The idea of traditional work has many problems which are not as apparent as those that were in policing. Many of which I have identified relates to the productivity of work which we have discussed in class. Regardless of what job you have, productivity is defined by your efforts and the amount of work you actually produce your workplace.
The first problem that relates to the productivity is the rise of technology over the past decades. Humans are developing more and more technology; sometimes it’s a great thing and it creates more jobs, but to create thousands and millions of, for example, an iPhone takes a lot of meticulous movements that the human body might not be able to cope with. Technology, in this specific case, is an efficient, cheap, and most importantly, fast, way to combine small materials into this one cellphone. Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at MIT, and his collaborator, Andrew McAfee, concluded that technology boosts productivity, but eliminates the need for many types of jobs. Technology is advancing too fast for people to catch up in terms of skills and productivity. There are also some evidences in terms of graphs and anecdotal evidence in the first link where robots and automatons are taking over the jobs from lower class people. A future innovation, such as the Google’s driverless car, delineates how technology has no limit and can eventually take form of human intelligence and emotions.
The productivity at the workplace can be affected by many things and in this case, I am discussing the “distraction” of co-workers and social media. Social media is of our everyday lives now and it’s inevitable for us to avoid keeping in touching with friends and family. One such example of co-worker in our workplaces is the manager, who has power over you. The idea of meetings being called by managers often abruptly alters the working schedule of workers and disrupts their original goals and productivity according to Fried. According to the 2015 Workplace Flexibility Study, 45% of employees wanted more time for personal life and only one in five employees spend over 20 hours outside of the office per week. Above all, many employees claimed that their managers also expect them to be reachable and ready for work outside of the office. The expectations of the managers are too high and it rots and rips the productivity from the employees.
The last problem relates to the ability to have the valid and convincing skills to acquire a job. The lack of preparation by colleges is another problem. Unemployment has always been an issue all over the world. The current unemployment rate (5.6%) is almost half of what it was half a decade ago. In newer generations, skills are never acquired in college itself and it usually stems from internships. More and newer internships are starting to adopt unpaid internships for experience and I believe that hurts lower class college students. Unemployment is also extremely prevalent in adults; many are hunting for jobs every day, but lack the necessary skills and cannot acquire a degree due to the lack of funding. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/
http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work
The problems you suggested caught my interest, especially the one dealing with the growing pace of technology. This growth, to me, signifies two detrimental affects. The first being a larger increase of distraction in the workplace, and the second, being your suggestion of robots taking over the work force. While the distraction one you covered pretty in depth, the second concept seems the most troublesome and, to me, downright apocalyptic. It feels as if people are creating robots with the ability to do jobs without realizing the affects it can have. For example, what jobs are we going to program the robots to do? Menial jobs? What happens to the individuals who were using those jobs to make a livable wage? Yes, they have more freedom to pursue their interests, but it seems that they’ll be losing the financial stability they once had. Will they all of a sudden be put on par with the next tier of workers? What will qualify as minimum wage if machinery is operating all menial jobs? Will professional jobs like lawyers and doctors now be classified as minimum wage jobs, despite the extensive effort put in to not only performing, but qualifying for such a job? I feel that introduction of machinery to “replace” menial jobs will create a destruction of the lower class, thereby placing middle class families as the new lower class. It doesn’t seem very beneficial to anyone in the long run, not unless you own the company that saves money and increases profit because of your choice of machinery over workers.
I also agree with your notion that employees these days must deal with the many distractions of 2015. With the emergence of social media we are always connected, there is essentially no such thing as being offline or unreachable. Before the age of cell phones, people would leave work for the day and virtually forget about it until the next morning. But in this day and age we are subject to emails, texts and direct messages virtually 24/7. There is almost no excuse for not responding to someone in a timely fashion, we have cell service everywhere, and every other building has Wi-Fi. So given this constant connection, bosses and managers are able to demand work to be done at home and due the next day at work. This constant connection clearly cuts into personal time to spend at home with family or for whatever other personal venture an employee might want to do. After analyzing this fact we can see that the 45% of employees who wanted more time for personal life is justified. Long days of work coupled with work finding its way home can certainly take a toll on an employee’s mental state. The constant work will eventually wear the employee down to a pulp and turn them into work machines. So with this analysis we must admit that social media and technology has both improved the way we work but it has also created a more hostile, demanding environment.