On page 212, Shaviro talks about Efficiency, performing and competing to improve utility. I can’t help thinking, however, that efficiency itself presents a large problem. To more fully present this problem I’m going to go back to the 1960s.
Scene: One man, one woman, one child.
The man, or father/husband, works from 7-4 as a school teacher. He occasionally goes to scheduled meetings and rarely corrects school-work at home. There are several intervals during the day in which he can correct paperwork, grade assignments, and complete any and all necessary requirements. When the last bell rings, and once he has donned his jacket and left the door, all thoughts of work are gone.
The woman, or mother/wife, gets up in the morning and makes breakfast for her family. She then does the dishes, cleans the house and begins preparing dinner. Her son plays in the yard, with friends, or in the playroom. When the man gets home the woman and son quit what they are doing and have family time and enjoy the rest of the evening.
Okay, now fast-forward to today.
There is one man, one woman, one child.
The man gets up at 6 am and gets both himself and his child dressed and ready. The father drives to work and drops his son off at daycare at 7 am. He works as a part-time accountant from 7:30-1 pm and then picks his son up from daycare around 2 pm. He gets home, watches his son, makes dinner and does some light housework, all while taking calls from potential clients for his part-time Real Estate business. Around 8 pm his wife gets home and he microwaves the leftover dinner for her and puts his son to bed. Then he and his wife spend around 2 hours together before going to bed.
The woman gets up around 10 am. She makes a light lunch for her husband and son for when the get home and heads out to work by 11 am. She works as a manager of a fast-food joint from 11:30-7:30, gets home and 8 and spends 2 hours with her son and husband before leaving for her part-time job as a technical assistant from 10:30-1:30. She gets home around 1:45 and goes to bed around 2 am.
The problem above is that no one has one set position, and there aren’t any significant periods of relaxation and rest time before going back to work. Unfortunately, this is a normal scene for many families. There is no such thing as a 9-5 job and a stay-at-home mom. Children are raised by people other than their parents and parents work round-the-clock to be able to survive.
Back in the 1960s there weren’t many part-time positions and people were paid better for what they did. People still strived to be efficient, but they weren’t pushed to spread themselves paper-thin to provide for their families.
Today, I have to multitask in order to get everything I need to get done finished. I work full-time answering phones, completing applications, doing field underwriting, researching, surfing and typing on the computer for 10 hours a day, all while trying to think of what I’m going to make for dinner, if there will be time for a movie before bedtime, IMing friends and family, and trying to get my schoolwork done and out of the way. In a word, I am being spread too thin. I am forced to multitask in order to improve my efficiency, but unfortunately, by pushing myself so hard I end up sick or burned-out and therefore decrease my efficiency.
In addition, I am forced to compete with other individuals for my position. If I slack off or fail to sell so many plans, or let my compliance go down the drain then someone else will gladly fill my place and I won’t be missed. I am expendable. My position isn’t. My performance and efficiency allow me to fulfill and work in my position, but in order to maintain my position I am forced to spread myself so that I can complete all of the necessary requirements for my position.
I think that is something Shaviro mentions often, especially when he talks about efficiency on page 212. He refers to a state called Pareto efficiency, or a condition in which no one can be better off without making someone else’s life worse. Because I do the work of 2 people a day to maintain my position, someone else is forced out of another position. I’m not trying to promote sympathy for myself for doing the work of 2 people, as this work load is the norm and everyone I know does this same amount of work so that he or she can maintain his or her position to provide for those dependent on them.
All I can say is that efficiency is an unfortunate part of being connected.
