deadline too far. Sure, I don't have the specs yet, but I can divine what they will be with this here crystal ball.
Oh, and my friend's car is going to break down too. I'll remind him to call the mechanic and ask them to have a truck ready for his car. I'll also make sure to look along the side of the highway for him. Actually, I'll get there early and wait for his car to break down. I know by my magical predictive power that it'll break down just past the exit at Route 68.

Yeah... everyone should be able to forsee problems and be prepared when they come up.