Comments on: Life as a Cog, 14 months in a corporate cubicle

By: empty spaces

empty spaces — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 02:27:20 +0000

no free coffee? thats really cheap!

By: » Noah’s Cog Life Eerily Similar on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:21:58 +0000

[...] When Noah published this post titled “Life as a Cog, 14 months in a corporate cubicle,” it resonated with me as I also work(ed) at a 100,000 person company. I said so at the time (check out the comment I left) though I wasn’t going to go further with it until now… after I’d tendered my resignation eight months later. Before you read further, check out his post and let me know how that compares to the job you’re holding now (and whether your company has 100 or 100,000 employees). [...]

By: Wen-Wen Lam

Wen-Wen Lam — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:11:57 +0000

At Intel you guys only spent 2-3 hours browsing the net? At UBOC, I would say at least 80% of our time was wasted online useless doing nothing. Fantasy sports – way of life. Myspace- an addiction. The solution really is to have employees feel like they are adding value- nobody wants to work on a project that feels useless or is never going to get implemented.

See Noah, I read your blog!

By: jim

jim — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 03:40:40 +0000

This hit the nail on the head… every single numbered bullet was right on.

By: Rishi Khaitan

Rishi Khaitan — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:57:20 +0000

Gotcha. It was like 4am when I wrote that comment.

Anyways, I think the only way to maximize efficiency in a company is to make job roles flexible and have groups share responsiblities. Instead of having an 1 employee assigned to 1 role. Have 7 (some # less than 10) employees sharing 10 roles. Rotation programs are good also (doesn’t Intel have one for engineers?). Not only does it help the individual explore other groups within the company, but also it promotes fresh thinking and knowledge sharing amongst groups.

Dealing with meetings is tricky. You can do it Bloomberg style and make all meetings standing only. Makes for sparse, short meetings when you can’t just kick back and relax in a nice, reclining meeting room chair. Or, you can do it Apple style and promote long meetings where ideas get fleshed out amongst different groups. I guess I would say the key here is to promote adhoc meetings. Reduce the number of scheduled meetings where everyone and their Mom is on the invite list. Instead, encourage spontaneous, adhoc meetings. Adhoc meetings involve only the people who matter and have no scheduled time period. Stay exactly as long as it takes to resolve the issue and, if necessary, send out the meeting’s conclusions via email. A great example of an adhoc meeting are those that take place in line at the cafeteria.

By: Noah Kagan

Noah Kagan — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:42:28 +0000

Rishi,

I was half-joking about turning off the internet but I COMPLETELY agree with your thought about making people enjoy their jobs to help efficiency. What do you do if your job function is not that interesting? Should the company only hire people who find that role interesting?

I think employees should be allowed to browse the internet since working 8 hours non-stop is unrealistic and allowing them some freedom to do other things helps them enjoy their jobs more. My only concern is at jobs where your function/role is limited and you have many hours of free time you end up wasting it browsing the internet.

A possible solution is for companies to entice employees to come up with ideas and answers to problems non-related to their exact role. As well, have them meet other people in the company for possible knowledge sharing. Any other suggestions?

By: Rishi Khaitan

Rishi Khaitan — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 11:37:48 +0000

Noah, “Turn off the Internet?” I totally disagree. People will find ways to distract themselves from doing work. Trying to curtail these distractions is a losing proposition. Instead, I believe in the opposite approach. The goal should be to make the workplace and specifically each employee’s job as enjoyable as possible. Happy people care about what their doing. People who care about what they’re doing take pride in doing it. Pride = Quality output. My philosophy is do whatever it takes (within financial reason) to make employees happy. Whatever it takes could mean free food/drinks, foozball tables, more flexible job definitions (work on what’s interesting to you), etc. I know that sounds kinda cliche dot.com but dot.com’s failed because of fundamental flaws in the business, not because their employees weren’t enthusiastic about their jobs.