Who decides radical design change?

After the dust for "Seamless" settled, I went to the Star Tribune web edition, expecting to see the usual facsimile edition.  Instead I found a clutter with a page occupying less of the screen than before.

Why do management and designers make radical changes that maybe only a few want?  Many users like the way things work and only want tweaks to fix a few things that don't work well.

Apple is notorious for this.  What worked one way well suddenly works in a completely different way.   Way back in the first decade of the Mac, I looked forward to updates, especially new levels.  Now, I won't touch a new level unless I buy a new gadget.  And many times, I wish I had stuck with the old gadget even if the newer is faster and has more data capacity.

I think the problem is "focus groups".  Management pays a few selected participants to attend a meeting while management watches behind one-way glass.  The moderator works and works to get the participants to agree to management's proposal.  Only when the participants agree to management's proposal do they get their honorarium and get to go home.

I know!  I was in a focus group to approve "Comfort Systems" for the Duluth gas and water department.  Few of us were happy with "Comfort Systems".  We didn't know until later who the entity was; we assumed it was a private utility.

Back to technology: "New and Exciting" may mean "Frustrating and Buggy".

To add insult to injury, Google won't let me scroll the text I pasted here.  It moves the window as a block instead of the text in the frame.  It didn't do that for the last post!!!

Misfeasance and malfeasance: corporate and government

It seems the fashion for one group of people to think that government can do nothing right and that corporations always do everything right, and for another group to think that corporations can do nothing right and that the government always does everything right.  Interestingly, many in the first group think the government knows everything about invading other countries, and many in the second group are eager for the latest gadgets from large corporations.  This second group also buys books from Amazon on how bad corporations are!

This second group should consider buying books from local booksellers.  I know Duluth is down to one local bookseller, but it still has a few used booksellers.  If you do want to buy books online, try ABE Books.  It is a consortium of booksellers around the world.  You can find a whole range of prices, sometimes with free shipping.

This column was inspired by a head-banging problem on Apple’s iPhone.  About the middle of the month the weather app started giving the time for locales in the Central Daylight Time zone as five hours later.  How about sunset at 11 o’clock in the evening?

In the Apple Community Support topics, other users suggested various resets, that might or might not be disruptive to proper functioning.  I did a “soft reset” of my iPhone and it did nothing for this problem.  I and many others thought the problem was really in Apple’s own computers because the problem started happening for many users at the same time.  My post follows:

“Don’t touch that dial!

“I lay awake last night thinking about the weather app having the wrong time for the Central Time Zone.

“It occurred to me that the time given is Greenwich Mean Time.  I even got up and looked up the time in London.  It was one hour later than Greenwich Mean Time because Britain is on daylight savings time.  The British time was one hour later than the time in weather app.

“This morning I checked my wife’s iPhone.  It had the wrong weather time, and she is still on iOS 9.0.1.  I asked several people in a fitness center and they reported that their iPhone weather apps had the wrong time.  Some even reported that this started at the end of last week.

“I think what has happened is that whoever maintains the data for Apple’s weather app took off the -5 adjustment for Central Daylight Time.  So, the problem is not in your phone and no kind of reset will fix the problem.  We’ll just have to wait for somebody in Apple to put the correct adjustment on Central Daylight Time.

“Now I have to find Apple’s Feedback page and post the above to it.”

I did send feedback as did several other users.  The problem was fixed in about three days.  The squeaking wheel does get greased!

I have another iPhone problem in that my bank’s online access will not work when I use cellular data.  It either gives a cryptic error message or states that the connection could not be made.  It works fine if I use Wi-Fi.  The bank says that my provider keeps changing the IP address.  My provider states that they do not change the IP address.

How often have you been caught between corporate pointing fingers?  “Not our problem.”

If corporations can do such marvelous stuff, how come there are so many recalls?  The Volkswagen diesel exhaust problem is one of malfeasance:  knowing the problem existed and not doing anything about it.  The ignition problem with Chevrolets was a mix of misfeasance and malfeasance.  It took GM awhile to realize they had a problem and quite awhile before they acknowledged it.

