Fun with Computing: Think efficiency has run amok? Check out David Pogue's "Circuits" column in Thursday's New York Times for a humorous take on "time saving devices." Mr. Gadget himself, Pogue lays it on the line with a light hand. "Spending time to save time" leaves David with no time at all.
His story reminds me of the state government who hired an efficiency expert back in the early seventies. The expert focussed on one department's motor pool. The department allowed the employees to drive their vehicles home as well as on the job.
The efficiency expert said that was highly inefficient. The department should have the employees driving their personal cars into the main office and signing the vehicles out. By driving the vehicles (cars and light trucks) home, the employees were adding extra miles and probably misusing the vehicles in some manner, at least that had occurred in other departments.
So the department set up a special parking lot to park all the vehicles in. This required some serious construction work, although no new real estate was required. They did need to pave over a considerable area of the property that they owned, paint parking spaces, and buy parking curbs.
Then they needed to hire someone to be incharge of the motor pool and that person needed a secretary. Both people needed offices, desk space, filing cabinets, telephones and so forth.
Now keep in mind that the new parking facilities needed to house both the state's vehicles that had previously not been parked on the property and the employee's personal vehicles because they now had to drive them onto the property and park them in order to drive the state vehicles in order to perform their jobs.
By the time the efficiency expert's plan was in place, the cost to the state per state vehicle came close to doubling. And the employees' job satisfaction had fallen through the basement floor.
Not suprisingly, one minor department head, an engineer, did a cost analysis prior to all of this being done and presented it to his superiors, who simply ignored him. They proceeded with the changes that the efficiency expert advised them to follow. A year after this was all done, they fired the efficiency expert. But the damage was done.
I grew up being taught the following by my father and grandfather: "Never trust a man further than you can throw him." That may sound like school yard philosophy, but I've found that it's more often true than not. How far do you think we can throw the government? Any government?
My seventh grade history teacher explained to me that's why we have a government made up of checks and balances. You just can't trust anyone in power. You've got to give someone power to get anything done, but don't turn your back on them.
As my grandpappy said, "Never trust anything you hear and only half of what you see."
His story reminds me of the state government who hired an efficiency expert back in the early seventies. The expert focussed on one department's motor pool. The department allowed the employees to drive their vehicles home as well as on the job.
The efficiency expert said that was highly inefficient. The department should have the employees driving their personal cars into the main office and signing the vehicles out. By driving the vehicles (cars and light trucks) home, the employees were adding extra miles and probably misusing the vehicles in some manner, at least that had occurred in other departments.
So the department set up a special parking lot to park all the vehicles in. This required some serious construction work, although no new real estate was required. They did need to pave over a considerable area of the property that they owned, paint parking spaces, and buy parking curbs.
Then they needed to hire someone to be incharge of the motor pool and that person needed a secretary. Both people needed offices, desk space, filing cabinets, telephones and so forth.
Now keep in mind that the new parking facilities needed to house both the state's vehicles that had previously not been parked on the property and the employee's personal vehicles because they now had to drive them onto the property and park them in order to drive the state vehicles in order to perform their jobs.
By the time the efficiency expert's plan was in place, the cost to the state per state vehicle came close to doubling. And the employees' job satisfaction had fallen through the basement floor.
Not suprisingly, one minor department head, an engineer, did a cost analysis prior to all of this being done and presented it to his superiors, who simply ignored him. They proceeded with the changes that the efficiency expert advised them to follow. A year after this was all done, they fired the efficiency expert. But the damage was done.
I grew up being taught the following by my father and grandfather: "Never trust a man further than you can throw him." That may sound like school yard philosophy, but I've found that it's more often true than not. How far do you think we can throw the government? Any government?
My seventh grade history teacher explained to me that's why we have a government made up of checks and balances. You just can't trust anyone in power. You've got to give someone power to get anything done, but don't turn your back on them.
As my grandpappy said, "Never trust anything you hear and only half of what you see."
posted by Jim | 12:12 PM
1 Comments:
The first lesson I learned about computers—from a computer expert—was that more paper NOT less would result from the use of computers. That's turned out to be true, and a great boon for the paper manufacturing industry.
Efficiency occurs when you don't do something that you are told needs to be done and then it turns out that it didn't need to be done anyway. Of course that's the excuse of the lazy and, in my gradpappy's terms, "shiftless." So good judgement is necessary. Large organizations are known to be severely lacking in the latter.
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