[jasonkester]

He mentioned billable rate, which might be the reason this isn't going to get fixed. If you're billing a client $250/hr for your employees' time, your incentive as a company is to maximize the time it takes to do things. Adding random 3 minute pauses to the workflow of your most expensive people would be an example of a "good thing" from a strictly financial perspective.

But then companies are seldom that aware of what's going on. Back in my Consulting Engineer days, I spent plenty of time trying to explain the simple math: "since you're billing me out at a 3.5 multiplier, it actually makes you more money to give me a raise". It never flew. So eventually I did.

Personally, I'm all in favor of big companies behaving this way. Less efficiency in other shops is a competitive advantage for mine.