Slashdot Mirror
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?
What do slashdotters think: does America need more slack or more work?
Hmmm. Which category does slashdot fit into? That's what I thought...
This guy's the limit!
That this even is being asked illustrates a very serious problem in this country. We are a nation of slobs and lazy asses.
:D
I say this WHILE posting to slashdot.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Sincerely,
Your boss.
Funny, but I am in the process of trying to figure out how to schedule the work I need to get done this summer around my european counterparts 8 weeks of vacation. Eight weeks, not including holidays! Funny, they never get labeled as lazy.
I've found that in all of my jobs there are people willing to work and do their job and their are people who will just do what they need to get by.
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.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
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.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Comments? How can there be comments already? Clearly these people didn't LTTFP :)
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Most westerners, and Americans in particular, are sleep deprived as the norm trying to get in some semblence of a life between work. The majority of us have also become stimulant addicts in an attempt to make this easier, which in turn makes the stress of the day even more severe. On top of all that, we live in a society where it's increasingly difficult to stay abreast of the latest changes in science, society, and the world and where most of us lack the time to comfortably allocate study time for the sake of pure learning. There's little time for quality family time, especially with those not in our own household. And there's precious little time to work on independant and alturistic projects which in theory could be of benefit to soceity. And if one finds any of that objectionable, he's instantly tagged as lazy.
The world is one messed up place sometimes.
Everything will be taken away from you.
does taking a break so as to relax the mind and body become slacking? /. might be considered excessive...
Ive noticed that some of our office tenants enforce a 'no web browsing' rule, but allow employees to head outside for a smoke break...
It blows my mind that certain activities are considered slacking activities whilst others are as necessary as going to the bathroom. Of course spending 4hrs looking over
Excellent Phoenix AZ Office Space - Thistle Landing
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.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I have not met a single soul outside of the medical and legal profession whose actual and typical workload could not be accomplished in 30-40 hours of real honest work. The problem is that most of them spend at least 2 hours a day screwing around, reading Slashdot, reading CNN, chatting in the aisles, or doing make-work while waiting for somebody else to deliver something that they need to continue their legitimate work. Now and then we get a rush ("I told the client you'd have it by tomorrow." "That's 2 weeks of work!" "Well, get started!") but by and large I don't know anybody who doesn't spend at least 2-3 hours of their 10 and 12 hour days goofing off to one degree or another. Or, more commonly, 2-3 hours of their 8 hour days, which means they have to come in the weekend. This is invariably blamed on the boss, who is also goofing around but never shows up on Saturday.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
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. 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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
One day a gang of energetic citizens was diggin a trench with their hands, but a slacker said "That's too much work" and went off and invented the shovel.
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.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
For the years I worked in the US, I worked more national holidays, unpaid overtime, and from home than any job, including my own business, in Canada. I believe that studies find Americans work more hours than almost any where else, but are ultimately less productive than most other countries. Hours at work do not equal productivity!
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
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Not that I'm against it, mind you. I think the so-called American work ethic -- in this age where we're not even ruled by imperialist lords but by faceless corporations that seemingly have no responsibility to society whatsoever -- is misguided and poisonous. I'll take those eight weeks off, thank you very much.
Breakfast served all day!
We worked our asses off in the 80s and 90s to create the Internet economy so that there would be good jobs for the American middle class in the new millennium.
Carly Fiorina, Craig Barrett, Larry Ellison, Scott McNealy, and Bill Gates then betrayed us by shipping those good jobs to the cheap-labor centers in India and China.
Carly even stood up in a public meeting and insisted that it was the right thing to do.
A trillion dollars in investment, gone in a few months.
If it had been a war and we'd been harmed to the cost of a trillion dollars in writeoffs and lost jobs, we'd be nuking someone. But the war was lost because the people who were supposed to be on our side were on the enemy's side.
There's a word for that.
If we look at history and culture, it would appear slacking started occuring during the baby-boomer generation. Some people's parents or grandparents.
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.
It was tagged flamebait, but is a valid point. IT support jobs are unique in the industry. If it all goes right, you never know we exist. If it all goes to hell, it's our fault. Mix in with that, that IT Support is an area of business that rarely if ever turns a profit. Management doesn't like that.
Referring to the article - a look at job postings tells you what people are looking for. Someone who lives for their job. A recent posting here hear listed the descriptions of several different careers under the heading of one job. They wanted a Cisco certified person, who would also fix all the computers, printers, etc at the location, and in their spare time, program for their in house application and support their web page entirely. Anyone who takes that job isn't lazy - they're burning out and overworked.
