theredheadsaid
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@ginidietrich i KNOW!! dumbbb. well, it's remnants of the "butts in seats" productivity model, vs. actual productivity model.
This is the same kind of company that monitors your lunch time. I worked for a company like this where one of the project heads came to me and said "Yeah, we noticed you came back from lunch ten minutes late today." and I said, "yes, did you also notice that I stayed three hours late last night to finish the rush project that you gave me?" NO REACTION. "yeah, we need you to come back on time from lunch." Do you think I gave my best work to that company after that? HELLS NO
Have you guys seen the movie "Crazy People" with Dudley Moore from the 1980s? I would love to see that kind of truth in advertising. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxZz-nXTeCs
Spin exists for companies that can't tell the truth about their brand (pharma), or for which there is no truth (i.e., undifferentiated brands, like Pepsi vs. Coke). For a small company with a simple philosophy and brand (for example, a business making handmade leather bags) the truth of the product speaks for itself. For a service brand, if your service is good (like Zappos), the service speaks for itself, and will be spread through good word of mouth. If service is bad, no amount of spin can save it.
I think spin will always exist for giant companies with bottomless wallets.
@VirginiaMann I have several friends who admit, in shameful voice, that if they had to do it all again, they might not have had kids, because they were unprepared for how EXHAUSTING it would be
@ginidietrich @martinwaxman still too much working! the Europeans (at least the ones who have siestas and long long vacations) have it right!
The quote from that article that pretty much sums up why the woman made the choice she did was when she asked herself (paraphrasing here), "to whom am I indispensable?" and it was to her family, not the White House.
As a childless, single (for the moment) woman, I often find myself working more than I should because I'm not indispensable to anyone right now. That's a bad trap to fall into.
Gini, I randomly replied to at leave five of these comments, and I'm impressed that you followed up on all of them, and probably did the same for everyone else! SuperCommentWoman!
@rosemaryoneill I think if you are an enlightened employer, you will tend to hire enlightened workers, whom you can (hopefully) trust to a)get the work done they need to and b) not abuse the vacation.
How is it working for your company Rosemary?
@ginidietrich @PeaceTeaBooks I call this the "butts in seats" mentality. Also a control fetish from management. Who are afraid to trust their workers.
actually i think the main problem is work. We're expected to work these 40 hour weeks (who decided this?) to obtain X objectives, and for the most part, we are working for companies whose goals are not personal to us. And unless we are lucky enough to work for ourselves, or work for progressive companies, work will continue to dominate our lives. Wouldn't it be great if "someone" decided that a 4 hour workday was healthier for people? You can get if we were promised that, we could get almost the same amount of work done in those four hours than we do now (again, this is speaking of the results based vs. hours based we've been discussing). Or heck, if we just abolished the monetary system altogether and made everything free for everyone, that would solve everythign! :)
@rosemaryoneill YOU are the kind of employer that I wish there were more of! p.s. do you need any content strategists? :)
I read a great article (wish I could remember the source) that basically said, "Women could have it all...if they had their own wives." :)
@ginidietrich I worked at a startup in California as the sole tech writer. As the company grew, I kept working harder and harder, until at once time I was responsible for 12 products, researching, writing and updating all the manuals, plus testing products as they came through to catch product problems early so I wouldn't have to make users suffer and "write around it" in documentation. When I finally left, they replaced me with THREE people. As my wise friend Jaye once said, "if you keep pulling rabbits out of hats, pretty soon they will expect kangaroos." and boy did I pull out a lot of kangaroos. And what do I have to show for it? Nothing. Not a damn thing.
@ginidietrich you just contradicted yourself!