swampcholla

Would a design form the 50's-70's - something simple without membrane switches, transducers displays, and processors work? Might be faster to source parts and build without extensive safety certs (no software for instance).

I imagine we used to get along without all the bells and whistles but perhaps they were not as precise or required more attention for skilled staff.

Given the armed morons that sowed up, and the potential for encounters with people that don't think like them, as well as people that may have left the park because they didn't feel comfortable around a bunch of armed rednecks (some of those perhaps having a vacation ruined as a result), do you feel any responsibility for putting people unnecessarily in harms way?

it's been my experience that new equipment doesn't do the basic functions better, but that they are easier to use and require less skill to operate, and are self-testing/self-calibrating.

It would be significantly easier to design and build a completely manual machine rather than one that requires certification of a life-safe software system

If older ones are still out there (in a museum perhaps) especially with documentation, they could be easily reverse-engineered.

No research, just relevant personal experience.

35 years ago the Navy tried piloting a program where you worked 4 qty 9 hr days, with one Friday off and the next one an 8 hr day - so same number of hours in two weeks, but a 3-day weekend every two weeks. At the place it was piloted at, it was hugely successful, with fewer people taking sick leave or vacation time for routine appointments or for that matter , and saving that stuff up for when you really needed it. I worked at this facility, which was half and half hourly and salaried, and on the old civil service pay system where your pay was related to time served.

I relocated to another facility across the country, that did not have this program, and it was a major hassle, since we are very remote and doing anything outside of town pretty much required taking a full day off. This place was 90% salaried, and already had a different pay system in place that seriously rewarded working hard. in 3 years here I went father than I would have been able to go during 20 years at my first location.

A couple of years after I relocated, the Navy expanded the program, and the bosses here were very much against it. I thought they were nuts to oppose it. Took me 25 years to see the effects myself. For hourly employees, if you enjoyed some extra overtime cash, those opportunities dried up. For salaried, a short week can really kill the incentive to get ahead. And for places like us out in the boonies, where additional work tended to fill the time - it just killed our productivity. The bosses estimated that they were getting nearly a full day of OT out of every employee every week. We kicked ass on every other facility out there - and that was just normal working - in crisis when we had to turn up the wick what we could get done was truly amazing. It took a few years - and some other dumb-ass disincentives that HR put in place - but there's essentially no OT now, and you can count cars in the parking lot to prove it.

Let me say that on the surface, there are some productivity increases. Obviously, you don't start/stop the day as much, so there's a little gain from that depending on what you do.

But here's the thing about salaried, especially with people that work really long hours either due to dedication or wanting to set themselves apart to get ahead - you can only be away from your home/family for so many hours a day. If you work an eight hour day, you can easily work two hours of overtime. Nine hours a day, maybe one. Ten hours a day? Well, there will need to be a real crisis to get more hours out of someone, because for one, you just get tired, and more hours just leads to more mistakes. Then there's the family pressure. I'm mostly talking routine overtime here, not stuff that's done as some kind of short term surge.

And for those that think "Well, I'll just work OT on that Friday off". Maybe, but there will be very little support available, there are safety considerations, etc.

And yes, I realize that the idea here is to improve quality of life and reduce the number of hours worked. But the statement is that it increases productivity, and based on my experiences, I have doubts that this will be the case in large scale implementation. Now the devil's in the details. Like I said before, it all depends on what other policies are in place. But just because people are happy, doesn't mean you are going to see as much productivity as you had before.

I'm not advocating the kinds of working conditions that were common before the 40 hour week before some internet genius comes back with that comment.

And since not EVERY business will be able to implement this, Mondays will be a bitch catching up because of the tasks THEY generate.