On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".

That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.

Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.

Now you're deliberately being silly.


Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.


It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others.

They actually prefer to spend it WORKING.

Or reading Usenet, or making themselves coffee, or watching TV, or
buying stuff on eBay, or going for a walk.

Teleworkers are just as likely to skive as office workers. They just
skive in different ways.

It's almost a cliche that the IT community is
populated by people with poor interpersonal and social networking
skills and who prefer the company of a computer screen to other
humans. So it's not surprising to find a significant number of Usenet
users (who also tend to fall in that demographic) having
over-optimistic opinions of how easy it would be to convert many jobs
to teleworking.


Possibly.

Definitely.

Mark
--
http://www.BritishSurnames.co.uk - What does your surname say about you?
"You gotta live with your dreams, don't make them so hard"

In message , at 19:49:44 on
Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Owain remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
I find they usually manage to photograph the right property and get
the rooms sizes correct.
The owner can do that.
Don't be daft, of course they can't.

The owner did it in this case.

You are not the majority of sellers.

And having agents do it (and write the words) introduces a very
useful degree of consistency, so you can compare one with another on
paper without always having to travel to view in person. Wasn't
reducing travel a theme at the moment?

Consistency in that estate agents tend to have a large pot of cliches
from which to choose. "ample fitted units" in the kitchen was one of
mine.

But there is consistency between their use of the cliches from one house
to another. You don't have to learn to interpret a different set of
cliches from each different seller.

--
Roland Perry

Owain wrote:
tony sayer wrote:
Personally I feel more connected with an internet connection than
sitting at a desk in any office..and a hellofa sight more productive,
Well there aren't all those dolly birds around to distract you for a
start....

You don't know what TNP has as a screensaver...


A blank screen actually.


Owain

Andrew Gabriel wrote:


Face-to-face is important

Somewhat.

-- it's much easier to respect someone
after you've met them face-to-face.

Huh? I find it harder generally.

'Will you respect me in the morning'?m :-)

However one isn't there to respect people, just get a job done.


That doesn't mean every meeting
or communication has to be done that way though.

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.
Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.

Now you're deliberately being silly.

Not at all. My best engineers used to request they do software work at
home 'because everyone is constantly chartering in here and I can't
concentratre'


Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.


It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others.
They actually prefer to spend it WORKING.

Or reading Usenet, or making themselves coffee, or watching TV, or
buying stuff on eBay, or going for a walk.

At least some of that is better than gossip about the latest reality TV
show.

And if they are working task based, when they do the work is no concern
of mine.

Teleworkers are just as likely to skive as office workers. They just
skive in different ways.


It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Or how much work I used to do staring out of the window visualising the
next bit I was going to design and commit to paper. MOST of what I now
do, is conceived and clarified while throwing sticks for the slobberador.


It's almost a cliche that the IT community is
populated by people with poor interpersonal and social networking
skills and who prefer the company of a computer screen to other
humans. So it's not surprising to find a significant number of Usenet
users (who also tend to fall in that demographic) having
over-optimistic opinions of how easy it would be to convert many jobs
to teleworking.

Possibly.

Definitely.

What self confidence....
Mark

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.
Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.

Now you're deliberately being silly.

Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.


It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others.
They actually prefer to spend it WORKING.

Or reading Usenet, or making themselves coffee, or watching TV, or
buying stuff on eBay, or going for a walk.

Yep all that ;-) *after* you have delivered the set project to deadline
and ascertained it has been signed off. Well you deserve it really... as
maybe you worked until 2:00 to finish it off, not possible in an office
70 miles away when public transport finishes around 12:00 pm.

Teleworkers are just as likely to skive as office workers. They just
skive in different ways.


Actually, they don't. The work has either been done and delivered via
e-mail or it hasn't, if a deadline has been missed in an office there
are a thousand reasons one can pass the buck, the courier was late, the
photocopier broke down, so and so was in meetings and unavailable etc.
etc.

It's almost a cliche that the IT community is
populated by people with poor interpersonal and social networking
skills and who prefer the company of a computer screen to other
humans. So it's not surprising to find a significant number of Usenet
users (who also tend to fall in that demographic) having
over-optimistic opinions of how easy it would be to convert many jobs
to teleworking.

Nicest people around IME. The ones I watched with a jaundiced eye were
slimy generally incompetent management, whose only function seemed to be
bullying their more qualified and skilled staff.

Possibly.

Definitely.

Mark

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article e.net,
Mark Goodge writes:
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
That's a very good point.

