[floe]

> For instance, the well-documented decline of productivity of the American white-collar worker has convincingly been linked to over-automation of the American office, but the “negative” outcome of this study has been totally ignored, in fact so much that many people involved in computing cannot believe it.

Does anyone know what study he was referring to?

[Someone]

I would guess something on the productivity paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox), so more that office productivity didn’t improve with automation in the same manner it did in manufacturing.

[rightbyte]

I would also be very interested.

One of my pet theories is that IT is a net loss for most businesses and that they would be better off with one designated computer for Excel batch jobs. Instead they should use cabinets, folders and paper mail.

Not joking and zero sarcasm.

[LeanderK]

I think with this comment perhaps it comes to a transfiguration of the past. In germany, especially in its government, but also in smaller, very conservative companies with old bosses there are still some hold outs working purely paper based.

The amount of work it takes to keep a paper based environment organised seems insane. The amount of work it takes to share information in a paper based is crazy. Maybe not so much if it's just a small business, but anything bigger you need to run your own postal service with people sending letters all the time to each other complemented with dedicated personnel for "bulk deliveries" (like bellboys they carry heaps of folders from room to room) and dedicated personnel to organise the archive and the retrieval. There's an insane latency when you're not in the same building and even when this is the case deliveries can still take a day or two. I only got a peek into the inner working of courts here when they were still very, very paper based (it change the last 5,10 years) and it felt like you were at some post logistics centre. People running around with luggage containers filled with files.

I have never seen this in a smaller setting, I imagine it's easier because you can just speak to each other.

[rightbyte]

I mean, obviously I don't actually know if my "theory" is valid or not. I did not work at that time.

My feeling is just that there is no order anymore.

When I visited my dad (DoD bureaucrat) or mum (dentist) as a child there were so much order with secretaries and file cabinet rooms.

The cost of sending letters or filing documents worked as a filter I guess. No data format was ever invalid. Just put the paper in the folder. There was no "computer says no" for the clerks. Also, there was a limit in how convuluted processes you can practically have without computer programs.

The main thing was probably that you had to have secretaries keeping order. They are gone now.

I have never experienced that order where I have worked (I am 34). But I see it in remaints of the late 90s early 00s documentation and old file cabinets for prior projects.

Nowadays everything just disappear in some network folder black hole and employee attrition.

[lmm]

Jevons Paradox definitely applies - the cheaper something is the more you spend on it. There's no will to prune unnecessarily complex processes and reporting when you can just automate them. But not to the extent of it actually becoming a negative; you forget how much all those clerks and secretaries used to cost.