4 ms·

Extremely worthwhile question, long overdue. Productivity, especially in relevant areas like administration, stagnated despite computers hitting every desk. I

Extremely worthwhile question, long overdue. Productivity, especially in relevant areas like administration, stagnated despite computers hitting every desk. I read the Cowen book (Complacent Class) at the same time I was reader Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs." Heterodox writers from both sides of the spectrum. Same observation. On the face of it, it doesn't make sense. How could, for example, a local college's administration not have become more efficient because of computers? A factory's productivity, which has legible inputs and outputs is really different to something which doesn't. Software is management technology, perhaps, but only in cases that management technology is pretty efficient already. Modern warehouses, ports and stuff are more productive because of software. But, they we already pretty efficient. They already had pretty well formalized, legible processes. That said, software is also a tool. Say your job is to receive applications, payments or such. You process them. File. Respond. Software is undeniably a good tool for such things. We can't abstract that away by looking at the top level trends. It is a productivity tool for administrative tasks. Top line trends don't suggest a productivity gain, but I'm not willing to conclude that software is not an administrative tool. On the face of it, banks, universities, government departments, the legal sector, accounting, perhaps the whole finance sector are bigger today, not smaller. They have computers now, which are productivity tools. WTF is going on? Do we have more justice, better records? What is "productivity" anyway, outside of legible productivity like a factory's?

handrous 5y ago
I've had a suspicion for some years that productivity increases from the addition of computers and software to an operation is very uneven, and that apparent great progress overall is because it's a 1000x improvement in select areas while being a 0.5-1.05x change in most areas, with somewhat negative change perhaps even being the norm.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  Perhaps. Why though? Why aren't HR, accounting or other such tasks more productive with computers than without?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    With paper, you do it your way, which maps to the organisation's way at both ends (and is probably just a minor improvement over the organisation's way). With computers, unless you can reprogram the system (which is tricky even for programmers), you're doing it the computer's way, which is often worse than the way the organisation would want to have it set up.
    - handrous 5y ago
      I also suspect management is placing a high value on some ideal of "total visibility" into their organization, for which they are sold computerization as a solution, and are willing to accept significantly greater friction across their organization in order to get it. They imagine it will be of such great value that it'll be worth it. Of course what happens is one or (usually) both of: they aren't actually ready or able to use that visibility for any productive purpose sufficient to justify its (labor-to-use, and direct monetary) cost; the system doesn't actually deliver so perfect a view as they wanted (though it may act like it does).
    - dalbasal 5y ago
      Not a bad hypothesis.
    - mgkimsal 5y ago
      "which maps to the organisation's way at both ends" this isn't always a positive or benefit to an org as a whole, although sometimes it's a net benefit to a specific decision maker. many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. As things grow, the org info changes, needs change, and people try to squeeze new exceptions and rules in to the existing process. No one has 'authority' to revamp the process (whether with computers or not), and it just gets weirder and weirder. "If the customer number starts with W and their date is earlier than 2007, give them a 10% credit on any items they ordered from the summer catalog, then email joe@ourcompany.com". "There's no Joe that works here... ?" "Don't try to change anything - this works just fine as it is".
bluGill 5y ago
Prevented waste is a lot of it. Factories used to produce full on until inventory built up too much, and then they did clearance sales to empty it, or sometimes sent it right to a landfill. Now with just in time there is less produced than before, but it is only produced as needed, so the total produced is less, but what is produced is what is needed.
- analog31 5y ago
  In practice just in time means that the vendor carries the inventory. Or the customer.
agumonkey 5y ago
For offices, non tech saavy places, my experience hints at the fact that computers are far from being a main factor. Software is not mastered even by people in charge of picking it. It changes all the time. Users are (might be different with the next gen) digital-first, also software design regressed a lot, as400 terminals were so damn fast and predictable. Now users have desks with various UI paradigms (2021 people still don't know if single or double click will cause an action, from a hand tool pov it's an absolute failure, but software is not approached like a tool, except maybe industrial settings with big buttons and lag free interfaces) Fun bit: intranet failed the other day, had to use good old paper template filled manually. It took me (newb here) 2 minutes. With the webapp it's 3 or more, with lots of clicks and waits and maybes... Beside a DB tracking the document creation it's of zero value. I could go on further but not right now.
- frumper 5y ago
  The DB tracking is the primary benefit. Run a report on all of those paper templates. Look up papers filled out last Tuesday, or July 3rd for the past 10 years. The software only makes staff job easier because now they enter it once and they're done instead of pulling files and compiling reports as a manual process every time the boss needs something.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    Lots of places have multiple software systems with "glue humans" in between to read information in one system and re-enter data into another. You will often find that management has no idea that they have extra people doing literally nothing. These data entry clerks have titles that represent a process so it's thought of as the person doing that job (and perhaps that glue process does run partially on their tacit knowledge). The only requirement was for reporting which their pointless task of data re-entry accomplishes. Not much serious thought was given to productivity really.
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      I often try to estimate how much information is flowing in a give office. I may be wrong but I believe a recent iphone could handle storage and processing. Takes 5 minutes for a person to input a few tokens here and there.
tshaddox 5y ago
> On the face of it, it doesn't make sense. How could, for example, a local college's administration not have become more efficient because of computers? Is the claim from those books that the administration of small colleges has not become more efficient because of computers? I would have guessed that there are far fewer employees (per student) doing clerical work at small colleges now than before office PCs were ubiquitous.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  There are more employees (per student) doing administrative work at small colleges now than before office PCs were ubiquitous. "Clerical* isn't really a term we use much now, and it's often associated with job descriptions from before the PC era. Stuff that happens in colleges, in office, that isn't academia, is generally known as administration. We have more of it, whatever you call it.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    "Administration" strikes me as too broad to make a reasonable comparison before and after PCs. I would expect that in the same time frame that office PCs came into existence, the roles of colleges has also expanded greatly, and if those new roles are considered as part of "administration" I don't think the comparison tells you much about the effects of computers. Are we counting things like counseling, career planning, financial aid, health (including mental health), immigration services, legal and compliance work, everything related to sports and athletics, etc.?
gred 5y ago
> Productivity, especially in relevant areas like administration, stagnated despite computers hitting every desk. I don't know if this has been quantified, but to some extent the extra capability is simply repurposed to more detailed administration. Things that were not possible become possible. Things that we did not have time for, we suddenly have time to do. Per Parkinson, "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". An example would be logistics within the US -- at some point, probably after 9/11 or a similar event, it was decided that all packages flying in commercial airlines within the US needed to be vouched for by entities known to the US government, the individual packages tracked at a more detailed level, etc. This would not have been possible without automation throughout the industry, and definitely "soaked up" some of the productivity benefits of this automation. I'm sure there are endless other examples.
- masklinn 5y ago
  That also happens in e.g. manufacturing. I was talking to an uncle who worked in aluminium manufacturing, he was explaining that as computers developed they could convert waste to very precisely understood ingots (in terms of composition), then when an order arrives the manufacturing program would know exactly what ingots should be picked to fulfil the order with as little pure metal (both aluminium and solutes) as possible, as that’s where the plant’s margin was. Iirc he told me they were above 99% (so only needed pure aluminium straight out of a smelter for less than 1% of their production).
cxr 5y ago
> A factory's productivity, which has legible inputs and outputs is really different to something which doesn't. I've worked in the semiconductor industry, and the situation is just as bad over there, if not worse. To the common capitalist's credit, this absolutely has to do with lack of competition (not necessarily due to regulation, but because the cost of the ticket to get in—capital to build and operate a fab—is so high). Under something more Taylor-esque, 2x productivity is on the low end of what I'd expect a contender to be able to operate at, relative to the clip that the small pool of incumbents move at. The main sources of inefficiency based on what I observed 2014–2020 are either people problems or process problems that call for technical solution that doesn't look anything like materials science, chemistry, physics, etc. (Elite overproduction ⨯ poorly trained/selected workforce + terrible, absolutely godawful software supporting the whole operation; bullshit jobs abound.)
ThrustVectoring 5y ago
IMO the biggest "improvement" that this sort of clerical "productivity" generates is that the same workforce can keep up with inflicting even more inane bureaucratic demands on the people forced to interact with it.