Yes, and it has to be addressed differently when telecommuting.
The act of an off-chance over-heard conversation needs to be
changed into something which is actively sought out. When that's
done, this will work even more effectively, since it won't be
relying on an off-chance event. Typically this would be done by
actively ensuring staff are aware of what is going on across
the whole team, or implementing a system which will automatically
pick up such things.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how

As Andy said, that doesn't necessarily mean sitting next to each
other. It does mean ensuring that the same banter that might go on
in an office still operates across the team. That might be by team
conference calls which allow for non-work related discussions,
team mailing list which permits off-topic banter, team events
where people do get together for bonding purposes, etc.

they're most productive when working. It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others. It's almost a cliche that the IT community is
populated by people with poor interpersonal and social networking
skills and who prefer the company of a computer screen to other
humans. So it's not surprising to find a significant number of Usenet
users (who also tend to fall in that demographic) having
over-optimistic opinions of how easy it would be to convert many jobs
to teleworking.

This isn't my experience. It's true that there's probably a
higher level of mild autism amongst some of the most technically
compitent in the computer industry, but those are not the ones
pushing teleworking in my experience. I've worked both in companies
which push it, and those which resist it. It is pushed by two classes
of people -- finance directors who've looked seriously at it and
worked out how much money is to be saved, and managers who have
realised that a) it significantly increases productivity, and b) it
allows you to employ the best people in the world in the relevent
field, most of whom will not be living anywhere near your offices.

As a manager, I have strongly encouraged my staff to work from home
when they want to, and to work hours that suit them, within the
contraints of ensuring the team provides sufficient coverage during
core hours to meet the requirements of our customers. In a company
where teleworking as a whole was not encouraged (due as Andy said
in a large part to insecure middle management), the hard part was
to stop my staff from feeling guilty about not being in the office,
or not working between 9 to 5. In return for this flexibility, I
would get longer hours, volunteers to do work at anti-social hours
(because it would mean they could take time out in the day to meet
the wife for lunch/shopping, do some gardening, pick up kids from
school, etc). On several occasions, this enabled me to retain
valued staff members who would have had to leave if they were stuck
in a 9-5 office job, and to employ excellent staff who live nowhere
near the office. I also reduce the office overhead by not having
desks for all my staff, impact on the environment by reduced
travelling, impact on staff by reduced stress, etc. The team
cohesion remained rock solid though -- just as though they were
all working together in an office, so it can be done.

There are industries where teleworking can't work, but there are
far more industries where is just hasn't been given the
consideration it requires. I look at the throng of commuters
going up to London each morning, none of whom look like they are
enjoying the experience one bit. I just don't believe most of them
need to do this every day.

Another aspect of this is running teams across continents and
timezones. I've been involved in many such teams, and all the
same considerations apply as with telecomuting, plus the additional
one of not being all being awake at the same time. If you are
building world class teams you have to handle this, as in many
spheres, most of the world experts will not be living in the
same countries or even continents as each other.

I now take back what I said about managers. Good luck to you although
I'm sure you don't need it.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:11:31 on
Tue, 1 Jan 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.

Why?
Because they need to describe them to buyers, which you can't do
adequately if you haven't visited them, and documented them.

Surely they just make it all up anyway?

;-)
Very few of the property decsriptions I have had from estate agents
bear any relationship to reality..

I find they usually manage to photograph the right property and get the
rooms sizes correct.


Yeah but IME they consistently fail to display the rusting Dutch barn,
silos or dual carriageway adjacent to the property.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:57:18 on Mon,
31 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
Well, commuting used to cost me about 0 a collating photocopier.
And a color laser for that matter..and quite a lot of bandwidth.
One of the points about telecommuting is to *save* the commuting
costs, not replace them with loads of different costs.

I thought in this context we were talking about not burning fuel?

Can you manufacture and distribute color lasers without burning fuel?


What's this obsession with colour lasers? Can't a pdf do the same job?

On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 01:41:08 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.
Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.

Now you're deliberately being silly.

Not at all. My best engineers used to request they do software work at
home 'because everyone is constantly chartering in here and I can't
concentratre'

I do appreciate that. There are times when you need space to
concentrate, and detailed programming is one of them. But a good
employer will provide for that in a shared environment - it doesn't
require homeworking per se. But not all jobs are like that, and even
programmers often appreciate the ability to "dezone" for a while and
relax. And when you're working on a collaborative project, things tend
to progress a lot faster if you're in the same office as someone as
you can more easily discuss details as you go rather than going
through a lengthy email exchange. That's particularly true for the
various "extreme programming" techniques which prioritise action
rather than procedures.

Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.


It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others.
They actually prefer to spend it WORKING.

Or reading Usenet, or making themselves coffee, or watching TV, or
buying stuff on eBay, or going for a walk.

At least some of that is better than gossip about the latest reality TV
show.

Being snobby about your diversions doesn't make them any less a
diversion.

And if they are working task based, when they do the work is no concern
of mine.

And the same applies to office workers, of course.

Teleworkers are just as likely to skive as office workers. They just
skive in different ways.


It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Maybe you should have stopped being amazed, then.