If corporations are so smart, why can’t they figure out that doing something right in the first place is cheaper in the long run than cutting corners now for short-term profits?

I think in too many cases, corporations have become the broom of the sorcerer's apprentice.  They keep working away mechanically without considering the real needs of their customers.

Many who are pro-corporation relish bashing the federal government, especially the Post Office and the Internal Revenue Service.  My experience is that many government agencies, including these two, strive to do the right thing for their customers.  Unfortunately, they are undercut by those who should be supporting them as part of “Promoting the General Welfare”.

Interestingly, some of these same government bashers think that the military can do no wrong.  Have they forgotten the terms SNAFU and FUBAR were created by draftees or enlisted personnel who were fed up with the bureaucracy and the mistakes of generals and other officers?

I think these military worshipers also forget their history.  A bunch of ragtag farmers held off an imperial army for several years, mostly by avoiding combat until their general thought the situation was favorable.  In another country and in another century, a bunch of civilians kept harassing an occupying army until other countries could mobilize for an invasion to push back the occupiers.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, an army of mostly peasants took horrific losses to repel that same occupying army from their country.

In the long run in case after case, it is the local people who, if they don’t prevail, will keep harassing the invaders as long as there are more to take their places.

The secret to the success of any organization is the management.  Does management come up with ideas to make its employees effective?  Does it listen to its employees and support them when they have good ideas?  Or does it “know best” and keep muddling along until another company takes away its business.  In the case of government, do the elected politicians act in a positive way to support government workers?  Or do the elected politicians do their best to belittle the workers?  We certainly are lucky to have so many thick-skinned government employees.

This was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-11-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/04/6189_misfeasance_and_malfeasance_corporate_and-1.

Equal pay for equal work; will it work?

In “Minimum Wage, Inflation, and Personal Experience” (Reader Weekly 2014-03-27) I wrote that I didn’t think wages for many jobs had kept up with inflation.  At least in Minnesota that seems to have been ameliorated a bit.  Congress is still dithering about a minimum wage with the usual suspects filibustering it.  Those members of Congress who think that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is determining wages should read his words about masters organizing to keep wages down.

Now the hot legislative topic is “equal pay for equal work”.  And again, the masters will probably have more sway than the workers.

Just what does “equal pay” mean?  One figure bandied about is that women earn 77 percent of what men do.  But this is the aggregate pay of all women is 77 percent of the aggregate pay of all men.  But this is reflection more about the jobs and hours worked by men and women.  No law is going to change this.

On the other hand, there have been many cases of women starting the same job as men with the same relevant skills but getting less pay, just because they were women.

Equal pay for equal work is a great idea if all other things are equal.  If all other things were equal, we would be robots or bees in a hive.  "Brave New World" anyone?

First what is equal work?

Suppose John and Mary start on the same day with the same pay at a fast-food restaurant.  John is somber, takes orders and money with a minimum number of words, and never smiles.  Mary is outgoing, shows a bit of interest in every customer, and always has a smile.  John takes more orders per day than Mary.  Mary on the other hand takes bigger orders and gets people to come back often.  Should they get the same raise whenever that may happen?

If Dale and Marty graduate from the same school taking the same courses and getting the same grades, then they probably should be offered the same starting salary for doing the same thing.

After a year the company hires Lee and Jan from the same school.  They took the same courses and got the same grades as Dale and Marty did.  They are placed in jobs doing the same thing as Dale and Marty.

After a year on the job, Dale and Marty expect an annual raise because of their increased experience.  Should Lee and Jan get the same pay as Dale and Marty?  If the pay of all four were equal, the first two might consider going to another company where they will get more pay.

Now suppose after five years Dale takes a year off to have a baby.  When she returns should she get the same pay as Marty or the same pay as Lee and Jan?

Suppose after another couple of years Jan takes a year off to go skiing all over the world.  When he returns should he get the same pay as Dale and Lee?

Suppose after a few more years Dale has a very good year.  She solves some really tough problems and implements some great innovations.  She gets a raise that gives her a higher salary than Marty.  The next year she performs about the same as Marty.  When annual raises are given, should she get none thus once again getting the same pay as Marty?  Oops!  There goes another employee to the competition.