handrous 5y ago

I've had a suspicion for some years that productivity increases from the addition of computers and software to an operation is very uneven, and that apparent great progress overall is because it's a 1000x improvement in select areas while being a 0.5-1.05x change in most areas, with somewhat negative change perhaps even being the norm.

dalbasal 5y ago
Perhaps. Why though? Why aren't HR, accounting or other such tasks more productive with computers than without?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  With paper, you do it your way, which maps to the organisation's way at both ends (and is probably just a minor improvement over the organisation's way). With computers, unless you can reprogram the system (which is tricky even for programmers), you're doing it the computer's way, which is often worse than the way the organisation would want to have it set up.
  - handrous 5y ago
    I also suspect management is placing a high value on some ideal of "total visibility" into their organization, for which they are sold computerization as a solution, and are willing to accept significantly greater friction across their organization in order to get it. They imagine it will be of such great value that it'll be worth it. Of course what happens is one or (usually) both of: they aren't actually ready or able to use that visibility for any productive purpose sufficient to justify its (labor-to-use, and direct monetary) cost; the system doesn't actually deliver so perfect a view as they wanted (though it may act like it does).
  - dalbasal 5y ago
    Not a bad hypothesis.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    "which maps to the organisation's way at both ends" this isn't always a positive or benefit to an org as a whole, although sometimes it's a net benefit to a specific decision maker. many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. As things grow, the org info changes, needs change, and people try to squeeze new exceptions and rules in to the existing process. No one has 'authority' to revamp the process (whether with computers or not), and it just gets weirder and weirder. "If the customer number starts with W and their date is earlier than 2007, give them a 10% credit on any items they ordered from the summer catalog, then email joe@ourcompany.com". "There's no Joe that works here... ?" "Don't try to change anything - this works just fine as it is".

