Productive work?

[JDNSW]

Last week I spent a morning in a workshop (one of three) run by National Parks (NP) to allow community input into a fire plan for the forest that adjoins my place.

Although I have to applaud the idea of getting local input into the plan, it has set me to musing about the amount of (paid) time spent in non-productive work.

The workshop occupied about four NP people and the same number from Rural Fire Services (RFS), and including travelling time (some came over 100km) and planning probably represented a full day's work for most of them. In addition there were about forty locals, mostly self-employed, who were not being paid, but their time there represented loss of work.

By far the largest part of the time was spent in detailing the legal and red tape requirements for the fire plan, and it is clear that the majority of the NP employees' time working on it will be to ensure that it meets these requirements rather than planning to deal with a real fire - although the events from January have put a bit of realism in their work. Another aspect of non-productive work is the continuing argument between National Parks and RFS about the width of fire trails. National parks seem to want an absolute prescriptive answer that applies in all cases (and requires an environmental impact statement).

It seems to me that the workshop format and the number of staff used is a very expensive way of getting local knowledge. As against this, for example, we were told that they cannot afford the cost of supplying a copy of the finished fire plan to adjoining landholders, although they will provide one copy to each adjoining brigade, and the fire trails in many cases are still virtually impassable as a result of damage during the last fire.

So my question is, how much of the (paid) work that you do is real work, and how much is dealing with red tape or other unproductive work? I know some people will be close to 100% one way or the other.

John

[Utemad]

I work in state govt admin. I'd say 90% of my work is red tape and making sure that what we are doing complies with policy. Whether it is ordering a pencil or upwards.

It annoys the absolute **** out of me and I keep telling myself it is only short term, it is only short term....

[George130]

Red tape is a absolute pain. My change requests often take 10 times as long to write, get signed then the change.

[Tote]

I work for a multi national computer company and for every day I spend on a customer's site I spend half a day documenting my deeds so my employer can determine how productive I've been.:eek:
Regards,
Tote

[p38arover]

When I decided to take redundancy from Telstra, no one noticed... :D

Ron

[jsp]

SA government IT support.....I break rules makes me popular doing things without process, probably why I still have a job as some of the importants know I can do things for them, but still about 75% tape, 20% bumming around 5% actual work.

[jsp]

When I decided to take redundancy from Telstra, no one noticed... :D

Ron

I thought that was the contributing factor to T2 shares tanking??? :D

[p38arover]

For myself in nursing....

each evening shift when we have no ward clerk...up to 50% of your time can be spent on non-face to face nursing stuff like answering phones, chasing up drug orders, collecting drugs from pharmacy, chasing test results, planning staffing for the next day, general paperwork etc etc

Its not like that every shift so it varies but each evening shift we have a dedicated shift co-ordinator to handle admissions and discharges and all the other associated crap that I just mentioned. The paperwork is a killer. Every single item MUST be documented to protect yourself in case of legal action if something goes wrong...EVERYTHING!!

One of the doctors told me last week that ours is one of the busiest hospitals in Brisbane (for both doctors and nurses) :( No wonder I come home knackered some nights


I believe you. My wife is a ward clerk at Nepean Hospital Neo-Natal Intensive Care and she often comes home stressed owing to the amount of work. At least they have a ward clerk dayshift and evening shift on week days but only dayshift on weekends. She says the nurses can really get overloaded when there's no ward clerk. Nepean is the biggest hospital in this area and takes patients from a lot of country regions.

What makes it worse is that flaming women won't have their babies between 9am-5pm week days! :mad:

:D

Ron

[Chenz]

I work in local govt and the word consultation has now gone beyond the syblime to the absolute ridiculous. We have to have a meeting with the locals before we move a bin in a park.

I am all for having everyone inside the tent pi$$ing out but it is now become a vehicle for the local axe-grinders to have a free shot.

When not out asking the bleeding obvious, we are back in the office ensuring that the draft decision complies with the numerous acts, policies and local requirements.

I symathise with the Yogies at the meeting you went to but on the flip side what a who-ha if the proposed fire plan burns someones house or worse.

Gotta be a better way.

I as well tell myself daily - it is only a job, it is only a job.

[JDNSW]

........

I symathise with the Yogies at the meeting you went to but on the flip side what a who-ha if the proposed fire plan burns someones house or worse.
...................



I think we were very lucky to lose practically no property except fences in the January fire, but it is difficult to see what a fire plan (which did not exist at the time) would have done to improve matters. The key factor then was not the fire plan but a combination of thirty knot winds, temperatures in the forties, and humidity below 5% - plus a dry thunderstorm.

But my thought went well beyond the meeting - it just set the gears turning. In the last fifty or so years, despite fifty years of rapid improvement in labour saving methods, we now have longer average working hours, and higher workforce participation than we did fifty years ago. Now I will admit that there have been some improvements in quality of life, but I don't think anyone can say the improvement has been anywhere near what should have been expected from the technical advances. There are certainly other factors involved, but I suggest that a major reason for this is that a large and increasing number of us are engaged in tasks that actually do nothing useful (by virtually any definition), no matter how diligently we work at it.

John

[p38arover]

..... I suggest that a major reason for this is that a large and increasing number of us are engaged in tasks that actually do nothing useful (by virtually any definition), no matter how diligently we work at it.

One of the reason I took a redundancy from Telstra was that I was a bit tired of going home feeling I hadn't accomplished anything.

Some parts of my job were really enjoyable but I didn't like the amount of time I was spending on preparing for litigation (on a case where there would be no real winner).

After I left, the case was dropped and Telstra settled out of court. It would have won the case but it would have dragged on and cost more than it was worth to settle. The lawyers would have got most of the money that was spent on the whole thing!

Ron

[Blknight.aus]

I solved that problem at work... I sign off and write down the work I do on the work order for the vehicle, when the admin clerks come and chase me I put on the cave man voice and give it "me spanner turner You pen pusher, that paper, your problem"

When they tell me that they'll stop filling out paperwork getting me jobs we just let the work backlog (the other turners are doing it now as well) and then when the heighrachy want to know why we aint doing any work "no paper, no vehicles no work"


pen pushers get ass kicking and we get some work done.

[barryj]

When I decided to take redundancy from Telstra, no one noticed... :D

Ron


Don't feel too bad Ron, there's always things to do\hide in your shed :D.

We had a guy at work who did not show up for work.

We claimed and were paid overtime to cover his position and after 6 weeks I asked my supervisor if she knew when the guy would return.

She said that she had no idea that he was even away!

I wonder what the role of a supervisor actually is :angel:?

[Utemad]

When I decided to take redundancy from Telstra, no one noticed... :D

Ron

I used to work for NDC and we were in an exchange in Brisbane somewhere that had a big garage underneath it for vehicle storage.

I was told a story by one of the older ex-Telstra guys that there used to be a guy at this exchange that worked on his rally car in the garage during work time :o
It sounds bad but I imagine the other guys would have been reading the paper or on the phone anyway. At least he was doing something productive :D

[p38arover]

Oh, foreign orders? Done many in my time as a tech with OTC. What else is there to do on 11pm-7am shifts when all is going well. As a tech on a satellite or cable station, one only really worked hard when things were going wrong or when there was testing to do with overseas admins.

I used to take model planes or electronics projects in to work on to keep me awake.

Ron