How the Agricultural Economy Affects Our Work Habits

When you look at the Baby Boomers and their family connections to agriculture, 1 in 4 Americans was somehow connected to a farm, usually a family farm. Back then, and even today, you got up at sunup, and worked to sundown. You couldn’t work at night, because the fields weren’t lit and tractors didn’t have headlights. You worked during the day, because their fathers worked during the day, as did their fathers, and their fathers before them. Basically, ever since we had agriculture in this world, you worked during the day and slept at night.

Nowadays, we don’t have to do that. We have electrical lights, we are able to work across time zones, and communicate instantly with high-speed Internet.

How the Industrial Revolution Affects Our Work Habits

Fast forward to the late 1800s and early 1900s, when factories rose and automation brought people from the farms to the cities to find work. Now, if anything needed to be built, it was made in a factory. And because people came from the farms, they had to work between 8 and 5 again.

But now, because the factory was in one location, the work had to be done on-site. Your tools were there. Your product was there. You were part of the system, and if you weren’t there, the system failed. It was crucial that you showed up.

Nowadays, we’re still expected to show up. Our work is done in an office building. We need to meet with people in person. We need to sit in our little cubicle farms, and keep up our output. You’re part of the system, but ? and here’s what managers haven’t realized yet ? the system won’t fail just because you’re not in the building.

Part of the reason is a lack of trust on the part of the managers. If they can’t watch us, they don’t know if we’re getting work done. They believe that we might spend more time having fun instead of getting work done. Never mind that they can tell that anyway, when people don’t meet deadlines and productivity is up or down, even when people are on the premises. But for some reason, managers think people need to be present all the time, or nothing will get done.

A 21st Century Problem Caused by 19th Century Thinking

Most corporations and government agencies are still thinking in terms of the 19th century when it comes to acceptable working times. You must be at the office from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. You’re not allowed to work from home, and you’re certainly not allowed to work from 9:00 – 6:00, or ? God forbid! ? 10:00 – 7:00.

A few years ago, when I was working for the Indiana State Department of Health, I was partly responsible for the contingency plan that we would use if the pan flu ever hit the United States. However, a lot of it revolved around people being able to work from home. Everyone loved the plan and said it was exactly what we needed.

“Great,” I said. “We should put it into practice a couple of times, and make sure everyone can use it. That will let the necessary staff work out the kinks, make sure they can get online access, and that all of our technology works. That way, when we put it into action, we’re not all calling the IT department on the first day.”

“No, we don’t want to do that,” was the response. “We want everyone to work here. We don’t do telecommuting.”

That was it. End of discussion. We don’t do telecommuting. The largest department in state government, the department in charge of the state’s pan flu response, and we didn’t “eat our own dog food.” So, no testing, thus possibly crippling the entire agency’s response when the time arose.

*sigh*

The 21st Century Solution

I’m not immune from this kind of thinking either. As a business owner, I haven’t had a regular work schedule for over a year. I get to the office late, because I stay up late, usually around 2:00.

But I still feel guilty when the alarm goes off at 8:00, and think, “I should be at the office,” even when my body is threatening to force me into a sleep-deprived coma.

Yet, I get most of my work done in the evening and at night. I drive to and from the office in non-peak hours, which means I use less gas. I spend my time entre-commuting from coffee shops or little cafés. How much fuel could we save each year if employees could adjust their in-office schedules to match their best work schedules?

If companies could get out of this “we can’t trust you” mode of thinking, and find new ways to allow employees to work from home, we could reduce our fuel consumption. We could reduce utility costs, and even real estate and leasing costs, if we have a smaller corporate footprint. Imagine using a building one-tenth of the original size, filled with nothing but meeting rooms, conference rooms, and some cubicles for people who need to spend time in the office before or after a meeting.

If corporations and government agencies could join the 21st century, we could do some amazing things. Until then, we’ll turn our wrenches on the assembly lines, and hook up the horses and plow the fields.

Photo credit: IRRI Images
Photo credit: blvesboy

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So, needless to say, I always try to make sure my writing is up to grammatical snuff.

“Even on blogs?”

Yes, even on blogs.

“But blogs are supposed to be informal and conversational.”

Not as much as you might think. There are more businesses embracing blogging, and they’re trying to project an image of trust and reliability. And believe it or not, customers will judge an entire corporation’s ability to do even its most basic core mission on the grammar and spelling of one low-level PR flunky.

“Oh my God, you dangled a participle! We will no longer buy your products again!”

Don’t believe me? Pay close attention to the comments on any political blog during the presidential elections.

While you don’t need to placate those kinds of people (they need to be sedated instead), you do need to project an image of competence and professionalism. And that means you need to spell words correctly, and use proper grammar and punctuation.

I will occasionally send Doug a DM about some misplaced apostrophe or a misspelled word in one of his Marketing Technology posts (which in hindsight is probably why I’m being punished I was asked to write this article).

