Oh, dear....

[kyrielle]

In Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, they are speaking of Methodologies, why they are a bad idea (as opposed to methodology, the general sort, the capitalized Methodology here is a prescribed cookbook of things to do, designed to make sure every programmer programs to these patterns/structures - which, if it takes on any level of detail at all, is somewhat akin to wrapping your programmers up in tape or rope or something). And there's a paragraph here that just had me dying of laughter. It says in part:

In Australia, where striking uses up nearly as much labor time as working, there is a charming form of strike called work to rule. Rather than walk off the job, workers open up a fat book of procedures and announce, "Until you give us what we're asking for, we're going to work exactly to the rule." When the air traffic controllers do this, for instance, they can only land one plane every seven minutes.

-Page 117, Peopleware, second edition. And I had never heard of that before....

Comments

[flower76.livejournal.com]

You're reading that too? I've found it interesting so far. Definitely not normal corporate world fare. My manager actually suggested that I read it.

I have actually heard of "work to rule" before. It can be crippling. I thought that certain unions here in the US could also royally screw things up by working to rule. I don't know what industry, though.

[kyrielle]

I've actually finished it and very much liked it. I have no problem believing work-to-rule would be crippling, or could apply here - it just hadn't occurred to me as a tactic for striking, nor that it would be common enough to have a name. That, I found amusing.

I wish I could say anyone at my company recommended this or others I've been reading. I may have to try to get my next boss to meet them (my current boss is semi-clueful but also trying to move to another position, drat it).