I worked in numerous other industries and my friends have as well and there's not near as much analysis of science lab workers or truck drivers or restaraunt workers or nurses or social workers.
It feels strange.
To answer the latter half of your question, it is strange to not see that much analysis of science lab workers, truck drivers, restaurant workers, nurses or social workers, but I imagine that without the profit incentive there, the demand for research dries up. I wouldn't say that's a good thing, and it does indeed feel strange.
I can guarantee that nurses are analyzed to hell and back; everything in healthcare is analyzed to hell and back. After all, every pill is billed, every machine is billed, etc.
Social workers are also very very analyzed on their day to day work, so much so that there are passed laws compelling reports of suspected activities to the police.
Only in tech is there a relentless drive to figure out how to get more and more productivity out of us, and who to hire that will produce the most at the lowest cost, instead of a fair sane career path.
some concerns are specific of our industry, like efficiency from high level languages. some are more cross cutting, like communication efficacy. some are more universal, like optimal working hours per week.
if you pick some common metric like that last one you'll see all fields share a great deal of the same issue and same research
There's decades of tech industry research and experience, and centuries of worker productivity data and management research.
However, there's a relentless drive in tech management to figure out how to squeeze more and more productivity out of the workers, all the while keeping them happy and maintaining quality products.
No other industry has that. Nurses would absolutely revolt if you told them that you were putting them in an Agile system in Jira and all of their productivity was going to be tracked down to the hour and once a month they had to hit crunch time and work an 80 hour week to meet deadlines and they had to meet everyday and justify their existence at a standup.
Nurses also have clearly defined goals, career stepping stones, licenses, specialties, etc.
Tech has none of that. The ideal hire is a ROCKSTAR developer that knows everything and doesn't need any wasted time on training, and would love to work their life away.
And management keeps trying to figure out how to make devs more and more like this.
"Behavior arising from class discontent, such as union activity, is derided as destructive and damaging. An appeal is made for “intelligent labor leaders to advocate efficiency in production to make possible the lowering of costs and prices” (Spriegel, 1947: 590). Even as early as 1928, an author argues that industry has moved past conflict and entered a period of “cooperative policies” (Anderson, 1928: 15), where harmony between workers and employers can reign."
> The ideal hire is a ROCKSTAR developer that knows everything and doesn't need any wasted time on training, and would love to work their life away.
"Frequently, the word “worker” is preceded by adjectives of various types, modifying the qualities and attributes of the person to whom they refer and thus judging that person to be “good” or “bad.” Spriegel (1947: 326) identifies “first class workers” in contrast to “substandard workers.” Anderson (1928: 320) talks about “indifferent workers and slackers” and “unintelligent workers” compared to “ambitious workers” (Anderson, 1928: 434). Folts (1938: 311) has “slow,” “medium,” and “superior workmen.” Balder - ston and colleagues (1937: 245) discuss the importance of “mentally alert” workers. "
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271722189_2013_Cons...