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Blackberry Owners Chained to Work
seriouslywtf writes "New survey data suggests that Americans are split over whether Blackberrys are chaining them to work. While people who own Blackberries feel 'more productive', those with Blackberrys are more likely to work longer hours and feel like they have less personal time than those without. A Director of Marketing Strategies who owns a Blackberry pointed out that many employees feel obligated by employers who have handed out the devices. 'While being always on in a social context is a natural for young people, many of those in the 25-54 age group with families and corporate jobs are struggling with work-life blending. There is a need for the mainstream workplace culture to offer ways to counterbalance.'" Is the constantly connected, often mobile nature of the modern workplace a good thing, or not?
I have a blackberry. I do not have any audio/vibro "you have mail" announcement enabled (nor do I on my desktop computer's email app). When I get home at the end of the day, guess what? I stop looking at it! Wow! What a concept, huh? But wait, what if it's really urgent? Well, then the blackberry makes a ringing noise and I talk to the person on the other end. Translated: If they really want to get hold of me RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, then they'll call when I don't answer their email.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Do these people just feel more productive, maybe because they're using a "business machine" like the Blackberry? Productivity measurements are standard metrics of US workers for at least a century. Have these Blackberry users actually increased their productivity since before they got the Blackberry? Compared to any increase gained by their coworkers who didn't get a Blackberry? Compared to coworkers with a Blackberry who don't feel any more productive?
Workers whose productivity doesn't increase even when they get expensive technology investments like a Blackberry aren't reliable people to ask whether they're more productive. Working longer hours isn't productivity: often it's a decrease, leaving more to get done in longer time, when fatigue, resentment and just arbitrary final cutoff times decrease productivity.
If they're less productive, and feel more productive, then they'll want more pay, though they produce less, and cost more in IT costs. How about a real answer to this question, instead of mumbo jumbo about how Blackberries "feel"?
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make install -not war
There are a lot of people who voluntarily take on lots of unpaid overtime. They sincerely believe that this will get them ahead, put them lower on layoff lists, get them higher raises, etc.
I'm a staunch 40-hour guy, and have yet to be laid off from this particular job, for 5 years now, where there are a lot of people like that. I suppose if I'd worked 70 or 80 hours a week, I might be making a few percent more, though. If you work that out per hour, I'd be way better off doing a side job with that time. Oh, there's stock options, though; I shit you not, when this employer got bought a while back, I stood to gain $4000 before taxes from my 4.5 years' worth of stock options. I'm sure that would have been good incentive to work 50% more.
I'm not worried about layoffs. My job will go to India when it goes to India. There won't be anything I (or anyone else, right on down from the CEO of the company) can do to prevent or delay it, so why bust my ass trying?
If every manager had to pay an hour of overtime for every question he asked by blackberry, text, or cell, after office hours, there would be no problem! Most would figure out real quick what is really important and what can wait until tomarrow. I don't care if the answer takes 10 seconds, they have to pay an hour. I had a 1-hour minimum charge policy while at University. If my part-time employer called or emailed me about anything I'd bill for one hour. Any calls/emails during that hour were then included but usually it'd be an hour's pay for a few mins on the phone; a fair compensation for the interruption. This worked pretty well - less dumb questions and more cash for beer :D
While people who own Blackberries feel 'more productive', those with Blackberrys are more likely to work longer hours and feel like they have less personal time than those without.
People who work harder on their careers at the expense of personal time tend to progress further than those who take an easier path and put personal time first.
Blackberries [at least initially] were a tool for managers and the most critical infrastructure staff as most companies wouldn't pay many hundreds to buy the hardware plus the service costs for the average employee to check email on the toilet.
So, one explanation is that people who were already obsessive about their careers and already obsessively shackled themselves to work anyway are the ones who gained Blackberries to simply maintain an existing destructive behavior.
Whilst it's easy to assume that Blackberries allow working out of hours and people are forced to work longer hours because they get a Blackberry, another explanation is that people get Blackberries because they're the kind of people looking to work longer hours (or at least stay obsessively aware of things which equates to the same thing).
It's easy to make the assumption that, because there's a correlation between A and B, there is the causation that A must clearly lead to B. It's just as possible that B actually leads to A. If B is a bad thing, we need to be careful not to assume A is thus the cause of a bad thing and therefore just as bad if not worse - it may just be that A is simply yet another symptom of the bad thing (B) itself.
It's kind of like saying, "People who stay in bed all day are much more likely to have the flu." The easy assumption to make there is that beds somehow lead to the flu. Easy. But totally wrong.
When my clients do this to me, whether by email or phone call, they *do* pay for an extra hour of work. No email or discussion goes without followup work, so if they actually succeed in getting ahold of me they get a full hours attention between the call and what I do afterwards. And surprise! I'm not on site as long the next day since I'm taking care of personal stuff during the usual work day in retaliation^H^H...^H^H to maintain my work-life balance.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
UK figures show that, on average, employees put in an amount of unpaid time over the period of a year that is equivalent to working for free up until Feb 23. That date every year is "Work your proper hours day" when employees are encouraged to do just that. Trade unions usually also take the opportunity to nag employers to stop taking advantage.
y /
http://www.worksmart.org.uk/workyourproperhoursda
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation