322 – Transition to Ant Village Part 2

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When Paul was young he tried to be someone who everyone got along with but he realized that this made him very unhappy. Paul likens himself to a bulldozer. With Gappers, this can be a problem. With Ants, Paul thinks he would have no problem eating three meals with them. Paul is not big on small talk around dinner. Jocelyn pointed out that Paul is not a small talk person. Paul was not interested in talking about the latest episode of South Park. Jocelyn thinks that Gappers were not interested in listening to Paul talk about what needs to be done so the situation devolved. The Gappers did not understand the systems that were on the farm, but the recent people who came do understand that conversation at meal time does not need to be small talk and can be constructive and permaculture related. Paul was missed at meal time when he was not there but when he ate, he would wait to see what the conversations were about and if they were permaculture he would stick around, otherwise he would return to his office and keep working because he had so much to do.

Paul thinks that sharing meals once a week is probably enough. Eating with your boss is never fun. Paul recalls how the captain of a ship does not eat with is crew. Paul thinks that the way a person approaches a suggestion, is important and tells a funny story about the royal douche bag. Paul recalls a story of a young programmer who he went to visit and how the young person had a poor work ethic but the young man’s perception of himself was that he was epic awesome. Paul explains how some of the Gappers reminded him of this young man. Jocelyn feels that when people are young they often fall into this trap. When the voice of experience does not support a young person’s opinion, they become disenchanted.

Paul talks about an experience he had at PV1 and how he stayed in a loft bedroom and how women up in the balcony were naked and he realized he needed glasses when he could not tell that the ladies were naked. Paul wrestled one of the ladies the next day over his morning coffee. The thing Paul said to Seth was that he could use ladies like that on his farm. How his farm could use people who were happy go lucky and how they worked all day long and were helpful and happy and constantly positive. Paul admits that he can be negative and having people around him who are positive would have been a good thing to have. Jocelyn felt that she did what she could but could not pull the resources she needed to keep people positive. Poison is infectious and so with lots of poison going around it became overwhelming.

Paul created a thread called Breakfast with Spiderman and discusses some Joe Rogan quotes. Paul reviews other farms where the workers are separated from the boss and how most places keep workers separate. To build things, workers need to be predictable otherwise the schedule falls apart and nothing gets accomplished. Paul talks about obligations and business deals. When people commit to doing something they need to complete the task and then the obligation is over. Paul discusses how to come up with alternative ways to complete tasks. Paul talks about mitigating poison. Achievement seems to erase some of the poison. Jocelyn felt that some things seemed to go on and on and so this was a form of poison. Paul talks about how he does not need four houses. Some people were not about permaculture but they were more at the farm for room and food. Paul wants to focus on the big projects and coming up with solutions to major problems. Paul has three ways to pay people. Salary, by the hour and by the job. Some people will turn any of these three into poison and others will thrive using any of the three and some people will fall in between.

Jocelyn discusses motivational factors and how people are motivated by different things. Paul explains how he is poisoned by some of the situations that develop. He then says most people working on salary are not working all that hard. People working by the hour tend to work a little harder but they can still coast. People working by the job seems to work the best. The danger in the pay by the job is that there can be a difference in what done means. Paul recalls that when he was a software engineer he always took the job by the hour because they could change the product at the last minute. Paul liked to charge by the hour so that when the product changed he got compensated. Paul would never work to get paid by job but he will expect people to work this way on his farm.

Paul liked how his programming team would meet every other week and they would bid on tasks and when they had 80 hours of work they would not bid anymore. Paul felt that this was a fair system. Paul recalls how a manager he use to work with was always asking about an employee who was rarely on time, Paul would answer. Paul felt that when the boss asks a question about the business he deserves an answer. Paul feels that when a company pays you to be there 40 hours a week you should show up and work for those hours.

Paul tells a story about when his Grandad died and how his hours fell below what he was supposed to be working his manager did not fire him and Paul eventually worked the hours back even before he left the company. How after working for a few days you do not take a personal day and how toxic and resentful that can make people. Paul wants the Farm to have a system that can accommodate times when a person has a bad day. Paul and Jocelyn are human beings and want to be fair to people, but when there is poison it makes it hard to not be resentful.

The Gapper system may not work well after three months. The Ant program allows people to be an Ant for four months and then you move up to grasshopper and stay a grasshopper for the rest of their life. Grasshoppers can work in the garden five hours a week and fiddle with whatever they want after those five hours. When Paul first moved to the farm, when he had a bad day he could take some time off. He could even take a few days off, but then with so many people working on the farm he could not take any time off. Paul had to work through weekends to keep things moving along. Paul was not in control of his days because he had so many people looking to him for direction and asking questions. With less people on the farm Paul can get back to doing the things he wants to do. He can work on the things he wants to work on as opposed to working on things because he has to work on them. The current exercise or assignment is to design and develop a system that will increase production or create a higher velocity, is less painful and accomplishing more while expending less.

Relevant Threads

Podcast 321 – Transition to Ant Village Part 1
The Ant Village Thread
The Ant Village Challenge Thread

Credit: Kevin Murphy

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