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Thing is, no one I've met ever expects to spend eight decades of their life mastering wrapping paper and little else. In fact, many people might consider that a

Thing is, no one I've met ever expects to spend eight decades of their life mastering wrapping paper and little else. In fact, many people might consider that a prison sentence and a slow death. Some jobs are menial, unattractive, dead-end slots in machines designed to squeeze the youth from you. Motivation and morale matter, and maybe some people are cut out to find their niche early, but many are so painfully not. So what to do about that?

inopinatus 9y ago
I didn't necessarily mean that the individual team members had all been there for eighty years. More that the team, as a general entity, had evidently persisted for a long time and built up enormous collective competence at a very specific task, but still in the context of an organic larger entity where their role was appreciated and understood. I think it is a very unhealthy point of view to expect that a single individual perform a single mundane task repetitively and nothing else; sadly it is a common pathology of organisations that many such small roles are used to assemble a larger system. I'm reminded of an extreme case of this every time I traverse a US airport, where there always appear to be far more staff than necessary (especially compared to the majority of airports I transit in Asia, Europe and Oceania) but none of them can assist you with any other part of the system they comprise, leading to many small systemic failures that leave inexperienced travellers confused, late, lost, even detained; and occasional large systemic failures like those recently in the press. This is also how many organisations develop software, particularly enterprises & government, and is a partial explanation for the resulting shitshow. As for what to do about lost potential, I think the answer is the same it ever was: universal education, universal healthcare, eradication of poverty, eradication of conflict, and this a great way to annoy the Randites.
- pavement 9y ago
  Oh, fair enough. Even so, I don't think that sort of thing (refined collective memory, among simple tasks) happens, except in select societies and subcultures. Large retail operations in the United States do well at supply chain efficiency, but the last mile is still pretty desolate and miserable. There are still signs of life in smaller or more careful operations, but most corporate store fronts are filled with hateful misery, and I remember being a part of it and feeling all the reasons to hate it, for several years of summer jobs. I didn't even catch the taste of a vaguely desirable job until my late twenties, and I think I'd choose death over a backslide. Having to face radiation, on top of surrendering 40 hours of my waking life, all while watchng how others live across the internet and on TV, I'm sometimes baffled by the safety of anything at all.
  - inopinatus 9y ago
    It does seem to be an emergent property of some cultures. My wife, being of Chinese origins, observes frequently on the east Asian preference for collective thought and action, usually contrasting this with her experiences as a senior manager in a western hierarchy. There are downsides to groupthink, too, though; as a perhaps extreme example, the Fukushima disaster has been partly blamed on the resulting aversion to questioning a status quo. Here in Australia, and also in the US, I think some managers are not happy until they've reduced every job to a process job. There are still companies where this is not the case, and if you cannot find one, it is also easier here to start your own.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  > I'm reminded of an extreme case of this every time I traverse a US airport, where there always appear to be far more staff than necessary (especially compared to the majority of airports I transit in Asia, Europe and Oceania) but none of them can assist you with any other part of the system they comprise I'm so glad to see someone else mention that! It always makes me think that the US is a communist state in disguise when I see all the unnecessary people in US airports.

inopinatus 9y ago

I didn't necessarily mean that the individual team members had all been there for eighty years. More that the team, as a general entity, had evidently persisted for a long time and built up enormous collective competence at a very specific task, but still in the context of an organic larger entity where their role was appreciated and understood. I think it is a very unhealthy point of view to expect that a single individual perform a single mundane task repetitively and nothing else; sadly it is a common pathology of organisations that many such small roles are used to assemble a larger system. I'm reminded of an extreme case of this every time I traverse a US airport, where there always appear to be far more staff than necessary (especially compared to the majority of airports I transit in Asia, Europe and Oceania) but none of them can assist you with any other part of the system they comprise, leading to many small systemic failures that leave inexperienced travellers confused, late, lost, even detained; and occasional large systemic failures like those recently in the press. This is also how many organisations develop software, particularly enterprises & government, and is a partial explanation for the resulting shitshow. As for what to do about lost potential, I think the answer is the same it ever was: universal education, universal healthcare, eradication of poverty, eradication of conflict, and this a great way to annoy the Randites.

pavement 9y ago
Oh, fair enough. Even so, I don't think that sort of thing (refined collective memory, among simple tasks) happens, except in select societies and subcultures. Large retail operations in the United States do well at supply chain efficiency, but the last mile is still pretty desolate and miserable. There are still signs of life in smaller or more careful operations, but most corporate store fronts are filled with hateful misery, and I remember being a part of it and feeling all the reasons to hate it, for several years of summer jobs. I didn't even catch the taste of a vaguely desirable job until my late twenties, and I think I'd choose death over a backslide. Having to face radiation, on top of surrendering 40 hours of my waking life, all while watchng how others live across the internet and on TV, I'm sometimes baffled by the safety of anything at all.
- inopinatus 9y ago
  It does seem to be an emergent property of some cultures. My wife, being of Chinese origins, observes frequently on the east Asian preference for collective thought and action, usually contrasting this with her experiences as a senior manager in a western hierarchy. There are downsides to groupthink, too, though; as a perhaps extreme example, the Fukushima disaster has been partly blamed on the resulting aversion to questioning a status quo. Here in Australia, and also in the US, I think some managers are not happy until they've reduced every job to a process job. There are still companies where this is not the case, and if you cannot find one, it is also easier here to start your own.
kwhitefoot 9y ago
> I'm reminded of an extreme case of this every time I traverse a US airport, where there always appear to be far more staff than necessary (especially compared to the majority of airports I transit in Asia, Europe and Oceania) but none of them can assist you with any other part of the system they comprise I'm so glad to see someone else mention that! It always makes me think that the US is a communist state in disguise when I see all the unnecessary people in US airports.