An Economists View of Model Railway Exhibitions

[johnofwessex]

Enjoy!

 

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/04/15/waiting-for-inspiration/

[C126]

Perhaps I am imputing my own prejudices into my reading of the article, but I like his suggestions that (1) most of us in employment waste our abilities, and (2) the anarcho-syndicalist tenet of 'mutual aid' is ignored by the dismal 'science'.  Danny Dorling remarks in one of his books a very specific personality is attracted to study Economics.

 

Thanks for the link.  Very good.

Edited April 18, 2023 by C126
Typo.

[TinTracks]

3 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

Enjoy!

 

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/04/15/waiting-for-inspiration/

The comments underneath this article are worth a read through.

 Thanks for sharing, Regards, Rich

[The Johnster]

I’d make the point that talent is wasted because employers don’t want it and aren’t looking to recruit it (how many graduates manage to find employment in the work they graduated for and presumably chose out of genuine interest and pleasure, employers prefer subjugated downtrodden miserable people who know resistance is futile and that they can bully, control, and manipulate), they want wage slaves who will perform functions as instructed, so long as it’s more than the targets* and certainly not any less, while at the same time being culturally, emotionally, spiritually, and in any other way you can think of utterly and completely absolutely dedicated heart, soul, and intellect to the success of the employer’s business.  Employees are expected to do this in their own time or as unpaid work, to be constantly available online, and not to have anything else going on in their lives.  

 

So, anyone with a hobby or interest outside of their career will have their cards marked by Human (yeah, right) resources and winkled out of the organisation by constructive dismissal asap, look at that nice Elon Musk’s comments about Twitter staff not happy to put in unpaid all-nighters for nobody’s gain but his. 

 

*If you achieve a target a higher one is immediately set until you can’t hit them, at which point you are sacked for laziness. 

 

[AY Mod]

11 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

So, anyone with a hobby or interest outside of their career will have their cards marked by Human (yeah, right) resources and winkled out of the organisation by constructive dismissal asap,

 

A somewhat jaundiced perspective I would say from my experience.

[57xx]

12 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

A somewhat jaundiced perspective I would say from my experience.

 

Indeed, completely the opposite of the real world I've been employed in for the last 30+ years.

[Gilbert]

3 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

Indeed, completely the opposite of the real world I've been employed in for the last 30+ years.

I agree - both my myself in the public sector (most of the time) and my infinitely better half in the world of finance IT in the private sector.

[Bon Accord]

3 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

Indeed, completely the opposite of the real world I've been employed in for the last 30+ years.

 

But exactly the experience of several friends of mine, particularly the higher up the food chain you go.

The oil industry is dreadful for it, particularly for the operational people who work in the head offices.

Overtime and compensatory leave are rare birds these days and getting ever rarer.

[sjp23480]

I am reminded of another RMWeb thread on the value of models. 

 

Yet there are many instances of RMWebbers "paying it forward" with offers of help, spares and surplus items. 

 

[St. Simon]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

 

A somewhat jaundiced perspective I would say from my experience.

 

That's very restrained Andy, I would have said the perspective is a load of b*****ks frankly and a very old world view of life

 

Simon

Edited April 18, 2023 by St. Simon

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

A somewhat jaundiced perspective I would say from my experience.

I see where Johnster is coming from, but actually when I think about it I generally like my job, and some of it even ties in tangentially with my hobbies and my degree.

 

A very interesting article though. And the idea that, by taking part in railway modelling, I’m somehow undermining the validity of neoliberalism as an ideology only makes the hobby even more satisfying and worthwhile for me than it already is. 🙂

[Bon Accord]

3 hours ago, St. Simon said:

 

That's very restrained Andy, I would have said the perspective is a load of b*****ks frankly and a very old world view of life

 

Simon

 

An individuals view of the corporate world is usually directly related to just how many times they've been "round the block" which in turn affects just how much they buy into their employers corporate propoganda.

It's far from unknown for modern private companies to act in just the way Johnster suggests; I know some who've been through it in recent years (and escaped it).

Edited April 18, 2023 by Bon Accord

[Dava]

Richard Murphy Is an understandable & sensible economist. When I studied economics at Night School, the enjoyment of model railways and other pastimes was described as ‘marginal contentment’, well, I learned something. 
 

Having been to a ‘Free MarketsRoadshow’ this evening (sampling the dark side) I need to spend more time in my workshop with the O scale models, not the theoretical ones. These ones are investment grade, until I paint them.

