Distractions for Washington DC Cause Increase in Productivity

Each time the economy slows down, it leads to micromanagement at work. When a company is making money, the people at the top are either taking it easy or looking for new ways to make money. When the money isn’t coming in as fast as they’d like, they start looking inside their company for savings and efficiency. It turns into a living hell for the people at the bottom because everything they do ends up being micromanaged.

Many workers are hoping and praying for the economy to turn around just because they are tired of explaining how and why they do some of the simplest tasks. A slow economy leads to the annoying time-sheets detailing every minute of the day. Pointing out the loss of productivity to management caused by keeping track of work rather than doing work falls on deaf ears. Workers catch on to being micromanaged and learn to fake time-sheets so they can get back to being productive.

In some work situations, the micromanaging turns into having a supervisor watching over the shoulder of workers. Having someone watching everything you do doesn’t mean you are going to do it any faster, because it’s a distraction from doing the job at hand. Pointing out the loss of productivity from excessive monitoring will once again fall on deaf ears. Workers also learn how to play this game by finding things to keep their managers busy. Workers start complaining about how other departments are run and how much the “defective” departments are making their jobs more difficult. With any luck, the managers will all be busy in meetings fighting with one another so you can get back to work.

The same workplace dynamic of the people at the top needing to do something is taking place in Washington DC. Just as workplace management can’t acknowledge the harm they do by interfering with the job at hand, the government can’t see the harm they are doing to the economy. Reforming health care and new regulations for business are examples of the government micromanaging the economy, and when the loss of productivity is pointing out, it falls on deaf ears.

Politicians have no qualms distracting the public so we aren’t focused on the job they are doing, so I have no guilt in suggesting we distract the government so we can do our jobs. The Obama administration is starting to look at the Bowl Championship Series and that’s a good thing; as long as you aren’t part of the BCS. We need to come up with more innocuous distractions like college bowl games to keep them busy. I’m calling on my fellow American’s that when they are involved in any polling to pick the least intrusive option. If asked which of the following is most important – the economy – heath care – sexting by teenagers, for the sake of our future please pick “sexting.”

Businesses can’t use the same tactics workers use with faking their time-sheets. Faking time-sheets might get a worker fired, faking the governments time-sheets can lead to big fines or prison terms. Businesses can fight back by lobbying congress with useful distractions such as, coming up with a way to keep copiers from copying genitalia or convincing congress businesses would be more productive if congress could tell them the absolute value of pi.

If we all put our heads together we can come up with some new distractions for Washington DC. Here are a few ideas–not exactly good ideas, but something to get the creative juices flowing:

Demand all of congress visit every site in the world impacted by global warming before taking any action. It’s expensive, but trust me–it’s worth it.

If enough people film street lights and email them to their representative, we can convince congress there is an imminent alien invasion.

Protest anything from France.

Start a rumor terrorists are secretly sending commands to operatives through 4chan.

Ask congress to find out how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood (stressing how important woodchucks are to the economy).

The number of sex scandals by elected officials is destroying our faith in government and should be investigated by congress.