'…the long hours…may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone within them.'
Lots of truth in this New Yorker opinion piece about the modern blight of overwork, and how many industries become victim to 'arms races that create work that is of dubious necessity'. Whilst the promise of technology has for so long been about greater efficiency leading to a surfeit of leisure time for us all, somehow we've ended up with the opposite becoming a reality.
One of the great enigma's of modern working is that despite having more workers and being more productive than ever we are still working longer hours. Rather than focus on workers’ decisions and incentives, Tim Wu is suggesting that we should instead focus on the system – how technology is removing the kind of limitations that created natural boundaries and barriers to excessive working, and how white-collar work in many industries seems to expand infinitely through the creation of 'false necessities' – practices that evolve and develop and become entrenched ways of working yet create little value.
Overburdensome processes that cultivate over time, avoidable meetings, reply all emails, needless reporting, work that feeds systems that have become outmoded. Like Tim, I think there has to be a better way.
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