After a couple of more years Lee takes some leadership on a project.  As a reward management gives her a supervisory position which raises her pay to greater than that of Dale.  But she spends only half of her time on supervisory tasks.  The rest of the time she is doing exactly the same work as the other three.  Should her pay go up and down with what she is doing?

When I worked some late hours at Univac, we defined a good manager as the person who operates the copier when things get busy late at night.  That is, the manager is not just reading a summary of the work the next morning, but providing moral support with presence.  Should the manager get less pay for the time spent observing and doing menial tasks?

Consider the varied tasks of a grocery store manager.  The manager obviously hires new people, sees that they are properly trained, and evaluates their performance.  The manager has to oversee the accounting of receipts and bills, ordering of groceries, and the stocking of shelves.  The manager might also bag groceries, check out customers, stock some shelves, and even sweep the floor when everybody else is busy with customers.  Should the manager track his or her time so that he or she gets equal pay for equal work?

Fair pay takes more thought than a simple slogan.  To achieve fairer pay for more people, you have to do two things.

Join a union.  Unions have a long history starting with the American Revolution.  Remember “United we stand, divided we fall.”  “We, the people,… to form a more perfect union…”

Always vote.  Don’t be a stay-at-home who lets the “wrong” side win.  Remember “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Serendipity and corporate stupidity

I picked up an old note off my desk:

“You are a wise person if you do not make mistakes;
you are  clever person if you make a mistake but do not repeat it;
you are a stupid person if you make a mistake and repeat it.”

It is “an ancient proverb” quoted by Effy Oz in “When Professional Standards Are Lax: The CONFIRM Failure and its Lessons”, Communications of the ACM, October 1994, Vol. 37, No. 10.

Professor OZ was a professor of Management Science and Information Systems at Pennsylvania State University.

I have long thrown out most of my copies of the Communications of the ACM (Association of Computer Machinery), but I did find the article online.  For a PDF copy, look up “EP23_Confirm”.

CONFIRM was an ambitious project to bring together the registration systems of American Airlines, Budget Rent-A-Car, Hilton Hotels, and Marriott Corporation.  A subsidiary of American Airlines proposed it to Marriott in 1987, by 1992 the project was disbanded.

The article details much of the finger-pointing for the failure, but I think it is higher management not understanding what is possible and middle management trying to sugar-coat the problems.

Isn’t ironic that despite the glitches of the Affordable Care Act, the far more complex system is working in less than four years?

Minimum wage, inflation, and personal experience

My first wage job that I remember was at Saywell Drug in Cleveland, Ohio.  I probably started in the summer of 1951 after I quit my paper route.  I started at fifty cents an hour.  This was a low-skill entry job.  I was a soda jerk, stocker, and small-item cashier.

Using the US Inflation Calculator, anything I bought for fifty cents would now cost $4.50.

Note: these figures were requested on March 16, 2014.  A week later, many were a few cents higher.

I had a couple other jobs in that range.  Then in late fall 1954 I started at Kroger’s as a stock clerk and bagger.  My starting union-negotiated salary was $1.05.  A dinner at a small diner then would cost $9.13 now.

When I flunked out of Case Institute of Technology in January 1958, I was earning $1.75 at the same Kroger’s store.  Anything I bought with an hour’s wage then would cost $14.16 now.  I was also a relief cashier on weekends.

No Kroger store had any full-time openings then.  I eventually was hired as “third man” at a new Pic’n’Pay.  Third man was sort of meaningless.  I was after the assistant manager in groceries only.  Produce and meat were separately run departments under the manager.   I was only a glorified stocker and bagger.  They wouldn’t let me be a cashier because I wasn’t bonded.  They also did their best to make sure I never worked close to 40 hours per week.  They would have to give me more benefits.  My wage, in a union store?  $1.54!  I had to get the help of a union business agent I knew to get my $1.75.  That $1.54 is now $12.46.  Don’t you think a fast-food manager has a harder job with more responsibilities than a grocery clerk?

