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Thank you, you've stated this all very clearly. I've been thinking about this in terms of "doing work", where you care about the results, and "performing work"

Thank you, you've stated this all very clearly. I've been thinking about this in terms of "doing work", where you care about the results, and "performing work", where you care about how you are evaluated. I know someone who works in a lab, and pointed out that some of the equipment being used was out of spec and under-serviced to the point that it was essentially a random number generator. Caring about this is "doing work". However, pointing it out made that person the enemy of the greater cohort that was "performing work". The results were not important to them, their metrics about units of work completed was. I see this pattern frequently. And it's hard to say those "performing work" are wrong. "Performing" is rewarded, "doing" is punished - Perhaps right to the top, as many companies are involved in a public performance designed to affect the short-term stock price.

rjbwork 2y ago
Yeah. It's like our entire society has been turned into a Goodhart's Law based simulacrum of a productive society. I mean, here it's late morning and I'm commenting on hacker news. And getting paid for it.
- fsndz 2y ago
  crazy that this is true and GDP just keeps increasing anyway
  - hyperadvanced 2y ago
    Of course GDP increases when the money supply does. It’s like people being incensed at “record corporate profits” amidst inflation - profits will always be record (give or take) because remaining the same is losing money relative to the free money being minted each day, etc. For whatever reason, people naively buy into GDP as a valuable metric, even knowing well that there would be something extremely mysterious going on if that number somehow shrank while the real value of the medium exchange also shrank
    - fsndz 2y ago
      this is not how GDP works
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      Since when did increasing money supply increase GDP? Why didn't that work for Zimbabwe?
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  Workers are many times more efficient than they were in the 50s or 70s or 80s or 90s. Where are our extra vacation days? Why does the worker have to make up for the efficiency with more work while other people take the gains? Do you seriously think that the purpose of life is to work all the time most efficiently? Enjoy your lazy job and bask in the ability for human society to be productive without everyone breaking their backs all the time.
  - DowagerDave 2y ago
    focusing on efficiency is very depressing. Machines seek efficiency. Process can be efficient. Assembly lines are efficient. It's all about optimization and quickly focuses on trimming "waste" and packing as much as possible into the smallest space. It removes all that's amazing about human life. I much prefer a focus on effectiveness (or impact or outcomes, or alternatives). It plays to human strengths, is far less prescriptive and is way more fun! Some of the most effective actions are incredibly inefficient; sometimes inefficiency is a feature. I received a letter mail thank-you card from our CEO a few years ago. The card has an approx. value of zero dollars, but I know it took the CEO 5-10 mins to write a personal note and sign it, and that she did this dozens of times. The signal here is incredibly valuable! If she used a signing machine, or AI to record a deep fake message I would know or quickly learn, and the value would go negative - all for the sake of efficiency.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    I think this is a big part of it. Workers would feel a lot more motivated to do more than just perform if they were given what they know they’re owed for their contribution.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago
    Europe stole them.
    - Arubis 2y ago
      Faced with increasing efficiency, Europe by and large appears to have chosen to work less and let expensive things remain expensive. The US, by contrast, now has ridiculously cheap consumer goods, and works all the time.
trilobyte 2y ago
This is a pretty clear summary of a real problem in most work environments. I have some thoughts about why, but I'm holding onto your articulation to ruminate on in the future.
fsndz 2y ago
"Doing work" vs. "performing work": the epitome of this is consulting. Companies pay huge sums of money to consultants that often spend most of their time "performing work", doing beautiful slides even if the content and reasoning is superficial or even dubious, creating reports that are just marketing bullshit, framing the current mission in a way that makes it possible to capture additional projects and bill the client even more. Almost everything is bullshit.
- Arubis 2y ago
  For better or for worse, you’ve described the exact output some of those client companies want, so they can show off the shiny slides and have the status symbol of expensive consultants.
namaria 2y ago
The slippage between work and meaning is due to the arrival of post scarcity. There isn't enough meaningful work to go around because work is still predicated on delivering some useful transformation. But when 80% of the useful transformations can be done by 20% of the people and we have enough to keep civilization going, you don't need full employment any more. But due to the moral hazard doctrine, the elites want to retain control and discipline as is. For being afraid of a world where people don't care about maintaining the system anymore because it's not needed to house and feed everyone and people can just do art or learn or rest, the system keeps inventing meaningless work. We're shipping fruit half way across the world to be packaged and then halfway back to be consumed. None of this is efficient or necessary. But it keeps the control system intact and that's the goal.

