Depressing that some people do this stuff and think they're good workers / managers.
Stuff has unintended weird incentives, and that can quickly lead to destructive working practices.
One quick example: Factory workers have to clock in. You want people to be on time (8.00 am), so you say that if they clock in after 08:04 they lose 15 minutes wage.
But what (obviously happens) is the people who arrive at 08:04 don't start work until 08:15 (which is, after all, when they're getting paid from). But the people coming in on time mill around a bit before they start work - they clock in at 07:55 and get to the bench at 08:01; or the clock in at 08:00 and get to the bench at 08:03. So there's a bunch of people milling around, not starting work and distracting other workers and etc etc, just because someone invented a broken disincentive late arrivals instead of just being a better manager and telling people to get to work.
I have countless examples of inadvertent and deliberate sabotage in factory work. (One more quick example. A guy turns up for interview. He has a friend with him. The friend waits in reception, falls asleep; he's really scruffy. The interviewee smells of alcohol. His hobby on his CV is "Enjoying Homebrew". Employing that one semi-functional alcoholic destroyed hundreds of person-hours of work, because people were less restrained when they went to the pub at lunch time. (Also, some other alcoholics stopped being sober.))
>just because someone invented a broken disincentive late arrivals instead of just being a better manager and telling people to get to work.
Or even better: realize that work getting done is what counts, not the exact time your butt hits your seat.
> Employing that one semi-functional alcoholic destroyed hundreds of person-hours of work, because people were less restrained when they went to the pub at lunch time.
What are you saying here? That hundreds of man hours were destroyed because people became a little more laid back? Do you have any evidence to back up that this is really what happened?
Or do you mean people came in totally trashed and actually destroyed equipment? If that's the case I'd blame the manager(s) for letting that happen more than once.
I was wondering what kind of place this was that allowed workers to get drunk at lunch. However now that I realize it is in the UK, it makes a bit more sense.
I was talking to my boss once, he worked in London for a while. He once said that the biggest difference between American workers, and English workers is attitude towards alcohol.
Having worked many years in both the UK and the USA I'd say your boss doesn't know what they are talking about. The differences are much more than that, more subtle, more culturally nuanced. In the UK, just as in the US, the idea of several pints of beer at lunchtime is an out dated concept.
I don't care about this one. Butt-in-seat time is an outdated measurement.
2-6) Pretty easy to deal with this: your workers are behaving irresponsibly by coming in drunk and making mistakes. So you terminate them and get people who can deal with alcohol responsibly (I don't mean you can't have a drink at lunch, just be professional and don't get drunk when you're supposed to be working).
> but the UK has a poor reputation for the quality of middle management in industry.
If you find a place that has good middle management let me know and I'll have a look! :)
> realize that work getting done is what counts, not the exact time your butt hits your seat.
In factory work, being on time matters. Because you're taking a widget from the person to your left, adding value by performing some operation on it, and passing it to the person on your right. If you're not there, and there isn't someone who can fill-in, then the assembly line stops and the firm ships no widgets.
Fair enough, but honestly I think this kind of boring work is on its way out. For now it's shipped to developing countries, but eventually I think this will be 100% robot work. So maybe not completely obsolete globally, but on its way and certainly obsolete for the jobs that most HNers think about.
"Consider a dental patient (the principal) wondering whether his dentist (the agent) is recommending expensive treatment because it is truly necessary for the patient's dental health, or because it will generate income for the dentist. The two parties have different interests and asymmetric information (the agent having more information), such that the principal cannot directly ensure that the agents are always acting in its (the principals') best interests."
Stuff has unintended weird incentives, and that can quickly lead to destructive working practices.
One quick example: Factory workers have to clock in. You want people to be on time (8.00 am), so you say that if they clock in after 08:04 they lose 15 minutes wage.
But what (obviously happens) is the people who arrive at 08:04 don't start work until 08:15 (which is, after all, when they're getting paid from). But the people coming in on time mill around a bit before they start work - they clock in at 07:55 and get to the bench at 08:01; or the clock in at 08:00 and get to the bench at 08:03. So there's a bunch of people milling around, not starting work and distracting other workers and etc etc, just because someone invented a broken disincentive late arrivals instead of just being a better manager and telling people to get to work.
I have countless examples of inadvertent and deliberate sabotage in factory work. (One more quick example. A guy turns up for interview. He has a friend with him. The friend waits in reception, falls asleep; he's really scruffy. The interviewee smells of alcohol. His hobby on his CV is "Enjoying Homebrew". Employing that one semi-functional alcoholic destroyed hundreds of person-hours of work, because people were less restrained when they went to the pub at lunch time. (Also, some other alcoholics stopped being sober.))
I should start a blog, I guess.