Inefficiency on purpose

[Wictorian]

Some people were arguing the system contains inefficiencies on purpose. Do you think this is the case?

 

I am confident this won't get political. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 minutes ago, Wictorian said:

Some people were arguing the system contains inefficiencies on purpose. Do you think this is the case?

 

I am confident this won't get political. 

What system are you referring to?

[Needfuldoer]

The system is down, yo.

 

 

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, Wictorian said:

Some people were arguing the system contains inefficiencies on purpose. Do you think this is the case?

 

I am confident this won't get political. 

yes? 
Engineering is always about cost benefits, sometimes inefficiencies have some kind of benefit for people or a part of a system down the pipe.
sometimes its legit, sometimes its malicious.
Who knows unless you are trying to point out a specific system and explore it.

Anything engineered is rarely ever as simple as it appears on its face. There are lots of inputs.
Also increasing efficiency in one way can decrease it in another metric.

Like time v energy
Its time efficient to use 5x the energy to do a task in half the time, but its not energy efficient.

[Wictorian]

The system is the system we live in. Call it capitalism or anything else.

 

One example would be schools. Schools are extremely inefficient. Also most jobs are very inefficient too.

[Middcore]

[YellowJersey]

5 hours ago, Wictorian said:

Some people were arguing the system contains inefficiencies on purpose. Do you think this is the case?

 

I am confident this won't get political. 

This is probably only tangentially related to what you meant, but I thought I'd share it. I have a theory that the modern corporate business monster implicitly encourages mediocrity. The better you are at your job, the more it encourages management dumping more and more work on you as well as doing other peoples' jobs as well, all without extra pay. So this burns people out quickly. Everyone knows this, so since hard work isn't rewarded (after all, the real credit goes to your boss' boss' boss' boss) or recognised, it encourages people to not care and to hover around doing the bare minimum to not get fired. If you care, you'll be ripped to pieces. So it encourages people to not be at all emotionally/personally invested in their work, again encouraging mediocrity.

 I think that hard work only really pays off, potentially, in very small start-up businesses where they need people who work hard and care. However, once a business reaches a certain size or age, the incentives for mediocrity increase.

[Wictorian]

5 hours ago, YellowJersey said:

This is probably only tangentially related to what you meant, but I thought I'd share it. I have a theory that the modern corporate business monster implicitly encourages mediocrity. The better you are at your job, the more it encourages management dumping more and more work on you as well as doing other peoples' jobs as well, all without extra pay. So this burns people out quickly. Everyone knows this, so since hard work isn't rewarded (after all, the real credit goes to your boss' boss' boss' boss) or recognised, it encourages people to not care and to hover around doing the bare minimum to not get fired. If you care, you'll be ripped to pieces. So it encourages people to not be at all emotionally/personally invested in their work, again encouraging mediocrity.

 I think that hard work only really pays off, potentially, in very small start-up businesses where they need people who work hard and care. However, once a business reaches a certain size or age, the incentives for mediocrity increase.

I am not knowledgable enough but I think in many places hardwork is rewarded. 

[YellowJersey]

15 hours ago, Wictorian said:

I am not knowledgable enough but I think in many places hardwork is rewarded. 

I think it depends, at least partially, on the size of the business. As a general rule, I'd say the bigger the business, the more mediocrity is silently encouraged.

[IkeaGnome]

I do it all the time at work. Makes it look like I have a lot going on, when in reality I spend a lot of my time on YouTube or here.

Guess that's a perk of having a job no one else in maintenance wants.

[thrasher_565]

On 9/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Wictorian said:

I am not knowledgable enough but I think in many places hardwork is rewarded. 

ya rewarded with more work... ya...said no one... the low end jobs basically if your hard worker you only get more hours and probably be call in first that's about it...

Edited October 3, 2022 by thrasher_565

[YellowJersey]

On 10/2/2022 at 11:36 PM, thrasher_565 said:

ya rewarded with more work... ya...said no one... the low end jobs basically if your hard worker you only get more hours and probably be call in first that's about it...

It really gets on my plums when businesses and HR wretches complain about employees only doing their jobs and not taking on more. Bitch, I'm doing what you hired me to do. My job is to do what's in my job description, nothing more. I generally don't mind pitching in a little extra now and then, but I'm not a bad employee for doing what's in my job description. They go on and on about "quiet quitting" and "how dare employees only do the job that we literally hired them to do" but then are conspicuously silent on "quiet firing" where employers keep dumping more and more onto employees so that they end up quitting due to burnout or frustration. In Canada, requiring a person to do something outside their job description can constitute constructive dismissal.

