"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped...." etc.
I am not sure I understand the scary invocations of Orwell, 1984, the Overarching Totalitarian State, etc. when the article simply describes the ongoing, wholly logical development of work processes under capitalism. I see in Wikipedia that Frederick Winslow Taylor has already been dead 100 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 4:17 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking > thirteen. Winston > Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile > wind, slipped > quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly > enough > to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. > > The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a > coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the > wall. It > depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a > man of > about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome > features. > Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the > best > of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was > cut off > during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation > for Hate > Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine > and had > a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several > times on the > way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the > enormous face > gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived > that > the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING > YOU, the caption beneath it ran. > > Opening paragraphs of George Orwell's "1984" > > --- > > NY Times, August 19 2015 > Data-Crunching Is Coming to Help Your Boss Manage Your Time > By DAVID STREITFELD > > You might be at work, but that hardly means you are working. > > Mitesh Bohra thought that projects at his software company, InfoBeans, > were taking too long. “Something was supposed to be done in a thousand > hours and it would end up taking 1,500,” he said. “We were racking our > brains to figure out where the time went.” > > Increasingly, bosses have an answer. A new generation of workplace > technology is allowing white-collar jobs to be tracked, tweaked and > managed in ways that were difficult even a few years ago. Employers of > all types — old-line manufacturers, nonprofits, universities, digital > start-ups and retailers — are using an increasingly wide range of tools > to monitor workers’ efforts, help them focus, cheer them on and just > make sure they show up on time. > > The programs foster connections and sometimes increase productivity > among employees who are geographically dispersed and often working from > home. But as work force management becomes a factor in offices > everywhere, questions are piling up. How much can bosses increase > intensity? How does data, which bestows new powers of vision and > understanding, redefine who is valuable? And with half of salaried > workers saying they work 50 or more hours a week, when does working very > hard become working way too much? > > “The massive forces of globalization and technological progress are > removing the need for a lot of the previous kind of white-collar > workers,” said Andrew McAfee, associate director of the Center for > Digital Business at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. “There’s a > lot of competition, global labor pools of pretty good quality, > automation to make you more productive and make your job more 24/7. > These are not calming forces.” > > One way employees are pushed to work harder is by tethering them to the > office outside of normal business hours. Nearly a third of workers in a > Gallup poll last year said they were expected to “check email and stay > in touch” when they were not working. > > New technology tools are also threatening one of the enduring rituals of > corporate life — the annual performance review. General Electric, long a > standard-setter in management practices, began a pilot project last year > in which a smartphone application was used to give workers instant > feedback from bosses and colleagues. > > After a meeting or presentation, a manager can tap on the app and write > short notes of encouragement, advice or criticism under categories like > “insight,” “consider” and “continue.” Faster feedback is healthy, > according to Susan P. Peters, senior vice president of human resources, > who often tells colleagues that almost nothing in business conforms to > yearly cycles anymore. > > The pilot program and the smartphone app were tested last year. The > results were sufficiently encouraging that by the end of this year, G.E. > intends to extend it to 80,000 of its white-collar workers, and to > nearly all 175,000 of them by the end of 2016. > > The technology is part of G.E.’s broader “performance development” > program. It is intended to be more personalized, supportive and timely > than past practices. The emphasis, G.E. says, is on coaching rather than > labeling or ranking. > > “People in sales are continually measured and always know where they > stand. Now this is happening in the rest of the white-collar work > force,” said Paul Hamerman, a workplace technology analyst with > Forrester Research. “Done properly, it will increase engagement. Done in > the wrong way, employees will feel pressured or micromanaged.” > > Myrna Arias, a Southern California saleswoman for Intermex, a > money-transfer company based in Miami, was required to download an app > on her cellphone that tracked her whereabouts 24 hours a day, she claims > in a lawsuit now pending in federal court. Ms. Arias’s suit quotes her > manager as saying, perhaps jokingly, that he knew how fast she was > driving at all times. > > “Ms. Arias believed it was akin to wearing a felon’s ankle bracelet,” > said her lawyer, Gail