Dava

[ejstubbs]

Another take on a similar theme: The joy of mediocrity: we need hobbies, even if we’re bad at them, to free us from perfection

[Reorte]

13 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

An individuals view of the corporate world is usually directly related to just how many times they've been "round the block" which in turn affects just how much they buy into their employers corporate propoganda.

It's far from unknown for modern private companies to act in just the way Johnster suggests; I know some who've been through it in recent years (and escaped it).

 

There's a need to separate them. I have a pretty dim view of those aspects of my employer (especially since they've seemed to grow and grow over the years), but the work is usually pretty interesting. A lot of the time (although sadly not always) it's possible to completely ignore the corporate nonsense and get on with the work. Helps that the people I actually work with, including my boss, have pretty much the same opinion.

[jjb1970]

It's easy to generalize. There are good employers and bad employers, sometimes it's not so much the company/employer as it is a local manager (for better or worse) and sometimes we impose burdens on ourselves because we think it's what our paymasters want.

 

Personally I have never been shy about being very open about any of my hobbies or interests. Far from it being red flagged I have found loads of fellow modellers, amateur history enthusiasts and such like in the work place, including very senior people. That, however, does not mean others won't have had a different experience. 

[C126]

I agree with @The Johnster , if not put so brutally, but have not experienced his situation so badly.  However, with my employer (Higher Ed. Libraries) we appear to have accepted the ridiculous system of massively over-qualified applicants being appointed to posts 'as a foot in the door'.  E.g., colleague with a Ph.D. and post-doc. professional qualification in Information Studies doing a job requiring four G.C.S.E.s and that could be done by an intelligent twelve year-old.  Instead of training staff for posts using these qualifications, while appointing the adequately qualified, they stew with boredom and soon quit for something better.

 

But my colleagues tolerate my droning on about the current state of public transport and its remedies though...

[Reorte]

It doesn't always make sense to get worked up about wasted abilities. It's far more important that people are doing jobs they're happy to do. I used to work with someone with a PhD in maths, in a job where that was relevant and useful, who quit to drive trucks and is much happier doing that. There shouldn't be any sense of obligation to use your abilities, having them just produces extra options should you want to.

[C126]

@Reorte I quite agree happiness over-rides all in employment, but when we get employers and politicians saying they want to maximise the nation's/employees' talents, etc., etc., their propositions amuse me.  And I wonder why some of my colleagues are working in their jobs, as well.

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

There's a need to separate them. I have a pretty dim view of those aspects of my employer (especially since they've seemed to grow and grow over the years), but the work is usually pretty interesting. A lot of the time (although sadly not always) it's possible to completely ignore the corporate nonsense and get on with the work. Helps that the people I actually work with, including my boss, have pretty much the same opinion.

 

As the decades have rolled on I've noticed that with a few of my employers - particularly in the more "corporate culture" orientated outfits - that a real "us and them" has developed between head office and pretty much everyone else despite the best efforts of the propogandists, so both sides do tend to have mostly like minded people around them. I do however see a lot more of the newer/younger mob buying into it more than we do, although that usually evaporates rapidly once they've had their fingers burnt the first time.

I am however in the extremely lucky position of being senior enough to not have to put up with their nonsense and if I'd truly had enough I'd just go elsewhere.

Like yourself, as it is I do find my job still interesting for the most part, that is the positives still outweigh the negatives, although the gap seems to narrow as every year passes. Plus as long as they keep chucking a huge wedge into my pension pot every month I'll put up with it...

 

[Andy Hayter]

19 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

But exactly the experience of several friends of mine, particularly the higher up the food chain you go.

The oil industry is dreadful for it, particularly for the operational people who work in the head offices.

Overtime and compensatory leave are rare birds these days and getting ever rarer.

 

AS one who retired from the petrochemicals industry after 39 years, my observations would be as follows:

Employers are very interested in taking on people whose interests lie beyond the workplace.

They tend to overlook people with no declared interests or consign them to the mundane jobs.

 

Progression through the organisation (any organisation) there comes a point where overtime stops.  You use the hours necessary to achieve the targets required.  Normally the loss of overtime pay is recompensed with performance related bonuses which if you are doing a good job will more than recompense for the loss of overtime.  

 

If you are not able to organise your working life so that you can continue with those outside activities you choose, then it probably says as much about you as the employer.   Now that does not mean that I could attend every club meeting that I wanted but that was true when I had to work extra overtime just as much.