bluGill 5y ago

Prevented waste is a lot of it. Factories used to produce full on until inventory built up too much, and then they did clearance sales to empty it, or sometimes sent it right to a landfill. Now with just in time there is less produced than before, but it is only produced as needed, so the total produced is less, but what is produced is what is needed.

analog31 5y ago
In practice just in time means that the vendor carries the inventory. Or the customer.

agumonkey 5y ago

For offices, non tech saavy places, my experience hints at the fact that computers are far from being a main factor. Software is not mastered even by people in charge of picking it. It changes all the time. Users are (might be different with the next gen) digital-first, also software design regressed a lot, as400 terminals were so damn fast and predictable. Now users have desks with various UI paradigms (2021 people still don't know if single or double click will cause an action, from a hand tool pov it's an absolute failure, but software is not approached like a tool, except maybe industrial settings with big buttons and lag free interfaces) Fun bit: intranet failed the other day, had to use good old paper template filled manually. It took me (newb here) 2 minutes. With the webapp it's 3 or more, with lots of clicks and waits and maybes... Beside a DB tracking the document creation it's of zero value. I could go on further but not right now.

frumper 5y ago
The DB tracking is the primary benefit. Run a report on all of those paper templates. Look up papers filled out last Tuesday, or July 3rd for the past 10 years. The software only makes staff job easier because now they enter it once and they're done instead of pulling files and compiling reports as a manual process every time the boss needs something.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Lots of places have multiple software systems with "glue humans" in between to read information in one system and re-enter data into another. You will often find that management has no idea that they have extra people doing literally nothing. These data entry clerks have titles that represent a process so it's thought of as the person doing that job (and perhaps that glue process does run partially on their tacit knowledge). The only requirement was for reporting which their pointless task of data re-entry accomplishes. Not much serious thought was given to productivity really.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I often try to estimate how much information is flowing in a give office. I may be wrong but I believe a recent iphone could handle storage and processing. Takes 5 minutes for a person to input a few tokens here and there.

tshaddox 5y ago

> On the face of it, it doesn't make sense. How could, for example, a local college's administration not have become more efficient because of computers? Is the claim from those books that the administration of small colleges has not become more efficient because of computers? I would have guessed that there are far fewer employees (per student) doing clerical work at small colleges now than before office PCs were ubiquitous.

dalbasal 5y ago
There are more employees (per student) doing administrative work at small colleges now than before office PCs were ubiquitous. "Clerical* isn't really a term we use much now, and it's often associated with job descriptions from before the PC era. Stuff that happens in colleges, in office, that isn't academia, is generally known as administration. We have more of it, whatever you call it.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  "Administration" strikes me as too broad to make a reasonable comparison before and after PCs. I would expect that in the same time frame that office PCs came into existence, the roles of colleges has also expanded greatly, and if those new roles are considered as part of "administration" I don't think the comparison tells you much about the effects of computers. Are we counting things like counseling, career planning, financial aid, health (including mental health), immigration services, legal and compliance work, everything related to sports and athletics, etc.?

gred 5y ago

> Productivity, especially in relevant areas like administration, stagnated despite computers hitting every desk. I don't know if this has been quantified, but to some extent the extra capability is simply repurposed to more detailed administration. Things that were not possible become possible. Things that we did not have time for, we suddenly have time to do. Per Parkinson, "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". An example would be logistics within the US -- at some point, probably after 9/11 or a similar event, it was decided that all packages flying in commercial airlines within the US needed to be vouched for by entities known to the US government, the individual packages tracked at a more detailed level, etc. This would not have been possible without automation throughout the industry, and definitely "soaked up" some of the productivity benefits of this automation. I'm sure there are endless other examples.

masklinn 5y ago
That also happens in e.g. manufacturing. I was talking to an uncle who worked in aluminium manufacturing, he was explaining that as computers developed they could convert waste to very precisely understood ingots (in terms of composition), then when an order arrives the manufacturing program would know exactly what ingots should be picked to fulfil the order with as little pure metal (both aluminium and solutes) as possible, as that’s where the plant’s margin was. Iirc he told me they were above 99% (so only needed pure aluminium straight out of a smelter for less than 1% of their production).

cxr 5y ago

> A factory's productivity, which has legible inputs and outputs is really different to something which doesn't. I've worked in the semiconductor industry, and the situation is just as bad over there, if not worse. To the common capitalist's credit, this absolutely has to do with lack of competition (not necessarily due to regulation, but because the cost of the ticket to get in—capital to build and operate a fab—is so high). Under something more Taylor-esque, 2x productivity is on the low end of what I'd expect a contender to be able to operate at, relative to the clip that the small pool of incumbents move at. The main sources of inefficiency based on what I observed 2014–2020 are either people problems or process problems that call for technical solution that doesn't look anything like materials science, chemistry, physics, etc. (Elite overproduction ⨯ poorly trained/selected workforce + terrible, absolutely godawful software supporting the whole operation; bullshit jobs abound.)

ThrustVectoring 5y ago

IMO the biggest "improvement" that this sort of clerical "productivity" generates is that the same workforce can keep up with inflicting even more inane bureaucratic demands on the people forced to interact with it.