Run by stopwatch

Question

what's the meaning of "run by a stopwatch"? I found it in this sentence : "The pressing problem for Blackmore was making a quick adjustment to the American lifestyle that felt like it was run by a stopwatch."

Answer 1

What ScotM said: 'A stopwatch measures time precisely. Some cultures feel like the American lifestyle is too fast-paced. Apparently, Blackmore had to adjust to a life-style "run" by the idea that every hour, minute and second was being measured by a stopwatch.'

Also, when the the text uses the idea of a lifestyle run (governed) by a stopwatch, it's the idea of running a race or doing everything quickly, as though you were timed.

See time-and-motion studies for an example of the degree to which a fast pace and efficiency are considered important. In contrast, Blackmore's Australian culture seems more laid-back.

Answer 2

To live by the clock means

time rules your schedule: fixed times for getting up, breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime, and a crammed schedule in between. It also means a person who is living by the clock is very punctual, and gets nervous when they get (for instance) in a traffic jam and are going to be late for an appointment. So: in general: very busy, and trying hard to be punctual.

icqanne, Yahoo Answers.

If one likes to call this an idiom, it is very transparent (though 'by the clock' is a fixed phrase). The sense of the preposition 'by' here is AHDEL's 8a:

8. a. According to: played by the rules.

but there is doubtless a connotation of

10. Through the agency or action [or sway] of: was killed by a bullet [/was ruled by a tyrant].

ie a suggestion of forces beyond one's control.

Here, [your lifestyle is] run by a stopwatch is even closer to 'time rules your schedule' in that time (ie time constraints applied by the system or one's own compulsions) is personified as a slave-driver. One who deals in split seconds rather than minutes.

Answer 3

This is an allusion to the influence in the United States of 1) Frederick Taylor and his Scientific management system (also called Taylorism), 2) the Motion Study work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth 3) Henry Ford’s mass production factory system. The integration of these three factors ushered in what might be called, the American Reign of the Stopwatch

Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consultants. Taylor was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and his ideas, broadly conceived, were highly influential in the Progressive Era. Taylor summed up his efficiency techniques in his book The Principles of Scientific Management.

In 1898 he joined Bethlehem Steel in order to solve an expensive machine-shop capacity problem. As a result, he and Maunsel White, with a team of assistants, developed high speed steel, paving the way for greatly increased mass production.

Implementing Taylor’s theories, Ford Motor Company ultimately produced over 15 million Model Ts between 1908 and 1927. As you will explore in greater detail later in this reading, Henry Ford’s ambitious production efforts decreased the cost of production, which allowed for lower prices in the market place.

Scientific Management and the Ford Motor Company

A time and motion study (or time-motion study) is a business efficiency technique combining the Time Study work of Frederick Winslow Taylor with the Motion Study work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (the same couple as is best known through the biographical 1950 film and book Cheaper by the Dozen). It is a major part of scientific management (Taylorism).

After its first introduction, time study developed in the direction of establishing standard times, while motion study evolved into a technique for improving work methods. The two techniques became integrated and refined into a widely accepted method applicable to the improvement and upgrading of work systems. This integrated approach to work system improvement is known as methods engineering and it is applied today to industrial as well as service organizations, including banks, schools and hospitals.

Time Motion Studies

The Car & Life in America. In the early 20th century, cars entered mass production. In 1907, 45,000 cars were produced in The United States, but 28 years later in 1935 3,971,000 were produced, nearly 100 times as many. This increase in production required a large, new work force. In 1913 13,623 people worked at Ford Motor Company, but by 1915 18,028 people worked there. Bradford DeLong, author of The Roaring Twenties, tells us that, "Many more lined up outside the Ford factory for chances to work at what appeared to them to be (and, for those who did not mind the pace of the assembly line much, was) an incredible boondoggle of a job." There was a surge in the need for workers at big, new high-technology companies such as Ford. Employment largely increased.

The Car & America

"I hear an invisible stopwatch ticking even when I’m supposed to be having fun."

Life in the Fast Lane