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Productivity as theatre is big business for productivity gurus. There’s entire YouTube channels and subreddits where folks compete with one another to be as “op

Productivity as theatre is big business for productivity gurus. There’s entire YouTube channels and subreddits where folks compete with one another to be as “optimised” as possible.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
My point exactly. I can say that having something nice and expensive makes me "feel more productive", but if the party paying me for my effort and for my expensive gear would ask to see any measurable proof of that improvement to see what the ROI of that purchase was, then I'd be lost for words and blabber on how "in knowledge work you can't actually measure productivity", but then that party could say "well if you can't measure productivity how can you justify us buying it for you?" Then the argument becomes that maybe I'm actually not in any measurable way more productive in practice, but I feel better doing the work there, while having that fancy gear that I want and like. Which I guess is why many tech companies spoil their workers with all kinds of perks even if they know those perks won't make workers more productive but it convinces them to work and stay there instand of working somewhere else where they get the needless things they want but don't need. Reminds me of that article on HN where the CEO/CFO of a small start-up asked to see the arguments of what improvements and ROI would bring if they all upgraded their M1 and M2 Macs to M3s as some of their employees wanted. And there's a good point to this. It's not being stingy, it's just taking a second to think if you're spending your money where the ROI is, or are you being wasteful always buying the new shiny every year even if you don't need it just to keep some spoiled man children happy or to advertise it on the job ads that your company's so loaded with cash it can afford to give everyone the latest shiny, when I'd rather have more vacation days. My parents used to do the same to young me when I wanted a new PC or upgrade parts. They expected an argumentation of the ROI or academic performance improvements those purchases would bring beyond "my games will run better" lol. You can prove to your boss or bean counter that having faster CPUs will reduce compile times and deliver results faster, but you can't really prove having even more monitors or AVPs, will also achieve similar workforce productivity increases across the board.

Productivity as theatre is big business for productivity gurus. There’s entire YouTube channels and subreddits where folks compete with one another to be as “optimised” as possible.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

My point exactly. I can say that having something nice and expensive makes me "feel more productive", but if the party paying me for my effort and for my expensive gear would ask to see any measurable proof of that improvement to see what the ROI of that purchase was, then I'd be lost for words and blabber on how "in knowledge work you can't actually measure productivity", but then that party could say "well if you can't measure productivity how can you justify us buying it for you?" Then the argument becomes that maybe I'm actually not in any measurable way more productive in practice, but I feel better doing the work there, while having that fancy gear that I want and like. Which I guess is why many tech companies spoil their workers with all kinds of perks even if they know those perks won't make workers more productive but it convinces them to work and stay there instand of working somewhere else where they get the needless things they want but don't need. Reminds me of that article on HN where the CEO/CFO of a small start-up asked to see the arguments of what improvements and ROI would bring if they all upgraded their M1 and M2 Macs to M3s as some of their employees wanted. And there's a good point to this. It's not being stingy, it's just taking a second to think if you're spending your money where the ROI is, or are you being wasteful always buying the new shiny every year even if you don't need it just to keep some spoiled man children happy or to advertise it on the job ads that your company's so loaded with cash it can afford to give everyone the latest shiny, when I'd rather have more vacation days. My parents used to do the same to young me when I wanted a new PC or upgrade parts. They expected an argumentation of the ROI or academic performance improvements those purchases would bring beyond "my games will run better" lol. You can prove to your boss or bean counter that having faster CPUs will reduce compile times and deliver results faster, but you can't really prove having even more monitors or AVPs, will also achieve similar workforce productivity increases across the board.