I wonder how many engineers will do any work if all the toilets are backed up.
4 Likes
The trick is just to find one gullible enough to agree to embrace an opportunity in disrupting, um, ‘legacy elements’ that are throttling infrastructure throughput.
The more snide option is to see if the dude washing down his pet cocktail of nootropics with either Soylent or ‘bulletproof coffee’(the latter almost certainly deserves it more) is up for some cutting edge, disruptive, biohacking. If you want to save on rubber gloves and cleaning supplies; sell the ‘too disruptive for legacy regulators!’ angle.
If you are dealing with a somewhat more traditional office environment; whispering dark reports of blockages in ‘the critical path’ to any project managers you can find is an option.
Given things like the prevalence of governmental titles that originally implied various household functions I suspect that this rule is at least as old as feudalism; probably much older.
What’s interesting now is the extent to which bureaucratic rationalization attempts haven’t managed to stamp it out. No matter how intensely you try to formalize, there are usually some ‘executive assistants’, custodians; and other support types whose goodwill punches way above it’s weight on the org chart if you need something done.
1 Like
Plus, maintaining a high level of politeness and civility under ordinary circumstances gives your deviations from it way more punch.
That’s probably not a noble reason to be polite; but it is true that, where the abrasive asshole dude has to ratchet up ever higher levels of shouting to express displeasure-beyond-the-usual, if everyone knows that you are always polite, diplomatic, and generally pleasant; overt expressions of even moderate displeasure get way more of a reaction (both in terms of sheer surprise and in terms of creating the presumption among viewers that, since you aren’t the sort to just go around flying off the handle at people, if you are getting deeply displeased it’s very likely for cause).
4 Likes
Libertarianism for everyone and socialism for any group within that society of free people that voluntarily enter into a communal sharing arrangement that they are free to leave if they no longer like.
Techs or anyone else acting like gods is problematic on many levels. That said, with the current state of blue collar jobs being seen as beneath all other career paths it is very likely that the dynamic will reverse due to the massive lack of new talent entering the fields. Don’t be surprised if in 10 to 15 years you hear a couple of Jewish moms at the deli bragging about how their kid is going to “marry an underwater welder”.
1 Like
Someone should question him on this next time he’s on the Thom Hartmann Show.
This times INFINITY… AND BEYOND!
while the bathroom was an easy enough thing (it’s a two bathroom house, and I have one roommate- math!) doing other things like cleaning up the shared areas like the kitchen and cleaning up after the pets is… contentious. I’ve resigned myself to doing the bulk of the work, because a) it is my house, and b) the roommate is… not exactly prompt between stating that the chore will get done to when it actually gets done.
As someone once said to me (in a discussion where we were in agreement): “Once you think a job is beneath you, it’s a very short step to thinking that the person who does it is the same.”
5 Likes
A fair number of my cow-orkers fled Soviet Socialist Republics with guaranteed job programs. They say, “We pretended to work and they pretended to pay us.”
The concept’s great, but I doubt it can be gainfully implemented by mere humans.
TIME magazine in the 60s devoted an issue to what would the American worker do with all his free time & money he’ll get around the turn of the century because of the increasing productivity of American workers. Reagan killed that.
There are no communist regimes anymore, except of course the one we get all our stuff from.
1 Like
I work in the tech sector, and a good cleaning staff is important. I mean, really important. You may never see them, but I had my fill of cleaning floors and toilets myself when I was in the Army. A good facility management system lets the developers get on with the work of writing the code that the company sells, if you want to look at it that way. I want the cleaning staff to be fairly treated and well represented by their own union, things like that.
Even the security guy is someone I want to be properly compensated and know his job. A good security guy will know who is allowed in office after hours and who is doing something illicit. A good security is not about stopping car bombs, but stopping social engineering hack attempts.
Granted, I work for a small office, so the security and the cleaning are done by hired companies, but we did not go with the cheapest, we went with the ones that fit our needs. These are people that we pay to do stuff we can’t do ourselves, or don’t want to do ourselves.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
