Task Saturation

Monday, October 13, 2014
I was bitching the other day on Facebook about people who are apparently incapable of reading instructions and then acting on them. But then the Smart Man's cousin pointed out that many problems like this are a direct result of a concept called "Task Saturation." I think everyone knows what this means, even if they don't know what it's called.

Task Saturation occurs when there are simply too many tasks to be performed by too few people. The result is mistakes, and lots of them. People don't feel they have enough time to do their tasks thoroughly, so they end up half-assing it in order to get the "queue" down. This causes stress in everyone up and down the process chain, but especially in those groups who can never, ever get caught up.

Which brings me to the one piece of corporate-speak that always, ALWAYS makes me apoplectic with rage: "We'll just have to do more with less!"

I want to ask if these people took basic science in High School, or even basic arithmetic. Stupid motherfuckers, the only thing you can do with less is less. Less work, less quality, less job satisfaction. Why is this so hard for corporations to understand? I'll answer my own question: Because they think people are disposable, that's why.

3 comments:

mom in northern said...

That about covers it.

Steve Buchheit said...

yup.

Karl said...

Oooo, we have a division meeting tomorrow - all 250+ of us. Pretty sure this will be a topic.

We've been getting cut right, left, and center for about a year, now. My co-programmer / web dev got cut at FY end and wasn't even told. Apoplectic. More with less. yup. Fuuuuu...