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Taylorism: Work Faster! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:10
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
0:13
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, timing us, telling us to hurry up,
0:17
Speaker 2: scowling at us, even which makes this another average episode
0:21
Speaker 2: of Stuff you Should Know. She said, get this in
0:26
Speaker 2: forty five minutes on the nose, no more, no less,
0:29
Speaker 2: and then she went uh and walked out of the
0:31
Speaker 2: room holding a pillow.
0:34
Speaker 1: Was that me or Joe?
0:35
Speaker 2: That was Jerry?
0:37
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm usually the timekeeper.
0:40
Speaker 2: Are you? I'd never noticed with your new swatch.
0:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I just feel like I'm the one that's
0:46
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes and you're like, no, let's make
0:48
Speaker 1: it three hours.
0:50
Speaker 2: I don't like three hour podcasts, but I also don't
0:52
Speaker 2: like living under the clock, which is why I probably
0:55
Speaker 2: would not have personally liked Frederick Winslow Taylor.
0:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, should we talk about this guy?
1:01
Speaker 2: I don't think we have any choice. And by the way,
1:03
Speaker 2: this is not a biopic. It's not a biography or
1:06
Speaker 2: a profile. It's about a man that you can't not
1:10
Speaker 2: talk about. But really this is about his whole system. Okay,
1:13
Speaker 2: I just want to make that clear.
1:15
Speaker 1: To you use people likely, Well, I don't want to
1:17
Speaker 1: hear about that guy.
1:20
Speaker 2: Well, ts, you're gonna have to.
1:22
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Olivia because she pushed out another banger here,
1:28
Speaker 1: thanks in part by this great, great article in The
1:32
Speaker 1: New Yorker from Jill Lapour, who Lvia calls a genius,
1:38
Speaker 1: absolute genius in fact, is a quote she definitely is
1:41
Speaker 1: great article. Anyway, I think the setup that Livia gave
1:45
Speaker 1: is kind of worthy of going over a little bit
1:47
Speaker 1: because when you look at the you know, nineteen hundred
1:51
Speaker 1: through the nineteen twenties and thirties, you looked at in
1:54
Speaker 1: America that was really changing in that these huge Industrial
2:00
Speaker 1: Revolution born industries where all of a sudden, like, hey,
2:07
Speaker 1: now we're kind of corporations and now we have middle
2:09
Speaker 1: managers and CEOs and things, and it's a little different
2:12
Speaker 1: than it used to be, right, And so we need
2:14
Speaker 1: to start kind of really thinking about how to squeeze
2:18
Speaker 1: every dime out of this company we can and make
2:23
Speaker 1: these workers. We'll call it efficiency, but between us, let's say,
2:28
Speaker 1: let's call it working them to the bone until they're
2:31
Speaker 1: near exhaustion so we can maximize profits.
2:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I could just hear our left leaning listeners
2:37
Speaker 2: going boo his. But efficiency was not in and of
2:42
Speaker 2: itself a naughty word on either side of the political
2:45
Speaker 2: spectrum at the time, because you could also hope that
2:50
Speaker 2: a more efficient factory, or a more efficient workforce, or
2:55
Speaker 2: a more efficient whatever would increase productivity but also give
2:59
Speaker 2: workers like more free time and then ideally a larger
3:03
Speaker 2: share of the profit in the form of higher wages.
3:06
Speaker 1: Right, that's how that works, right exactly.
3:08
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't imagine a more naive progressive movement
3:11
Speaker 2: than that, But that's exactly what they were hoping for.
3:13
Speaker 2: But not just hoping for. They were fighting for, agitating
3:16
Speaker 2: for it, doing whatever they could, taking it to the courts.
3:20
Speaker 2: Sometimes they were successful, but I think we all know
3:23
Speaker 2: spoiler alert, in the long run they lost thus far.
3:27
Speaker 1: That's right, and a lot of the work being done
3:29
Speaker 1: on efficiency can be laid at the feet of a
3:33
Speaker 1: person and then some other people. But initially, at least
3:36
Speaker 1: this guy that you mentioned, Frederick Winslow Taylor, who was
3:41
Speaker 1: from Philadelphia born in eighteen fifty six, had an attorney
3:45
Speaker 1: father an abolitionists mother. It's a very smart guy and
3:49
Speaker 1: was all set to take Harvard by storm before his
3:52
Speaker 1: eyesight started to fail. Right after that got better. He
3:57
Speaker 1: may not have gone to Harvard, but he was still
3:59
Speaker 1: a really smart guy and ended up studying engineering at
4:03
Speaker 1: night and became a chief engineer for the Enterprise Hydraulic
4:09
Speaker 1: Works in Philly and then Midvale Steel Company.
4:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, at Midvale Steel Company, that's where he really made
4:16
Speaker 2: his name. I think that's where he became the chief engineer.
4:19
Speaker 2: And one of the things he did as he was
4:21
Speaker 2: working his way up was he was, I guess, out
4:26
Speaker 2: of the gate obsessed or at least deeply interested with
4:29
Speaker 2: the idea of doing something in the least number of movements,
4:34
Speaker 2: the most precise way, the most foolproof way, and that
4:37
Speaker 2: if you studied a task closely enough and understood it
4:41
Speaker 2: well enough, you could find the most efficient way to
4:44
Speaker 2: do it. And so over. Like his twenty six year
4:47
Speaker 2: career at Midvale, he conducted more than thirty thousand experiments
4:54
Speaker 2: in metal cutting, figuring out which tool went with, which
4:58
Speaker 2: motion went with you know, know, how to grab the
5:01
Speaker 2: tool the best way. And from that he ended up
5:04
Speaker 2: writing a book called on the Art of Cutting Metals
5:07
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh seven. And from what I saw for
5:10
Speaker 2: years and years, that was considered like a bible in
5:12
Speaker 2: the metal cutting industry, and so he definitely put his
5:16
Speaker 2: money where his mouth is, and that's how he first
5:18
Speaker 2: kind of got into the idea of becoming an efficiency expert.
5:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is a certain kind of brain
5:26
Speaker 1: because I am on that spectrum a little bit and
5:29
Speaker 1: trying to weed out inefficiencies with certain things. But I'm
5:33
Speaker 1: on the side of the spectrum that is also it
5:36
Speaker 1: comes from laziness. Oh yeah, so I'll try and do
5:40
Speaker 1: that because I'm inherently kind of lazy, I think. So
5:43
Speaker 1: I'm like, I look for ways to cut corners to
5:46
Speaker 1: still get the job done right. And I've had people
5:49
Speaker 1: compliment me in the old days, like on film sets, like, hey,
5:53
Speaker 1: you know, I see what you're doing there, and you're
5:56
Speaker 1: the kid I would hire twice, whereas the guy next
5:59
Speaker 1: to you who's just like, no, man, let's just make
6:01
Speaker 1: eight trips and just hump it and do it right.
6:04
Speaker 1: He's like, I know, he thinks he's getting it done
6:06
Speaker 1: just the old fashioned way. He's like, but you're the
6:08
Speaker 1: guy we would hire a second time.
6:10
Speaker 2: In your response is like, we'll kind of go home
6:12
Speaker 2: early probably, so, but.
