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7月14日 Mid-summerJust a quick personal update after a huge non-personal update and months of nothing... After almost 2 months of unemployment, I am now working for "the Man" at Patrimoine Canadian Heritage. I'm moving files and stuff. It's kinda fun, I guess and I get valuable government work experience and stuff, not to mention: loads of cash! In September, I'm going to Montreal to study Economix at Concordia. I'm really looking forward to that. It looks like I might not get all that money from the government, though, on the account of I've only got a 3-year Bachelor's degree from Ontariario. But hopefully, I can get into co-op and I can work part-time and get a bank loan. Also, my program might take 3-years, after all, instead of two, but there would be an eight month gap, two light 12-credit terms and one Part-time term. I'm going to try to find a way of doing my MBA in Québec too, like at Concordia, or in Newfoundland. If I do it in Québec, though, I would be entitled to loads of money from the government. I am liking the summer, although, it's a little cloudier and rainier than I was hoping. I had a gf, briefly, but I found we didn't have much in common, and I just wasn't into the things she was into and I was just not that into her, so I broke up with her. I'm more confident about getting chix though. It might take time, but I've got time! Anyway, I'm prolly not going to write in this blog as often as I was hoping because each time I write a major entry, I take it sooo seriously and write sooo much. Like my last entry was over 2000 words, which is more than I usually write for school. Well, Keep trucking, y'all! ~ Jonas "THE STEAMROLLER" Graham, B.A. The Cynical Ethic and the End of CivilizationIn the early 20th century, a Sociologist named Max Weber wrote a book called "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" where he explores the influence of religion on productivity and economic success. Calvinists, who believe in pre-destination, saw financial success as a sign of being of God's elect, and so, people wanting to be of God's elect work hard so that they do well. Plus, they saw laziness as an affront to God. Using one's wealth to buy luxuries was frowned and so was giving to charity so the natural use for all this hard-earned money was investments. This hard work and sacrifice did much to fuel capitalism in many Calvinist countries and thus allowed them to be more economically successful than other countries, like Ireland, for instance. Today, I think that, as a society, we deal with a mass of cynics whose lack of work ethic leads to seriously low productivity. It seems that in a lot of my jobs, I have a lot of co-workers who are just so darn lazy. Then, they tell me off for working too hard and making them look bad. It seems that, rather than giving it 110%, their attitude towards work is just to get away with as little as possible. It's a race to the bottom. Part of the problem is that many people do not believe in God anymore so he does not notice when they slack off. So, as long as their employers don't notice/care, they can get away with being as lazy as they want. This lazy attitude is nothing new. In fact, Friedrich Taylor, theorized that most employees hated work and didn't really care to work hard. They just wanted what Sprint Canada used to promise: "The most for the least". He witnessed miners taking every opportunity that they could to slack off. They were paid by the hour and once the mine ran out of resources, they were out of a job, so, for an hourly-wage worker, there was a strong incentive towards low productivity. Thus, they tried to accomplish as little as possible, per hour so they could get the most hours possible and make more money. Well, could you blame them? Taylor called this phenomena "soldiering". The solution, according to Taylor, was close supervision, coercion a piece-work system, where workers were paid per unit of work accomplished rather than per hour. There was also a quota system which encouraged employees to exceed specific production targets set by management, by paying them more per unit, for every unit, once they exceeded the quota. For example, if Jack produced up to the quota of 100 Widgets per day, he might make 5 Pesos per widget for a total of 500 Pesos per day, but if he gave it 110% and made 110 Widgets, he might get 6 Pesos per Widget, for a total of 660 Pesos per day. (Not bad!) This seemed to work well and inspired a lot of thinking about Human Resources for the early part of the century. So what happened? The Hawthorne experiments. In the 20s, researchers studied the effects of varying the intensity of lighting on productivity at a certain factory. They tried increasing and decreasing the lighting but they found that whether they turned up the lights or dimmed them, the productivity would increase anyway, because the employees would feel they were part of something. Although, perhaps it was just because they knew they were being watched. This lead to a whole revolution in terms of thinking about motivation. Employers now tried to pay more attention to employees and made them feel like they were part of something. They now began to think that employees cared about the organization and did like work, sort of. This resulted in a less emphasis on a piece-rate pay structure and more emphasis on other forms of motivation which involved more attention being paid to the worker. Yet, through my experiences, I am finding more and more that perhaps Taylor was right. Often, I find that my co-workers do not like their jobs, they try to get away with doing as little as possible in order to make a task drag on. In my work, there is a finite amount tasks and once they are done, we might have no more work to do and so we will no longer be necessary so yea, I suppose that does provide an incentive towards soldiering. However, maybe I'm just young and naïve but somehow, I believe that my hard work would pay off somehow because, eventually, I would get recognized for it and that would help me land another job. Yet my co-workers seem so cynical. It's almost as if they believe that productivity doesn't even matter. The fact is: not all workers enjoy their jobs. So they try to get away with actually doing their job as little as possible. It makes sense. Not all jobs are all that enjoyable. So, you've got to look for ways of getting workers to do more of this lousy work. Perhaps if at least part of their pay was based on productivity, they might want to get more done so they can make more money. Also, use the new approach as well. Pay attention to the worker. Recognize when they do a good job and record it so that when management is looking to fill a higher position, that employees accomplishments will stand out and they