The laws of the office revisited
3/11/202630 min
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If something is going wrong in your workplace, there's probably a law that explains why. Meetings always seem long, and never end early? There’s Parkinson’s Law, which says work expands to the time allotted, or, restated: meetings will always take up all the time blocked on Outlook calendars. Is your boss bad at managing? Check the Peter Principle, which says people are promoted to their level of incompetence. A good worker does not a good manager make. And yet … here we are. Once you hear these laws, and a few others, you start to spot them everywhere.
Today on the show, we picked a few of the most famous and powerful ‘laws of the office’ and tested them out on each other.
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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone, Sarah Gonzalez, and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. Bryant Urstadt edited this show. Planet Money*’s executive producer is Alex Goldmark.*
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Kenny Malone· Host0:16
Sarah. Sarah Gonzalez.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host0:19
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kenny. Kenny Malone.
Kenny Malone· Host0:20
My longest colleague. Do you remember, a long time ago, an episode that you and I did together where I confessed- Mm-hmm.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host0:27
Yep ...
Kenny Malone· Host0:27
to a minor- I, uh, a crime. No.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host0:29
You confessed to a crime.
Kenny Malone· Host0:29
You, I, I would say malf- malfeasance. I, I confessed- Eh ... of, to some malfeasance. Whatever.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host0:34
It's, you broke a rule.
Kenny Malone· Host0:35
I, I definitely broke a rule. And, uh- Slash law. You know, uh, potato, potato.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host0:40
I know exactly where you're going.
Kenny Malone· Host0:41
Do you remember that episode?
Sarah Gonzalez· Host0:42
Of course. You were, like, not scanning groceries.
Kenny Malone· Host0:47
Well, we don't have to get into the specifics, 'cause we're about to run the episode- Okay, okay, okay, okay ... that, that, that is about, okay?
Sarah Gonzalez· Host0:52
Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I r- yeah, I remember. It's, like, the one and only time Kenny broke a rule, I think.
Kenny Malone· Host0:57
Certainly the only one I've confessed to on tape. [laughs] And then, do you remember what that episode was about overall?
Sarah Gonzalez· Host1:02
No. What is it?
Kenny Malone· Host1:03
Well, so the episode was about my crime I, I, I contend and will contend, uh, in this episode we're about to run, uh, w- was about incentives and incentives going rogue.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host1:12
Per- perverse incentives.
Kenny Malone· Host1:13
Perverse, yes.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host1:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kenny Malone· Host1:15
So, uh, this episode was a b- a bunch of those. And, uh, it was from a long time ago. But may I share the very exciting news? All right, ready? I'm gonna show you.
Sarah Gonzalez· Host1:23
Yeah.
Kenny Malone· Host1:24
I'm gonna show you something, because this relates to the new Planet Money book. Are you ready?
Sarah Gonzalez· Host1:28
Okay.
Kenny Malone· Host1:28
Look at this.