« Should YOU self-employ? | Home | Some changes »
The 4 Hour Work Week
By brewmaster | June 18, 2007
The latest Amazon craze is Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-Hour work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Though he doesn’t exactly (at least early in the book) lay out a get-rich scheme (that’s not the point), he does have some paradigm-changing ways to look at what you do. One of which is a very simple concept that many employees and even more employ-ers don’t get. It’s a concept that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and is:
A job will fill the time allotted to it.
Again, Ferriss doesn’t say this, but his ideas brought this concept jarringly to the front of my mind. How many of us truly have 40 hour jobs? I work hard, but how much of that is because I’m paid, not only accomplish a certain group and number of tasks, but also to spend as many hours as possible on premises doing so.
Think about that.
How much of your job could you do in 30 hours if your boss said "hey, when you’re done, get the hell out of here and enjoy your life?" My guess is, probably all of it. How about 25 hours? Again, if it didn’t matter a damn if your face was seen arriving early and leaving late, you could probably get it all done then. I think most of us take lunch, not because we need out of the office nourishment, but because we know we have to be in the office until 5, so we will damn well take as much time in the middle of the day as we can. If that was our time we were cutting into, we’d be eating smaller brown bags at the desk more. It’d probably be better for our waistlines, too.
The company I work for, Conglomerate, Inc., bought us a big, beautiful corporate home that is the pride and joy to all, especially the big bosses with their huge corner offices and mini-conference tables and sofas. When the home-office types come calling, and butts aren’t in the chairs, the local bosses get quizzed about why the hell we needed so much square footage. So, we get memos policing office hours and "you must be at your desk" type proclamations. It’s all insane, and makes us no money. 100% salespeople, who rarely make money in the office, have to fill out time-off requests and sickday explanations, and they are paid completely on commission. It’s not about getting the job done, it’s about everybody looking like they’re working.
And it’s why good, productive people opt-out. Well, not everyone. The ones who are happy to look like they’re working stay.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Announcements |