Or how much work I used to do staring out of the window visualising the
next bit I was going to design and commit to paper. MOST of what I now
do, is conceived and clarified while throwing sticks for the slobberador.


It's almost a cliche that the IT community is
populated by people with poor interpersonal and social networking
skills and who prefer the company of a computer screen to other
humans. So it's not surprising to find a significant number of Usenet
users (who also tend to fall in that demographic) having
over-optimistic opinions of how easy it would be to convert many jobs
to teleworking.

Possibly.

Definitely.

What self confidence....

Indeed.

Mark
--
http://www.BritishSurnames.co.uk - What does your surname say about you?
"Sometimes everything is wrong"

In article , The Natural
Philosopher scribeth thus
Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.
Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.

Now you're deliberately being silly.

Not at all. My best engineers used to request they do software work at
home 'because everyone is constantly chartering in here

So thats why their called chartered "engineers" then;?.....

and I can't
concentratre'


Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.

Nah!, work is a game which you have -team players- for ce ne pas?...
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural
Philosopher scribeth thus
Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.
Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.
Now you're deliberately being silly.
Not at all. My best engineers used to request they do software work at
home 'because everyone is constantly chartering in here

So thats why their called chartered "engineers" then;?.....

and I can't
concentratre'

Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.

Nah!, work is a game which you have -team players- for ce ne pas?...

Not in most corporates I have known. The game is essentially political,
how to get the credit for, and pas the blame for, a particular job while
doing as little of it yourself as you can.

In article , The Natural
Philosopher scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural
Philosopher scribeth thus
Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.
Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.
Now you're deliberately being silly.
Not at all. My best engineers used to request they do software work at
home 'because everyone is constantly chartering in here

So thats why their called chartered "engineers" then;?.....

and I can't
concentratre'

Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.

Nah!, work is a game which you have -team players- for ce ne pas?...

Not in most corporates I have known. The game is essentially political,
how to get the credit for, and pas the blame for, a particular job while
doing as little of it yourself as you can.


Well perhaps its changed there're always asking for a good -team player-
in job adverts;!...
--
Tony Sayer

In article ,
Roland Perry writes:
In message , at 17:42:41 on
Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Andrew Gabriel remarked:

There are lots of ways to do this, and they mostly scale better
and produce more consistent results than relying on off-chance
over-heard conversations.

To do it physically does requires a departmental organisation with
perhaps a maximum of a dozen people within constant earshot.

Many of them will be busy at any one time (one hopes) or out of
the office on occasions. Relying only on overheard conversations
and rumour-style dissemination of information isn't reliable even
when everyone does work in the same office.

Email is not the only tool, although it is an important one.

I've never seen any tool that came even close to scraping teleworking
and spreading hints around a dispersed group. If I did see one I know of
several people who are trying to run entirely 'remote' collaborative
working who'd be very interested.

Mostly I've used custom tools, either because the company was
large enough to commission its own, or because it was silly
enough to spend its limited resources writing its own.

However, most workflow tools are going to be able to operate
remotely. Depending on what your team is doing, something like
Quality Center, Remedy, or a helpdesk application (names escape
me) is likely to work. Even something as simple as a team mailing
list or local/internal newsgroups can work well (I've used both
on different occasions). Some teams claim to find things like
a private IRC channel useful, although I haven't found them so,
and they can be a disaster if the team is all working different
timezones.

Face-to-face is important -- it's much easier to respect someone
after you've met them face-to-face. That doesn't mean every meeting
or communication has to be done that way though.

Of course, follow-ups can often be done by phone or email. But even that
starts to get unwieldy when there are more than half a dozen active
contributors to one train of thought. Just look at Usenet and how slowly
it converges (and how long it takes to make progress).

I have used local/internal newsgroups for discussions about
design and implementation of projects, and found that to work
well. It wouldn't suit every case of course. It can be a lot
more effective than meetings, where people often come along
not having read the material and waste everyone's time as a
result.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...

It can be a lot
more effective than meetings, where people often come along
not having read the material and waste everyone's time as a
result.

Only if the chair of the meeting chooses to let them.

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Limited - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural
Philosopher scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.
Nah!, work is a game which you have -team players- for ce ne pas?...
Not in most corporates I have known. The game is essentially political,
how to get the credit for, and pas the blame for, a particular job while
doing as little of it yourself as you can.


Well perhaps its changed there're always asking for a good -team player-
in job adverts;!...

What people say in job adverts, spout in management meetings and
management training courses is a million miles removed from the way they
actually behave in the office.

A large corporation is a political power struggle, par excellence. How
any work gets done at all is beyond me, frankly.


When selling to middle management in large companies, the guiding
principles are these.

1/. Its not his money he is spending. He may have a budeget, but that is
as far as it goes.

2/. If he doesn't spend his budget, it will be reduced next year,

3/. If he overspends his budget it will be less next year.

4/. What is best for the company that employs him is not even an issue
to be discussed.

