Saturday, October 1, 2016

PARKINSON'S LAW

I guess you have to be about my age to know about C. Northcote Parkinson* and Parkinson's Law** which is "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion",  It is a pity people have lost awareness of this valuable statement.  It was first published in a couple of articles in the magazine, The Economist, in 1955 and came out a a small book in 1957.

My favorite phrase (that I have paraphrased before***) is  "Buildings for the League of Nations were finished in 1938 and so was the League of Nations." 

A number of corollaries have been proposed for Parkinson's Law:

The first-referenced meaning of the law has dominated, and sprouted several corollaries, the best known being the Stock–Sanford corollary to Parkinson's law:**
If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.[5]
Other corollaries include Horstman's corollary to Parkinson's law:
Work contracts to fit in the time we give it.[6]
as well as corollaries relating to computers, such as:
Data expands to fill the space available for storage.
I too have come up with a Corollary: 

          A job expands to cover all the flat spaces available.

You can still buy copies of this book, but they are expensive, I'm sorry to say.  Even warn paperback copies cost about $18 on Amazon.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Northcote_Parkinson
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/07/league-of-nations-all-over-again.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/basics-of-bureaucracy.html

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