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> Left to their own devices, Graeber points out, people tend to do work like students at exam time, alternately cramming and slacking. Possibly, they work this
by d--b 8y ago
> Left to their own devices, Graeber points out, people tend to do work like students at exam time, alternately cramming and slacking. Possibly, they work this way because it is the most productive way to work. Most of us would assume that a farmer who started farming at 9 a.m. and stopped at 5 p.m. five days a week was strange, and probably not a very good farmer.
Smart! I never thought of it that way! I'm a remote part-time engineer and I totally do cram-and-slack. It should be a management style.
- Timpy 8y agoI wonder how a farmer would describe their work cycle. Do farmers feel like they're cramming and slacking? The impression that I get is that farming is more cramming. I don't really know anything past the general public perception of farming though.
- ahartmetz 8y agoDepends. For a Central European farmer without cattle, there is not much work in winter. You can maintain machines and buildings and such. Farmers with cattle are more constantly busy. My parents got rid of the few cows they had based on economic calculations and, frankly, a desire to have vacations sometimes. Some old farmers thought they were crazy (it was a few decades ago). Of course, it went just fine.
- ahartmetz 8y agoDeveloper and son of a farmer here. It's a bad analogy. In farming, there are very real "deadlines", and you can do 14 hours of useful physical (well... driving machines) work for a few days at a time. At other times, there really isn't much to do. You can find something to do if you want, but it doesn't make much of a difference. In software, your mental capacity is the most real limit, and it's limited to about 5-6 hours per day for the most demanding part of the work. You get the most out of it by using it every day. Having just the right amount of work to do is hard, but working creatively for more than 6 hours per day is impossible. I have talked about this with many people and everyone seems to agree with 5-6 hours. (As somebody with a home office, I find that a very long break in the middle of the day may allow an extra hour or so)
- swyx 8y agowow, thats a venn diagram. do you see opportunities for software in farming where you are from?
- ahartmetz 8y agoI'm from Germany. A few decades ago, farmers were still several percent of the population, so I'm not that special. Germany is small and dense and infrastructure is decent everywhere, so you don't start with a big disadvantage coming from a farm. Sure there is software in agriculture today, mostly "ERP"-type, but I don't think there is an opportunity better than in other industries. Things are getting more exciting with autonomous tractors and drones and selective herbicide application based on image recognition. But the underlying technologies have applications in areas with more turnover.