Re: Social Contract

[Mike McCarty <Mike.McCarty@sbcglobal.net>]

Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 09:31:19PM -0500, Mike McCarty wrote:
>
> > hendrik@topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> >
> > > On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 03:53:25PM -0500, Mike McCarty wrote:
> > >
> > > There are employers who tolerate this kind of thing, even encourage it 
> > > to a limited extent.  I've spoke to managers who tell me they'd rather 
> >
> > Umm, I haven't worked for any which *encourage* this sort of thing,
> > though many will wink at it. Some agressively pursue this sort of
> > thing. For most, I think, it depends on the manager.
>
> "Old" HP had a policy that their engineers could take components from
> the production line, borrow test equipment and so on. The stipulation
> was that they had to build something with it or prove they'd used it
> usefully. The result was that they got better, more motivated, more
> inventive engineers who knew how to build equipment - and what failed
> in practice (and also the inevitable how _not_ to build equipment/exceed 
> engineering tolerances etc. etc.  :) ).
>
> That's worth it - but I don't know many organisations that have faith
> in their staff's abilities to that extent.

Supposedly 3M had (has?) some sort of policy of 10% of an employee's
time may be used for "personal projects". Supposedly, one of the
results of that was the "sticky notes". One chemist was trying to
develop a glue on his "personal time", and failed. But then noticed
how it could be used as an adhesive for sticky notes. Note that
both HP and 3M retain ownership of all results of the "personal
projects".

On another note, one of Hewlett or Packard (I forget which one)
was a big advocate of huge open rooms, and liked to sit and
watch the employees to prevent them from goofing off. At least,
that's what I hear.

Hike
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