Out by 5
Scott Adams, creator of the inimitable Dilbert, once put on his management-guru hat and propounded a philosophy called “Out by 5.”
The idea was that each person has only so many useful work hours in a day. A company that sticks strictly to 9-to-5 is likely to be more productive, in reality, than one which demands long hours.
Looking around, it’s obvious that the world has chosen longer days. School events and meetings start at 7 because that’s when parents get back from work. People work on weekends and take their iPhones and Blackberries everywhere so they can keep working.
The problem is, many of us end up producing work that looks as though we’re exhausted and fatigued… because most of us are. And, as Adams pointed out, much of this is pointless.
When I was a full-time survey guy working with a medium-duty (as in “more than five full-time employees”) survey firm, I discovered (I should say “rediscovered” because my boss, a very seasoned survey guy, already knew it) that the more rushed I was, the more mistakes I made – even given higher work output.
Simply put, the easy way to screw up in my field, and I suspect in most others, is to work too hurriedly or too long. Fatigue and rushing cause mistakes. Those mistakes end up costing much more time so you end up worse off than you would have been had you simply been willing to miss the odd deadline. What’s more, clients tend to forget a one or two day delay, but they remember when their bonuses are handed out based on bad numbers. You can do a lot of harm trying to meet a deadline.
With Chrysler trying to overhaul its entire product line despite a decimated engineering staff, having lost far too many people under Daimler and then under Cerberus, with many of the old-time experts having resigned, retired, or been pushed out, I wonder how many mistakes will be made because of that.
What’s kind of interesting is that a strict seven hour day would do quite a bit for the world in general. Let’s face it, people have been far too productive for the last century. We just don’t have enough work for everyone and we have not had it for quite a while. It’s a shame that our workaholism is being echoed by Asian nations, because their increased production will continue to demolish our economy, when it really doesn’t have to. China could move from its economic-war footing to a welfare-of-its-citizens footing, imposing a short work day and distributing work more evenly across a larger portion of its population, given its oligarchical government and government-owned companies. It won’t, but it could. That would relieve our economy of some of its strain, and maybe we could even do the same. Hey, why not go nuts and make it a prerequisite to free trade? Along with not using child labor, having some common safety rules, and the like? It would certainly help us to maintain our way of life a lot longer, and if we are to fall to China’s new empire, at least it would be a gentle fall. (I’d rather fall like England than like Rome.)
What’s more, I suspect that shorter hours would result in higher quality of life for everyone. Think about a Microsoft that didn’t demand crazy schedules – the programmers, freed of fatigue, could be more creative and more inspired. Think of cable boxes that did our bidding, intelligently! Think of routers that didn’t crash! Web sites that worked and made sense! And all the other things that fresh minds can do, but overworked minds often can’t.
Well, it’s a thought, anyway. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have surveys to attend to before the deadline comes up.
also just think of how much nicer it would be to interact with people who are not chronically fatigued and over worked,and thus are not as grumpy and easily angered and upset over little things.
Totally agreed. Think of all those shift workers that end up perpetually tired and fatigued due to having to rotate between different hours all the time. I used to try to try to trade shifts to stay on one all the time. When I was far younger, that happened to be the midnight tours. No one EVER gets used to working all night. I was ALWAYS tired, grumpy, and most of the time, not making decent choices. Think how you might feel if you ran into me on a bad night if I stopped you for a traffic violation. I was not always pleasant nor did I care if you cared! Of course you would have no way to know what might be what was causing the potential conflict, just a frumpy deputy with an attitude. Later on in life, of course, I got the shift I really liked to work, and that, believe it or not was from 8:00 p.m to 4:00 a.m. It just fit my internal clock, and I fought like crazy to keep it.
Given other choices within the Federal Government, I never had to go through that again. Except when called out for the hurricanes and the absolutely necessary assistance to FEMA and the local authorities. In that instance you just worked until you dropped. Slept, showered, ate, and went back at it. At one point, I was assigned to work patrol with the Florida Highway Patrol in Louisiana and I never met a finer group of dedicated individuals than that. We also moved to Mississippi in and around the devastated Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi.
