Early-retirement wannabe

Thrugelmir

wotsthat wrote: »

Companies didn't computerise to become less productive.

Maybe. Many have no ended up with dumbed down staff who can only follow a script.

atush

Marine_life wrote: »

I read an interesting article the other day:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-need-to-work-so-much

The line that really struck me was "in white-collar jobs, the amount of work can expand infinitely through the generation of false necessities".

Brilliant.

Around the same time i was watching an episode of "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" on TV and more precisely his office. No computer screen. No mobile phone.

I know when I started work back in the 80's and it made me wonder. What did we do in those days to waste time at work?

But a serious point. Computer and mobile technology have become so pervasive that actually, not only has technology provided us with many means to invent "false necessities" it has also meant that we spend more and more time out of the office working. The point being that rather than technology result in increased leisure its actually resulted in more work being crammed into a working life - especially for white collar workers.

Do we crave early retirement because work has deprived us of our free time? If we still had our weekends, evening and holidays work free zones would we feel that our lives were in balance? Or have we come to the stage where we live in fear that if we switch of our email out of work hours that we will be under threat from someone who IS prepared to leave their phone on?

I can't speculate as I need to go to bed to get up early for an 8:00 am meeting ;-)

Doesn't matter where we are int he world, the Blackberry comes too. And email are answered in the queue at the french hypermarket, on the beach or in the tiki bar in Florida- once they even tracked us down in Hawaii and he had to send a fax!

Work comes everywhere now.

atush

Thrugelmir wrote: »

More productive I would say. As we didn't have to read endless junk emails nor answer calls from people saying have you seen the email I just sent.

I dont know, it used to take a lot of time writing/typing things and copying them and faxing etc. Lots is done quicker now so leaves more time (for skiving lol).

Do you remember when people had secretaries? My OH had 2 at one point way back. None now.

elantan

atush wrote: »

Doesn't matter where we are int he world, the Blackberry comes too. And email are answered in the queue at the french hypermarket, on the beach or in the tiki bar in Florida- once they even tracked us down in Hawaii and he had to send a fax!

Work comes everywhere now.

I remember one time my work were desperate for me to come and cover a shift ( not even earning enough to be classed as a blue collar worker) I reluctantly agreed if they would pay my flight over from Krakow, funnily enough they got someone else to cover it once I mentioned that

The lesson I learned was either dont give your work your own mobile number or forget to take the phone with you ... Hasn't happened since

Thrugelmir

Marine_life wrote: »

I get endless complaints from people working for me that nobody answers their emails. When I tell them to pick up the phone they look at me like I just asked them to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together ;-)

I prefer the phone. As that I can control.

gfplux

Email is a great tool. We just don't know how to use it properly.
Now in most company's when somebody sends an email it is cc'd to dozens of other people "to be kept in the loop" so inboxes are full of rubbish hiding the real work.
Best rule ever is do not cc unless it is VITAL.

cathybird

I get hundreds of work emails every day. Most of them are totally irrelevant, so I make a point of deleting the lot (having checked first to make sure I'm not deleting anything important obviously). It is quite a good feeling. One good thing about my workplace is they don't expect you to be in contact in any way outside work hours - no phone, no email.

racing_blue

Although I basically hated Tim Ferriss's migraine of a book "The 4 hour work week", I did like his approach email management.

What I took from it was: check your emails only once per day at the end of the morning. Work quickly through the emails answering, deleting, or asking the sender to call you instead. Then log out until tomorrow.

This allows you to be uninterrupted when you are at your most productive in the morning & it gives you the afternoon to work on any new developments.

atush

elantan wrote: »

I remember one time my work were desperate for me to come and cover a shift ( not even earning enough to be classed as a blue collar worker) I reluctantly agreed if they would pay my flight over from Krakow, funnily enough they got someone else to cover it once I mentioned that

The lesson I learned was either dont give your work your own mobile number or forget to take the phone with you ... Hasn't happened since

Sorry, but the Blackberry is a work phone. And must be taken everywhere.

Silian

It really annoys me if people phone me instead of emailing me if it is not urgent.

If you phone someone you are basically saying: "drop everything you are doing and focus on my problem now. This is the most important thing in your life right now"

On the other hand if you email someone you allow them to look at your email at a time of their choosing.

My sister is the opposite. She hates it when people email her instead of phoning her.

In other words: It doesn't matter which route you pick, you are likely to upset someone. Just do whatever you prefer.