Posted on 07/23/2007 11:40:39 AM PDT by WesternCulture
A reorganization of workers at the Swedish Tax Authority is partly shaped on studies of apes, according to a leaked internal report. Employees are not flattered by the comparison.
The tax authority is currently undergoing its largest reorganization for many years. One of the foundations of the restructuring plan is a report which says that studies of apes show that people work best in groups of 150.
The reorganization was announced earlier in the summer. Work is being moved from small towns to larger towns and cities. Around 1,350 people are affected by the move. Economies of scale are a large part of the reason for the reorganization, but the authority has placed an upper limit of 150 employees per office, according to a report seen by news agency TT. The figure is justified using biological studies.
"The number 150 returns again and again when discussing the size of a group which has some kind of social commonality. Evolutionary biologists have seen that primates live in social groups of varying sizes," the report says. A comparison of the size of human brains to those of various other apes allows scientists to calculate the best group size for humans to work in.
"Based on this formula we have concluded that the optimum (or largest possible) group of people is 147.8."
The military, the Hutterite religious group and hunter-gatherer societies are also examples in which groups have tended to comprise around 150 people.
Employees who have spoken to news agency TT said they "seriously questioned" whether it was serious to compare them to apes. They also said it gave rise to scepticism over the basis of other elements of the reorganization, under which 1,000 people are moving workplace.
A list will be published in late August of the offices earmarked for closure. No spokespeople for the tax authority were available for immediate comment on Monday.
Get your hands off me, you damned dirty ape!
GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY MONEY YOU FILTHY APE!!!!!!
!!!....
It suffered from all of the typical weaknesses of smaller companies, like the lack of true professionalism and access to proper resources and it was also marked by having very little of the ‘family atmospehere’, flexibility and informality typical for small, yet successful businesses.
The two greatest work experiences of my life so far has been working for large corporations like Volvo (both Volvo Cars presently owned by Ford, as well as Volvo Truck Corp., part of The Volvo Group) and a certain small manufacturing company here in Sweden that, despite the fact I’m no longer aboard the ship, seems to have very much of a bright future.
How would like to be told that you were selected to be the 0.8 person?
They were all out on banana break.......
Since banana trees produce between 60-400 bananas per season and each ape needs about 12 trees to survive it stands to reason that the range of the tribe would extend only to the range of the trees which would consist of maybe five-ten square miles.
“You there, Sven, #148. Nothing personal, but we’re going to cut a leg off.”
“How would like to be told that you were selected to be the 0.8 person?”
If it meant I worked 20% less, I would like it just fine!
I bet they’ll go ape $hiite over this.
This thread has a lot of potential. LOL
"Income Tax Collecting... So easy, a Caveman can do it!"
-PJ
“apes show that people work best in groups of 150”....HMMM and how did they do that? Powerpoint presentation perhaps?
Gee, the US tax system has much in common with the Swedes.
Training Apes
A number of years ago, animal psychologists performed an experiment that goes a long way toward understanding some of the more perverse and illogical aspects of human behavior. And while I’m NOT putting humans down there with the monkeys, recent political events certainly make it increasingly difficult to maintain that separation.
Here’s what they did:
They began with a cage containing 5 apes. In the cage, they dangled a banana on a string near the roof and placed a set of stairs beneath it. One of the psychologists stationed himself above the cage with a high-pressure water hose. When the first ape attempted to climb the stairs toward the banana, the man on the hose opened up and thoroughly sprayed ALL the apes with ice cold water. The moment another of the apes attempted to touch the stairs, they ALL got another ice water shower. When yet another ape attempted the climb, another freezing deluge ensued.
At some point in the process, when one of the apes touched the stairs, the other apes frantically PULLED HIM BACK - even though NO water was sprayed on them.
They then removed one of the original apes and replaced it with a new one not involved in the first part of the exercise. The new ape spied the banana and headed for the stairs. He was IMMEDIATELY attacked by the other 4. After a few more attempts - and attacks - the new ape soon understood that any further attempts would result in another assault.
They then removed ANOTHER of the original apes, again replacing it with a new one. The newcomer went to the stairs and was promptly attacked by the other 4, INCLUDING the first replacement ape who had NEVER received the cold water shower.
They then removed the third of the original apes and inserted a new one. The new ape made it to the stairs and, as with the others, was promptly attacked. Two of the 4 apes that assaulted this new member had no idea WHY climbing the stairs was a forbidden activity or WHY they were participating in the assaults on the transgressors.
The experimenters then replaced the 4th and 5th apes leaving none of the original apes. No apes subjected to the cold showers remained in the cage.
Nevertheless, NO APES AGAIN EVER APPROACHED THE STAIRS.
If you don’t get the point of this story, go sit in the back of a courtroom during one of the thousands of “victimless crime” trials each year and watch the jurors refuse to touch the stairs.
Thats an insult to apes. Tax collectors are a degenerative species of toenail fungus.
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