At one of my jobs (the one I get bored at and write things like this), the people in charge are only worried about numbers. They are firm believers that as long as the numbers are there, that's all that they need to understand everything in their office. They have metrics, and they have their results, and so as long as numbers look okay, that must mean that work is getting done. The only bad part about this, is that due to everyone who has been there longer than a few months knowing this, is that we've learned how to work the system as hard as possible to make our numbers look exactly how we want them to. They set the bar, and we will just barely clear it.
One of the earliest times with this was when I was doing Swedish translation. We had a goal of working with ten emails/customers an hour. Sometimes things would take shorter than that, but that was the goal, 10/hr. That meant that for an 8 hour shift, you'd get a half hour lunch, two 15 minute breaks, and leave you with 7 hours worth of production that they'd expect out of you, which meant 70.
Most people would sit back and take a minute break here, a minute break there, or just drag their feet a little bit because their goal was 10 an hour, not 70 in a day. Then there were other people that worked the system, and they worked the system hard. instead of doing 10/hr, they would sit down, put on their game face, and do the best work they could as fast as they could, and drop 70 by lunch time, and then after lunch sit around and do whatever they wanted and get paid for it.
This was a great thing, and a bad thing, all at the same time. The first, it was a great thing (and still is a great thing, because I still use this tactic at that job all the time) because it lets you do homework, or research or writing, or just about whatever it is that you want to do instead of working, and you still get paid for it. The bad part of it is two fold. The first bad part is that if a manager ever catches your numbers halfway through the day they'll think that you're doing an amazing job, and then think that the rest of the day you should be running at that production value and should be able to double the 70 and get to 140 by the end of the day. This is never a good idea, and will always backfire in your face. The other bad thing (which is sort of a good thing) is that the people that don't know that you're doing this, will realize that you're slacking off and not doing any work after lunch. They will only be about half way done with their 70, but they'll think that it's okay to take the break, so they don't finish up their work. This is a good thing because when management gets mad at you, because they will because their numbers aren't what they want, your job is safe because you're creating those numbers. The bad part about this is that people get mad and they start stressing out and doing crazy things just because the numbers aren't where they want them to be.
Numbers are life at that job. Have solid numbers and your job is going to be there. For them, numbers are the only thing that matter, and the people behind them mean little to nothing. This is where numbers can't do their job right. Sure, a person might have great numbers, but what about those things that you can't easily measure like customer relations, or quality of work? You can't quantify how nice a person is, or how diligent they are at their job. People there are on drugs, and so numbers look great when you're on speed or heroin. You want to do nothing but call people and talk to them depending on the drug you're on, so the company keeps them on because once every few weeks their employees will come in strung out, and create amazing numbers, because numbers are the only thing that matter.
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