Overworked people are not being fully utilized or realized for their potentials. Hourly performance, like assembly line people tend to slough off mistakes in order that the line stay up. Yet, Volvo proved that having units on an assembly like basis made for exceptional quality control. Something that doesn’t seem to have translated here, except for replacing humans for robots. I had a neighbor that worked in a food production plant. His particular philosophy was that a steady speed made for greater production, rather than fits and starts. He regularly proved it on his shifts when his crews broke record after record by not pushing speed over steadfast continuous production. His crews regularly found ways to just keep the line going even when they were authorized to shut down, say for a lunch break. He also advocated a good nights sleep for his crews, and decent breaks when they were at work. His efforts were recognized in production totals, however, the “speed” freaks always panned his lack of speeding up as great faults on his lines. He never did get his due, instead was often shown the door, whereby he started his own business, and retired early because he did well with it.
Just adopt the European model. My father opened two manufacturing plants in Europe for his U.S.-based employer. Part of preparing involved bringing the Europeans here to orient and train them for several months on the very manufacturing equipment that would be shipped to their new facilities. Their first complaint upon arriving in the U.S. was the grueling hours we kept. What, no 2-hour lunch? You mean you work extra shifts and weekends to increase production and meet demand? My father didn’t experience the full impact of their mindset until he got back on their home turf and ramped up production….or tried. They absolutely refused opportunities to work extra hours for overtime pay. And weekends? Forget it. Their personal time was their personal time. In fact, leaving for lunch and not coming back for the afternoon was common as well. Totally different outlook than we have here.
I also kind of admire them for mandatory month long vacations. When was the last time you heard your boss recommend that? Here, you’re afraid to take even a two week vacation because you could miss a restructuring that does away with your job because you weren’t around to defend yourself!
If everyone kept to that — OR if we only had “free trade” with nations that did — unemployment would be a far lower problem, and many more people would have productive jobs.
You are probably right Dave. We spend way too much time chasing the production bug when the end result is a net loss of personal time, in order to maximize the company profit to please the stock holders and board people. After having spent time in Europe (Son lives in Netherlands) I truly enjoy the laid back life styles, living, dining, driving, shopping are things to be savored. In the idiom of the day, no one shops at the huge supermarkets, like we do, weekly. Everyone stops and buys their dinner each and every day. The downtown of towns are lined with single or mom and pop style stores that specialize in certain things. Breads, cheeses, meats, and such like. Just incredible tastes. Going out to a restaurant is also an wondrous experience because you are NEVER rushed or even felt like being rushed to leave. Each course has it’s own time, and you take as much as you want. Something we could learn here, where hustle and bustle just overwhelms everything we seem to want to do.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could start with a clean sheet of paper in this country?
Actually… probably not… I don’t think we have the level of public education and maturity needed to make it work at this time. Not to mention a more equal footing – there are a lot of Big Money Guys who control a lot of media and have worked out a lot of dirty tricks. This country was born at just about the perfect time.
I am interested in your comments, Dave. Would you care to expand them. This country was born at just about the perfect time, as to what?
And I agree, the media is FULL of dirty tricks. Anyone hear about the two latest appointments to Homeland Security at the highest level? Two avowed Muslim men, both born in countries that are our enemies. They are both assistants to Napalotano. Does that not make you wonder where the media truly is coming from. Maybe not a threat, but it sure makes me wonder. Why no reports to the public?
Our public education is sorely lacking. I believe it is done by design to enable dirty tricks from being rooted out, stamped out, and people electing honest, hard working people into government. The culture of corruption exists at every single level of our government, however, the lack of acumen to discern it just keeps it going.
The United States was born at a time when education was far more prevalent than it had been even in the very recent past (that is, the very recent past relative to the mid-to-late 1700s), when science was visibly pushing away ignorance, and, most importantly, when there were no overwhelming, dominant power groups. The press was small and had much duplication, with many owners and no dominant oligarchy or opinion leaders. In short, any viewpoint could be, and was, heard. Today, such a thing is unthinkable in the United States. Our major media tends to have one or two opinions on any subject, and anything outside that range _might_ be heard for 30 seconds on NPR or the Daily Show, but then it’s gone and won’t be back. Our primary-school history is pap and pablum, filled with obvious lies and mistakes, but that’s all most people know; but in our Revolutionary War days, at least people knew that a lot of their history was bunk, and could make an effort and learn the truth.