 I have a real hatred for HR. They're the gatekeepers you have to get beyond before you're even allowed to talk to the people you'd actually be working with/for. HR, who don't do anything that the business is paid to do, shouldn't be the gatekeepers or have that much of a say in hiring. The HR department at one company I work for is absolutely atrocious; the head refused to hire someone who was perfect for the job because she didn't like him. It's absolute bullshit. If we're talking intentional inefficiencies, I'd say HR desperately trying to insert itself where it doesn't belong in a pathetic and infuriating attempt to justify its own existence is a prime example of that. 

[Vishera]

On 9/30/2022 at 9:32 PM, Wictorian said:

The system is the system we live in. Call it capitalism or anything else.

 

One example would be schools. Schools are extremely inefficient. Also most jobs are very inefficient too.

That's seems like a very US centric thing to say.

Each country is different,

For example schools in Japan and Norway are very different from American schools.

As for capitalism, the USA is the most capitalist country in the world,

Most of the world mixes capitalism with socialism, there are public hospitals and clinics and there are private ones - You don't get that choice in the US

[Neroon]

Was gonna say that, most countries don't fit the capitalism label.

 

But to answer the question, there is no perfectly efficient way to do it.

 

I'll take a very basic example that shouldn't be politically controversial.

Every country has roads, outside of private properties, these are done by the government, there is basically no other way to do it, because if we were to all put down roads where we want it, it would be 1 giant mess.

So roads need to be build, governments decide on them, but you can't place roads everywhere, people living where a road would be placed, have a say in that as well, I mean after all you don't want a highway in your backyard. So you get planners to see how they can be placed, you need people to talk to the people living there, possibly offering compensations etc, then for building you need people to check out the ground, see if it can be built there, get people to lay it down, wire things up etc etc.

There is probably a lot more I haven't even mentioned, but the point is, that this very basic thing that government needs to do, are absolutely massive, and loads of people will have their opinions on it, because all of the above is the non political side of it, because you could be destroying nature to do it, wildlife that might need to be moved, the question as to whether we even need more roads, or need more public transportation etc etc.

 

How can you do something like that efficiently, especially when so many people are involved, emotions are involved and it taking years to realize. Of course if you have a dictator, it can be decided upon in a second, and work can start in weeks.

 

We as humans make things inefficient, through opinions, emotions, work ethic etc.

 

To be clear, governments everywhere waste money, and this can be for many reasons, and it happens on both left and right sides. People believe some waste more than others, sometimes that's objectively true, but most of the time it's very subjective, because some might not give a crap about destroying nature for that road, but others do, and plenty of others are in between.

 

Most political discussions are about what people governments do wrong, and as to whether the government should do it at all, if it should be done by private citizens, or if the government needs to step in and take over. Those are the endless discussions, and they make things extremely inefficient, but would you really want it a different way?

[thrasher_565]

9 hours ago, YellowJersey said:

It really gets on my plums when businesses and HR wretches complain about employees only doing their jobs and not taking on more. Bitch, I'm doing what you hired me to do. My job is to do what's in my job description, nothing more. I generally don't mind pitching in a little extra now and then, but I'm not a bad employee for doing what's in my job description. They go on and on about "quiet quitting" and "how dare employees only do the job that we literally hired them to do" but then are conspicuously silent on "quiet firing" where employers keep dumping more and more onto employees so that they end up quitting due to burnout or frustration. In Canada, requiring a person to do something outside their job description can constitute constructive dismissal.

 I have a real hatred for HR. They're the gatekeepers you have to get beyond before you're even allowed to talk to the people you'd actually be working with/for. HR, who don't do anything that the business is paid to do, shouldn't be the gatekeepers or have that much of a say in hiring. The HR department at one company I work for is absolutely atrocious; the head refused to hire someone who was perfect for the job because she didn't like him. It's absolute bullshit. If we're talking intentional inefficiencies, I'd say HR desperately trying to insert itself where it doesn't belong in a pathetic and infuriating attempt to justify its own existence is a prime example of that. 

ya i never talk to hr because its pointless there hierd to do whats best for the company and not the employee... is stocking shelves there isent really a book that says this is what you do or dont but they will dump things on you as you get faster / work harder they will putt some of there duty's on you. dont mined some times but all the time and not getting paid extra for it is bs... ( i finally caped out at $21)

 

the hiring and firing with in a few years was the norm as company's liked it but it is vary inefficient. now there a longer processes of hiring some one.  alot of bonuses are also tired buy how many hours you use per week so sensitive to not hire and push people more...

 

there was a good video about it but probably cant find it ... oh think i found it.

 

 

Edited October 4, 2022 by thrasher_565

[Wictorian]

6 hours ago, Vishera said:

That's seems like a very US centric thing to say.

Each country is different,

For example schools in Japan and Norway are very different from American schools.

As for capitalism, the USA is the most capitalist country in the world,

Most of the world mixes capitalism with socialism, there are public hospitals and clinics and there are private ones - You don't get that choice in the US

I dont even live in the US.