6:15
Speaker 1: That was always my aim. But it's interesting that, you know,
6:17
Speaker 1: I had that a little bit in my brain, but
6:20
Speaker 1: not like this guy did. Like he was obsessed with
6:23
Speaker 1: efficiencies such that he thought, and he's kind of right
6:27
Speaker 1: in some ways that one of the biggest threats to
6:30
Speaker 1: getting something done in a productive efficient way was slacking
6:34
Speaker 1: off in what he called systematic soldiering. And I kind
6:37
Speaker 1: of agree with that to a certain degree.
6:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. Remember in our Peter Principal episode, we talked about
6:43
Speaker 2: a corollary to that called Parkinson's law, which is like
6:46
Speaker 2: a tongue in cheek law that work expanded to fill
6:49
Speaker 2: the time allotted.
6:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, So yeah, if you're sitting there like making widgets.
6:55
Speaker 2: Sorry to be cliche, but that's what I'm going With
6:58
Speaker 2: eight or ten hours a day, You're not going to
7:01
Speaker 2: be the most efficient you can be. You're going to
7:03
Speaker 2: be about as efficient as as as ambitious as you are.
7:09
Speaker 2: Like your ambition how far you want to go is
7:13
Speaker 2: basically equaled in some weird ratio to the amount of
7:17
Speaker 2: efficiency that you produce at your job. Right, So if
7:19
Speaker 2: you're like, I'm happy here, I'm not going to bust
7:22
Speaker 2: my hump like that guy to go an extra half
7:26
Speaker 2: mile because I'm not going to get anything in return,
7:29
Speaker 2: So I'm just going to do my job at a
7:31
Speaker 2: pace that I find acceptable and that the people I
7:35
Speaker 2: work for find acceptable. And I mean, if you want
7:38
Speaker 2: to call that slacking off or being lazy, fine, and
7:40
Speaker 2: Frederick Taylor definitely did, But it's also just kind of
7:44
Speaker 2: like being a human being, you know.
7:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. And to be clear, because I think it seems
7:51
Speaker 1: like I might have been mischaracterized here. The film set
7:54
Speaker 1: thing was, I wasn't like, let's just do the minimum.
7:58
Speaker 1: I was in the situation, in this specific incident where
8:02
Speaker 1: I was trying to do a little extra work by
8:05
Speaker 1: getting a cart loaded rather than just making a ton
8:10
Speaker 1: of trips, and the guys and he was like, now
8:13
Speaker 1: I'm mess with getting that cart out. Let's just hump
8:15
Speaker 1: all this stuff back and forth. And they were like,
8:17
Speaker 1: hey guys, or to me, hey guy, And I said
8:21
Speaker 1: my name is Chuck, right, and they said, hey, Chuck,
8:25
Speaker 1: you're the guy I would hire twice because you were
8:27
Speaker 1: taking the time to do it more efficiently, not like, hey,
8:29
Speaker 1: I admire like the lazy side.
8:31
Speaker 2: Of you, right, And they appreciated your soft touch with
8:34
Speaker 2: the donkey that pulled the cart.
8:36
Speaker 1: Right, But it was lazy, and that I didn't want
8:38
Speaker 1: to do all those trips. So that's where it initially
8:40
Speaker 1: sprang from, was I don't want to have to tote
8:42
Speaker 1: all that stuff eight times. Does that make sense?
8:45
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think the reason you're man, we're really going
8:48
Speaker 2: deep on this. But I think the reason that you're
8:51
Speaker 2: feeling mischaracterized is because you're misusing the word lazy. That's
8:54
Speaker 2: not lazy. That's what they call work harder or work smarter,
8:58
Speaker 2: not harder.
8:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you only do that if you get a
9:01
Speaker 1: little laziness in you.
9:02
Speaker 2: No, that's not necessarily true. I think it's just sensible.
9:06
Speaker 1: Okay, but I'm also lazy. Then how's that?
9:09
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. But they're not necessarily inextricably tied
9:12
Speaker 2: together in that instance.
9:14
Speaker 1: Okay.
9:15
Speaker 2: Anyway, I don't think what you just describe qualifies as laziness.
9:20
Speaker 2: But what Frederick Taylor considered laziness he called something called
9:25
Speaker 2: systematic soldiering, which I still can't make heads or tails of.
9:30
Speaker 2: It does not make any sense to me, does it
9:32
Speaker 2: to you?
9:33
Speaker 1: Well? What a soldiering mean?
9:36
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean you're you go off and
9:38
Speaker 2: fight battles, or you go and follow orders. I don't know.
9:41
Speaker 2: I don't know what he means.
9:44
Speaker 1: Did you look up soldiering?
9:46
Speaker 2: No? I didn't. I just access to my brain data banks.
9:52
Speaker 1: Well I'm gonna look it up. Go ahead, we'll do
9:54
Speaker 1: a rare uh a rare look Okay, Well, serve as
9:58
Speaker 1: a soldier to aha. Oh well, no, that didn't make
10:03
Speaker 1: any sense either, like soldiering on right persevering, Yeah, I
10:08
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to me officially as.
10:09
Speaker 2: Well, it makes no sense because that was his term,
10:12
Speaker 2: systematic soldiering.
10:14
Speaker 1: I would call it systematic leaning against something.
10:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's what he called slacking off. And like,
10:22
Speaker 2: this guy was an aristocrat through and through right. His
10:25
Speaker 2: mother's family came over in the early sixteen hundreds, I think,
10:29
Speaker 2: to America. So like he was a wealthy, blue blooded
10:33
Speaker 2: Quaker boy who because his parents were like do gooders.
10:38
Speaker 2: His mom certainly was. She was a suffragette and abolitionist.
10:42
Speaker 2: He was raised to care about humanity, but he also
10:45
Speaker 2: didn't have that spark of compassion that it takes to
10:49
Speaker 2: care about humans individually. So he cared about creating a
10:52
Speaker 2: better society for humans, but he couldn't really help but
10:56
Speaker 2: look down on other people. He considered lower than him,
10:59
Speaker 2: including him. So he did notice things like, you're not
11:02
Speaker 2: working as hard as you can. I'm going to see
11:05
Speaker 2: to it that you work harder. And he felt totally
11:07
Speaker 2: comfortable with filling that role and he actually created that
11:11
Speaker 2: role for himself to phill which is pretty remarkable if
11:15
Speaker 2: you ask me.
11:16
Speaker 1: That's right. So he was at Midvale and he sort
11:20
Speaker 1: of started breaking down the operations of the jobs that
11:23
Speaker 1: they had there at Midvale and he was like, you know,
11:26
Speaker 1: there's some elementary operations that happen here. So we're going
11:29
Speaker 1: to form an estimating department where we're going to sit
11:31
Speaker 1: around and do time studies, which he got from a
11:35
Speaker 1: class at Phillips Exeter, and we're going to time workers
11:38
Speaker 1: doing all these little small tasks. We're going to add
11:40
Speaker 1: that up to the whole and kind of average it
11:43
Speaker 1: out and say, hey, you should be able to do
11:45
Speaker 1: this in that amount of time, and we'll adjust accordingly,
11:48
Speaker 1: we'll incentivize accordingly. And he said, and you know what else,
11:53
Speaker 1: this is now a new career. I'm going to be
11:57
Speaker 1: a consulting engineer and management and I'm going to charge
12:00
Speaker 1: you to tell you how bad you're doing things.
12:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so those management companies like KPMG and Mackenzie,
12:09
Speaker 2: they would not exist ostensibly had Frederick Taylor not created
12:14
Speaker 2: that field. Like that's what he created. These huge, just
12:18
Speaker 2: mega world influencing companies came from this guy basically making
12:23
Speaker 2: up the profession.
12:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know what we should We should give
12:26
Speaker 1: a good example here because what he was really most
12:29
Speaker 1: or not most well known for, but something he became
12:31
Speaker 1: very well known for was his work at Bethlehem Steel.
12:34
Speaker 1: And he started looking at the process of loading iron
12:38
Speaker 1: onto railcars pig iron, and said, all right, we need
12:42
Speaker 1: to figure out how much of this stuff is reasonable
12:45
Speaker 1: for one of these men to load onto a railcar.
12:49
Speaker 1: The average right now is twelve and a half tons
12:50
Speaker 1: a day. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going
12:53
Speaker 1: to get ten large, powerful Hungarian workers to and say,
12:59
Speaker 1: heyde as much as you can, as fast as you can.
13:03
Speaker 1: Sixteen and a half tons is your goal. And they
13:05
Speaker 1: did that in fourteen minutes, whereas twelve and a half
13:08
Speaker 1: tons was the daily rate for their average worker. So
13:12
Speaker 1: that's seventy one tons in a ten hour day. He
13:14
Speaker 1: rounds it up to seventy five and then said, yeah,
13:16
Speaker 1: but you know what people get tired and they need breaks.
13:19
Speaker 1: So let's whack off forty percent of that and we'll
13:24
Speaker 1: just make we'll just call it even at forty seven
13:26
Speaker 1: and a half tons per day, which is four times
13:29
Speaker 1: as much as you've usually been doing. That's that's the
13:31
Speaker 1: new expectation.
13:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that thing about people getting tired he called
13:36
Speaker 2: the law of heavy laboring. And from what I can tell,
13:38
Speaker 2: he made up that law that I'd put into scare quotes,
13:42
Speaker 2: and this is a really good example of what he did.
13:44
Speaker 2: Like he was supposed to be precise in finding like
13:47
Speaker 2: ultimate efficiency, but he was arbitrarily rounding up and arbitrarily
13:52
Speaker 2: coming up with forty percent off based on this law
13:55
Speaker 2: that he made up. And now you kind of start
13:58
Speaker 2: to get to see like the veil or like the
14:02
Speaker 2: meat that's on the bones. I don't know the analogy
14:04
Speaker 2: I'm looking for, but you can pull back the curtain,
14:07
Speaker 2: that's the one, and see that this stuff is actually
14:09
Speaker 2: not what Frederick Taylor cracked it up to be.
14:14
Speaker 1: The Great Oz exactly so much.
14:17
Speaker 2: Right. It wears no clothes, all right.
14:20
Speaker 1: So when this happened, some people said, I ain't doing this.
14:23
Speaker 1: They quit, they got fired. Some people tried and couldn't
14:27
Speaker 1: do it. Some people were so tired from trying to
14:31
Speaker 1: load that much or that they couldn't come back the
14:34
Speaker 1: next day, and things got really heated. He needed he
14:37
Speaker 1: hired arm guards to walk him home at night. Taylor
14:39
Speaker 1: did because he was so worried. And then he said,
14:42
Speaker 1: all right, I'm going to create a new fake scenario.
14:46
Speaker 1: And this is something that I've seen businesses do that
14:48
Speaker 1: I hate when they create, like, you know, here's our
14:51
Speaker 1: worker Todd and Todd you know, and it's all just
14:55
Speaker 1: made up bs. And that's what he did with Schmidt.
14:59
Speaker 2: Here's the thing though, So Schmidt, yes, was a fictional
15:03
Speaker 2: invention essentially of Taylor's making. But he went around the
15:07
Speaker 2: country giving this this lecture or wrote in his books
15:11
Speaker 2: like as if Schmidt this actually.
15:13
Speaker 1: Happened about Schmidt.
15:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a great movie. I really felt uncomfortable
15:18
Speaker 2: when he made a pass at the wife of the
15:21
Speaker 2: fiby couple that he met. Other than that, I thought
15:24
Speaker 2: it was a great movie.
15:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:26
Speaker 2: I think at that point that was actually just an
15:28
Speaker 2: outtake of Jack Nicholson doing his thing.
15:32
Speaker 1: Keep rolling the cameras. This is great.
15:35
Speaker 2: So like so he was he put out there that
15:39
Speaker 2: the Schmidt character was like a real deal thing, not
15:42
Speaker 2: a made up thing, not a made up anecdote to
15:44
Speaker 2: prove his point, and he actually did consult at Bethlehem Steel,
15:47
Speaker 2: where Schmidt supposedly worked. But the upshot of all of
15:50
Speaker 2: it was this, there was this guy named Schmidt who
15:53
Speaker 2: was known to work very hard, and he was also
15:56
Speaker 2: very motivated by money because he was building his own
15:59
Speaker 2: house and he he needed as much money as he
16:01
Speaker 2: could get to build said house.
16:03
Speaker 1: But not too bright, right, not too bright.
16:05
Speaker 2: That's a really important point that Taylor would hammer home
16:09
Speaker 2: any chance he got. This guy was sluggish mentally speaking,
16:12
Speaker 2: is the way that he put it. But he got
16:15
Speaker 2: through to him with a pep talk, whereas essentially he said,
16:18
Speaker 2: are you a high priced man? And Schmidt was like,
16:21
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about. And when he
16:23
Speaker 2: wrote about Schmidt, he replaces w's with VS and stuff,
16:27
Speaker 2: and he's a German immigrant. And he said, well, this
16:32
Speaker 2: is what a high priced man does. He does everything
16:35
Speaker 2: that his manager tells him to do. If your manager
16:39
Speaker 2: tells you to pick up that pig iron and take
16:41
Speaker 2: six steps and then set it down over there, you
16:43
Speaker 2: do that. If your manager tells you to sit down
16:46
Speaker 2: and rest for ninety seconds. Then after ninety seconds he
16:48
Speaker 2: tells you to get up and then go grab that
16:50
Speaker 2: piece of pig iron. You do that too, with no
16:52
Speaker 2: backtalk whatsoever. That's a high priced man.
16:56
Speaker 1: You want to be a mister big boy pants.
16:58
Speaker 2: Exactly. Press men make more money. So we'll give you
17:02
Speaker 2: not just the dollar fifteen an hour that you're making,
17:05
Speaker 2: we'll give you a dollar eighty five for making this
17:08
Speaker 2: forty seven and a half tone quota. And all you
17:11
Speaker 2: have to do is do what your manager tells you.
17:15
Speaker 2: And this is the other thing that I guess Frederick
17:17
Speaker 2: Taylor revolutionized in a way. He divided the workforce into
17:21
Speaker 2: two parts, managers who had the brains and did the
17:24
Speaker 2: bossing around, and workers who were, according to Taylor, meant
17:28
Speaker 2: to do exactly what their managers told them. And if
17:32
Speaker 2: you put the two together, you would have the most
17:34
Speaker 2: efficient way to say, like load pig iron onto a
17:38
Speaker 2: railroad car.
