Efficiency
Monday January 13, 2025
It’s Monday. Time to grind. But first, get a little inefficient by reading about efficiency.
One Person: Frederick Winslow Taylor
Considered the father of organizational management, Frederick Winslow Taylor is who you have to thank for performance reviews, annual downsizing, and the general subjugation of labor by the managerial class. If you got a corporate White Elephant instead of a bonus last year, blame this guy.
Taylor, a mechanical engineer, wrote The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911, which, as the name suggests, introduced to the world the concept of “scientific management,” which was effectively the first iteration of what we now call performance management or, simply, efficiency. In Principles, he lays out the evils of “systematic soldiering,” which recently earned the moniker, Quiet Quitting, and explains how rigid management and incessant demands will milk the worker of more of his sweet laborious nectar and make him happier, for he is now Efficient.
Taylor, however, was a quack and a liar who hated immigrants, viewed the working class as inanimate pawns, and profligately manufactured data to support what was basically Eugenics for The Office. He was reviled in his time and forced to testify against Congress more than once and yet still his ideas persisted after his death. This idiot is why we today have so normalized an unnatural obsession with productivity and efficiency that we satirize it in films and television yet applaud when a couple of nepo baby, white collar welfare abusers create a government department to “improve efficiency.”
God forbid we all be allowed to just do our jobs as they’re described and go home on time.
One Hollywood: Severance, Apple TV+
Probably the best show on TV right now, Severance is set in a world in which employees at a boundary-pushing company may elect to undergo a controversial surgical procedure to “sever” their work lives and home lives, effectively creating two distinct people in the same body: One at the office, and one outside the office.
The whole show is built on dichotomies, but the most impressive one may simply be that a show about the mundane is so irrepressibly creative. It’s a slow-burning thriller that spotlights the cult-like tribalism and performance management that drives so many corporate missions. But it’s also like the happiest hostage situation you’ve ever seen.
It’s the only show I watch acutely, where literally every detail and choice feels like it has meaning. If you haven’t seen it, you have a little time to catch up. The first episode of season 2 debuts Friday.
One Idea: Parkinson’s Law
In a 1955 issue of The Economist, naval historian C. Northcote Parkinson proposed the idea that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Put succinctly, “Work expands to fill the available time.”
If you watch TikToks for 7 hours and 51 minutes today and use those final nine minutes to accomplish your work tasks, you’ll be a beautiful adherent to Parkinson’s Law. You may also elevate your chances of developing Parkinson’s disease.
One Book: When McKinsey Comes to Town by Michael Forsythe and Walt Bogdanich
I found this book about as exciting as you’d expect a book about a consulting group to be, but it’s a nonetheless interesting perspective on how America works. McKinsey has laid off thousands of people, implemented God knows how many “productivity measures,” and screwed consumers in hundreds of ways, but they keep getting called in because they save executives money. They’re the reaper, an undead reminder that our society has no order or justice — only capital and those who hoard it.
One Song: “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus
I could try to stretch this to be on-theme but, really, I just fell down a Miley hole this week. For some reason, while doing crunches at the gym, I had this little thread I couldn’t stop chasing. I had some faint thought of Miley’s Black Mirror episode but I couldn’t remember the character’s name or the songs she made for the show. I Googled. “Ashley O.” It was only two songs, but that was enough to make me go to Miley’s Spotify page and spit out my teeth when I saw she has like five songs with more than a billion plays. So, I put on This Is Miley Cyrus and I’ve been enjoying more than expected for the past few days.
Now go get your labor exploited, y’all.