One thing I really don’t miss about having a proper job is the lack of daylight and fresh air. Even if you are sat near a window, the ambience in most offices is of artificial light and stuffy air.
If you were given the task of constructing an environment that prevented people working efficiently but wasn’t actually damaging to them, it would be like most offices: lack of proper daylight (except when the sun hits your screen and you can’t see a thing); lack of fresh air (air conditioning is not fresh air); and inexplicable temperatures that are either too hot or too cold about which nothing can be done.
If you went further and began to construct people’s working lives around being unproductive, you would probably: insist that they all work at set hours irrespective of when they were most productive; insist they all came into a central location, possibly miles from their home, that is just like the place described above; make them responsible for things they can’t control but give them no responsibility for what they can control.
Sound familiar?
Yes! http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work.html
Yeah, saw that video a few months ago and really liked it. I particularly liked the 10-people-in-a-1-hour-meeting-is-a-10-hour-meeting bit!