Why Can't I Just Go Home; the Anti-Economics of Busywork

We are told that the business of business is profit.  That it is all about the bottom line.  I'm not buying it.

Example:

Why all the busywork?  I work in a seasonal industry.  After the holiday season, there is often times when I spend the last hour or two of my day, acting busy.  Sometimes they come up with pointless, time wasting tasks for us.  Mostly we just act busy, to avoid the pointless tasks. 

It's not that we are lazy bums who avoid useful work.  Personally I feel much better with a full plate of proper work to do.  The day goes by at a nice pace.  I hardly ever watch the clock.  But busywork is like wading through a pool of molasses.  It's tiring and it never seems to end.  Acting busy is harder than being busy.

And they pay us to do this.

It's not a secret.  Everyone in the company knows how this works.  And it accomplishes absolutely nothing.  It's not that we are overstaffed.  A couple of months later, things pick up to a reasonable pace.  As we get closer to the holiday season, it's quite a hustling place.  But for a couple months, there's maybe four or five hours of work a day, that we manage to drag out into six or seven.  Then the busywork starts.

So why can't I just go home?

If they paid me for a full day and sent me home after the work is done, they would come out ahead, if nothing else, just because they could turn out the lights.  They hired me for a full time job, and it's not my fault there's not much work for a while, so why do I have to stick around and play act?  What do they get out of it?

I don't think there is a reason.  Not a good one anyway.

There's certainly no money to be made in having me pretend to clean my work area several times a day.  And while it is always entertaining to complain about the Bourgeoisie keeping the Worker down, I don't think there is any conscious effort on anyone's part to control us in some nefarious way - although I have seen that kind of behavior in some places.

I think the real reason this kind of thing goes on, is just our dysfunctional culture.  It's just part of the fundamental insanity of employment.  The puritan work ethic says work is an end in itself, and we can't have people just sitting around doing what they like.  At least, not until quitting time.  

Chances are, your boss, and his boss and his boss, had some kind of crappy, meaningless busywork to do in their past; and if they paid their dues, it's not fair if you don't pay your dues too.   It's done, because that's how it's done.

The point?

It's not just that I want to whine about meaningless crap at work (although I most certainly do).  The point is, people simply don't do what is in their best interest.  The economic fiction of Homo Economicus, who always makes the best decision based on the information at hand, is exactly that.  A fictional character, every bit as badly written as Jar-Jar Binks.

The busywork is just one example among many, but it's one we have all seen, and experienced.  There are others, like cutting advertising when sales drop, or pushing SUVs when gas prices are tripling.  Karma is anything but instant in a market economy, and depending on the industry, the market forces can take years to have any effect in punishing bad economic behavior.  This is why economic bubbles last years instead of minutes.

The business of business is not profit.  The business of business is people running around in circles, doing whatever dumb thing they think they are supposed to do. 

This is what cured my, once deep seated, libertarian tendencies.  I still can't help thinking that such a powerful, self organizing system as a market, should be a valuable tool in our tool box.  But I have seen too many goofy things happen that market forces just simply don't correct. 

How are market forces supposed to stop corruption, crony-ism and stupid trading, when they can't even get me an afternoon off?