MOTION STUDY

I read the books Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, and then The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. It's actually quite interesting to read them one after another in this order. The father in Cheaper by the Dozen is really keen on “motion studies” in which he goes to factories and other places of work and then figures out ways for the employees to do their jobs more efficiently and faster. I should note that both of these books are set in the early 1900s during the American Industrial Revolution. In The Jungle, the poor main characters are victims of this efficiency and fast work pace in the factories of Chicago. What I find so fascinating is that the motion study obsessed father thought that by doing things faster people would in turn have more time to do the activities they love. What in fact happens though is that employees and individuals end up taking on more and more work that eventually exhausts them and no time is left over for pleasure.