17:40
Speaker 1: That's right in this anecdote, who that he, you know,
17:44
Speaker 1: sort of reached around as if it were real. He said,
17:47
Speaker 1: Then I did this. It works so great. Schmid was
17:49
Speaker 1: so happy, and Roland in dough I got all of
17:52
Speaker 1: his coworkers to jump aboard because I showed him what
17:56
Speaker 1: a mister big boy pants look like, and everybody wanted
17:59
Speaker 1: big boy pants and so everybody, as long as you
18:02
Speaker 1: just do what your boss says, then you're going to
18:05
Speaker 1: make more dough and forget the fact that I'm choosing,
18:09
Speaker 1: you know, the very strongest workers to set the standard
18:13
Speaker 1: for everyone. And then in nineteen eleven a US House
18:16
Speaker 1: committee said, yeah, but we can't just forget that, because
18:20
Speaker 1: you can't just pick the strongest worker and say that's
18:23
Speaker 1: the standard for everyone. And so he got into a
18:27
Speaker 1: bit of a tit for tat in that committee meeting,
18:33
Speaker 1: I guess with the chairman, William Ballshop Wilson, and he said,
18:37
Speaker 1: you know what about if you don't have big boy
18:39
Speaker 1: pants men on your staff and like or all big
18:42
Speaker 1: boy pants men. And he said, well, it has no
18:45
Speaker 1: place for a bird that can sing but won't. And
18:48
Speaker 1: he kind of got smacked down for that because he
18:51
Speaker 1: was just lifting lines out of books that he had written.
18:54
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, also, William Wilson said basically like, we're not
18:59
Speaker 2: dealing with singing birds. We're dealing with men here who
19:01
Speaker 2: are part of society and for whom or for whose
19:04
Speaker 2: benefit society is organized, right, so you can't essentially, you
19:09
Speaker 2: can't treat people like automatons and drones and robots. You
19:14
Speaker 2: have to consider them as human beings. And the lines
19:18
Speaker 2: from his book that you mentioned, apparently Jillipoorr reported that
19:22
Speaker 2: he did so poorly in this committee hearing that by
19:26
Speaker 2: the way, if you want to ever be nervous about
19:28
Speaker 2: a committee hearing, you have to go testify at go
19:32
Speaker 2: to one that's literally named after you. This was this
19:36
Speaker 2: hearing was called the House Committee to Investigate Taylor, not Taylorism,
19:40
Speaker 2: Taylor and other systems of shop management. And so he
19:44
Speaker 2: actually ordered one of his underlings to go steal William
19:48
Speaker 2: Wilson's copy of his book, and I guess didn't wasn't successful,
19:53
Speaker 2: and just kind of went ahead with the terrible testimony.
19:56
Speaker 2: But as we'll see, he used it to turn bad
19:58
Speaker 2: publicity into any publicity, which is good publicity.
20:02
Speaker 1: That's right. The long inshort with Bethlehem Steele, at least
20:06
Speaker 1: was that they fired him. They quit the tailor's and
20:09
Speaker 1: methods that he had brought in, and he said, all right,
20:12
Speaker 1: pay me one hundred thousand dollars and we'll call it even,
20:14
Speaker 1: which is about three and a half million bucks today,
20:18
Speaker 1: and that's probably a good time for a break, eh, agreed.
20:21
Speaker 1: All right, we'll come back and move on from Taylor
20:23
Speaker 1: for a moment to talk about the Gilbreaths right after this.
20:48
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, you mentioned that we're going to talk about
20:49
Speaker 2: the Gilbreaths, So I say we do that. Now. We're
20:52
Speaker 2: talking about Frank and Lillian Gilbreath, and anyone who has
20:56
Speaker 2: ever read the book or seen the movie or the
20:59
Speaker 2: remake Cheaper by the Dozen, this is the family that
21:02
Speaker 2: that movie and that book were based on. Frank, Lily
21:06
Speaker 2: and Gilbreath were one of the more amazing interesting couples
21:10
Speaker 2: that came out of the twentieth century.
21:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And two of their kids wrote that
21:16
Speaker 1: book in nineteen forty eight, and you know, it was fun.
21:21
Speaker 1: It's a classic for a reason.
21:22
Speaker 2: They remade it for a reason, for sure, to make money.
21:28
Speaker 1: Frank was a bricklayer in his earlier life, and he
21:31
Speaker 1: was one of these people that thought, including too but
21:36
Speaker 1: not limited to cat skinning, that there was one best
21:38
Speaker 1: way to do any task. And so he was one
21:42
Speaker 1: of those guys where he was like, hey, that scaffold
21:44
Speaker 1: for laying bricks is kind of great, But what if
21:46
Speaker 1: there was a shelf on the scaffold for those bricks
21:49
Speaker 1: and mortar. You don't got to bend over and pick
21:51
Speaker 1: that stuff up. And what if you had some really
21:53
Speaker 1: low paid laborers that would stack the bricks on the
21:56
Speaker 1: frames for them, positioned in the right direction so they
22:00
Speaker 1: don't even have to turn the bricks. Like really drilling
22:03
Speaker 1: down on these efficiencies.
22:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seems like Frank kind of came up
22:06
Speaker 2: with this interest independently of Frederick Taylor, even though he
22:12
Speaker 2: and Lillian and Taylor would essentially form kind of a
22:15
Speaker 2: cadre of cohorts. I guess, yeah, this is like an
22:21
Speaker 2: independent thinks this is an independent. These were two independent
22:25
Speaker 2: groups who eventually came together because they helped develop this
22:29
Speaker 2: field out of thin air. So what the Gilberts did.
22:33
Speaker 2: Lillian and Frank together they formed the Gilbert Inc. A
22:37
Speaker 2: management consulting firm. They got really, really in the weeds
22:42
Speaker 2: about the movements it took to carry out a task,
22:46
Speaker 2: and they figured out that you could break any task
22:49
Speaker 2: down into eighteen different kinds of movements. Right, so you're
22:54
Speaker 2: not necessarily going to have all eighteen but no matter
22:57
Speaker 2: what task you're talking about, it's going to be made
22:59
Speaker 2: up of no more than those eighteen specific kind of movements,
23:03
Speaker 2: things like I'm searching for an object with your eye,
23:06
Speaker 2: grasping an object, reaching for it, disassembling it. And they
23:10
Speaker 2: called these things third bligs, which is their name roughly
23:13
Speaker 2: spelled backwards.
23:15
Speaker 1: Do you think when they met Taylor initially they were
23:21
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, you're into efficiency, and so
23:24
Speaker 1: are we. And Taylor said, I think you mean a
23:26
Speaker 1: fish and they just like fainted.
23:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're right. They're like, you're our guy.
23:34
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. Third bligs. So they were also big into
23:37
Speaker 1: rich hall and sniglets. Uh not to date myself, but
23:41
Speaker 1: uh yeah. They made up a word, and they said
23:43
Speaker 1: any action you can take is a third blig, and
23:46
Speaker 1: we want to get rid of as many third bligs
23:49
Speaker 1: as possible to make efficiency the most, to maximize it
23:53
Speaker 1: as much as one possibly can.
23:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to do that so they would use their kids.
23:57
Speaker 2: They ended up having a dozen kids, eleven of whom
24:00
Speaker 2: made it to adulthood. One of them died at age
24:02
Speaker 2: five of diphtheria. Sadly, and I don't know how, but
24:06
Speaker 2: they planned to have six boys and six girls, and
24:09
Speaker 2: I think they were successful at that. No idea how
24:12
Speaker 2: they did that, because we're talking about the beginning of
24:14
Speaker 2: the twentieth century.