[Reorte]

58 minutes ago, Bon Accord said:

 

As the decades have rolled on I've noticed that with a few of my employers - particularly in the more "corporate culture" orientated outfits - that a real "us and them" has developed between head office and pretty much everyone else despite the best efforts of the propogandists, so both sides do tend to have mostly like minded people around them. I do however see a lot more of the newer/younger mob buying into it more than we do, although that usually evaporates rapidly once they've had their fingers burnt the first time.

I am however in the extremely lucky position of being senior enough to not have to put up with their nonsense and if I'd truly had enough I'd just go elsewhere.

Like yourself, as it is I do find my job still interesting for the most part, that is the positives still outweigh the negatives, although the gap seems to narrow as every year passes. Plus as long as they keep chucking a huge wedge into my pension pot every month I'll put up with it...

It might be down to the part I work in (a bunch who I imagine trying to manage is like herding cats anyway), but I find that the youngsters, whilst disappointingly not sufficiently cynical enough about it all don't seem to particularly lap it up either - at any rate they don't go around preaching it all the time, it's more a case of them just going along with it when it comes up without seeming to have much of an opinion either way. Every now and then all the mostly nonsense does throw up the odd good thing that they'll get involved with that I'd have otherwise not even have known about, having gone out of my way to ignore it all.

[J. S. Bach]

16 hours ago, Dava said:

 ...snip... I need to spend more time in my workshop with the O scale models, not the theoretical ones. These ones are investment grade, until I paint them.

Dava

NYC?

 

Edited April 19, 2023 by J. S. Bach
To do a minor edit.

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

 ...snip...  in a job where that was relevant and useful, who quit to drive trucks and is much happier doing that. ...snip...

One of our bus operators once told me that one of the reasons that he liked his job was that the view out his office window was always changing.

He also told me that he liked the route 18 (the agency's busiest route) because after two round-trips he was finished. And he had the seniority to keep his run.

Edited April 19, 2023 by J. S. Bach

[Bon Accord]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

AS one who retired from the petrochemicals industry after 39 years, my observations would be as follows:

Employers are very interested in taking on people whose interests lie beyond the workplace.

They tend to overlook people with no declared interests or consign them to the mundane jobs.

 

Progression through the organisation (any organisation) there comes a point where overtime stops.  You use the hours necessary to achieve the targets required.  Normally the loss of overtime pay is recompensed with performance related bonuses which if you are doing a good job will more than recompense for the loss of overtime.  

 

If you are not able to organise your working life so that you can continue with those outside activities you choose, then it probably says as much about you as the employer.   Now that does not mean that I could attend every club meeting that I wanted but that was true when I had to work extra overtime just as much.

 

An very good friend of mine went to the Exploration/Production arm of a household name UK oil company upon gaining his MEng and stayed there, company man and all that as was his father before in the same outfit, albeit different branch. My friend's specialisation was/is Rotating Machinery, e.g. everything from Gas Turbines to pumps and he was based in the office ashore as the engineering manager responsible for a few platforms.

However in the years just before the 2015 crash when production was everything and they were making money hand over fist, there was all manner of seriously dodgy things being done and shortcuts being made just to keep production going, this in the North Sea.

For those final few years he actually kept a typed up resignation letter in his desk drawer at all times - just needing to be signed and dated - for when the day came when they wanted him to really throw away his professional scruples to sign something off as being fit and he finally said "enough". He was generally always able to talk his colleagues and those above out of doing something that would push him to that line. That automatically made him "not a team player". As you'll know you could lay on the oil industry BS with a trowel at that time, it was so thick.

I don't know how many times I told him to get out of there - as did others - but he stuck it out as he'd never been anywhere else, e.g. the oil industry version of Stockholm Syndrome.

Post price crash there was suddenly little money coming in but with an enormous maintenance backlog and no money set aside from the good days to pay for it.  At that point things started going really downhill. Aside from questionable operational decisions, breakdowns etc changed the job into a 7 day a week affair with silly hours and people were simply expected to get on with it or leave. The BS was still so thick waders were required with everyone being constantly told that things were amazing, what a great place to work etc.

Cue a round of redundancies and he knew his card would be marked as he was one of those who wasn't afraid to speak up when the need arose. Right enough he got his papers - over a years pay - and I doubt I've seen him happier.

A real company man through and through, who for years always went the extra mile out of company loyalty, yet he was destroyed by the toxic working environment so prevalent today.

Still, he's happy; started his own little company and does consultant/ad hoc work now for various firms, works when he wants and of course is happy to do extra hours when the need arises; difference these days is that he simply sends them the bill afterwards.

His hobby is also engineering, in his case road steam; he owns two traction engines.