There are a lot of grammatical errors that, if you make them, frankly make you look dumb (Copyblogger’s words, not mine). Things like its vs. it’s and you’re vs. your are errors that you should know better than to make.

A lot of people will say that grammar and spelling on blogs just aren’t important. That we’re supposed to be informal and laid back, and that it just doesn’t matter anymore.

That’s fine if you’re writing a personal blog about your own life, and that you’re only expecting a few friends to read. You can be as informal as you want, make errors to your heart’s desire, and even fill your posts with gratuitous-yet-hilarious swearing. (Looking at you, The Bloggess.)

But if you’re talking about your business, your corporation, or your industry, you need to keep everything as clean and error-free as possible.

It’s not a sin if you make a mistake. Many’s the time I’ve made errors on my blog posts, especially ones where I talk about the importance of good grammar and punctuation. But I can always go back and clean it up. That’s the great thing about blogging: nothing is permanent, like a magazine or brochure. It’s a static, living document. Event the posts that are three years old.

So if you make an error or two, don’t despair. Have someone you trust look them over and give you honest feedback. Then go back and fix whatever you missed during your first couple rounds of editing.

Because rightly or wrongly, the nitpickers are out there. And they’re coming for you.

Okay, that’s not very blog-worthy, but there’s actually a lesson in it.

Because we didn’t start out looking at Best Buy in the first place.

As an enthusiastic gearhead, I love Fry’s. They don’t have the movie and music selection Best Buy has, but they’ve got more electronics than you even knew imagined. Even the Amish will invariably buy something. Didn’t know they made USB-powered keyboard warmers? I didn’t either, but if they’ve got it, I’ll buy it. And they’ve probably got it.

So I took my wife to the laptop section at Fry’s, after she did some research on Patric Welch’s website, and showed her what netbooks could do for her. Since most of her stuff was online, and because she is fairly mobile, the netbook was her best choice.

As we looked around at the more than 12 choices, she got a little frustrated, because there didn’t seem to be any difference between them, other than price.

We flagged down one of the young salesmen in the area, and Toni told him what she wanted. “I just can’t figure out the big difference between any of the?”

“You don’t want a netbook,” interrupted the sales kid. “You want a laptop.”

“Why?”

“Because a laptop is bigger, holds more stuff, and lets you store music and photos.” (That’s right, a woman who wants a computer only needs to store photos of the kids and her Josh Grobin Pilates workout playlists.)

The budget was limited, so we were looking for something around $300. The laptops were $500 and higher.

We said we would think about it, and walked around the store, while my wife vented about how the guy hadn’t even bothered to listen to what she wanted. I talked her into going back and trying one more time. We flagged down an older guy, who at least let her finish her original question.

“I understand a netbook is appealing, but you really should think about a laptop,” he finally said.

“Look,” I told the guy, “I spend all day, every day online, and I use a laptop. I know what her computer habits are, and I know she really only needs a netbook.”

But the guy persisted. He tried to steer us toward a $600 laptop. “Blah blah blah music, blah blah blah photos,” he said. We thanked him for his time and left.

Discouraged, and after a good healthy rant reminiscent of Chevy Chase in “Christmas Vacation,” my wife decided to give Best Buy a try. We had just heard from another Fry’s customer that Best Buy had the same netbooks for sale for a lot less than Fry’s ? at least 25% in a couple cases.

I went home and watched the Colts game, and an hour later, Toni came home with her brand new Samsung netbook, that came well under her original budget. This one was $50 less than the very same model they had at Fry’s, and it came with a few extras.

“I walked in, told the guy what I wanted, and asked him which model to choose from. He recommended this one, explained why it was a better choice, and I bought it.”

Simple, painless, and quick.

I was very disappointed in Fry’s sales guys. They could have sold a netbook with a minimal effort. Instead, they didn’t listen to their customer, they pushed their own preferences ? twice! ? and lost the sale.

However, the Best Buy guy just listened, answered the questions, and sold a computer. Not a big deal, I’ll admit, but he made a $250 sale in less than 10 minutes. That’s a $1,500 per hour ROI.

It’s a basic lesson that anyone who sells products or services to other people: listen to your friggin’ customers. Don’t just assume that what they want is all wrong, and that you know better. At least take the time to listen to their reasons, and see if that’s truly what they want. Ask them if they have considered your option as an alternative, and if they don’t want it, don’t force them to buy what you prefer.

If the Fry’s sales guys had done this, they would have seen that all my wife truly wanted or needed was a netbook, and they could have earned her loyalty just by listening. And if she ever decides she needs a laptop, she’ll buy it from the people who did right by her the first time.

Will we be back at Fry’s? Probably. They have cool stuff. Will we go there when we need to make a major purchase? Maybe, maybe not. But we’ll go in there armed with research, decision already made, and we’ll get the item we want, rather than asking the salespeople any questions.

Or we’ll just go to Best Buy. They at least listen.