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from the better-living-through-chemistry dept.
The NYT reports that drugs like Adderall were once only prescribed to help children with attention deficit disorders focus on their school work but then college students found those drugs could increase their ability to study. Now a growing number of workers use them to help compete. What will happen as these drugs are more widely used in the workplace? According to Anjan Chatterjee, the use of neurotechnologies to enhance healthy people’s brain function could easily become widespread. "If anything, we worship workplace productivity by any means. Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world. Why not add drugs to energize, focus and limit that annoying waste of time — sleep?" Julian Savulescu says that what defines human beings is their extraordinary cognitive power and their ability to enhance that power through reading, writing, computing and now smart drugs. "Eighty-five percent of Americans use caffeine. Nicotine and sugar are also cognitive enhancers," says Savulescu.
But cognitive neurologist Martha Farah, says that regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of “normal” productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters’ advantage is only fleeting)."
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @09:47PM
The most intelligent and successful people I know, some of which speak like three languages proficiently and are perhaps fluent in a fourth, don't use any of that stuff. They eat healthy (though they may skip meals if they're really busy), exercise, attempt to get enough sleep, and take good care of themselves. and they run legitimate seven to eight figure businesses.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 21 2015, @09:50PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:05PM
(OP)
BTW, I wasn't referring to (moderate uses of) caffeine (as in tea/coffee) or even vitamin supplements. My post was mostly referring to drugs like Adderall or Nicotine. Sorry for not pointing that out.
Also successful business owners attempt to delegate as much work as possible to their employees. Unsuccessful ones are afraid to delegate anything for some reason. Those employees need to learn how to do things eventually.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:12PM
So successful business owners are ones that work as little as possible. No wonder they don't need any chemical enhancers. As for the rest of us...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:36PM
Thats the entire basis of capitalism. The only person who makes any money is the guy that does nothing except tell others what to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:40PM
Oh, believe me, they work much much harder than their employees. Yes, they make a lot more but they also take a lot more risk. If you own a retail store or a chain of stores (ie: cell phone shops), for example, you need to buy things in bulk quantity to be able to get it for cheaper. What if you can't sell it? You also need a place to store it which means, depending on what type of inventory you are storing (ie: a furniture shop) you need a giant warehouse. Or, in the case of furniture, you can produce it in house and store it in your warehouse. For a warehouse you either need to buy one (expensive) or pay rent (which is also expensive) and if you end up not selling your product you can be out lots of money. Plus you still have employees, electricity, and overhead to pay. You're responsible for every tedious aspect of your business, at least to some extent. You're responsible for making sure your employees know what they are doing and are doing everything correctly. You are responsible for consulting the correct people (ie: lawyers or whomever they are depending on your business) and paying them (and they're often not cheap) when there is something you don't know. Often times you're responsible for traveling to other countries not on vacation but on business trips to showcase showrooms of whatever it is you're selling to see if someone in another country manufacturers a product line you may wish to import and sell or to visit various conventions where people discuss the business and you can network with others from the business and try to evaluate future trends and possible changes and advancements you may need to make to your business to keep up with moving technology. You're responsible for selecting something that will sell (and if you misjudge the market you maybe out a lot of money). More money requires more risk and responsibility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @11:03PM
(OP) I will say this about the security industry though. Back in the days security guards working for a relatively small security company used to get paid more ($14 - 16 an hour back when that amount of money was worth a lot more than what it's worth now) and field managers (what they call them depends on your company) would get between $16 - $20. Then big giant billion dollar security companies came along, bought most of the little guys, and now a field manager gets a mere $14 an hour (managing 200 sites driving around with his company car from site to site and having like ten people on hold on their phone and constantly getting asked questions off duty as well) and security guards get paid $10 an hour. I heard so many stories from security guards that used to work for a relatively small security company getting paid $14/hour (back when that amount of money was worth way more than it's now) as a guard until a big company came along, bought the little company, and cut everyone's pay to $10 ~ $11/hour or even less. and that excess money probably isn't a result of the clients paying more (everything is getting more expensive), it's pure profit for the multi billion dollar company. In my experience, in general, relatively smaller companies (ie: eight figure companies) tend to be much better to their employees in terms of pay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @11:39PM
err ... it isn't a result of clients paying less *
(Score: 2) by Daiv on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:29PM
In exchange for making less, if they're working for a larger company, there is less risk of the company going out of business and the larger the business, the better negotiating power they have for things like retirement plans (401k) and health insurance. Also, the larger the company, the more likely they can negotiate things like discounts on goods or services from other large companies. The pay cut in direct dollars make be made up for in "benefits."
