Comment on The fallacy of work-life compartmentalization

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:19:31 GMT

I still don't understand how a normally smart person's inability to work with a computer is parallel to the way rational people operate irrationally in the work place. The latter, I agree, is an example of compartmentalization, as people prioritize their personal life to the extent that they are willing to rationalize operating in a lousy office environment to support their lifestyle. But I don't think people are compartmentalizing when they can't understand computers--I think they simply aren't familiar with the system. If it was compartmentalization you wouldn't see computer literacy increase with familiarity--which you do. And you wouldn't see people's ability to become more literate increase when the percentage of their life in which they have been exposed to computers increases--which you also do.

Your other example about your mathematician father doesn't clarify things for me either. It actually seems like a non sequitur.

My dad is a high calibre mathematician, dealing in abstractions at a level that seems stratospheric compared to my rusty-college-math.

Wikipedia Entry for Compartmentalization

I don't interpret your thoughts on work-life compartmentalization to be a criticism--so I don't think you need to set it up with an example to soften the blow, especially since it's confusing (to me at least) how your example logically supports the second half of your post.

Let me know if I'm misinterpreting something.

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