Productive work?

**JDNSW** · 24th September 2007, 08:08 AM

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** · 24th September 2007, 08:20 AM

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** · 24th September 2007, 10:16 AM

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

**Tote** · 24th September 2007, 10:38 AM

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.

Regards,
Tote

**p38arover** · 24th September 2007, 10:56 AM

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

Ron

**jsp** · 24th September 2007, 11:01 AM

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** · 24th September 2007, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by p38arover

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

Ron

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

**p38arover** · 24th September 2007, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Numpty's Missus

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!

Ron

**Chenz** · 24th September 2007, 12:08 PM

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** · 24th September 2007, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Chenz

........

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

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