WORKING TIME: Promotion of the incompetent

For many years now, from a business profitability point of view, I have been arguing that, in certain types of jobs, subjecting a professional to strict or even non-strict working hours is unproductive and unprofitable. And of course, I have had many discussions with certain "professionals", businessmen and "experts" in labour relations. The fact is that when a company asks for innovation, especially in Spain, few dare to take their feet out of the traditional economy. Of course, until, like a monkey watching someone else use a stick, they see that other companies are profitable and "realise" that their competitors are more innovative.

Companies are full of workers and managers who come up with innovative ideas that remain in the wastepaper basket or in forgotten folders, whether they are material or virtual.

Let me explain.

Whether we are talking about production line type jobs or customer-supplier type jobs, it is clear that a timetable is required. In the first case as a matter of coordination of manual work, and in the second case out of deference to the recipient.

On the other hand, in jobs that do not require the above, the timetable is nothing more than a, if I may say so, stupid form of control in exchange for a salary, and certainly the best chance for promotion that the ballsy and incompetent have.

Where there is a timetable, there should be compliance with objectives.

Examples...

An employer gets angry because he sees the clerk who does the payrolls of the employees having a coffee and chatting with a colleague. This employer is evidently taking the archaic idea of "time = gold" as current. The result is a bad impression of the employer and possibly a reprimand.

Of course, at no time has the employer appreciated that this worker always has his tasks on time, that his error rate is the lowest in the company and that on top of that he creates an optimal working environment due to his friendly relationship with his colleagues, thus improving the working atmosphere and therefore productivity. On the other hand, he or she gets the "bollocking" for "losing 10 minutes" of work.

On the other hand, the colleague of the previous worker does not get up from the desk to have coffee, even if he is forgetful in his tasks and the previous worker (yes, the one who has been "reprimanded") has to help him on more than one occasion to finish the job.

It has been two years since the anti-smoking law was introduced in Spain, which prohibits smoking inside companies, and explicitly prohibits companies from providing an indoor smoking area.

As time goes by, there is more and more discomfort for smokers who take their time to satisfy their "need" (remember that tobacco is addictive) for nicotine and other substances (not declared to the public health authorities, by the way) that it contains. We are back to ... wasting time.

But what happens if the smoker performs less well when he has the monkey and the solution is 5 minutes every hour? And what happens if the smoker in question, with his dose of nicotine, happens to perform much better than other colleagues who "don't get up from their chairs"? Should we put a clocking-in machine in the toilets as well? As for me, I usually go home already "shitting".

It is as if the idea is that the wage is in exchange for the worker's time in a given timetable, and not for the result (and therefore productivity) that the worker provides to the company. And that idea, which I do not doubt was applied in ancient times, I doubt that it can stand on its own in the second millennium AD.

But of course, let's not forget that many of the advocates of the "time = gold" idea are still incompetent. Advocates who have 10 degrees, even if they have little or no relation to their job functions. Advocates who can only hide their inability to analyse, organise and organise projects under the concept they defend.

Because of course... to work with objectives, you have to have them. To demand accountability, you have to give it. And for a job to be productive, you have to study its profitability and clearly define the functions, even if they are dozens or hundreds. But that requires... working, and thinking... even if you think about it over coffee or smoking outside the company's door.

To innovate is to be ahead of the game. But to innovate you have to work, and for the positions I am talking about, a large percentage of working is thinking. And let's be frank, not all of them are where they are precisely because they think. Of course, they probably never looked up from their computer screen (even if it was for a personal conversation via messenger or watching a "pogüerpoin"), and they arrived at work first and left last, mostly because if they didn't leave last, the boss or employer on duty wouldn't be able to see their "merits".

Working hours are beneficial. Beneficial for the balls and for those who are unable to organise their work. Beneficial for those who do not see that the worker, and I insist as long as the job allows it, will perform better without unhealthy pressure. Beneficial for those who call their lack of foresight improvisation, and their absent-mindedness, laziness or lack of urgency, improvisation.

Working hours are beneficial for those who are not able to prepare a meeting in advance, knowing what they are going to talk about and with whom. Beneficial for those who hold meetings to clarify their ideas instead of going in with premises to put on the table. Beneficial for those who hold these meetings because they did not study typing and do not know how to send a prior report to all those convened.

Yes, the working hours, the "time = gold" philosophy, is beneficial for those only merit to offer is to leave work later.

Y cuidado, que no sólo hablo con lo de "esos" hacia empresarios o directivos, si no también hacia trabajadores. Porque sin horario laboral, sólo los buenos profesionales, los que cumplen con sus responsabilidades, los que en las ideas que dan normalmente ellos también son partícipes con su trabajo y no con balones fuera, sólo esos... permanecerían.

Fortunately, working time exists, and "those", its advocates, have a place in our "traditionally innovative" companies.

Motivation, responsibility, productivity, profitability... bullshit... Long live working hours!!!!