I'm finding a hard time finding a (better) job than I am in now, because frankly, I make my wife and kids my priority in life. I won't make it a common practice to put in 50+ hour work weeks. I don't mind the occasional weekend work or night work, but I flatly refuse to live for my job. I live for my wife and kids, and any employer who refuses to understand that is in my opinion, not worth working at.
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
I have worked as a nurse the last 8 years. It is insanely difficult not to work overtime even if your ideal is only 32 hours a week. I often look wistfully to the European work ethic where you are not called a slacker for only wanting 32 or so hours a week. Asking for a week off of your already earned vacation time is not like asking for someone else's left arm, etc.
I am currently looking for a job, and trying to find a less than full time position. It's probably not going to happen, or they will tell me it's part time and up my hours. It's happened before with constant calls to come to work on my days off.
I know other professions aren't as bad, but my husband is going to get his CPA soon, and has been told his dreams of working less than 40 hours a week were impossible. This remains to be seen, and we are still hoping.
Nothing hides evidence like a stew. -Gus Pratt
Personally, I cycle through very ambitious work periods and then into very home/family oriented periods. I still work hard, but I'm less focused on my career and "getting ahead" and more interested in the tasks at hand. During the ambitious times, I'm usually pushing my managers, owners, coworkers, and myself to get better at everything.
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.
http://chicagodave.wordpress.com
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;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
US people have to fight for their jobs and so tend to do "extra" to maintain their job because it is easy to get fired. The UK is not so easy, and countries like France it is near on impossible to get fired (and even if you do you get paid for a year...they also get 35 holidays a year and 35 hour work weeks mandated by law, any more and you can recover in extra days off)...
SO the moral of the story is that the people are to blame for a) not preventing your government for bringing in anti-social work ethics (a.k.a capitalism) and b) for accepting the situation enforced onto you by your employee (bring back the Unions).
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
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.
sig here
I don't think I understand what you are saying...
If you are saying "rich people should get more breaks" I disagree big time. Rich people have proved they can get rich in the current system and therefore don't need any breaks - they are already successful and the system is working for them despite the disgusting crybaby attitude so many of them seem to have.
If you are saying "people who build houses and do woodwork don't contribute to profitability" I still disagree. Wealth is the product of labor - people like yourself (and illegal mexican migrant laborers, for that matter) are the root source of wealth, and should therefore get some profit. Fat cats smoking dope in penthouses shouldn't get all the profit at the expense of their employees.
As for "billion dollar corporations", they aren't people and so I don't give a rats ass about their whining. Why should I? They are already successful and everything's going their way. They don't need me (or anybody else) to give them any "breaks". I applaud their success, sure, but I'll give them a hearty "fuck you" when they ask for more tax breaks and more government handouts.
Let me chime in.
About 200 days into my trip living and working in Beijing you get a different feel for things. Now I am not saying in any way that Chinese isnt the language to learn and that China isnt going to run the global economy for the forseeable future. I dont have room to start on that complex matter. But... ill relate all ive learned and say "Yes" to both sides..
There is a construction army here that I am listening to build the next generation of high rises (inculding the tallest building in Beijing about 1 mile away) at 2;28 am. It never stops. And its everywhere within a twenty mile radius. An amazing thing to watch unfold.
One the one hand.
On the other hand I walk past and through these crews everyday and see the same amount of laying back that I see on a typical highway crew in the States except horrendously worse. Office workers on a whole appear to have the same rep: lotsa hours, same amount fo work. I dont think they are inherently (or culturaly or otherwise) more productive / less lazy than anyone else ive met - but seriously, and think about this - there are that many more. China is a beast, it has been for the last 3000 years, and unified riding a wave of nationalistic expansion there isnt a lot it cant do. And its doing it, now.
IMHO, from what I have seen. But in my defense I have been looking pretty hard through a variety of different lenses.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Part of the problem is how work and play are partitioned, or not. We've traditionally seen work as part of the productive part of our lives, and play as the kick-back-and-do-what-I-like part. When we were young, you came home from school. put your play clothes on and went out to make mud pies or whatever. There was a distinction. It has been mostly that way for adults, too - work 9-5 then kick back or wait for the weekend.