rjbwork 2y ago

Yeah. It's like our entire society has been turned into a Goodhart's Law based simulacrum of a productive society. I mean, here it's late morning and I'm commenting on hacker news. And getting paid for it.

fsndz 2y ago
crazy that this is true and GDP just keeps increasing anyway
- hyperadvanced 2y ago
  Of course GDP increases when the money supply does. It’s like people being incensed at “record corporate profits” amidst inflation - profits will always be record (give or take) because remaining the same is losing money relative to the free money being minted each day, etc. For whatever reason, people naively buy into GDP as a valuable metric, even knowing well that there would be something extremely mysterious going on if that number somehow shrank while the real value of the medium exchange also shrank
  - fsndz 2y ago
    this is not how GDP works
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    Since when did increasing money supply increase GDP? Why didn't that work for Zimbabwe?
Eisenstein 2y ago
Workers are many times more efficient than they were in the 50s or 70s or 80s or 90s. Where are our extra vacation days? Why does the worker have to make up for the efficiency with more work while other people take the gains? Do you seriously think that the purpose of life is to work all the time most efficiently? Enjoy your lazy job and bask in the ability for human society to be productive without everyone breaking their backs all the time.
- DowagerDave 2y ago
  focusing on efficiency is very depressing. Machines seek efficiency. Process can be efficient. Assembly lines are efficient. It's all about optimization and quickly focuses on trimming "waste" and packing as much as possible into the smallest space. It removes all that's amazing about human life. I much prefer a focus on effectiveness (or impact or outcomes, or alternatives). It plays to human strengths, is far less prescriptive and is way more fun! Some of the most effective actions are incredibly inefficient; sometimes inefficiency is a feature. I received a letter mail thank-you card from our CEO a few years ago. The card has an approx. value of zero dollars, but I know it took the CEO 5-10 mins to write a personal note and sign it, and that she did this dozens of times. The signal here is incredibly valuable! If she used a signing machine, or AI to record a deep fake message I would know or quickly learn, and the value would go negative - all for the sake of efficiency.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  I think this is a big part of it. Workers would feel a lot more motivated to do more than just perform if they were given what they know they’re owed for their contribution.
- Hikikomori 2y ago
  Europe stole them.
  - Arubis 2y ago
    Faced with increasing efficiency, Europe by and large appears to have chosen to work less and let expensive things remain expensive. The US, by contrast, now has ridiculously cheap consumer goods, and works all the time.

trilobyte 2y ago

This is a pretty clear summary of a real problem in most work environments. I have some thoughts about why, but I'm holding onto your articulation to ruminate on in the future.

fsndz 2y ago

"Doing work" vs. "performing work": the epitome of this is consulting. Companies pay huge sums of money to consultants that often spend most of their time "performing work", doing beautiful slides even if the content and reasoning is superficial or even dubious, creating reports that are just marketing bullshit, framing the current mission in a way that makes it possible to capture additional projects and bill the client even more. Almost everything is bullshit.

Arubis 2y ago
For better or for worse, you’ve described the exact output some of those client companies want, so they can show off the shiny slides and have the status symbol of expensive consultants.

namaria 2y ago

The slippage between work and meaning is due to the arrival of post scarcity. There isn't enough meaningful work to go around because work is still predicated on delivering some useful transformation. But when 80% of the useful transformations can be done by 20% of the people and we have enough to keep civilization going, you don't need full employment any more. But due to the moral hazard doctrine, the elites want to retain control and discipline as is. For being afraid of a world where people don't care about maintaining the system anymore because it's not needed to house and feed everyone and people can just do art or learn or rest, the system keeps inventing meaningless work. We're shipping fruit half way across the world to be packaged and then halfway back to be consumed. None of this is efficient or necessary. But it keeps the control system intact and that's the goal.