Newfie wrote:How do you explain that when I was growing up Drs didn't have any staff but now have 2.5 clerks on average? Thats a modern consumptive culture at work.
I think your logic doesn't hold much water. What's happening in medicine these days is just like every industry--increased automation. I interact with a website more than I do my doctors these days. All my interactions are mediated by the website. It's like having a Facebook friend for a doctor. Same with banks. I can even feed checks in through the ATMs now instead of having to use a teller, because the ATMs scan them in.
And just tonight I went through the MA health connector to apply for new health insurance. I'm sure I'll get reams of paperwork in the mail, but the process is much more streamlined. And I also called through the switchboard on my credit card and talked to a Nuance TOM, a TTS voice that responded to voice prompts like a robot from THX 1138.
Low skilled labor is getting eaten alive by automation. You go into a grocery store these days and there's barely anybody at the register because they want to encourage you to use the self-checkout (which I can't quite understand--seems rife for shoplifting). Then you've got the Uber bubble which will probably burst when cars are completely automated. Then all these independent drivers that are so happy they can circumvent Taxi regulations will also be out of work.
The common thread here is there is a desire to REDUCE labor expenses, not keep inefficient systems going for the sake of "full employment".
The argument it seemed you were making is that there is this cabal of business owners who insist on forcing their employers to schlep to work out of some responsibility they feel they have to provide employment to businesses that benefit in industrial parks and business districts. This flies completely in the face of all that I just described above.
The only consistent pattern here is a desire to reduce overhead. Therefore the reason the telecommuting hasn't followed suit is, like I said, traditional. Cultural inertia.
Newfie wrote:FWIW, "hoteling" is having the employee share (forced upon them) corporates overhead costs. It's not telecommuting.
Yes it is. It's
partial telecommuting. Since the office can't hold all the employees at once, they're working at home part of the time.
Newfie wrote:My Wife, the psychoanalyst has patients who come to her to talk of the personal depressive effects of "hoteling."
How so? They'd rather be tied to a cubicle every day rather than being able to work from home sometimes?
Telecommuting should be seen as a win-win. But people will bitch and moan regardless. They'll complain that by working from home, there's no 9-5 anymore. OK, sure. And I'm already scheduled to be on-call over this weekend. But I am also very well compensated for that. It's not...that...bad. But if people want to find some negativity to fixate on, they will.
But this is ultimately a peak oil site and I am harping on telecommuting because if it were to really take off like crazy it would wind up really reducing our gasoline consumption, which, wouldn't everyone agree, would be a good thing?
Instead people need to keep harping on negativity, so they bemoan the burger flippers and janitors downtown or in the industrial park who will be out of work because the offices will be empty.
You can't win...
All I'm saying is that this is thermodynamic "low hanging fruit", so to speak, and it colors my perception about how oil depletion will play out (or AGW for that matter, if there's a deliberate culture shift aimed at reducing emissions, which I think is less likely).
Thinly veiled class-warfare swipes at big business and capitalism are really off-topic, IMHO.
Newfie wrote:you get engineering offices with no space to lay out drawings, no way to do an estimate.
There are no whiteboards? Man. I code for a living. I started out in this most recent job (a startup) at a place that was kind of a communal office, meant for incubators. Sure, you knew you weren't going to be able to decorate it much, but it was fine. We're still in that kind of short-term executive office arrangement and I don't particularly care. They throw a laptop at you and you work wherever you have room to sit. It's kind of nice to have your own permanent space, but is it really such a tragedy? Come on, man.
Newfie wrote:the trend I'm seeing is pretty grim for the employee and the product.
So far you haven't been able to explain why it's so grim.
Newfie wrote:I advocate telecommuting. I understand the advantages. But it's a small answer not a panacea.
You just bitched that companies are too cheap to have permanent office spaces. So it suggests you'd rather have everyone have their own space and be expected to come in each day.
No, what your rant is really about is just wanting to rag on business in general, or capitalism. And that's fine, but it's a separate discussion.
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)