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If you see work* as punishment, I wouldn't want you working for me anyway. Bye. *assuming you're being paid a decent wage and we're not talking about work bein

If you see work* as punishment, I wouldn't want you working for me anyway. Bye. *assuming you're being paid a decent wage and we're not talking about work being done to extraordinarily tight deadlines for no reason, in unusually poor working conditions, or something like that.

iaw 9y ago
You can't retain the best workers with that attitude. Most workers don't see work as punishment but the time it takes is an impediment to other aspects of their lives that generate more personal value that their job. If you take a worker who operates efficiently to increase their own personal time and increase their workload without providing some offsetting "carrot." The worker has two rational responses in a liquid employment market: 1) Reduce their efficiency to median company levels and only use their efficiency "secretly." Congratulations, you've broken their spirit! 2) Find another job because they're an above average employee.
- dkersten 9y ago
  I would argue they 1) leads to lower performance over time due to its demoralising effect and stress.
dkersten 9y ago
It was a rhetorical question to make you think. In reality, if I finish my task, I take a new task from the task list. My point is just that there's no real incentive to work more efficiently (eg by automating or by smartly planning ahead) and my employer is happy as long as I stay ahead of milestones and generally work well, and its somewhat demoralising knowing that there's an infinite stream of work and no matter how hard I push myself, this doesn't get smaller, I don't get to leave earlier etc. This can be especially frustrating when other people on my team who are being compensated roughly the same as me are not pushing as hard. Why should I? (In case someone who knows me is reading: this isn't actually the case, I'm asking hypothetically for the sake of this discussion)

iaw 9y ago

You can't retain the best workers with that attitude. Most workers don't see work as punishment but the time it takes is an impediment to other aspects of their lives that generate more personal value that their job. If you take a worker who operates efficiently to increase their own personal time and increase their workload without providing some offsetting "carrot." The worker has two rational responses in a liquid employment market: 1) Reduce their efficiency to median company levels and only use their efficiency "secretly." Congratulations, you've broken their spirit! 2) Find another job because they're an above average employee.

dkersten 9y ago
I would argue they 1) leads to lower performance over time due to its demoralising effect and stress.

dkersten 9y ago

It was a rhetorical question to make you think. In reality, if I finish my task, I take a new task from the task list. My point is just that there's no real incentive to work more efficiently (eg by automating or by smartly planning ahead) and my employer is happy as long as I stay ahead of milestones and generally work well, and its somewhat demoralising knowing that there's an infinite stream of work and no matter how hard I push myself, this doesn't get smaller, I don't get to leave earlier etc. This can be especially frustrating when other people on my team who are being compensated roughly the same as me are not pushing as hard. Why should I? (In case someone who knows me is reading: this isn't actually the case, I'm asking hypothetically for the sake of this discussion)