A. Glick. She deleted the app and was fired. Her > suit, which accuses Intermex of invasion of privacy and wrongful > termination, seeks $500,000 in lost wages. Neither Intermex nor its > lawyers responded to requests for comment. > > Companies making work force technology that relies more on engagement > than enforcement say it increases transparency and fairness. > > “In the office of the future,” said Kris Duggan, chief executive of > BetterWorks, a Silicon Valley start-up founded in 2013, “you will always > know what you are doing and how fast you are doing it. I couldn’t > imagine living in a world where I’m supposed to guess what’s important, > a world filled with meetings, messages, conference rooms, and at the end > of the day I don’t know if I delivered anything meaningful.” > > BetterWorks is focused less on measuring how employees spend their time > at the office than in making them more connected to it. One way to do > that: Make it feel more like Facebook. > > One of its clients, Capco, a financial services consultant, is seeking > to make the millennials happy. “They are looking for gigs, not careers,” > said Patrick Gormley, the chief operating officer. “The things that > would keep them tied to a job in years gone past — a mortgage, a car > loan — have evaporated. That really challenges us to create an > outstanding employee experience, so we can retain the best.” > > Capco’s 3,000 employees, who are spread out geographically, post their > most ambitious goals for the year electronically for all colleagues to > see and they, as well as executives, can issue “nudges” and “cheers” to > each other. > > “Transparency is a tough culture change, particularly for management,” > Mr. Gormley said. “We’re not used to admitting that we’re not perfect.” > He noted that 12 people had nudged him electronically, versus 52 cheers. > > Other work force developers are enhancing the traditional process of > evaluating employees, which used to be annual and backward-looking. Now > it is more spontaneous. > > Amazon, the e-commerce giant, uses an internal tool called Anytime > Feedback, which allows employees to submit praise or criticism to > management. The company says most of the remarks are positive, though > some Amazon employees complain that the process can be hidden and harsh. > > Workday, which is based in the Bay Area, has developed a tool called > Collaborative Anytime Feedback. Colleagues use it to salute each other — > everyone in the company can see who is saying what. > > “People wouldn’t put something negative in a public forum, because it > would reflect poorly on them,” said Amy Wilson, Workday vice president > of human capital management products. > > The software also enables employees to comment privately, however, to a > colleague’s manager. Workday says these remarks range from positive to > at least constructive. > > Workday also sells an employee time-tracking program, which it > advertises as being able to increase worker productivity, along with > reducing labor costs — presumably in human relations departments — and > minimizing compliance risks. > > Brown University is one of Workday’s customers, offering an endorsement > on the company’s site. A university spokesman declined to comment on how > the program was used at the Rhode Island campus. > > Some say time tracking simply replaces a manual time sheet and > encourages honesty. > > “We tell people not to focus on the Big Brother aspect. This is all > about efficiency,” said Joel Slatis, founder of Timesheets.com, which > makes clock-in software used by 1,400 small companies. “If you fill out > a paper timecard and write down 8 a.m. when you come in at 8:02, no one > is going to bat an eye. But if you do that when you leave too, that > means you’re getting 5 minutes more a day.” > > Jamie Clausen, who clocks in and out of her job in customer service at a > State Farm insurance office in Silicon Valley from her home using > Timesheets, says she accepts it as a modern reality. > > “It shouldn’t be an option to just show up at 9:15,” she said. Ms. > Clausen, 29, previously worked in a call center, where she was closely > monitored. She added that she had been watching “Mad Men,” and its > portrayal of freewheeling 1960s office life “seemed crazy.” “It was a > totally different world, back then.” > > At InfoBeans, an Indian company whose United States headquarters is in > the Bay Area, managers feared that workers’ inefficiency would lead to > financial losses and client defections. So it began to use a software > system called Buddy, which is made by Sapience, an Indian firm that is > expanding into the American market. > > Khiv Singh, a Sapience vice president, noted that data surrounded > workers: “We have pedometers to measure how far we walk, apps to monitor > our blood pressure, stress level, the calories we’re taking in, the > calories we’re burning. But the office is where we spend the majority of > time, and we don’t measure our work.” > > When InfoBeans began using Buddy, Mr. Bohra was surprised by what he found. > > “Engineers would write on their time sheets that they were doing > development for eight hours, but we started to see a very different set > of activities that people are performing,” Mr. Bohra said. “Meetings. > Personal time. Uncategorized time. Performing research on something that > maybe already should be a part of our knowledge repository.” > > Mr. Bohra declined to let any of his employees be interviewed. But he > said the work was more focused now, which meant smaller teams taking on > bigger workloads. Eliminating distractions, including some meetings, > lets people go home earlier, he added. > > Steve Lohr contributed reporting. > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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