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If my job was easy to measure I would be paid on my outcomes instead of being paid to be at work. If I was being paid for my outcomes I would manage my time en

If my job was easy to measure I would be paid on my outcomes instead of being paid to be at work. If I was being paid for my outcomes I would manage my time entirely differently and would find ways of being more productive than I already am so that I could work less hours. I think this is a hard pill for people's bosses to swallow, that their employees do have the capacity to be more productive but they won't because we're being paid to be at work and so incentives are not aligned. My boss is very happy with my productivity and I am very productive. I don't think he could conceive of me being any more productive. But I know that if I could arrange my own days and hours I would be more productive. But this would be inconvenient to him and so he would likely rather have me predictably available than fully optimised. Which is an understandable tradeoff if frustrating from a personal perspective as you feel as though you're wasting time. It's just that your wasted time is actually valuable to someone and that's hard to grasp intuitively.

dalbasal 8y ago
Yep... typical Schrodinger's product evangelist troubles. I'd make a third distinction though. You can be paid for time, work or outcomes. Outcomes and work aren't the same thing, necessarily.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > You can be paid for time, work or outcomes. And all three have uses. It seems like one of the common mistakes we make when talking about labor productivity is underestimating time as an output. We see a job's time-per-task decline and ask why it remains a full-time job, but in many cases the answer is that part of the job is being available 8 hours a day, and more dead time between tasks hasn't changed that.
- calvinmorrison 8y ago
  Yeah but my job has all three elements. Long term improvements and projects, being on call and making sure all the widgits are spinning, and doing tasks for X time a day If I was making 62 burgers an hour it would be easier to quantify but rarely are things so fixed

dalbasal 8y ago

Yep... typical Schrodinger's product evangelist troubles. I'd make a third distinction though. You can be paid for time, work or outcomes. Outcomes and work aren't the same thing, necessarily.

Bartweiss 8y ago
> You can be paid for time, work or outcomes. And all three have uses. It seems like one of the common mistakes we make when talking about labor productivity is underestimating time as an output. We see a job's time-per-task decline and ask why it remains a full-time job, but in many cases the answer is that part of the job is being available 8 hours a day, and more dead time between tasks hasn't changed that.
calvinmorrison 8y ago
Yeah but my job has all three elements. Long term improvements and projects, being on call and making sure all the widgits are spinning, and doing tasks for X time a day If I was making 62 burgers an hour it would be easier to quantify but rarely are things so fixed