I see where the author is coming from but I think there’s a much more insidious problem that’s “destroying America”.<p>“Fake Work” managers are incompetent. But in my time consulting I much preferred the “fake work” manager who was just trying to hide the fact that he was doing nothing to the manager who was just as incompetent but who thought he was a genius and wanted a say in every decision. I’ve dealt with…<p>= Managers who insisted they needed a $30,000 accounting package because they “only wanted the best” and ended up foisting layers of complexity onto a company that would have gotten by on Peachtree.<p>= Managers who arbitrarily decided to upend a project because of a positive article they read in the NY Times or WSJ.<p>= Managers who insisted I get all my info from them and not their underlings (even though it was clear they had no idea what was actually going on and their underlings did).<p>And so on…Much of this behavior ended up putting money in my pocket as a consultant but it was unquestionably destructive to the companies that employed these people.
This article completely fails to demonstrate that Fake Work exists in any meaningful quantity. I could just as easily have written an article titled "Phlogiston is Destroying America".<p>How do you distinguish Fake Work from Real Work? There are some plausible tests presented, but they all concern a lack of understanding about the nature of the work on the worker's part. This lack of understanding is lamentable, but it does <i>not</i> mean that the work is Fake. For all of these questions below, it's easy to imagine a ditch-digger asking them, even assuming the ditch-digger is doing Real Work:<p>> <i>How is this even productive?</i><p>> <i>Is this really what they are having me do?</i><p>> <i>What is the purpose of this?</i><p>> <i>I can’t believe how inefficient this is! There has to be a better way.</i><p>A lot of work sucks. If it were pleasant, you probably wouldn't require a salary to do it. Also, there are a lot of tasks that are easily questioned at a micro- or individual level, but that make sense as policy at an organizational level.<p>This article is pure fluff, offering feel-good "insight" but nothing concrete in terms of identifying real problems or solutions. I can certainly acknowledge that "busywork" or "Fake Work" exists, but I am not convinced it is a major problem at a national level.
Right now I'm working for a small startup, and we've been interacting a lot with big companies. I feel like a significant percentage of my time is made up of doing "fake work." There are a lot of conference calls with like 15 people on them, and only about 2 or 3 are actually doing anything useful. The other 12 or 13 are making sure that they aren't missing anything important, because if they do, they won't ever be able to make it up.<p>I guess the problem is that some of it actually needs to get done. It's just the coordination penalty of trying to interface two totally different companies together.<p>I think the primary cause of fake work is inefficient communication, requiring people to do extra work to cope for that. It seems like the solution is better communication systems that allow things to be documented.
To get rid of the Fake Work, we would have to be honest about our current work. but upper management doesn't want honesty. They want to see consistent numbers always increasing. If you have 3 great quarters then 1 bad one they will be pissed, but not if you have 4 OK quarters
So, the thing to do about it is to help expose it by determining and implementing accurate methods of work quantification as it relates to productivity and exposing the results to the administration.
a former manager of mine stayed home and played xbox for a year, and was awarded a trophy and jacket as the #1 billing consultant in the entire organization.<p>sounds nice, but it drives you insane after a while. you can actually hear your skills evaporating in such a situation.
Reading the article, it made thing think about "cargo cults". Namely, people do work not because they know why they need to do it. It feels to me that Fake Work is just management's way of trying to figure out how competitors process is working or limited.
Fake Work doesn't make progress, but actually make money. If I spent 7-9 hours discussing or writing an email explaining to my client things (or simply talking more about the project), this probably won't change anything in my progress, but will make the client feel on-line with the work I do, thus knows that I do real work and will be happy to pay more. (Or at least happy with the work I have done).<p>I found myself sometimes spending time talking about things more than I actually spent doing them, but after all I do that for money!
In grade school we used to call this "busy work". As in, work given to you so that you would look busy, even though it served no functional purpose whatsoever. I was surprised and dismayed to realize that corporate life was more of the same (and hence I no longer participate in corporate life and work for myself).
I don't know if "fake work" is anything new. I would imagine that fake work has always been around. That would go to show how little real work is necessary to keep things running.