5/. What counts is what is best for his CV and career in the next job he
has his eyes set on.

6/. He hasn't a clue what he needs: Fortunately neither do his bosses.

7/. He is in a terrible position of having to take a risk which may
damage his career, or take no risk at all, and fail to achieve his
imposed objectives.

8/. His objectives are seldom anything to do with the actual quality of
the service or products delivered.Thye wil have been set as a political
compromise of wish list selection in a 'meeeting' that didn't really
resolve or decide anything, and put into a huge document that he has had
to write/had written,.which usually contradicts itself, and is seldom
comprehensible. Its beensigned off by his boss, whio is frankly bored
with the whole thing and only read the executive summary, which contains
all the right buzz phrases.

9/. The sale consists in providing enough spurious guarantees so that he
feels that his arse is at least covered with respect to total project
implosion. Plus enough project documentation to convince his boss that
he has in fact done his job properly. It also has to be at an impressive
price that stretches, but does not exceed the budget. Any less makes him
look like a insignificant manager, whose job could be done by anyone.
Any more means he is impecunious and cannot control a budget.

10/. Finally,when it all goes into meltdown, the project must be
structured and offloaded in such a way, that neither he, nor his boss,
get any brown stuff on their trousers. The neatest way to do this is to
complain that his department is overstressed and understaffed, which
turns the institionalised incompetence into a plus: he may just get a
budget rise and run an even bigger department next year if his boss
feels a bit threatened too. However this runs the risk that the whole
department may get closed down. So a smart manager will have kept some
budget back to spnd on an external consulatnt, whose job is to come in
and analyse the situation, and write a report that exonerates the people
employing him, and manages to place the blame squarely on the shoulders
of the most expendable staff members, or contractors. This is an art
form, and one I have had to do in my time.

11/. Finally the key to selling is to make sure that nothing legally
suable was ever said in the contract, so that while its full of empty
promises, they are all conditioned by phrases that say things like 'best
efforts : there should be no assurances of a concrete nature anywhere in
it, to protect the vendors interests. I remember a wonderful time with
Cisco in the channel islands 'We can offer a 24 hour callout service
anywhere in the British Isles" "On a winters day, with a gale blowing,
the ports closed and all aircraft grounded? Are you sure?" :-)

You will note that in none of the sequences of events here, has a simple
cost effective solution to a real world problem ever been discussed.
Frankly, who needs one? It may actually happen as a result of some keen
junior slipping a spec of quality past the bull****, in which case the
manager will take credit for at the worst, being sharp enough to employ
such a good 'team player'

BUT that guy will be watched like a hawk: he is obviously extremely
dangerous, and patently capable of taking the manager's job away from
him along with most of his staff and budget. Normally he will be
constructively dismissed shortly afterwards.
A real 'team player' is the guy who won't threaten your job, but will
correct your mistakes in a way that makes you look good, and probably
without you noticing it, and seldom even brings them to your attention,
and is there to take the blame when things go wrong. Above all a good
team player never ever dulls your day with doses of reality. Corporate
life is all about perception, how you are perceived by others, how your
boss perceives you, how your CV and its implied value in the salary
stakes show..

Whether or not anything is actually achieved is a completely incidental
and usually accidental issue...

You only have top look at the whole mess of government as an employer to
see how true this all is.

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:55:23 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Feel free to add...
1. CFL lightbulbs.
2. Taxing 4x4s out of existence.
3. Recycling paper and glass.
4. Prince Charles.
5. Greenpeace.
6. FOE.
7. Windmills
8. Speed humps

I don't recall anyone claiming that speed humps will save the planet.
They have quite the opposite effect.

9. Bicycles.
10. Compulsory vegetarianism. (compulsory homosexuality might: Now
there's a thought)
11. God.
12. Al Gore.
13. Switching off your 5W telly overnight.
14. Biofuel.
15. Hydrogen fuel.
16. Pretending climate change isn't happening.
17. Accepting that it is, but denying it's man made, with the implicit
corollary that that means nothing need/can be done about it.
18. Saving the whale/great crested newt/lesser spotted amoeba/...add
anything you like here.
19. Wave power.
20. Solar energy.
21. Banning aeroplanes.
22. Banning fox hunting.


....that's a starter

Add any more items of particularly pernicious greenwash ********...that
you like..

23. Nuclear power

M

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
tony sayer wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:
Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.

Some work probably is boring, and some people will be bored
by any work. I am perhaps fortunate to have found most of my
work very interesting. I aim to make my teams enjoy working,
and from the feedback I've had, they do. When selecting new
staff, my most important criteria is judging how well they
will work in the team they would be joining.

Nah!, work is a game which you have -team players- for ce ne pas?...

Not in most corporates I have known. The game is essentially political,
how to get the credit for, and pas the blame for, a particular job while
doing as little of it yourself as you can.