24:15
Speaker 1: It's called luck. Okay, there is no way to do that.
24:19
Speaker 2: And they decided to raise their kids in the under
24:23
Speaker 2: these principles of efficiency. But they weren't weirdo clinical types,
24:28
Speaker 2: like this was a tight, cool family. Like the kids
24:31
Speaker 2: were participatory, Like they would have family meetings and each
24:35
Speaker 2: kid had a vote, and so they would have a
24:37
Speaker 2: family meeting and someone would put forward a motion like
24:39
Speaker 2: I say, we get a dog, and someone would second it,
24:42
Speaker 2: and then they put it to a vote, and then
24:44
Speaker 2: you know, the eyes had it. So they ended up
24:45
Speaker 2: getting a dog they named mister Chairman. Like that was
24:48
Speaker 2: how they ran their family. But they were all very
24:52
Speaker 2: focused on efficiency because they were obsessed with it, but
24:56
Speaker 2: not in a dileterious way or a deletrious way. They
25:02
Speaker 2: were I guess the best way to put it is
25:06
Speaker 2: Lilian was searching for the most efficient way to do
25:09
Speaker 2: something so that you have more free time to go
25:12
Speaker 2: do happy things, she said, So it can increase your
25:14
Speaker 2: happiness minutes essentially. So it was a really different viewpoint
25:18
Speaker 2: of the same thing compared to Frederick Taylor.
25:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Taylor you kind of talked about a
25:25
Speaker 1: little bit early on, but he did think it was
25:27
Speaker 1: a win win. He was like, this is great because
25:29
Speaker 1: it'll run more efficiently and you know, it'll trickle down essentially.
25:33
Speaker 1: They didn't call it that yet, but that's sort of
25:36
Speaker 1: the same notion that like it'll just trickle down to
25:38
Speaker 1: the worker all this efficiency and they'll get better wages
25:41
Speaker 1: and stuff will be cheaper and stuff like that, Like
25:43
Speaker 1: management will never ever take advantage of that and make
25:46
Speaker 1: you work harder just to increase profits exactly, And of
25:49
Speaker 1: course that's exactly what happened in every case. But I don't, like,
25:55
Speaker 1: I'm kind of wondering about Taylor's heart and like what
25:58
Speaker 1: was in there? You know?
26:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I explained it already. I'm sticking
26:03
Speaker 2: with my idea.
26:04
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think he's one of those guys
26:06
Speaker 1: that was so brain obsessed on efficiency. I don't know
26:11
Speaker 1: that he had like I don't know if he thought
26:14
Speaker 1: that part through such that he was like some evil
26:16
Speaker 1: person set out to exploit a worker.
26:20
Speaker 2: No, I don't think he was evil. I don't think
26:24
Speaker 2: that he set out to exploit workers. But I think
26:27
Speaker 2: even after he saw what his invention was being used for,
26:30
Speaker 2: he was indifferent to that, and that says volumes about him.
26:34
Speaker 2: He never denounced it, he never called people out for
26:37
Speaker 2: misusing it, and he actually helped foster it's misused to
26:40
Speaker 2: exploit workers. So I think he was a bit of
26:44
Speaker 2: a misanthroat, not evil, and that wasn't ever his intention
26:47
Speaker 2: to be evil. But when it turned kind of evil,
26:51
Speaker 2: he was he was like, sure, let's keep going if
26:53
Speaker 2: you guys are giving me money.
26:55
Speaker 1: I wonder if he might have been in an age
26:58
Speaker 1: where there weren't certain diagnoses available for what he, you know,
27:03
Speaker 1: may have had going on.
27:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe, for sure. I mean it's possible. I think
27:07
Speaker 2: that we're barreling toward a future where every single person
27:11
Speaker 2: has a diagnosis of some sort or another.
27:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe.
27:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be interesting.
27:17
Speaker 1: You mean, like there's no perfect person and everyone has
27:20
Speaker 1: an issue that they're dealing with.
27:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think we already know that,
27:24
Speaker 2: but we haven't. We haven't come up with a label
27:27
Speaker 2: for every single one of those tests of issues that
27:29
Speaker 2: people are working with. That's the difference that I'm talking about.
27:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, for sure. I don't know. I think sometimes
27:33
Speaker 1: that thing empowers people.
27:35
Speaker 2: I agree. I don't think. I'm not saying there's anything
27:37
Speaker 2: wrong with it. I'm just entanted to see like where
27:40
Speaker 2: we're going. Yeah, but yes, I agree, But we've in
27:43
Speaker 2: large part of the society scuttled the idea of the
27:46
Speaker 2: uber minch and Nietzsche is very unhappy about that.
27:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what Nietzsche can do. What I'll tell
27:55
Speaker 1: y'all fair, Okay. Ironically, though, it was a Supreme Court
28:00
Speaker 1: justice who we've talked about I feel like quite a
28:02
Speaker 1: bit on the show, who kind of bumped Tailor up
28:06
Speaker 1: to celebrity status. Yeah, how did we pronounce his name
28:09
Speaker 1: the first twenty five times we said it?
28:11
Speaker 2: It's brand Ice. Okay, that sounds right like light ice,
28:15
Speaker 2: but a little different.
28:17
Speaker 1: Right like bud Ice.
28:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, didn't Miller Light have an ice too? Didn't everybody
28:23
Speaker 2: have an ice for a.
28:24
Speaker 1: While light Ice? I don't know.
28:26
Speaker 2: Oh, I screwed it up then because I should have
28:29
Speaker 2: said bud Ice. But yeah, that's what I was going for.
28:32
Speaker 2: I know Milwaukee's best had an ice.
28:34
Speaker 1: What does it deal with that ice brewed? What even
28:36
Speaker 1: was that?
28:36
Speaker 2: I think it got you tanked faster. Really, yeah, I
28:40
Speaker 2: think it had something that it messed with the alcohol
28:43
Speaker 2: content or the way it was delivered or something like that.
28:46
Speaker 1: So you had to drink seventeen Miller lits instead of fourteen.
28:50
Speaker 2: Right, exactly, No, the opposite, you had to drink twelve
28:52
Speaker 2: instead of fourteen.
28:54
Speaker 1: Okay, all right. Anyway back to nineteen ten, brand Ice
28:58
Speaker 1: Lewis brand Ice, Supreme Court Justice, called a meeting with
29:02
Speaker 1: the Gilbreaths and the tailor Rights. Taylor couldn't come, but
29:05
Speaker 1: he sent his representatives and said, I want to talk
29:08
Speaker 1: about what I'm calling scientific management. And I am concerned
29:12
Speaker 1: because I see what's happening with big business and I
29:15
Speaker 1: think it's getting out of hand. I want to break
29:17
Speaker 1: up these monopolies, and I think the consumer and the
29:19
Speaker 1: workers should be served. And I think I called one
29:24
Speaker 1: couple here who's probably interested in that, and another group
29:26
Speaker 1: of people who sounds like they probably aren't.
29:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Brandeis is ironic because he was died in
29:32
Speaker 2: the world progressive. Like you said, he was worried about
29:35
Speaker 2: big business, and so the idea that he's the one
29:38
Speaker 2: that made this concept that's historically viewed as exploitive of
29:43
Speaker 2: workers famous and like introduced to the world and essentially
29:46
Speaker 2: gave it it's like breakout moment. It's just terribly ironic.
