Two Minutes Here, Two Minutes There

We don't think very highly of most business practices. Its not that we are anti-american or anti-capitalist, its just we tend to think most business people don't really understand how things are, in the real world. Take for instance, a London office manager who sent an email telling employees that their two minutes of silence in memory of those lost in the recent bombings should come out of their lunch hour.

Two minutes out of someone's lunch hour really isn't big a deal, of course. But then again, is two minutes out of an 8 hour work day really that big a deal either? No.

The company has declared the email an accident of course, but its more showing of how corporate office managers really don't understand anything. First of all, the bombings in London probably bumbed a lot of people out. Morale was probably not at an all time high, and then employees were told they couldn't have two minutes of silence. Moments of silence really aren't our cup of tea, but for those people who want to be involved, we wouldn't really hold it against them either. If it makes them feel better, than great. Happy employees are after all, productive employees.

In fact, we'd say that giving an employee five minutes on every hour probably improves their productivity on the other 55 minutes. Besides that, if a worker stays two minutes later in the office, most employees aren't going to compensated for that.

We think a good way to change that is to calculate hourly wages the same way cellular companies calculate minutes. If an employee works 8 hours and 2 minutes, they get paid for 9 hours. [Much in the way that in a cellular plan, 1 second over uses an entire minute of air time]. We think this is a solution.