Showing posts with label efficiency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label efficiency. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

In praise of... inefficiency

A friend was recently informed by her boss that unless she makes herself available for exotic overseas postings at fairly short notice that could last a minimum of three months or could end up being substantially longer than that, she will be on a blacklist when the next round of redundancies are made as a result of being deemed "inflexible". The fact that this would mean leaving her husband at short notice for an extended period of time is not taken into consideration.

And so I praise inefficiency, or rather, those bold enough to take a stand against the idol of efficiency. Efficiency is undoubtedly a good thing, but like all good things, it is a relative good and when it is treated as an absolute, when elevated to a primary and overriding consideration, it becomes a menacing false god, demanding human sacrifice. Idolatry is cruel and the god of efficiency grinds human lives in its well-oiled cogs.
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