
Jason Fried: Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work - jaybol
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/jason-fried-why-work-doesnt-happen-at-work/
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cherenkov
It is kinda sad how fragmentation can reduce the quality of an idea. I am not
sure why we need a Ted Midwest or Ted XYZ. It is a topic for another time.

Now in regards to the topic at hand, "work" - the presenter has a very
simplistic view about work and most of what he suggests applies to knowledge
work and not defined work. There are plenty of examples where his notion of
work does not make sense. Try pulling a stunt like this in healthcare where
every minute counts and can affect some patient at some level.

I think knowledge workers, especially in IT are a pampered lot in comparison
to sectors such as healthcare where you are overworked and paid peanuts. I
will not say that people need to be radical and suddenly change the office
culture of the corporation overnight because it is not going to happen.

Managers and Meetings seem to be picked on because it makes for good video and
sounds nice as M&Ms. It sounds lame to be honest.

What offices need to do is quite simply (1) reduce meeting times from one hour
to 20 or 40 minutes and (2) create small rooms that are available on a first-
come first-served basis where people can come to work and take these rooms for
two to three hours of uninterrupted time. Most of us do this anyway; we steal
a meeting team room and shut ourselves to get work done. it just needs to be
formalized.

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wccrawford
If people manage to be productive on a noisy, busy train by not in a quite,
nice office, it isn't the interruptions that are the problem.

While I agree that steps should be taken not to interrupt people while they
are working, 'quiet Thursdays' could become 'Johnny didn't get anything done
because he needed to ask a question Thursdays'.

I do agree with email and IM instead of demanding that someone stop right now
and pay attention to you while you phone and stare at them. No matter how
urgent your question is, it can wait until someone has a natural stopping
point.

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cherenkov
<i>If people manage to be productive on a noisy, busy train by not in a quite,
nice office, it isn't the interruptions that are the problem.</i>

Trust me, interruption or even conversation from known people is much more
disruptive than a noisy train station because in a noisy-train station, there
is probably a more scientific explanation for this; probably the familiarity
of the person who is talking is what is more disruptive, I do not know.
Secondly, you are obligated to be nice to people at work, even if they disrupt
you. You don't have to do that at a train station.

At my place of work, people sing, play youtube, talk loudly and are completely
oblivious of how it affects those who are in the next cube and are trying to
get work done.

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sammcd
Started watching this a few days ago.

Although I was enjoying the talk, my wife (who doesn't know how awesome Jason
is) pointed out that he was building a very big straw man when talking about
the company where no one works.

She had a good point.

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owyn
I get plenty of work done at work. It's my job.

