Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!ginosko!uunet!mcsun!sunic!kth!draken!d88-jwa
From: d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Low Productivity of Knowledge Workers
Message-ID: <1680@draken.nada.kth.se>
Date: 16 Sep 89 22:10:15 GMT
References: <9676@venera.isi.edu> <1Spfl7#7Ot2JQ=eric@snark.uu.net>
Reply-To: d88-jwa@nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte)
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Lines: 26

In <9676@venera.isi.edu> Laurence I. Press wrote:
> I recently heard Michael Scott-Morton give a talk in which he
> asserted that U. S. knowledge worker productivity has not been increased
> by all of our personal computers.  I was also told that there
> was a fairly recent Fortune Magazine article making the same point.

> 2. If this is true, would you care to speculate on why?

My little theory on the subject is that what's done on computers
is done faster, and/or it looks prettier, but since the computer's
so versatile, it's also a wonderful TOY. You can actually look
like you're working while you're highly enjoying yourself playing
some sort of game (or, you can quickly sontext-switch into a
spreadsheet or whatever, especially with the "Set Aside" MF :-)

This means, we do as much as we did before, but we do it faster and
neater, and thus have more time for recreation while we're being
paid for it. Uhh... I'm a consultant, I shouldn't be saying this...
But since I work late at nights, I really don't clock my time, but
estimates how much time the work done is worth, and my employer's
quite happy about that.

How many of you folks out there do the same ? :-)

-- 
Life's a bitch, then you die.