might have a greater opportunity of getting a promotion. I think part of the problem is that many employers saw the Hawthorne experiments as an excuse to not reward the employees for high productivity. Alas, this is not the case. Although the experiments found that employees are motivated by attention being paid to them and feeling like they're part of something, they still would enjoy a little more money when they do a good job. Also, you must not forget to actually pay attention to employees and make them feel like their part of something, otherwise this is just not going to work! Also, Marx was right! Workers are alienated from their own labour-power. People often do not see how their task matters in the grand scheme of things so this is actually quite discouraging. Even when you have some idea of what your doing and how it helps, having more information would allow you to take more pride in your work. For example, I am currently working for Canadian Heritage and I realize how my task is saving the department money and thus benefiting the department but I don't really quite understand what the department does and how it benefits Canadians. If I did, I would be certainly more motivated. That is, if I liked what they were doing. i.e. If I found out that certain tools that I made were mainly used for abortions, I would certainly take less pride in my work and probably quit. Also, sometimes at a job, you have to impose silly rules required by other departments. It would be nice to see those other departments in order to realize why they have those rules. Task rotation is another good idea because, by letting employees try other tasks, they would be able to see more of the picture and realize how everything comes together to make the finished product. Mainly, though, I think that the problem is that workers do not see how their job really matters in their life, especially when they're not really doing their "dream job". Employers should interview employees to find out what they want out of life and how they think this job will help them achieve it. For example, I hope to eventually get an MBA and move out of Canada. I'm hoping I can work hard and get a good reference out of my job, which will allow me to eventually get a better job that's more relevant for business school which would give me a good reference. This interview could be part of the job interview at the selection stage where it could help employers select the ambitious people. (Ambitious people probably work harder.) However, candidates may not be completely candid as they might be afraid that revealing how they think their job will help their long term plans may hinder their ability to get the job, in the first place. However they could just ask them about their long-term plans in order to find the most ambitious people then after they start working, they could have a discussion about how the employee hopes the job will work into their long-term plans and also how the employer thinks the employee helps with their plans, in order that they might feel like part of something. The key is to have open dialogue. Employees should be able to talk with their employers about equipment or information they might need to do their job properly. They should be able to request training or guidance when they need it and suggests improvements that management can make to improve safety, efficiency or quality. They should also be able to discuss advancement opportunities withing the company and their work goals. Employers should discuss their productivity expectations with employees, as well as their constraints (i.e. corporate financial difficulties requiring cut-backs), suggestions for improving performance, etc. The idea is that employees and employers should be more open with each other. That way, they would be able to understand each other better and be able to co-operate more in achieving each-other's goals. Now, I understand that some jobs, especially in retail, emphasize "looking busy" but this is actually counter-productive: i.e. employees cleaning the same counter over and over again, or moving something back and forth between one place and another. So, companies should emphasize actual productivity. They should clearly identify what actually needs to be done and when they assign a task, they should set a goal for when they expect the work to be done. This goal should not be absolute, as in, if it is not done by that time, the employee is fired. But, they check in on the worker's progress from time to time and if they are going ahead of schedule, congratulate them and make note of it and perhaps reward them and if they are running behind schedule, ask them why and try to figure out how to improve productivity. When an employer finds an employee doing nothing, instead of immediately reacting with anger, they should enquire about how their task progress is coming along and only reprimand employees if it is unsatisfactory. It may even be possible that the employee is already done and they're just waiting for the employer to assign another task. There is no need for them to do unnecessary tasks just to "look busy". But, the bottom line is most of the above is BS and lazy employees are just... lazy. The only real way to deal with it is to keep a close eye on them and punish them by giving them less money or firing them. What has this got to do with the end of civilization? A great civilization would get as much productivity out of people as possible. But, then again, maybe I'm a "fascist" for thinking that. I just think that when you're paid to work you should work. If you don't want to work then don't. But our system is too inflexible for that. If our pay was more related to our job, then things would be a lot easier. If you don't want to work a 40 hour week, then you wouldn't have to. Just do enough work fast and then be done in, like, 3 days and stay home the other four days per week. Or, if you want to make more money and you don't mind working 50 hours per week, you could go ahead and take on more tasks and make tonnes of money. People also want steady incomes though, so, that should be a possibility. Perhaps, the ideal is a job that combined a small steady income with more income depending on how much work they actually do. But to pay people for work that they're not actually doing will hinder us in the long run, especially in the face of an increasingly competitive global marketplace. The more time we waste, the more things cost and the less gets done. If we keep going along that path, everything will cost too much and nothing will get done. Wouldn't you rather live in a world where things actually got done, products were more available and cheaper? Well, keep trucking, y'all! ~ Jonas "THE STEAMROLLER" Graham, B.A. |
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