Jazz gigs and stag parties: fresh approaches to long hours

In the past week I've had two conversations closely related to the Paula Principle, and to each other, in rather unlikely settings.   Both dealt with the issue of whether professional occupations such as lawyers and surveyors needed to require people to work 12-14 hours days in order to make progress up the professional ladder. Nigel plays baritone sax in the the band where I also play (the South London Jazz Orchestra, since you ask, see www.slcm.org.uk).   We were waiting for our gig to kick off in a pub in Tulse Hill on a rather damp Sunday afternoon recently, and so started chatting about non-band things.   Nigel has…
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Teamwork

I've been reading a couple of stimulating books which deal, from very different angles, with the future of work.  Martin Ford's The Rise of the Robots sets out some pretty scary pointers to just how much work might be handed over to automated processes: not just routine manual processes but quite a lot of what we now consider to be intellectual and non-routine.  He suggests that we may be heading quickly towards the scenario sketched out by Keynes, where people will work far far fewer hours - the difference being that in the modern version there will be colossal inequalities as the benefits of automation will go to a very small…
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Womenomics

I confess I'd never heard of womenomics before, but an interesting piece in last weekend's Financial Times put me right. It's based on a profile of Miho Otani, a Japanese woman who commands a 3500 tonne warship.  She is intended to represent Prime Minister Abe's drive to have women occupy 30% of the country's management position by 2020 .  ('Abenomics' was coined to describe the PM's economic strategy, hence the fellow-neologism.)  The initiative, apparently, stands little chance of reaching its target. In a way Japan, with Korea, encapsulates the Paula Principle more than any other country.  Japanese women are highly educated.  Young Japanese women enter the labour market in large…
Read More

Jazz gigs and stag parties: fresh approaches to long hours

In the past week I've had two conversations closely related to the Paula Principle, and to each other, in rather unlikely settings.   Both dealt with the issue of whether professional occupations such as lawyers and surveyors needed to require people to work 12-14 hours days in order to make progress up the professional ladder. Nigel plays baritone sax in the the band where I also play (the South London Jazz Orchestra, since you ask, see www.slcm.org.uk).   We were waiting for our gig to kick off in a pub in Tulse Hill on a rather damp Sunday afternoon recently, and so started chatting about non-band things.   Nigel has…
Read More

Teamwork

I've been reading a couple of stimulating books which deal, from very different angles, with the future of work.  Martin Ford's The Rise of the Robots sets out some pretty scary pointers to just how much work might be handed over to automated processes: not just routine manual processes but quite a lot of what we now consider to be intellectual and non-routine.  He suggests that we may be heading quickly towards the scenario sketched out by Keynes, where people will work far far fewer hours - the difference being that in the modern version there will be colossal inequalities as the benefits of automation will go to a very small…
Read More

Womenomics

I confess I'd never heard of womenomics before, but an interesting piece in last weekend's Financial Times put me right. It's based on a profile of Miho Otani, a Japanese woman who commands a 3500 tonne warship.  She is intended to represent Prime Minister Abe's drive to have women occupy 30% of the country's management position by 2020 .  ('Abenomics' was coined to describe the PM's economic strategy, hence the fellow-neologism.)  The initiative, apparently, stands little chance of reaching its target. In a way Japan, with Korea, encapsulates the Paula Principle more than any other country.  Japanese women are highly educated.  Young Japanese women enter the labour market in large…
Read More

Jazz gigs and stag parties: fresh approaches to long hours

In the past week I've had two conversations closely related to the Paula Principle, and to each other, in rather unlikely settings.   Both dealt with the issue of whether professional occupations such as lawyers and surveyors needed to require people to work 12-14 hours days in order to make progress up the professional ladder. Nigel plays baritone sax in the the band where I also play (the South London Jazz Orchestra, since you ask, see www.slcm.org.uk).   We were waiting for our gig to kick off in a pub in Tulse Hill on a rather damp Sunday afternoon recently, and so started chatting about non-band things.   Nigel has…
Read More

Teamwork

I've been reading a couple of stimulating books which deal, from very different angles, with the future of work.  Martin Ford's The Rise of the Robots sets out some pretty scary pointers to just how much work might be handed over to automated processes: not just routine manual processes but quite a lot of what we now consider to be intellectual and non-routine.  He suggests that we may be heading quickly towards the scenario sketched out by Keynes, where people will work far far fewer hours - the difference being that in the modern version there will be colossal inequalities as the benefits of automation will go to a very small…
Read More

Womenomics

I confess I'd never heard of womenomics before, but an interesting piece in last weekend's Financial Times put me right. It's based on a profile of Miho Otani, a Japanese woman who commands a 3500 tonne warship.  She is intended to represent Prime Minister Abe's drive to have women occupy 30% of the country's management position by 2020 .  ('Abenomics' was coined to describe the PM's economic strategy, hence the fellow-neologism.)  The initiative, apparently, stands little chance of reaching its target. In a way Japan, with Korea, encapsulates the Paula Principle more than any other country.  Japanese women are highly educated.  Young Japanese women enter the labour market in large…
Read More