When I went to Ohio Wesleyan in the fall of 1958, I worked my first year at a local Kroger store.  My wage was $1.54!!!  I made the mistake of not putting that in writing to the union steward.  He was sort of in the pocket of the manager and never really acted on my behalf.  When I called the union office in Columbus they pointed out that I had waited too long without filing a written claim.

In June 1960 we were married and I started graduate school back at Case.  I also had a graduate assistantship that paid $75 per week.  Our upstairs apartment cost $65 per month and $75 when we moved downstairs.  That $75 per week would be $592.69 in 2014 dollars.  If I supposedly worked 20 hours per week, that would be almost $30/hour.   I checked current graduate assistant salaries; the average is about $20,000/year or about $384/week.  I was treated like a king!  I was allowed nine credits per semester, I had use of the gym and library, and I had free parking in the lower lot.

I didn’t go on to a PhD program and opted for a full time job.  My interviews were with Sikorsky in Framingham  MA, GE in Syracuse NY, and Univac in St. Paul.  I don’t remember the exact offers from each, but it was something like $8,400, $7,900, and $8,100.  All things considered, I took the job nearest the Boundary Waters starting on Feb 3, 1963.  The things I could buy then with that money would cost $61,918.94 today.  Ah, a bright spot!  A computer software engineer with a master’s degree can start around $85,500!  But, the complexity of the work is far, far greater than when I started on mainframes that were giant toys compared to my iPhone.  No wonder the computer industry wants to increase the number of H-1B visas for programmers.

When personal computers came along I saw no future in mainframes and started my own one-person company.  I never implemented my grand visions and after over ten years tried getting a computer job.  Ha!  The checklist for “skills” was far longer than just a Masters in Mathematics.  I eventually wound up driving a school bus in the Twin Cities and then moved up to transit buses, aka city bus.  I started at $8.50/hour in 1995 and wound up with over $12/hour in 1999.  These translate into 2014 dollars as $13.05 and $18.42 or $27,144 and $38,314 per year.  According to salary.com, twenty-five percent of school bus drivers in Duluth earn over $35,623 per year.  I assume that those have to get a lot of charter work.

My last job was as a ski instructor.   I think my final pay in 2007 was around $8.00 per hour.  That would be $9.03 in 2014 dollars.  But the work was spotty depending on the weather and the people who show up.  I don’t think I ever got more than 30 hours per week.  I don’t know what the current pay is, but I did get nominally priced season passes for my wife and myself, a nifty jacket at a good price, and discounts at Ski Hut.

Other than the ski instructor, which often is a fun job, a computer programmer, which takes far more specialized learning than I had, and some school bus drivers, I think too many workers are worse off than I was way back then.

I think Adam Smith is being shown right again, it is lawful for the masters to organize to keep wages down, but it unlawful for the workers to organize to raise wages.

- Mel

You can find more of my thoughts at
http://magree.blogspot.com

Limerick of the day - Corporate accountability

Poor decisions don't merit praise,


Just a compensatory raise,


Corp Directors deserve


A big raise for their nerve,

In weathering wan woeful days.

- Larry Eisenberg, a comment to "Little Accountability for Directors, Despite Poor Performance", Steven M Davidoff, New York Times, 2013-04-05

My comment to this article was:

"I read once that most of the stock in many companies is held by mutual funds and other financial institutions. They vote with management because of policies of 'fiduciary responsibility'. Individual shareholders who vote against overpaid management are just a minor nuisance."

A cap on exec pay!

Shareholders to have say in exec pay.  See "Swiss Voters Move to Restrict Pay of Executives", Raphael Minder, New York Times, 2013-03-04.

Hm!  Arguments have been that the responsibility of corporate management is to give value to shareholders and all else is unnecessary, including shareholders having a competitive list of directors to choose from.

Then why do so many executives take value out of the company without shareholders' approval.

Will the Swiss vote be an exception to shareholder apathy or the start of an economic revolution?

Low taxes can mean low profits

The Boeing 737 Dreamliner has been grounded by the FAA until several of the recent problems can be fixed.

First question: if private business can do so much right, why is there so much wrong with the 737?
At least, nobody's been seriously injured or killed yet.