29:51
Speaker 2: But the whole basis of that is that he was
29:54
Speaker 2: arguing before the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was holding hearings
29:58
Speaker 2: on railroad rate hikes. The railroad said stuff getting expensive.
30:02
Speaker 2: We need to increase the prices that we charged to
30:06
Speaker 2: carry freight to move freight, and of course that has
30:08
Speaker 2: cascading effects all throughout society, and prices we're going to
30:11
Speaker 2: go up, and Brandeis represented a bunch of companies that
30:14
Speaker 2: we're gonna have to pay those increased rates. And Brandeis's
30:17
Speaker 2: argument was that the railroad companies don't need to raise
30:21
Speaker 2: their rates, they need to get more efficient. And here's
30:24
Speaker 2: how they can do it. This guy named Taylor has
30:26
Speaker 2: figured out a scientific way of getting more efficient and
30:30
Speaker 2: that's how they can keep their prices low and still
30:32
Speaker 2: keep their profits high. Yeah.
30:34
Speaker 1: I know, it's a lot of press coverage on this,
30:36
Speaker 1: and this is really what pushed Taylor over the edge
30:39
Speaker 1: as far as becoming kind of famous for what he
30:41
Speaker 1: was doing. And that is the year, I'm sorry. The
30:44
Speaker 1: next year is when he put out The Principles of
30:47
Speaker 1: Scientific Management, which was probably easily the biggest business book,
30:53
Speaker 1: maybe at the twentieth century, but at least the first
30:55
Speaker 1: half of the twentieth century.
30:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And he was riding on the publicity
30:59
Speaker 2: from that inter State Commerce Commission hearing, but also that
31:03
Speaker 2: Congressional hearing that came I think later that same year.
31:07
Speaker 2: He saw an opportunity to get his name out there,
31:10
Speaker 2: even though his name was kind of being dragged through
31:12
Speaker 2: the mud.
31:13
Speaker 1: That's right. And one thing about Taylorism that we would
31:16
Speaker 1: learn soon enough. And I guess Gilbreatheism. Did they even
31:19
Speaker 1: call it dot No.
31:20
Speaker 2: I don't think so. They weren't. They weren't those types.
31:23
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna call it that gil Breath.
31:25
Speaker 1: Theism was that it didn't have to be kept to
31:27
Speaker 1: the workforce because Lily and Gilbreath found herself alone for
31:33
Speaker 1: the last forty eight years of her life when Frank
31:35
Speaker 1: died a heart attack at the age of fifty five
31:38
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty four, and she said, all right, don't
31:42
Speaker 1: tell any money. I'm no homemaker myself, not into it
31:45
Speaker 1: at all. I don't even do the cooking in my house.
31:48
Speaker 1: But I think I can shift these efficiency ideas to
31:52
Speaker 1: the house and make the home place a more efficient
31:57
Speaker 1: workplace for getting everything done from like back, came in
32:00
Speaker 1: to baking biscuits.
32:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you ever heard of the work triangle in
32:04
Speaker 2: a kitchen?
32:05
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a classic kitchen chef thing.
32:09
Speaker 2: She came up with that as far as I know, Yeah,
32:12
Speaker 2: for those who did not know that, but yeah, but
32:14
Speaker 2: for those of you who don't know what it is,
32:16
Speaker 2: the kitchen triangle is like the places where you do
32:19
Speaker 2: the most work, and so the ideas that they should
32:21
Speaker 2: be all within a step or two from one another.
32:23
Speaker 2: The sink, the oven, and the ice cream maker. I
32:27
Speaker 2: don't remember what the third one is the dishwasher.
32:31
Speaker 1: Dishwasher.
32:32
Speaker 2: Interesting, I think those are the three today at least. Okay,
32:36
Speaker 2: So anyway, she came up with that. If you have
32:38
Speaker 2: a kitchen island, you can thank her. I've seen. So. Yeah,
32:42
Speaker 2: she's just kind of pivoted because people were finding out
32:44
Speaker 2: that there was a woman that ran Gilbert Inc. The
32:47
Speaker 2: management consulting firm, and we're just walking away from their
32:51
Speaker 2: accounts because it was run by a woman. So she
32:54
Speaker 2: had no choice. She had twelve eleven kids to raise,
32:57
Speaker 2: and had to provide forms she wanted to set model
33:00
Speaker 2: to college. So yeah, she pivoted to home EC. But
33:02
Speaker 2: it wasn't just her. It's not like she invented homeck
33:06
Speaker 2: out a whole cloth. It was already being developed by
33:09
Speaker 2: a very famous or should be famous, a lesbian couple,
33:12
Speaker 2: Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer. Yeah Rensselaer, right.
33:20
Speaker 1: I have no idea how to pronounce.
33:21
Speaker 2: It r e n s s e l a e R. Rentler. Yeah,
33:27
Speaker 2: that's what I'm going with. And the reason I specifically
33:29
Speaker 2: called them out as a lesbian couple is because they
33:33
Speaker 2: were out as a lesbian couple in I believe the
33:37
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties or thirties. I had a I mean, you
33:40
Speaker 2: just did not do that, and they were like, say something,
33:43
Speaker 2: just just bring it, and they were They just went
33:46
Speaker 2: unchallenged for their lifetime from what I knew. But they
33:49
Speaker 2: they wanted to turn working in the home into something scientific,
33:54
Speaker 2: domestic science, which kind of elevated at status as well
33:58
Speaker 2: as made things easier for the woman working at the home.
34:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and eventually you could even find Taylorism in public
34:06
Speaker 1: public schools. And it's interesting to think of it this way.
34:10
Speaker 1: There was a Massachusetts superintendent who told the National Education
34:15
Speaker 1: Association that educators needed to analyze the returns of their investment. Rationally,
34:20
Speaker 1: we ought to purchase no more Greek instruction at the
34:22
Speaker 1: rate of five point nine pupil recitations for a dollar.
34:26
Speaker 1: The price must go down, or will she, or we
34:28
Speaker 1: shall invest in something else. And it sounds silly, but
34:32
Speaker 1: I get that. It just sounds like a funny way
34:36
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But it's basically like, we need
34:39
Speaker 1: to invest in these kids the things that really matter,
34:42
Speaker 1: and not necessarily reciting a Greek poem or something like that.
34:48
Speaker 2: Sure, the only question is who decides what really matters?
34:52
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things about that is
34:54
Speaker 2: that at the time when that guy was talking like that,
34:58
Speaker 2: kids in public schools were viewed as being trained and
35:01
Speaker 2: molded into the workers of tomorrow. So it was the
35:05
Speaker 2: government and the economy who decided what was important. And yeah,
35:08
Speaker 2: we weren't making a lot of money off of reciting
35:11
Speaker 2: Greek poems like you were saying, so that would get
35:14
Speaker 2: scuttled in the face of say, I don't know shop class,
35:18
Speaker 2: maybe what class?
35:19
Speaker 1: Shop?
35:20
Speaker 2: Shop?
35:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I had shop. We didn't have a car
35:24
Speaker 1: auto shop though, did you guys have that?
