I discovered "The Day Today" while sitting in a dodgy, illegal(ish) student bar, called The Abelarde Sanction, in Brixton, Johannesburg. The cultural blackout had meant that we never got to see any BBC television programmes on TV, although I doubt that The Day Today would have gone down well with the powers that be anyway. I was blown away. I promptly ordered my own copies of the tapes and proceeded to hold regular screenings at home.
While on the away week of everything we did a little bit of YouTube wandering, and found we could relive The Day Today in little fragments - which reminded us just how good the series was. One of the little gems is the interview with Peter O'Hanrahanrahan about Germany's response to an economic policy agreement. Go watch it , and then I'll try to get to the point.
The other day it snowed. It was a decent few inches all over London and beyond. News.bbc.co.uk has this to say:
Industry chiefs have warned the transport problems could cost the country's economy.
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "It is expected that the lateness and loss of work hours caused by transport disruptions will cost the British economy up to £400 million."
A lot of my thinks that those industry chiefs made their comments in just the same way the German finance minister spoke to Peter O'Hanrahanrahan. David Frost, he may be real, but I think he too has been speaking to the same chiefs. Anyway, I think they are all talking bollocks anyway. Almost.
The snow came down. Huge numbers of people could not get to work. Fuck yeah!! A day of making snowballs and "enforced" not working. Sounds like a holiday to me, and I feel sorry for the poor souls who believe one extra holiday is bad for the economy. In all my time spent working for organizations, it was only in the few days after a holiday that most people actually tried a bit harder at their job.
The idea that productivity is about how many hours you are working needs to be consigned to the grave. It comes from the world of smokestacks and sweatshops. I suppose it is only in that stale, polluted world that Industry Chiefs can really matter. The same probably applies to most of the politicians. Unfortunately, there are still enough smokestacks and sweatshops (of all forms) for these points of view to have their place, but, luckily we wont have to worry about them for too much longer.
(Here comes a big generalisation, that may not apply everywhere yet, but I do feel that it is valid in the UK)
We no longer live in a world where human time is simply a matter of quantity. When most of the economy operates on a service and information level, the quality of human effort is vital. To create a healthy economy, people now need to want to do their jobs. To gain competitive advantage, a company needs to look after the health and happiness of its employees. Those companies that cannot learn to see people as more than cogs, and measure productivity by the amount of time behind a desk, will slowly slip beneath the surface - because they will no longer be able to survive.
Next time it snows, I want to hear about how much fun people had on their holiday. I want to hear the new ideas people came up with because they had a little extra space to think about a work problem. And I really don't want to hear about how crap it was not being able to get to work.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
Comments
Dougald regularly reminds me
Dougald regularly reminds me that I spend too much time in the big city. Dougald says this "When I hear people talking about the "shift to an information economy", it usually seems like they're caught up in a rhetoric which obscures lived experience. Such a shift is neither as real nor as desireable nor as irreversible as they make it sound.".
The idea of the information economy where "nothing is touched by human hands" is a bit silly really. The economy I see emerging actually moves in the opposite direction, I want far more of what is in my life to be touched by human hands. I already use my social networking technologies, to find crafts people who I can ask to create something for me. Ideally, I would like to know the person who's hands made my product.
I made my statement about the information economy because I feel that our current accounting for human time arose in the era of mass machination. Where a human was nothing more than a machine operator - and their hands never touched any of the product that flowed passed them. In these dark and smoggy days, a human was nothing more than an extra piece in the machine, an expendable and replaceable commodity. It is this kind of industrialisation that I hope to see fade into the murky depths of history, along with the concept the holidays are an expense.
Of all the people to direct
Of all the people to direct my "shift to an information society" rant at, few deserve it less than you! :-)
Have you ever read E.P. Thompson's essay on Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism?
I'll add it to my todo
I'll add it to my todo
I just came across your post
I just came across your post whilst checking out http://commonscreation.org/news :)
Reminded me of that cool idea you had to get companies to sponsor a random day off.
What was that called again?
Shhh! The world is not yet
Shhh! The world is not yet ready for the accidental holiday project. Or, at least, I have not yet got the tools in place.