Employees Are Obsolete

Not once, bar my days back at the police department, have I ever had a job where I actually worked more than 50% of the time. And it was not due to laziness or sloth on my part, as much as it was management was unable to manage the company's resources efficiently to produce enough work to keep me occupied 40 hours a week.

This I surmise is the case for the majority of American workers and thus we have to learn the art of "looking busy" constantly having an Excel spreadsheet up we can alt-tab to if we sense a superior nearby. But it got me thinking, "how could a company waste up to 20 hours each week on each employee? Wouldn't they like to have their savings or at least get 40 hours of work out of them?"

And then I further thought, "how many people would willingly take a pay cut by switching from salary to hourly if it meant they could go home when they have no work to do."

It was these two revelations I had that led me to conclude that someday, maybe not in my lifetime, the traditional 9-5, 40 hours a week employee will cease to exist as we know it. The costs savings and efficiency gains are too tempting to companies and the lure of freedom from work instead of having to have your mind melt while checking e-mail for the 90th time that day is just as tempting to workers. Companies could cut down on their health care costs, and I think employees would be just fine with that if it meant they could go fishing or spend more time with their kids. I don't even think workers would have to suffer that much in less pay as if they agree to forfeit health care to have the same pay but only work 20 hours a week

Thus, there will be no employees, just contractors.

Then again, I could be wrong. Corporate America, as I've surmised before, is in it more for power than anything approaching progress or profitability. And daring to let people have the freedom to go home if they're efficient and do their job faster than others is near blasphemy. Oh well, another brilliant idea doomed to failure on account of maintaining the status quo.