Re: Average Hours Worked

[Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>]

I've been watching this thread unravel all day with a sense that there 
was something that was making me uncomfortable about it. I think I can 
finally put my finger on what that is.

I know that there is a reality, both from the employee's/contractor's 
point of view and from the point of view of some employers, to the idea 
of hours worked versus output generated; But from an external frame of 
reference, that reality evaporates. (This is a Flatland argument; if you 
are familiar with Edward Abbott's Flatland, 'nuff said; if not, please 
take a moment to Google it up and read it before skewering me for my 
heartless reductionism.)

The hours worked/good produced model works in manufacturing. When I 
worked in a bakery, the number of loaves we made bore a direct 
relationship to the number of hours we worked. When I did paste-up at a 
light table, the number of pages I churned out bore a direct 
relationship to the number of hours I worked. Further, in both of those 
cases, the employer sold the units I produced. That is, bread was sold 
at a price per loaf and pages were pasted up at a price per page. 
Whether I had been employed flat rate (that is, paid by the piece, like 
an auto mechanic) or by the time clock (as I was, in fact), the 
conversation between me and the employer could revolve around hours of 
work the employer wanted or that I was willing to put in.

In the present discussion, those who argue that they are 
productive/efficient/get their work done in eight hours are taking the 
flat rate approach. Those who argue that whatever they accomplish in 
eight hours is by definition enough are taking the punch clock approach. 
I say both approaches should be abandoned. We are not in the tangible 
goods business. We are producing intangibles (and getting paid a heck of 
a lot more than most manufacturing employees, too). Our employers' 
customers, for the most part, are not buying our output by the page. 
(I'm sure there are exceptions.)

The model that usually applies in the work we do is this: we contract to 
produce a specified deliverable by a particular date. Dates slip. 
Goalposts move. Stuff happens. We renegotiate. But still, this is the 
model. If we bite off more than we can chew in a forty-hour week, we 
work longer than forty hours. If we learn from this experience, we 
negotiate better the next time. If, over the long term, we contract to 
produce less than the guy in the next cube, we'll probably get paid less 
than the guy in the next cube--or he'll have a job and we won't. If he 
does it by working smarter than we do, more power to him. If he does it 
by working more hours, so be it. But it's all subjective and much too 
squishy to try to account for tech writing productivity the same way we 
measure a roofer's productivity.

Hours schmours. Feh!

Dick



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