[coffeenut]

Marshall Brain, the founder of HowStuffWorks, wrote a short story taking just this topic to its absurd conclusion. The first part of the story begins with the elimination of this sort of inefficiency by using relatively dumb software to micromanage every minute of a worker's day (starting in fast food restaurants). A lot of the technology could really be implemented today (and some is; notice the headsets with disembodied computer voices you see in stores like Target today).

http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

[bherms]

Good read so far. Thanks! The story seems to be much like 1984 and is, in a sense, a much more extreme case of what I was talking about. I'm not suggesting we will or won't ever get to the point in Manna, but it struck me as funny that while we do see working more efficiently as a goal, that it could actually have serious negative effects for the health of our economy. It's interesting to think about.

[coffeenut]

I hear where you're coming from. I'm actually surprised at the 30% efficiency number; I would have guessed more like 5%-10%. I suppose it varies by industry. I expect minimum-wage workers are more efficient (they're almost always doing what they're paid to do), whereas white collar jobs like program management are less measurable, and people spend much wasted time not just surfing the web, but doing things like sitting in unnecessary meetings.

When I was doing PM work, I spent about 30+ hours a week in meetings which could generally have been dealt with in 30-45 minutes of focused discussion with a much smaller group of people.