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>Yes, I, as an employer, keep my staff doing "bullshit jobs" because I want to "keep control over the lives of others." WTF?!?! Why would I do that? One reason

>Yes, I, as an employer, keep my staff doing "bullshit jobs" because I want to "keep control over the lives of others." WTF?!?! Why would I do that? One reason bullshit jobs exist is because decisions are made by managers, not some ultimate rational owner who thinks only of profit. In many big companies a manager's status is based on the number of people they manage, if they invent more jobs for people they are more important and get promoted. The same problem exists with corporate budgets, the more money a manager spends/controls the more status that manager has, the faster they move up the ladder, thus managers are incentivized to get as much of the budget as possible and to claim that all the projects and things they purchased helped the company. This prevents the company from even understanding the level of waste which is occurring. Same thing happens in governments or any hierarchical organisation above a particular size. It is an extension of Celine's second law[0]. For a deeper and much more cynical view of corporate dysfunction read the Gervais principal[1]. >Marx would love it - it puts the means of production in the hands of the common man. Not sure Marx would love it as it could individualize production and thereby reduce the mechanization and discipline of the proletariat which he felt was necessary for the class to act effectively. I think Proudhon would love it as he was more in favor of individual freedom. You might be interested to know that Mao tried a maker revolution[2]. It was a complete disaster because it was poorly planned and executed, but shows that Mao was at least open to ideas of radical decentralization. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws#Celine.27s_Second_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celine%27s_laws#Celine.27s_Seco... [1]: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_furnace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_furnace

ScottBurson 12y ago
Somewhere, in the last few months -- alas, I don't recall where -- I read about a company that rates its managers on how much their teams accomplish, divided by the size of the team. They claimed, plausibly I think, that this system effectively discouraged such fiefdom-building.
- EthanHeilman 12y ago
  That is an excellent idea, if you find the article send it my way.
- yourapostasy 12y ago
  That's an awful recipe for overworked employees within a short time, unless the formula was only one small part of how managers were ranked. Anonymous management satisfaction surveys getting factored in would be a good start. I've always wondered if a very broad range of metrics gathered at all times, and a constantly changing formula picked at the last moment, coupled with an explicitly-written policy that if everyone hit the selected high mark then everyone would get rewarded Lake Woebegone-like, would avoid people working towards the formulae.
- dennisgorelik 12y ago
  More practical approach would be to simply calculate how profitable team is. If adding new employee costs less than the overhead, then it could make sense for manager to do that.
  - bboreham 12y ago
    How does that work out for the person in charge of repelling cyber attacks? Not much profit in that.
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
Not to be pedantic but the wholesale culling of available iron during the great leap forward was not at all similar to the maker revolution. The goal was to pull resources (iron) from the population to be centralized for re-distribution so that the iron could be turned into communal tools like plows and railroad ties. Arguably the inverse of a maker revolution.

ScottBurson 12y ago

Somewhere, in the last few months -- alas, I don't recall where -- I read about a company that rates its managers on how much their teams accomplish, divided by the size of the team. They claimed, plausibly I think, that this system effectively discouraged such fiefdom-building.

EthanHeilman 12y ago
That is an excellent idea, if you find the article send it my way.
yourapostasy 12y ago
That's an awful recipe for overworked employees within a short time, unless the formula was only one small part of how managers were ranked. Anonymous management satisfaction surveys getting factored in would be a good start. I've always wondered if a very broad range of metrics gathered at all times, and a constantly changing formula picked at the last moment, coupled with an explicitly-written policy that if everyone hit the selected high mark then everyone would get rewarded Lake Woebegone-like, would avoid people working towards the formulae.
dennisgorelik 12y ago
More practical approach would be to simply calculate how profitable team is. If adding new employee costs less than the overhead, then it could make sense for manager to do that.
- bboreham 12y ago
  How does that work out for the person in charge of repelling cyber attacks? Not much profit in that.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

Not to be pedantic but the wholesale culling of available iron during the great leap forward was not at all similar to the maker revolution. The goal was to pull resources (iron) from the population to be centralized for re-distribution so that the iron could be turned into communal tools like plows and railroad ties. Arguably the inverse of a maker revolution.