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...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I've been in IT since 1984 (while still in college). Most of my jobs have been ok; some interesting, like adminstering a Cray II at NASA Langley, or being lead Unix SA at the NYT SSC in Norfolk, VA and remote admining their production systems in Boston; some not so interesting. There were always things to be done, and never enough time to do them.
I met my wife in 1985. She was a teacher, an excellent teacher. The kind of teacher teachers should be. She was always well prepared, and kept her students challenged and interested. She taught English and Gifted Education. She was often even busy during the summer keeping herself prepared for the next year. I routinely helped her with things, especially on the computer. We were always busy.
As a result, we had very little time to actually enjoy the fruits of our labors. Sure, we spent a lot of time together (shopping, movies, house/school work, etc), and tried to take long weekend trips (during the summer or school breaks). Those times I cherish. We enjoyed every minute of our 20 years together, but it wasn't enough - not nearly enough. We simply expected to do more "real vacation things" when she retired in the summer of 2006.
Well, here's how it went. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor in November of 2005 and died January 13, 2006. She never got to enjoy her retirement and we never had the opportunity to really travel or do the things we had put off until "later".
Perhaps we should have tried harder to dedicate more down time, but that's not the work ethic under which we were raised and it's difficult to ignore. Lesson learned, though too late for me.
I think there's too much emphasis in the US business world on doing more work, with fewer people -- you know "worker productivity". As a result, people feel pressured into working more and guilty about taking time for themselves or their family.
The traditional Eurpoean model is much more family friendly. A month off every year with no work strings attached sounds pretty good to me.
I know that work is important, but you can always find another job; you can't find another family or another life.
Remember Sue...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I had occasion recently to travel with the president of the company I work for to attend some meetings (bleah). After the meetings, over a beer, he asked me what I thought of him taking the entire company (~100 employees) to a mandatory 30-hour work week.
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.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
First, let me get the definition out of the way: "slacking" is "not working when one is supposed to be working". Vacation, therefore, is not slacking, but reading Slashdot at work probably is.
;D), because it allows them to do better work.
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 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.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
The problem isn't so much the number of hours you work, it's more a matter of if you enjoy them or not.
I was a SysAdmin for years, during which time I worked 50 hours on a *short* week. A typical week was closer to 70, and I had on many occasions done in excess of 100. I had to take a laptop with me when I went on my 3-weeks-after-10-years vacation to Arizona in January (Arizona in January sure beats Ottawa!). I ended up working 1 to 2 hours a day while on "vacation". Every damned day.
I hated my job, but I was too busy to look for another one.
Then I got cancer, and lost my left kidney. (Well, I didn't _lose_ it; the surgeon took it out, sent it to the Lab and the report came back "malignant'). As part of my recovery, I was *forbidden* to lift anything heavier than a 10-pound bag of sugar, *required* to have a nap for at least 1/2 hour a day, and it was suggested I find a less stressful lifestyle. I was basically confined to the house for 6 weeks. The after-effects of the anasthetic left me unable to concentrate on much of anything for more than a few minutes at a time. I could read the newspaper's comic page, but that was about it.
There's a lot to be said for a short nap in the afternoon. All of it positive.
When I was able to go back to work, I could handle it, but now the 100-hour weeks annoyed me. So, I quit SysAdmin-ing (I don't think that's an actual word...), and now work as Tech Support for a much smaller firm. I do on-call sometimes, but mostly I get to do a 40-hour work week.
Eliminating stress _does_ make a difference. I've noticed it. My wife's noticed it. My son and daughter-in-law noticed it. I get fewer cold/influenza bouts, because I'm not so run down. I _swear_ I'm wiser now, but that could just be because I'm alive (and therefore older) and appreciate it more.
If you aren't happy with what you do, it'll kill you, regardless of the hours/days/weeks schedule.
If you enjoy what you're doing for a living, the amount of time spent doing it doesn't really matter all that much.
The book The Lazy Way to success by Fred Gratzon has some interesting ideas on this. Gratzon has started 2 successful million-dollar companies, all without ever working a day according to himself. Book: http://lazyway.net/ My review: http://positivesharing.com/2006/03/book-review-the -lazy-way/
I grew up thinking "9 to 5, an hour for lunch" was normal and expected. At the time (early 80s) it probably was. Little by little, it has eroded, a half hour here, fifteen minutes there. Most "normal" workdays are 8 to 5, half hour for lunch, and staying late is expected -- if you take off right at 5 in most places, you're going to get some looks.
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
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
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.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."