There is politics in every company, but the extent varies enormously.
I've worked in companies at both extremes, and the highly political
ones I've worked in don't work (and mostly don't exist any more),
as politics tends to keep incompetent people in too many positions,
particularly key ones. Politics can be particularly damaging to
effective team working, and ineffective teams represent significant
wasted resources, and thus a competitive disadvantage.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:55:23 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Feel free to add...
1. CFL lightbulbs.
2. Taxing 4x4s out of existence.
3. Recycling paper and glass.
4. Prince Charles.
5. Greenpeace.
6. FOE.
7. Windmills
8. Speed humps

I don't recall anyone claiming that speed humps will save the planet.
They have quite the opposite effect.

9. Bicycles.
10. Compulsory vegetarianism. (compulsory homosexuality might: Now
there's a thought)
11. God.
12. Al Gore.
13. Switching off your 5W telly overnight.
14. Biofuel.
15. Hydrogen fuel.
16. Pretending climate change isn't happening.
17. Accepting that it is, but denying it's man made, with the implicit
corollary that that means nothing need/can be done about it.
18. Saving the whale/great crested newt/lesser spotted amoeba/...add
anything you like here.
19. Wave power.
20. Solar energy.
21. Banning aeroplanes.
22. Banning fox hunting.


....that's a starter

Add any more items of particularly pernicious greenwash ********...that
you like..

23. Nuclear power


Just a point - the planet will be absolutely fine, with or without the fine
and rather thin green scum on the surface that is us and will twirl merrily
on its way round the solar system long after we are gone.

I believe we are referring to saving this scum (otherwise known as the
biosphere).


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
tony sayer wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:13:52 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:
Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.

Some work probably is boring, and some people will be bored
by any work. I am perhaps fortunate to have found most of my
work very interesting. I aim to make my teams enjoy working,
and from the feedback I've had, they do. When selecting new
staff, my most important criteria is judging how well they
will work in the team they would be joining.

Nah!, work is a game which you have -team players- for ce ne pas?...

Not in most corporates I have known. The game is essentially political,
how to get the credit for, and pas the blame for, a particular job while
doing as little of it yourself as you can.

There is politics in every company, but the extent varies enormously.
I've worked in companies at both extremes, and the highly political
ones I've worked in don't work (and mostly don't exist any more),
as politics tends to keep incompetent people in too many positions,
particularly key ones.

Generally in the "best" (separate) offices, where their incompetence can be
hidden! Open plan working (including the "boss") has many downsides but can
foster team spirit and (I believe) higher productivity.

I recall being lectured on "management" in the 70's where the premise was
that a managing director shouldn't have an office (although his secretary
should and there should be meeting rooms available) as his job was to be out
and about "managing" his staff, which was a whole deal more than issuing an
instruction, waiting for its completion and writing a report to the board on
it. A view I have some sympathy with!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 01:59:16 +0000, magwitch wrote:
It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others.
They actually prefer to spend it WORKING.

Or reading Usenet, or making themselves coffee, or watching TV, or
buying stuff on eBay, or going for a walk.

Yep all that ;-) *after* you have delivered the set project to deadline
and ascertained it has been signed off. Well you deserve it really... as
maybe you worked until 2:00 to finish it off, not possible in an office
70 miles away when public transport finishes around 12:00 pm.

Back when I was doing software development work, I used to get far
more done working from home than I did when in the office - and I could
be sat on the sofa or out in the garden while I was doing it. People
still knew where I was and how to get hold of me, but the fact that I
wasn't in their physical presence meant that there were far fewer
distractions.

On top of that, I saved myself two hours of commuting each day, so there
was plenty of extra non-work time left over for distractions.

cheers

Jules

Mark wrote:
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:55:23 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Feel free to add...
1. CFL lightbulbs.
2. Taxing 4x4s out of existence.
3. Recycling paper and glass.
4. Prince Charles.
5. Greenpeace.
6. FOE.
7. Windmills
8. Speed humps

I don't recall anyone claiming that speed humps will save the planet.
They have quite the opposite effect.

9. Bicycles.
10. Compulsory vegetarianism. (compulsory homosexuality might: Now
there's a thought)
11. God.
12. Al Gore.
13. Switching off your 5W telly overnight.
14. Biofuel.
15. Hydrogen fuel.
16. Pretending climate change isn't happening.
17. Accepting that it is, but denying it's man made, with the implicit
corollary that that means nothing need/can be done about it.
18. Saving the whale/great crested newt/lesser spotted amoeba/...add
anything you like here.
19. Wave power.
20. Solar energy.
21. Banning aeroplanes.
22. Banning fox hunting.


....that's a starter

Add any more items of particularly pernicious greenwash ********...that
you like..

23. Nuclear power


Well it wont save the planet, but it will save humanity from 10,000
years of pre-industrial resource free misery.

