

Fake Work is Destroying America - lifestyleigni
http://www.lifestyleignition.com/2010/05/fake-work-is-destroying-america/

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TomOfTTB
I see where the author is coming from but I think there’s a much more
insidious problem that’s “destroying America”.

“Fake Work” managers are incompetent. But in my time consulting I much
preferred the “fake work” manager who was just trying to hide the fact that he
was doing nothing to the manager who was just as incompetent but who thought
he was a genius and wanted a say in every decision. I’ve dealt with…

= Managers who insisted they needed a $30,000 accounting package because they
“only wanted the best” and ended up foisting layers of complexity onto a
company that would have gotten by on Peachtree.

= Managers who arbitrarily decided to upend a project because of a positive
article they read in the NY Times or WSJ.

= Managers who insisted I get all my info from them and not their underlings
(even though it was clear they had no idea what was actually going on and
their underlings did).

And so on…Much of this behavior ended up putting money in my pocket as a
consultant but it was unquestionably destructive to the companies that
employed these people.

~~~
sabat
When I worked at Oracle I saw a good amount of this -- people whose jobs
seemed to be nothing but stirring up trouble and looking busy while
accomplishing little or nothing. Oracle could afford that, but no company
_should_ afford it.

That's why I prefer somewhat smaller companies and startups -- you cannot get
away with it. I'm not a "thou must work hard for its own sake" Puritan-ethic
kind of guy, not at all. But I like actually accomplishing things, like many
others here, and so the "corporate welfare" types bother me, and tend to get
in the way.

[edit]: During my tenure at Oracle, I once caught wind of a Blue Ribbon Panel
whose mission it was to appoint members to a Task Force, and the mission of
the Task Force was to appoint members of a Tiger Team. Sounds like it's right
out of Office Space, but it was real life.

~~~
clistctrl
This is sadly hilarious, my time working at a fortune 500 company has allowed
me to see this. Looking back it seemed like of the people who were on top they
got to where they were by making it SEEM like they added tremendous value to
the company, when it was more of an illusion. The people who ended up making
those projects work ended up lower in the ladder (i guess spending too much
time being productive?)

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RickHull
This article completely fails to demonstrate that Fake Work exists in any
meaningful quantity. I could just as easily have written an article titled
"Phlogiston is Destroying America".

How do you distinguish Fake Work from Real Work? There are some plausible
tests presented, but they all concern a lack of understanding about the nature
of the work on the worker's part. This lack of understanding is lamentable,
but it does _not_ mean that the work is Fake. For all of these questions
below, it's easy to imagine a ditch-digger asking them, even assuming the
ditch-digger is doing Real Work:

> _How is this even productive?_

> _Is this really what they are having me do?_

> _What is the purpose of this?_

> _I can’t believe how inefficient this is! There has to be a better way._

A lot of work sucks. If it were pleasant, you probably wouldn't require a
salary to do it. Also, there are a lot of tasks that are easily questioned at
a micro- or individual level, but that make sense as policy at an
organizational level.

This article is pure fluff, offering feel-good "insight" but nothing concrete
in terms of identifying real problems or solutions. I can certainly
acknowledge that "busywork" or "Fake Work" exists, but I am not convinced it
is a major problem at a national level.

~~~
evizaer
I had the same response.

The way the article is written stinks of vagueness, imprecision, and general
overgenerality. Meaning evaporates under the intense heat of simplification
and excessive abstraction.

The author does nothing more than suggest that wasted time is a bad thing--
which is obviously tautological.

It certainly makes us and the writer, who are external to "fake work" and
clearly superior, feel good about ourselves. We can see this evil that most of
the inferior idiots/sheeple/morons/minions/lackeys/middle-managers/people-
from-the-wrong-country are outrageously blind to. There's not much going on
aside from ego-stroking in the article.

(And yes, you could probably say the same about THIS post if you really wanted
to get into it. I think it's important, though, to isolate articles trying to
say concretely meaningful things from articles that are just here to make us
feel good about ourselves at the expense of some indistinct others.)

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dlevine
Right now I'm working for a small startup, and we've been interacting a lot
with big companies. I feel like a significant percentage of my time is made up
of doing "fake work." There are a lot of conference calls with like 15 people
on them, and only about 2 or 3 are actually doing anything useful. The other
12 or 13 are making sure that they aren't missing anything important, because
if they do, they won't ever be able to make it up.

I guess the problem is that some of it actually needs to get done. It's just
the coordination penalty of trying to interface two totally different
companies together.

I think the primary cause of fake work is inefficient communication, requiring
people to do extra work to cope for that. It seems like the solution is better
communication systems that allow things to be documented.

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palewery
To get rid of the Fake Work, we would have to be honest about our current
work. but upper management doesn't want honesty. They want to see consistent
numbers always increasing. If you have 3 great quarters then 1 bad one they
will be pissed, but not if you have 4 OK quarters

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devmonk
So, the thing to do about it is to help expose it by determining and
implementing accurate methods of work quantification as it relates to
productivity and exposing the results to the administration.

