Corporate life in America these days is fraught with tedium. First the MBAs imposed their silly six sigma processes and reduced workers to mere widgets. Then the regulators went through and squashed out any fun that remained.
Gone are the days when shrewd eccentrics could get rich using technobabble to hawk the Turbo Encabulator. Alas, there are rules and regulations stymieing all creativity. In fact, as a matter of law, such restrictions are shoved in the worker’s face each morning as they fill up their morning cup of coffee.
By our rough calculation the break room metric currently indicates an economy that’s grossly overburdened by regulation. The break room metric, if you’ve never heard of it, is the ratio of wall space in office break rooms that is utilized by mandatory federal and state regulatory postings. Anything above 10 percent utilization represents gross regulatory overburden.
No doubt, office break rooms across America are nearly out of wall space. Mandatory OSHA postings fill the voids. Continue reading