M

In message e.net, at
08:07:22 on Wed, 2 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Maybe you should have stopped being amazed, then.

Explained to me as "everyone sees you come in ten minutes late, no-one
sees you leave two hours late".
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 12:08:14 on
Wed, 2 Jan 2008, Andrew Gabriel remarked:

There are lots of ways to do this, and they mostly scale better
and produce more consistent results than relying on off-chance
over-heard conversations.

To do it physically does requires a departmental organisation with
perhaps a maximum of a dozen people within constant earshot.

Many of them will be busy at any one time (one hopes) or out of
the office on occasions. Relying only

I've never suggested "relying" let alone "only", but it's a very good
way to increase effectiveness - compared to everyone sitting isolated
from one another, whether that's in different houses or different
hermetically sealed rooms in the same building.

on overheard conversations
and rumour-style dissemination of information isn't reliable even
when everyone does work in the same office.

Email is not the only tool, although it is an important one.

I've never seen any tool that came even close to scraping teleworking
and spreading hints around a dispersed group. If I did see one I know of
several people who are trying to run entirely 'remote' collaborative
working who'd be very interested.

Mostly I've used custom tools, either because the company was
large enough to commission its own, or because it was silly
enough to spend its limited resources writing its own.

However, most workflow tools are going to be able to operate
remotely. Depending on what your team is doing, something like
Quality Center, Remedy, or a helpdesk application (names escape
me) is likely to work. Even something as simple as a team mailing
list or local/internal newsgroups can work well (I've used both
on different occasions). Some teams claim to find things like
a private IRC channel useful, although I haven't found them so,
and they can be a disaster if the team is all working different
timezones.

Remedy I have seen. Car crash doesn't even come close.

We seem to be talking about such different situations that I don't think
the concepts are transferable at all. More 24x7 brainstorming than
production.

I have used local/internal newsgroups for discussions about
design and implementation of projects, and found that to work
well. It wouldn't suit every case of course.

Can be good, as a way to archive selected gems from a larger discussion

It can be a lot more effective than meetings, where people often come
along not having read the material and waste everyone's time as a
result.

These would be mainly formal internal meetings? My overhear-ware is
quite like a continuous informal meeting. For external meetings it
depends who you are selling what. But I agree that you can't plan on
anyone having read anything ahead of time. That's why verbal
presentations, rapidly tailored to what you learn about the audience's
state of comprehension, can often be the best way to get your point
over.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 13:52:16 on Wed, 2 Jan
2008, Huge remarked:
I work with people in London (two offices), the Midlands (three offices), New
York (two offices) and Hyderabad. The fact that I work at home is utterly
irrelevant. How do we manage without all sitting in the same office, I wonder?

I don't know how you manage because I have no idea of the challenges you
are meeting. What I do know is that there are plenty that would not
survive a lack of face-to-face meetings.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 01:35:55 on
Wed, 2 Jan 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

However one isn't there to respect people, just get a job done.

If you don't respect people, how can you base your own work on their
advice?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 02:11:23 on
Wed, 2 Jan 2008, magwitch remarked:
Very few of the property decsriptions I have had from estate agents
bear any relationship to reality..
I find they usually manage to photograph the right property and get
the rooms sizes correct.

Yeah but IME they consistently fail to display the rusting Dutch barn,
silos or dual carriageway adjacent to the property.

And pictures taken by the vendor in person *would* ?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 02:17:00 on
Wed, 2 Jan 2008, magwitch remarked:

What's this obsession with colour lasers? Can't a pdf do the same job?

pdf's need someone with a computer to read them (and a situation where a
computer is usable). And when a document gets over a dozen pages even
that can be a headache. Here's a typical pdf that I'd find a great deal
easier to digest (and stick post-it notes on to highlight the important
parts I needed to relay to someone) on paper:

http://www.icann.org/annualreport/an...-2006-2007.pdf

And that's one where an "original" pdf is available. I'd hate to see
what it looked like if someone tore a printed copy apart and tried to
scan it (or the time that would take).
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 02:11:23 on
Wed, 2 Jan 2008, magwitch remarked:
Very few of the property decsriptions I have had from estate agents
bear any relationship to reality..
I find they usually manage to photograph the right property and get
the rooms sizes correct.

Yeah but IME they consistently fail to display the rusting Dutch barn,
silos or dual carriageway adjacent to the property.

And pictures taken by the vendor in person *would* ?

Google Earth's your friend.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 02:17:00 on
Wed, 2 Jan 2008, magwitch remarked:

What's this obsession with colour lasers? Can't a pdf do the same job?

pdf's need someone with a computer to read them (and a situation where a
computer is usable).

10 years ago we found an internet cafe on a tiny little island in the
Caribbean (Union Island), in fact my friend resigned from her job in
Cambridge using the computer there.