The solutions are, of course, many. Create a new smaller company that just pays more and see how that works out. Leave the security industry and look for better pay elsewhere. Promote to earn more money. Rob a bank. Whatever gets you what you think you are owed.
I'd like to bring up the concept of "market" considering there has been an obscene number of people available to do a job and the candidates have obviously said they're willing to take $10-11 an hour to do, or else the big security company wouldn't have been able to retain employees. But I think people give the "market" too much power. "The market is a drunken psycho." - Warren Buffet
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday April 23 2015, @02:14AM
In exchange for making less, if they're working for a larger company, there is less risk of the company going out of business and the larger the business, the better negotiating power they have for things like retirement plans (401k) and health insurance. Also, the larger the company, the more likely they can negotiate things like discounts on goods or services from other large companies. The pay cut in direct dollars make be made up for in "benefits."
A larger company has a greater proportion of parasites, people who do not actually perform the revenue producing work, siphoning pay away from those actually doing the revenue producing work. Each level of management is money out of the front line workers pockets. A larger company may be able to undercut and get 10 contracts that may have gone to as many as 10 separate smaller companies, but the pay for each contract is split among more people, with a much smaller share for the revenue producing workers. Cost cutting measures ensure that any health insurance offered is crap (workers can probably do much better on the exchanges, assuming the ACA survives) and good luck finding any such company that offers a retirement plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:06AM
I don't believe you, because of your lack of both kinds of reason. Just because someone has more to lose does not mean they take more risk. A business owner investing a million dollars with the expectation to make a profit is not more risky than a working class family going half a year's income into debt just to afford the means to get to work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:28AM
Many (most) of these business owners came to this country poor speaking English as a second language. They got jobs and eventually opened up their own place and grew their business. If they can do it then I am less sympathetic to a native born that doesn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:24AM
*Some* of them can do it. Most fail. You look to the successes and then pretend it is a general trend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @04:19AM
Never said it was a general trend just that I seen it happen with many people I know.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday April 23 2015, @04:12AM
If it's not the general trend, why the lack of sympathy when it fails?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @10:38PM
Those that succeeded worked hard to do it. The failures had just as much an opportunity as those that did start out poor and succeeded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @01:23AM
And all big multi billion dollar companies started out small (or at least they had parent companies that did). YouTube, Facebook, Xerox, etc... They didn't sit around and complain about how impossible it is to succeed, they went out there, worked hard, and succeeded. They deserve to reap the rewards of their hard work and if they can do it then I have less sympathy for those that don't when they complain about how unsuccessful they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @04:34AM
Citation or you are a liar. Go ahead, just one source indicating that many or most i.e. over 50% of business owners are foreign born and started poor. Go!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:09PM
I am referring to the ones I know, I didn't mean it to be a general statement. Myself being a descendant of foreign parents my perspective in terms of whom I know will probably hold such a bias.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:42PM
Yet you made a general statement and have defended it repeatedly.
Do you not see what you are doing? Bias, moving the goalposts, outright lying, trying to cover and deflect. These are not good traits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:32PM
I didn't lie, I never moved the goalposts, when did I cover and deflect anything. If you mean I later made certain clarifications what's wrong with that.
I agree I didn't communicate that this was my experience from the outset and that what I typed could reasonably be seen as a general statement but that's not how I meant it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:42PM
They also aren't burdened with opportunity cost people born here are. Your analogy is flawed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:13AM
That is true enough but only at smaller scales.
At the corporate level, the CEO makes millions, risks no personal resource at all and gets a golden parachute even if he wrecks the company. The change seems to occur somewhere around the time a second layer of management appears.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:54PM
I think there's an important distinction to make between working faster and doing better work. In the majority of corporate office environments, I doubt that the quality of work is really that important. Mediocre work done quickly will be noticed (and probably rewarded) a lot more frequently than meticulous work done slowly. Such is the entirely metric driven workplace - productivity is god.
Most six+ figure jobs demand a certain level of quality, and your decisions are much more important. College grads working through a temp agency just want to stay employed and try and get ahead - and hell, if ADHD meds get you ahead, why the hell wouldn't you?
I've never taken ADHD medication, but I'm guessing the effect is stimulative - it makes you work faster. It's worth remembering that Adderall is essentially methamphetamine; there was a good article on Vice [vice.com] about it last year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:08AM
Adderall is a mix of amphetamine salts not methamphetamine, desoxyn is meth