~~~
notmyname
Sounds like something that needs a manager appointed to hire a team to
determine the appropriate process. Don't forget the Project Manager to keep
track of scope, the Business Analyst to prioritize according to company needs,
and the Integration Engineers to ensure that other groups will be able to
properly implement the solutions. Of course, the everything will need to go
before the Change Management Committee and assigned a risk score before it can
be implemented.

~~~
sili889q
YOU ARE A GENIUS!! Thanks "notmyname" So well said :) of course all those
people are necessary for business continuity

~~~
devmonk
It's cheating to create an id just to applaud yourself, only when you're not
trying to make humor by injecting a yes man into context of apparent disdain
of work bureaucracy.

(sili889q user created one hour ago by notmyname to coincide with his post)

~~~
notmyname
It's not me

~~~
lifestyleigni
I think notmyname's comment is great. It's so true the parallel to office
space. The reason office space was such a successful movie was because of the
real world experiences in corporate america that the audience has itself
experienced. Thanks for sharing the comical real world example of office space
like life

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mml
a former manager of mine stayed home and played xbox for a year, and was
awarded a trophy and jacket as the #1 billing consultant in the entire
organization.

sounds nice, but it drives you insane after a while. you can actually hear
your skills evaporating in such a situation.

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mathgladiator
Reading the article, it made thing think about "cargo cults". Namely, people
do work not because they know why they need to do it. It feels to me that Fake
Work is just management's way of trying to figure out how competitors process
is working or limited.

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csomar
Fake Work doesn't make progress, but actually make money. If I spent 7-9 hours
discussing or writing an email explaining to my client things (or simply
talking more about the project), this probably won't change anything in my
progress, but will make the client feel on-line with the work I do, thus knows
that I do real work and will be happy to pay more. (Or at least happy with the
work I have done).

I found myself sometimes spending time talking about things more than I
actually spent doing them, but after all I do that for money!

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absconditus
Without fake work how much unemployment would there be?

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devmonk
Isn't everyone reading this doing fake work right now?

~~~
evizaer
It's marginally productive to read articles about recognizing when you're
unproductive.

Also, "fake work" is not not-work.

Of course, the productivity of reading an article is directly correlated to
how someone interprets the article and what they learn from it.

Productivity itself is difficult to discuss, because usefulness operates on
many axes (axis plural, not sharp metal on the end of a stick). Ex. I find
that having a few big projects to mentally plan and chew over with friends or
alone has a net positive effect on my happiness, even though such projects
will almost certainly never get done. In some ways, thought about such
projects is unproductive, but in terms of generating happiness for myself, I
find it quite rewarding and, in a certain way, productive.

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coolgeek
That was a pretty lightweight "article", from a website that doesn't get any
better.

Awesome self-link, though, lifestylegni!

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pzxc
In grade school we used to call this "busy work". As in, work given to you so
that you would look busy, even though it served no functional purpose
whatsoever. I was surprised and dismayed to realize that corporate life was
more of the same (and hence I no longer participate in corporate life and work
for myself).

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gromy
Coffee is destroying America.

~~~
protomyth
Coffee has a long history in the USA - So, blame the Tea drinkers

<http://www.teagarden.com/library/tea_library_05.php> (bottom story)

~~~
gromy
Caffeine in general, I feel, may be a cause of "fake work." I quit last week
and this week have found my mind much more full of thought, calmer, the days
last longer, and I feel more passionate about things.

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noelchurchill
I don't know if "fake work" is anything new. I would imagine that fake work
has always been around. That would go to show how little real work is
necessary to keep things running.

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gamble
Job advice: never be the guy who spends his day writing 'documents'.

'Write-only media' is not just a clever pun.