35:26
Speaker 2: No. I was just fascinated by that they had one
35:29
Speaker 2: unsaved by the bell, and I always thought that was
35:31
Speaker 2: the coolest thing.
35:32
Speaker 1: It felt like something that was in generation's previous to us.
35:35
Speaker 1: We just had shop class where you made lamps and
35:38
Speaker 1: stuff like that.
35:39
Speaker 2: Well, there was a huge shift in the American economy
35:42
Speaker 2: from car making to lamp making the early eighties, so
35:47
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's what the result was.
35:50
Speaker 1: Shall we take our second break or soldier through.
35:54
Speaker 2: Systematic soldier? Yeah, I say we take our second break.
35:59
Speaker 1: Okay, let's do it. Be right back. Okay, we're back
36:24
Speaker 1: by the way. I think the kitchen triangles is probably
36:27
Speaker 1: the fridge and not the dishwasher, would be my guess.
36:29
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot about the fridge. Yes, yes, absolutely, than.
36:32
Speaker 1: I bet it's I bet you're right, though, I bet
36:34
Speaker 1: it's sink, stove of and fridge would be my guess.
36:38
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I think you're right, because what if you
36:41
Speaker 2: don't have a dishwasher, right, And I'm sure that she
36:44
Speaker 2: didn't have a dishwasher in the nineteen thirties and forties,
36:47
Speaker 2: so you know, yeah, so you're you're right. Chuck just
36:51
Speaker 2: say it again.
36:52
Speaker 1: I think it was the fridge. Okay, all right, So
36:55
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a little bit about just sort of
36:57
Speaker 1: what like what Detaylor is accomplish. Ultimately, there is a
37:03
Speaker 1: lot of irony in that. You know, a lot of
37:05
Speaker 1: it was so scientific supposedly, but a lot of the
37:09
Speaker 1: stuff was made up or just sort of you know, yeah,
37:12
Speaker 1: made up or kind of a sham. Right, This wasn't new.
37:15
Speaker 1: Stuff like timing people on tasks and teaching people to
37:20
Speaker 1: do do more specific things had been around for a
37:24
Speaker 1: long time. But one of the effects of tailorism is
37:27
Speaker 1: definitely like you know, de skilling a worker making them
37:33
Speaker 1: feel and not that working is all about emotions, but
37:37
Speaker 1: you don't want to make your employee feel like a
37:40
Speaker 1: robot that can be replaced by a robot. You want
37:42
Speaker 1: to give them a little bit of agency ideally and
37:45
Speaker 1: a job and not just say move your body this way,
37:48
Speaker 1: move your hand that way, punch that thing and then
37:51
Speaker 1: return back to position one.
37:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so de skilling workers taking away the overall
37:58
Speaker 2: understanding of making say like oven and just giving them
38:02
Speaker 2: the one job of putting the door on the oven
38:04
Speaker 2: as it's coming down the assembly line, not only does
38:07
Speaker 2: that take away from job satisfaction, it also makes you
38:11
Speaker 2: way more replaceable because you don't have to train somebody
38:14
Speaker 2: to build a whole oven. All you have to do
38:15
Speaker 2: is train them to put that oven door on, and
38:17
Speaker 2: then you train somebody else to put the thermostad in
38:20
Speaker 2: the oven, and so on and so forth. And you,
38:22
Speaker 2: the owner of the factory, has that oven you want,
38:25
Speaker 2: but you have a bunch of replaceable workers that you
38:27
Speaker 2: can pay fairly low wages even combined compared to somebody
38:32
Speaker 2: who builds the oven from scratch. That is a huge
38:35
Speaker 2: Like you said, that was already underway, but Taylorism and
38:39
Speaker 2: the fact that it was so pervasive and widespread, especially
38:42
Speaker 2: in America in the first half of the twentieth century,
38:45
Speaker 2: really solidified that as like a basis of the American workforce.
38:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, another effect, I mean, I guess we've kind of
38:54
Speaker 1: said it in several different ways from the beginning, but
38:57
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that the Gilbress had that there
38:59
Speaker 1: would be a happiness quotient involved and where you could
39:03
Speaker 1: do work more efficiently so you could just have more
39:05
Speaker 1: time and better wages to spend with your family. It just,
39:09
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't work out that way. Even though
39:12
Speaker 1: the whole idea of Taylorism at its base isn't inherently
39:17
Speaker 1: anti worker, it sort of ends up being that way
39:19
Speaker 1: when the profits are being spread around the top tier
39:23
Speaker 1: and all they want is more and more of those profits.
39:26
Speaker 2: Yes, And so to be clear, it wasn't like every
39:28
Speaker 2: single time Taylor showed up like that's just how it went.
39:33
Speaker 2: There were some successful pushbacks over the years. There's one
39:36
Speaker 2: specifically at the Watertown Arsenal in Massachusetts in nineteen eleven.
39:40
Speaker 2: They make guns, I think for the government. It was
39:43
Speaker 2: a federal arsenal, and Taylor sent one of his emissaries
39:47
Speaker 2: essentially told him to just make up a number. You
39:49
Speaker 2: don't even need the stop watch part, and I think
39:53
Speaker 2: word of that got out and really kind of undermined that,
39:56
Speaker 2: but also just the process of being time doing your job.
40:02
Speaker 2: One of the workers said, I'm not doing that. You
40:04
Speaker 2: can't time me, and he was fired on the spot,
40:07
Speaker 2: and the rest of the workers were like, oh yeah,
40:09
Speaker 2: well we're going on strike. And they ended up being
40:11
Speaker 2: successful because again this was a federal arsenal and those
40:16
Speaker 2: congressional hearings to investigate Taylor. One of the results of
40:20
Speaker 2: them was that the US federal government banned Taylorism from
40:24
Speaker 2: being used in any way, shape or form in any
40:27
Speaker 2: kind of federal facility or agency.
40:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, but overall, I mean, Taylor certainly won the day.
40:35
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's just how the economy is in
40:38
Speaker 2: America and other like minded countries. Like, even though we've
40:42
Speaker 2: kind of walked away from it overtly, it's just gotten
40:46
Speaker 2: more and more entrenched over the years, rather than further
40:49
Speaker 2: and further away.
40:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I mean probably the most you know,
40:54
Speaker 1: the biggest contribution was it just raised the awareness and
40:57
Speaker 1: an obsession with productivity, and productivity is great, it's not
41:02
Speaker 1: like that's a bad thing. But again, like when you're
41:05
Speaker 1: dealing with human beings, to feel like a cog and
41:10
Speaker 1: to feel completely replaceable, there's no way like you're not
41:14
Speaker 1: serving your own purpose as a as a business owner,
41:18
Speaker 1: because you're not gonna have good and happy employees ultimately,
41:23
Speaker 1: and replacing employee after employee, even if you're just training
41:27
Speaker 1: them to put the oven door on, that's still an inefficiency,
41:30
Speaker 1: you know.
41:31
Speaker 2: Right, No, for sure, And yeah, that's a really great point.
41:35
Speaker 1: Do you want to keep employees?
41:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm sure some being counter at some company
41:39
Speaker 2: somewhere was like, oh, yeah, I still make more money
41:42
Speaker 2: hiring and training employees than you do making them happy,
41:45
Speaker 2: although that seems to not be the case. I was
41:48
Speaker 2: reading up on management consulting, which I think deserves its
41:53
Speaker 2: own episode down the line because apparently it's just totally fraudulent,
41:57
Speaker 2: So I think it'll be a really great interesting episode.
