

Microsoft’s Not Bluffing —  Look, it might be the biggest poker bluff …    - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/technology/14email.html?_r=1&partnerhttp://kara.allthingsd.com/20080613/microsofts-not-bluffing/=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

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ComputerGuru
At the risk of sounding like an idiot... was this the link you meant to send?

<http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080613/microsofts-not-bluffing/>

Because the one you're linking to is about the creators of email trying to fix
it.

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marvin
I can't believe that it takes dedicated research and insight to determine that
this is a problem. It's not caused by e-mail and instant messaging, it's
caused by undisciplined workers. Today's work environment is catering to this
culture - the wages in an average office job assume that you waste at least
30% of your time and do a halfway unfocused job the rest of the time.

Anyone who has ever worked or studied has seen this problem first-hand. I
doubt it started with computers..you can find all kinds of ways to put off
hard work if you want to. Smoking breaks, talking to co-workers, just
pretending to be working etc. In college, half the students put off reading
until the last week before the final exam and complain that _studying is so
hard_. I'd go so far as to say that this just as big a problem for ambitious
employees as it is for the economy at large. I am fully capable of being
focused at least 80% of the time, but that doesn't mean that I'll get paid
20-30% more. In a big company, I have no motivation to do a good job. The
system embraces mediocrity.

This is less of a problem in small companies where every employee is a
partner. In these companies, wages are sometimes _considerably_ greater (there
are 10-man consulting companies in Norway where wages of $200,000 including
stock are close to the median). And none of this, of course, applies to a
startup. It's just a pain that these kinds of gigs require disproportionally
more effort than a regular office job. There should be a middle ground
somewhere.