The answer is that it is a complex endeavor.  Thousands must work together to get everything just right.  What was missed because certain tests or calculations weren't checked one more time?  One commentator wrote that the FAA inspectors were overwhelmed by the innovations.

This last gets me to taxes and profits.

To have skilled up-to-date inspectors, we need to train them continuously.  If we don't budget for continuous training, the inspectors won't be able to keep up with changes.  If the inspectors can't keep up with changes, then the inspected companies might miss something.  If the inspected companies miss something, then the new products might fail in some way that reduces those companies' profits.  Sort of "for want of a nail…"

Also think of government inspectors as independent auditors.  They are a second set of eyes that sees things that the people directly involved might miss.  Large companies don't blink at paying millions for audits but they seem to balk at paying taxes for government "auditors"; auditors that might save them millions.

But to have skilled designers and skilled inspectors, we have to have a robust education system, going all the way back to pre-school.  If we don't pay enough taxes to have such a robust education system that produces a very large number of skilled adults, then we can't create the innovations that lead to larger profits.

All things are connected - "Home", movie script by Ted Perry.  See "All Things Are Connected".

Private vs. Public, No Clear Answer

Many people are calling for the privatization of almost everything: schools, utilities, prisons, armies, and more.  They claim that a private corporation will be more efficient than a government operated entity.  The skeptic should ask what is meant by efficiency and what other values would be lost with privatization.

For example, if a private company operates a prison will a lower cost per prisoner come with a lower cost for security?

If a private company operates something, will it be calling for less regulation, regulations that could be protecting public safety and public health.  For example, BP was state-operated for a long time, and then Margaret Thatcher privatized it.  Apparently the deadly accident rate has gone way up because costs were cut to keep profits way up.

If private schools take away selected students from public schools, will the students left have fewer role models for success?  Many "failing" schools do graduate successful students.

Regardless of the form of an organization, three ingredients are needed for success: clear goals, management that understands those goals, and sufficient resources to meet those goals.

For more, see "When Public Outperforms Private in Services", Eduardo Porter, New York Times, 2013-01-15.  See also the book that he mentions, "The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office" by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan.

An efficient big corporation, sometimes

Since I complain so much about big corporations, I should say something nice when a big corporation gives unexpectedly good service.

We are going to make a trip this summer, and I finally got around to making our hotel reservations.  I got online to our favorite hotel chain, but I couldn't make the reservation for the full stay.  I kept shortening the stay until the reservation was accepted.

I then tried to make a reservation at the tail end of our planned stay.  The site said there was no hotel in the my desired location!!!  The hotel was even in the list of my confirmations.

I called the chain's 800 number to report the problem.  I also told the representative that I would call the hotel directly to get on its wait-list.  He confirmed that that was my best plan.

When I called the hotel, I got better than being on the wait-list; I got the reservation for the full planned stay.  And I received email confirmation of the updated reservation within minutes.

I think the "secret" to this excellent customer service is that employees are given quite a bit of leeway to satisfy customers.  Too many organizations (government and private) impose a rigid set of rules on their employees.  One could say that "liberal" organizations fare better than "conservative" organizations.

More on corporate bureaucracies

I don't write these little nasties because I think all large corporations are bad.  I write them because there are too many commentators who think all government is bad and all private enterprise is efficient.

Sorry, folks there are also efficient governments and inefficient corporations.  The determinant is not the organizational type, but management.  There are plenty of good managers in both government and corporations, and there are plenty of bad managers in both government and corporations.

Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't read "Dilbert".  Scott Adams bases his characters on real-life people in his various corporate jobs.  See http://www.dilbert.com/about/.  I couldn't find it on his website, but I understand that he gets many contributions from readers about crazy situations that they have encountered.  I do know that I've seen Wally, the slacker, as a co-worker many times in large corporations.

Wow, that was a long introduction to a single minor observation.

I just paid my Verizon Wireless bill online.  At the top of the page is a weather report for Two Harbors MN.  I live in Duluth, a larger city about 25 minutes down the shore with quite different weather.  Several months ago I sent a comment to Verizon Wireless about this, and I received some waffling comment that really didn't bring about any change.