42:01
Speaker 2: But some studies have shown, from what I saw just
42:05
Speaker 2: briefly reading about this, that the happier your workers are,
42:10
Speaker 2: or I should say, economies that have happier workers, like
42:13
Speaker 2: more fulfilled workers, typically have their richer For the most part.
42:19
Speaker 2: I guess America as an outlier because I think overall
42:21
Speaker 2: workers are not necessarily happy with their jobs or lack
42:24
Speaker 2: of job. But supposedly if you make if you invest
42:28
Speaker 2: in your workers well being and actual happiness and fulfillment
42:32
Speaker 2: with their job, they're going to work more for you.
42:35
Speaker 2: They're going to work harder because they care about what
42:37
Speaker 2: they're doing.
42:38
Speaker 1: Totally.
42:39
Speaker 2: So yeah. And then one of the other big things
42:42
Speaker 2: that shows that Taylorism is still alive and well today
42:46
Speaker 2: Chuck is computers, AI, whatever you want to call it,
42:51
Speaker 2: is they've fulfilled or they're fulfilling the role of managers
42:55
Speaker 2: that Taylor envisioned. So remember the manager was in charge
42:59
Speaker 2: of figuring out the best way to do something and
43:01
Speaker 2: then instructing the worker to do it exactly that way
43:04
Speaker 2: at exactly that time. That is what computers do today
43:08
Speaker 2: for workers, which is a bizarre reversal of authority, I
43:14
Speaker 2: guess if you think about it, but that's the way
43:16
Speaker 2: it is, especially in places like you know, big warehouses
43:20
Speaker 2: or call centers. Computers essentially running the.
43:24
Speaker 1: Show, yeah, for sure, and it created the management consultant industry.
43:31
Speaker 1: I think we should do one on that. I don't
43:32
Speaker 1: I'm sure you remember, and I won't be very specific here,
43:35
Speaker 1: but because we've been owned by a lot of companies
43:37
Speaker 1: over the years, but one of one time, one of
43:39
Speaker 1: the companies that I'm just hired a dude that came
43:42
Speaker 1: in and we were like, who's this guy? And I
43:45
Speaker 1: can't remember someone who knows how these things work? Took
43:48
Speaker 1: us aside and they were like, he's I guess, I
43:51
Speaker 1: don't know if he was a management consultant or what
43:52
Speaker 1: his official job was, but they're like, his job is
43:55
Speaker 1: to come in here and fire people and rip this
43:58
Speaker 1: place apart and then probably get a nice exit and
44:01
Speaker 1: move on to another job where he'll do that exact
44:03
Speaker 1: same thing.
44:04
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what the industry.
44:05
Speaker 1: Does. You remember that guy?
44:07
Speaker 2: No, I don't remember that guy. You got to tell me, please,
44:11
Speaker 2: do I know?
44:12
Speaker 1: Jerry is like screaming his name off air? Right now?
44:16
Speaker 2: Just one last thing. Do you have anything more about taylorism?
44:20
Speaker 1: Uh?
44:21
Speaker 2: No, okay, great, well then I do have just one
44:25
Speaker 2: last thing. If you want kind of a lighthearted look
44:29
Speaker 2: comedy with heart efficiency, check out the nineteen ninety one
44:32
Speaker 2: film The Efficiency Expert starring Anthony Hopkins. Oh.
44:37
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna say, gung ho.
44:39
Speaker 2: That was Yeah, kind of a different one, but yeah,
44:42
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a lot of crossover for sure.
44:46
Speaker 1: What's this Tony Hopkins picture? What is it?
44:48
Speaker 2: The Efficiency Expert? It's exactly what you never described. And
44:52
Speaker 2: he ends up in a I think a factory where
44:55
Speaker 2: the workers make they change his view of things. I
44:59
Speaker 2: think they kind of turn him around. Oh I remember, correctly,
45:03
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it.
45:04
Speaker 1: That wouldn't have worked with the other guy that I mentioned.
45:06
Speaker 1: He was unflappable.
45:08
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, we're about to end, well, wait, hold on,
45:11
Speaker 2: we got to do listener mail, don't we Yeah, and
45:13
Speaker 2: then I'll tell you by the way, Chuck, I gotta
45:15
Speaker 2: tell you that we ended on forty five minutes on
45:19
Speaker 2: the nose.
45:20
Speaker 1: Holy cal yep.
45:22
Speaker 2: Way to go champ. Oh. Since I said way to
45:25
Speaker 2: go champ of course, that means it's time for listener mail.
45:30
Speaker 1: This is just a nice thank you. Hey, guys, heartfelt
45:33
Speaker 1: thank you. Started listening in twenty twelve, and my time.
45:35
Speaker 1: Although my time spent listening to podcast is fluctuated, yours
45:38
Speaker 1: has been one of the constants. Started listening to keep
45:41
Speaker 1: my mind occupied when I had hours of mundane tasks
45:43
Speaker 1: in the lab where I worked after college, and I've
45:45
Speaker 1: continue to listen through a career change, relationship changes, getting
45:49
Speaker 1: my first dog, Luna. He sent a picture of Luna sweet,
45:52
Speaker 1: and becoming a homeowner. I'm listening still as I'm planning
45:55
Speaker 1: a second career change and going through a little lonelier
45:58
Speaker 1: stretch of my life. In your podcast kept me laughing
46:00
Speaker 1: and feeling connected to the world through challenging times. And
46:04
Speaker 1: I sometimes feel like there isn't the right combination of
46:06
Speaker 1: words to express my gratitude completely.
46:09
Speaker 2: I feel like they just put those words together.
46:11
Speaker 1: I feel like you're right. Some of my favorite moments
46:15
Speaker 1: in recent shows have been Chuck's throwaway line about a
46:17
Speaker 1: fairy hoax confession happening at a Men Without Hats concert.
46:21
Speaker 1: It's got Josh chuckle not once twice, but three times.
46:24
Speaker 1: And in the fifteenth annual s YSK Halloween Spectacular, the
46:29
Speaker 1: curious sound like laughter yet not laughter that Josh made,
46:32
Speaker 1: which sounded like it had Chuck literally crying with laughter,
46:35
Speaker 1: which is absolutely true. That maybe the most I've ever
46:39
Speaker 1: laughed at something that you did.
46:40
Speaker 2: I think it is man.
46:42
Speaker 1: I hope that you know for some of your listeners,
46:44
Speaker 1: your podcast has been as meaningful to us as the
46:47
Speaker 1: Simpsons or Peanuts may have been to you.
46:50
Speaker 2: Wow Wow, Wow? Who was that?
46:54
Speaker 1: Stanley knows how to drive it home. He signs it
46:56
Speaker 1: all the best Stanley A seed.
46:59
Speaker 2: Oh nice. I thanks, Stanley. You're a true listener through
47:02
Speaker 2: and through, aren't you. I love that humble like I
47:05
Speaker 2: can't figure out how to put the words together, but.
47:07
Speaker 1: Here they are, yeah, in perfect order, exactly.
47:10
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to be like Stanley and make
47:12
Speaker 2: me say wow, not once, not twice, but thrice, then
47:16
Speaker 2: you can try your hand at it. Send us an
47:19
Speaker 2: email to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
47:26
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