The Troubled Craftsman

The article's comments about moral and individual motivations reminds me of labor unions, which as designers in the Boston area we often need to use workers in labor unions.  Just like in communist Russia, labor unions formed in protest against unfair treatment.  Unions have brought about better working conditions so workers should be able to do their job better.  The problem is that it creates uniformity so one worker is treated the same as another regardless of production.  In fact workers are reprimanded if they do too much because it makes the other workers look lazy and makes it hard to keep quotas down (this happened to my uncle and was the motivation for him to go to college). The reason is that it creates the thinking of us (the workers) vs them (the employers) instead of promoting open communication.

I was also struck by the AutoCAD and NHS examples.  I both the drive for the ideal and correct solution sometimes ignores reality.  Not everything in life can be quantified, so it is impossible to include all variables while in a controlled setting such as an office or meeting room.  In the AutoCAD example, this was shown due to the heat not being factored in by those working in a controlled office environment.  In the case of the NHS, the ideal of efficiency and doing the most good for the most people doesn't factor in the individual.  Some illnesses or people can't be easily diagnosed, due to the illness being ambiguous or the patient not being willing or able to provide all needed information (memory loss, shyness, similar or vague symptoms).  An additional problem the article doesn't address is that human contact and the extra time spent with a patient is a form of medicine in itself (ex. it can calm the patient).  However, the improvement from human interaction isn't quantifiable to show that X amount of time will have Y results.  Therefore, it can't be put in a chart or form, unlike factors like total patients seen, and time till referral to a specialist.