And when a document gets over a dozen pages even
that can be a headache. Here's a typical pdf that I'd find a great deal
easier to digest (and stick post-it notes on to highlight the important
parts I needed to relay to someone) on paper:

So extract the relevant pages from the pdf and just send them those. If
you want to make comments use the note attachment placed next to the
paragraphs — I frequently use this to give instructions to printers.

http://www.icann.org/annualreport/an...-2006-2007.pdf

And that's one where an "original" pdf is available. I'd hate to see
what it looked like if someone tore a printed copy apart and tried to
scan it (or the time that would take).

But why would they need to do that?

In message , at 22:57:08 on Wed, 2
Jan 2008, magwitch remarked:

What's this obsession with colour lasers? Can't a pdf do the same
job?
pdf's need someone with a computer to read them (and a situation
where a computer is usable).

10 years ago we found an internet cafe on a tiny little island in the
Caribbean (Union Island), in fact my friend resigned from her job in
Cambridge using the computer there.

Very interesting, but what has that to do with conducting meetings by
emailing pdfs around, rather than handing people bits of paper?

And when a document gets over a dozen pages even
that can be a headache. Here's a typical pdf that I'd find a great
deal easier to digest (and stick post-it notes on to highlight the
important parts I needed to relay to someone) on paper:

So extract the relevant pages from the pdf and just send them those.

No *I* need an annotated copy of the document so that I can re-find
references within it in, and be able to say as quickly and easily as
possible "ah, but on page 15, para 2, they say ...."

If you want to make comments use the note attachment placed next to the
paragraphs €” I frequently use this to give instructions to printers.

It's far quicker and easier using real bits of paper.

http://www.icann.org/annualreport/an...-2006-2007.pdf
And that's one where an "original" pdf is available. I'd hate to see
what it looked like if someone tore a printed copy apart and tried to
scan it (or the time that would take).

But why would they need to do that?

If the original wasn't available as a pdf, and you wanted to send copies
to a group of co-workers. This is exactly where we came in a week ago
when I said "you can't email me 50 colour copies of a document..."
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message e.net, at
08:07:22 on Wed, 2 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Maybe you should have stopped being amazed, then.

Explained to me as "everyone sees you come in ten minutes late, no-one
sees you leave two hours late".

Flexitime has several downsides but a huge upsize is that no-one bothers to
notice what time people come in as they know the hours are all recorded and
that it's all fair. They stop worrying about it and get on with the job! I'm
a convert and fan.

--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

In message , at 08:04:25 on Thu, 3 Jan
2008, Bob Mannix remarked:
It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Maybe you should have stopped being amazed, then.

Explained to me as "everyone sees you come in ten minutes late, no-one
sees you leave two hours late".

Flexitime has several downsides but a huge upsize is that no-one bothers to
notice what time people come in as they know the hours are all recorded and
that it's all fair. They stop worrying about it and get on with the job! I'm
a convert and fan.

And today there are more part-time workers, so it's less easy to spot a
shirker.
--
Roland Perry

On 2008-01-03 08:04:25 +0000, "Bob Mannix" said:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message e.net, at
08:07:22 on Wed, 2 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Maybe you should have stopped being amazed, then.

Explained to me as "everyone sees you come in ten minutes late, no-one
sees you leave two hours late".

Flexitime has several downsides but a huge upsize is that no-one bothers to
notice what time people come in as they know the hours are all recorded and
that it's all fair. They stop worrying about it and get on with the job! I'm
a convert and fan.

Even better would be not to measure hours at all but outcomes - i.e.
has X met the objectives agreed by date D?

On 2008-01-03 08:31:17 +0000, Roland Perry said:

In message , at 08:04:25 on Thu, 3 Jan
2008, Bob Mannix remarked:
It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Maybe you should have stopped being amazed, then.

Explained to me as "everyone sees you come in ten minutes late, no-one
sees you leave two hours late".

Flexitime has several downsides but a huge upsize is that no-one bothers to
notice what time people come in as they know the hours are all recorded and
that it's all fair. They stop worrying about it and get on with the job! I'm
a convert and fan.

And today there are more part-time workers, so it's less easy to spot a
shirker.

Measure the results.

"Andy Hall" wrote in message news:477ca5e1@qaanaaq...
On 2008-01-03 08:04:25 +0000, "Bob Mannix" said:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message e.net, at
08:07:22 on Wed, 2 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
It never failed to amzae me how often one got pulled up for being ten
minutes late, and never rewarded by staying 2 hours after time.

Maybe you should have stopped being amazed, then.

Explained to me as "everyone sees you come in ten minutes late, no-one
sees you leave two hours late".

Flexitime has several downsides but a huge upsize is that no-one bothers
to
notice what time people come in as they know the hours are all recorded
and
that it's all fair. They stop worrying about it and get on with the job!
I'm
a convert and fan.

