Dan Minette schreef:
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >Actually, many corporations are kept up and running by those unskilled,
> >minimum wage people. If it weren't for low-ranking employees like
> >receptionists, cleaning staff and cafeteria staff, not much would be done
> >anymore.
>
> Why? No hard feelings, but I think the European organizations that I've
> seen have a lot more overhead than their US counterparts. So far the loss
> of jobs due to efficiency has been overcome in the US by the increase of
> jobs due to the added wealth that results from increased productivity.
Ok, try to make all your appointments yourself. Plan all your meetings, contact
all the participants in those meetings to find the one date they all have time
to attend, then make the last minute changes because someone made a mistake.
Then buy the supplies and make the sandwiches and coffee and tea for the break
during that really long meeting. Of course you also have to serve it. Arrange
for the necesary glasses, cups and plates and afterwards wash them and put them
back where you got them. Make notes during that meeting and type them out
yourself. Send them to the participants of the meeting. Book your own
hotels/flights. Make your own travelling scedules. Read and write all your mail
(e-mail and snail mail) by yourself. Of course you should recieve every incoming
phone call even when in a meeting. Make your own coffee. And also don't forget
that you have to keep track of, pack, order, recieve and unpack all supplies and
stuff that a company needs, just to function. Find your own mail in the stack of
incoming mail recieved by your company. I mean, these are really low value jobs
and to us engineers they seem very trivial indeed and even I sometimes take that
kind of stuff for granted. But I wouldn't wanne work in a company where I would
have to do everything myself.
There is always some one in a company who'll know where to order the trivial
stuff like elastic bands, or how to order stuff quicker if you really need it
badly. Or what about that person that gets you that stack of paper when someone
else just finished the last sheet in the printer and the local stock just ran
out. And there always seems to be that one someone who knows how to quickly fix
the copier if it shows one of those qute blinking lights, without having to
resort to calling one of those really expensive and time consuming mechanics.
There'll be always people who write the bills, make your order forms, send and
recieve your faxes and keep track of your accounts.
I always make sure I really get along great with all those people that are at or
near the bottom of the company floor. Yes, even the cleaning lady and the
guards. Because if push really comes to shove, _they_ can save _me_, that high
priced researcher and project manager, a lot of time working around all those
trivialities that go with any job, so that _I_ can spend that time on work I'm
good at.
Call it overhead if you will, but I get paid to do research and not to find
and/or order a stack of paper just so as I can print my research proposals. ;o)
Look around you Dan and realise that if you really had to do _everything_ by
yourself you would spent all of your valuable time on trivialities instead of
doing some engineering work. It's not that you _can't_ do it by yourself, it's
just that it costs a lot of your time. And time is money.
Sonja
