4 ms·

I have an unproven theory that the need for more workers stems from administrative bloat. There's not enough people doing actual work in companies anymore, eve

I have an unproven theory that the need for more workers stems from administrative bloat. There's not enough people doing actual work in companies anymore, everyone is a thinker/staff culture change agent/product|project manager/architect/"thought leader"/"I don't touch production, I'm researching new technology". This causes the people actually doing work to search for these positions because they're gravy compared to dealing with the schizophrenic requests of the admins, and the cycle continues.

hotpotamus 5y ago
You and David Graeber both. His book about it is "Bullshit Jobs". Certainly seems like a valid theory to me.
willcipriano 5y ago
My experience in firms is that managers tend to create more managers and large firms buy up all the successful little ones. This leads me to believe that the final form of the economy will be a single worker surrounded by a few hundred million managers, who themselves have a series of managers. So on and so forth.
- mjklin 5y ago
  The Onion once ran a headline: “All Corporations Merge Into OmniCorp”
  - vsareto 5y ago
    "Human species becomes oligarchic mega corporation on financial bet that undiscovered aliens also love capitalism" and other Stellaris playthroughs
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling must've been a best-seller in the future history of that play through timeline.
- boppo1 5y ago
  See my recent post history about low interest rates and price discovery. It seems like we're in a command economy that optimizes for employment more than meaningful work. This 'administrative expansion' is part of what I was talking about. Caveat: I have only barely studied economics.
- Clubber 5y ago
  I was once in a meeting with 3 developers (me being the lead) and 12 managers and discussing how we were going to implement something we already implemented. It lasted 2 hours. In this same company, I had a meeting to discuss what we were going to discuss in another meeting of the same people. This was a company born of a merger of 5 different companies.
- chii 5y ago
  > a single worker surrounded by a few hundred million managers and this worker could then demand a very high pay. I mean, this has already happened - think celebrities and/or famous stars.
pphysch 5y ago
The Peter Principle: "Every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence" In fact it's a consequence of individual interests trumping any collective/company interests. Selfishness trumping loyalty. Hey, it's the American way. A clearer and less snappy interpretation: "In companies/cultures with low cohesion, employees will tend to maximize their personal compensation at the expense of all other factors, including the aggregate performance of the company"
- robocat 5y ago
  > Every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence In software development, you are expected to learn, to become competent. For example hires direct from university are usually incompetent at the time of their first employment. The most successful people I know are always at the edge of their competence or beyond the edge, but their competence envelope increases over time.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    There are definitely examples of innovation/mission-driven companies in any industry, but the entrenched, conservative ones (IBM, Oracle, Adobe?, etc) have a lot of Peter Principle going on. I have personal anecdotes about that. MBA- vs. Product-led orgs, <insert Steve Jobs quote>, and all that.
jackcosgrove 5y ago
I also have an unproven theory that part of the productivity stagnation we've seen since 1973 is due to a spread of low/no-impact administrative jobs. In other words, productivity stagnated not because output stagnated, but because we're working too many hours.
- Clubber 5y ago
  You mean wage stagnation? Productivity has shot through the roof since 1973. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

hotpotamus 5y ago

You and David Graeber both. His book about it is "Bullshit Jobs". Certainly seems like a valid theory to me.

willcipriano 5y ago

My experience in firms is that managers tend to create more managers and large firms buy up all the successful little ones. This leads me to believe that the final form of the economy will be a single worker surrounded by a few hundred million managers, who themselves have a series of managers. So on and so forth.

mjklin 5y ago
The Onion once ran a headline: “All Corporations Merge Into OmniCorp”
- vsareto 5y ago
  "Human species becomes oligarchic mega corporation on financial bet that undiscovered aliens also love capitalism" and other Stellaris playthroughs
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling must've been a best-seller in the future history of that play through timeline.
boppo1 5y ago
See my recent post history about low interest rates and price discovery. It seems like we're in a command economy that optimizes for employment more than meaningful work. This 'administrative expansion' is part of what I was talking about. Caveat: I have only barely studied economics.
Clubber 5y ago
I was once in a meeting with 3 developers (me being the lead) and 12 managers and discussing how we were going to implement something we already implemented. It lasted 2 hours. In this same company, I had a meeting to discuss what we were going to discuss in another meeting of the same people. This was a company born of a merger of 5 different companies.
chii 5y ago
> a single worker surrounded by a few hundred million managers and this worker could then demand a very high pay. I mean, this has already happened - think celebrities and/or famous stars.

pphysch 5y ago

The Peter Principle: "Every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence" In fact it's a consequence of individual interests trumping any collective/company interests. Selfishness trumping loyalty. Hey, it's the American way. A clearer and less snappy interpretation: "In companies/cultures with low cohesion, employees will tend to maximize their personal compensation at the expense of all other factors, including the aggregate performance of the company"

robocat 5y ago
> Every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence In software development, you are expected to learn, to become competent. For example hires direct from university are usually incompetent at the time of their first employment. The most successful people I know are always at the edge of their competence or beyond the edge, but their competence envelope increases over time.
- pphysch 5y ago
  There are definitely examples of innovation/mission-driven companies in any industry, but the entrenched, conservative ones (IBM, Oracle, Adobe?, etc) have a lot of Peter Principle going on. I have personal anecdotes about that. MBA- vs. Product-led orgs, <insert Steve Jobs quote>, and all that.

jackcosgrove 5y ago

I also have an unproven theory that part of the productivity stagnation we've seen since 1973 is due to a spread of low/no-impact administrative jobs. In other words, productivity stagnated not because output stagnated, but because we're working too many hours.

Clubber 5y ago
You mean wage stagnation? Productivity has shot through the roof since 1973. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/