Even better would be not to measure hours at all but outcomes - i.e. has X
met the objectives agreed by date D?


In an ideal world and with ideal, highly motivating tasks where the person
performing them feels ownership of them, yes. In the real world one has,
unfortunately, to distinguish between attendance and performance and deal
with them separately. Opponents of flexitime often say "they may be here,
but are they working?". My response to this is "how do you know they are
working if they are not on flexitime?". Flexitime does not and cannot
address problems of competence and laziness on the job and doesn't pretend
to. It can (and does) ensure that no one shirks on attendance and that those
who put in extra hours are credited for it and staff don't waste time
moaning or feeling bitter about other's slapdash approach to timekeeping
(and getting it wrong sometimes). It does not cure the ills of the world but
is a practical improvement nonetheless (IMHO).

Setting SMART objectives over a year (say) is hard enough if one is in an
environment where everyone's job is different. Using this to deal with
attendance issues is (or can be) asking for trouble. If one goes the whole
hog and makes (say in an IT environment) all the workers contractors who
then are offered so much to do a task, fine, they can do it when they like.
Not all work environments are like that though!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

In message 477ca5fa@qaanaaq, at 09:08:10 on Thu, 3 Jan 2008, Andy Hall
remarked:
And today there are more part-time workers, so it's less easy to
spot a shirker.

Measure the results.

It's not about results, but morale. And lots of jobs don't have easily
measured results.
--
Roland Perry

In message 477ca5e1@qaanaaq, at 09:07:44 on Thu, 3 Jan 2008, Andy Hall
remarked:
Even better would be not to measure hours at all but outcomes - i.e.
has X met the objectives agreed by date D?

That's easily solved: make the outcome a moving target so that if
someone has completed phase 1 on time/budget, increase the expectations
for phase 2.
--
Roland Perry

On 2008-01-03 09:28:56 +0000, "Bob Mannix" said:

In an ideal world and with ideal, highly motivating tasks where the person
performing them feels ownership of them, yes. In the real world one has,
unfortunately, to distinguish between attendance and performance and deal
with them separately.

Certainly they should be dealt with separately but with the emphasis on
achievement of objectives.

If the tasks aren't motivating to some degree, even if it's only
getting paid, then that is another problem.

Opponents of flexitime often say "they may be here,
but are they working?". My response to this is "how do you know they are
working if they are not on flexitime?".

Because you measure the results at the end of a period of time.


Flexitime does not and cannot
address problems of competence and laziness on the job and doesn't pretend
to. It can (and does) ensure that no one shirks on attendance and that those
who put in extra hours are credited for it and staff don't waste time
moaning or feeling bitter about other's slapdash approach to timekeeping
(and getting it wrong sometimes). It does not cure the ills of the world but
is a practical improvement nonetheless (IMHO).

But the measure of success whould be based on achieving an agreed
objective, not on how long it takes to do that.

On a simple level, let's say that somebody is making widgets and the
nominal and reasonable number that can be made in a nominal 8hrs is 160
(to make the sums easy). It shouldn't really matter if they make
their 100 widgets in 6hrs and go home. Equally, if they choose to work
for 8hrs and make more and more money then fine as well. It's less
fine if they take 10hrs and only make 100 widgets. Ultimately that
implies corrective action.



Setting SMART objectives over a year (say) is hard enough if one is in an
environment where everyone's job is different.

it's also far too long. Very broad objectives can be done in this
way, but general ones are better done in quarters and specific ones if
appropriate in months or even weeks. On the quarterly ones, there
probably should be monthly reviews on progress.


Using this to deal with
attendance issues is (or can be) asking for trouble. If one goes the whole
hog and makes (say in an IT environment) all the workers contractors who
then are offered so much to do a task, fine, they can do it when they like.
Not all work environments are like that though!

No they aren't, but measuring purely based on time, especially
automatically metered time is really an abdication of responsibility
for management, who should be thinking about what people are doing,
agreeing the objectives and ensuring that they happen. That involves
some work of course.

On 2008-01-03 09:29:05 +0000, Roland Perry said:

In message 477ca5fa@qaanaaq, at 09:08:10 on Thu, 3 Jan 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
And today there are more part-time workers, so it's less easy to spot
a shirker.

Measure the results.

It's not about results, but morale. And lots of jobs don't have easily
measured results.

It's certainly about results. What is the point in hiring people and
paying them just to keep up their morale and with no results in mind?

Morale comes from motivating people to achieve results and ensuring
that they are rewarded for those, not just showing up each day. It's
precisely the latter that leads to poor morale because the objectives
are not clearly defined.

One can measure the results, in one way or another, of any job. If
one can't, then the question should be raised as to why the job is
there in the first place. Given an objective, it is then possible to
connect that to a set of rewards that will motivate the individual. On
the basic level, that is being paid; beyond that it can be a whole
range of different incentives.