What’s more, at that time, people would PAY for reason and rational argument, as opposed to demagogues. There’s a good case to be made for saying that Tom Paine was as responsible for the United States as Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. His book, Common Sense, was filled with what would not be called uncommon sense. Today, the demagogues hold sway and CNN tries to get ratings by copying Fox’s formula – bile-filled talking heads rambling on and getting people angry over falsehoods – while the other news shows provide us with the crime sheet, the scandal sheet, and maybe a couple of misleading quotes of politicians, often yanked out of context, and often filled with lies or misdirection, that the reporters know are lies and misdirection but are not allowed to comment on.
Mainly, though, in those days, ANY opinion could be heard and most people considered a wide range of perspectives and opinions before choosing what they believed, — or they could be convinced to change their minds. I think that’s gone. Likewise, in those days there was a fairly even power balance; which is certainly gone.
Wealth was distributed more evenly, though the truly poor could be expected to die of starvation or exposure. That also helped. The very wealthy might have had more say and more sway, but not to the extent they have it today. Advertising was in a laughable state, as was public relations. Our mass propaganda tools had not yet been developed. Television and radio were not around yet, which helped people to get their message out — because their message did not have to be conveyed in an emotional five to fifteen seconds. That also helped rational arguments! The main mass media then was the pamphlet. Today it’s the 30 second TV ad — which is NOT subject to any oversight regarding truth or lies, so many of them are just lies.
I don’t think our society would support a new Constitutional Convention at this point. It would quickly turn into a farce. The demogagues would whip up their publics into a frenzy and every argument would be turned into one position against another, with no consideration given to depth of argument or third opinions; you can’t discuss imaginative solutions or third opinions today. Everything is one extreme against another, or one extreme versus a moderate view, with conventional wisdom foolishly thinking the truth lies somewhere in between. (Sometimes one side is absolutely right. Sometimes the truth eludes “both” sides.)
Anyway, that’s my thinking.
All I know is that I don’t like where we’re going as a country. I have no faith in any of our elected offcials regardless of party. We desperately need term limits because the longer someone is in a position of power, the more arrogant and corrupt they become. They are totally disconnected from their constituents and they clearly don’t care what we think….at least up until they think their reelection is at risk. It’s up to us to make sure we don’t become apathetic and complacent and instead be ever vigilent. Hold their feet to the fire.
Scott, we normally disagree on politics, but here I fully agree with you. I don’t see why presidents get two terms and Congressmen get unlimited terms.
I still believe we’d do better through random selection of anyone who passes a civil service test… followed by one or two re-elections. but within the limits of our constitution, term limits are an idea whose time came 200 years ago.
Dave, you just made me have a thought when you said random selection. Why not treat the Congress like jury duty. If you get selected, you have your turn in the seat for awhile. It would be part of your duty to your country. Beats having only rich guys or guys that owe somebody something supposedly representing the rest of us.
Scott, if you and I agree on this, it must be right. Now we just need to get the rest of the country on our side!
I think the rest of the country may come around in time, Dave. There’s a lot of frustration out there and it has been building for years, maybe decades. Nothing like a downturn in the economy to get the average person’s attention. Suddenly, what they do in Washington seems to matter more to the average Joe. While government waste in not new news, the out of control deficits are. I just hope the frustration gets turned into positive energy and not riots in the streets. I see a lot of families struggling, a lot of my neighbors have at least one parent losing their job.
If we could get our representatives to stop all the pork barrel spending and get their priorities straight, paying for health care for everyone wouldn’t break the bank or require so many trade-offs. When you take the numbers and divide them up, we could hand out enough money to make familiies never have to worry about being homeless, starving, or not having access to health care. Why is it that the Pentagon suddenly has taken a leadership position in getting rid of duplicate or unnecessary programs and the Congress can’t bring themselves to do the same? That in itself tells you how broken the rest of government is right now. I have to hand it to Defense Secretary Gates, he seems like a no BS sort of guy that really wants to do the right thing. He doesn’t seem to be protecting anyone’s pet projects/programs. Now where are all those other cabinet members? Can’t they do they same in their departments?
Also, I’m not usually a fan of protectionism. However, we need to be promoting American products and services and protecting American jobs. We need to reduce trade deficits, strengthen the dollar, and level the trade playing field by demanding that our trading partners adhere to the human rights, labor, and environmental standards we hold ourselves to.