Zefort, the zero-effort contract management company, has decided to take a stand against the constantly growing demand for higher efficiency in business life. Starting today, and only for today, the service allows individual users to decrease their productivity and companies switch to a lower gear.
In the modern work culture, the trend of constantly identifying and utilizing more efficient working methods has been the norm for a long while. Companies, teams and individuals are being pushed to find ways of getting more done with less resources. Especially in information-intensive industries, a key enabler and contributor to this trend has been smart software that allows automation and higher productivity.
To take a stand against this trend, Zefort has introduced new features that make contract management slower and less efficient. The new opt-in features will be available exclusively today, 1 April 2022.
Completely surprised by the sudden change in company strategy, Zefort’s communication team caught up with Ville Laurikari, Zefort’s co-founder and CTO. What follows is an unedited transcript of our conversation with Ville.
Zefort: Ville, thanks for taking the time. We’re a bit surprised by this move, is higher productivity and automation really a problem…?
Ville: It sure is. People are getting all worked up about meeting deadlines and “getting stuff done”. Each new “improvement” gets us closer and closer to peak productivity. We’re starting to forget the finer things in life – when was the last time you took a 45-minute coffee break while waiting for a PC to boot up or the office printer to print your contract?
O-kay… But why Zefort? What can we do about it?
Well, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem. And in our corner of the metaverse, there’s a lot we can do to cut down on efficiency.
Such as?
Well, for starters, we’re introducing a 5-second delay to all UI operations, such as logging in, showing search results and reviewing contracts. While this does not sound a lot, all these productivity downers really add up and let us waste minutes and even hours of our users’ time.
We’re also slowing down on-screen mouse pointer movement. Moving your mouse across the screen will take what seems an eternity compared to today’s mouse acceleration standards.
As the cherry on top, we’ve taught our AI to imitate human traits and generally take it easy. Instead of processing a contract “as soon as possible”, the AI now pauses the upload and instead binge-watches Netflix while browsing travel sites on the web.
Sounds… bad. Is this what users really want?
User experience, schmoozer experience. Since when users know better than product developers what they really need? I know that I’m speaking for our entire company when I say that…. Hold on, I have to take this call from our CEO, he’s been trying to reach me all morning…
Thanks for the interview, Ville. Good luck with your career development, we still remember how you helped Zefort turn legal mumbo jumbo to Finnish common talk.
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Despite what Ville might think on April 1st, our mission at Zefort continues to be making your work easier, giving you more time for the things you really want to focus on.
