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The world thinks mathematicians are people for whom math is easy. That's wrong. Relatedly: We convince people that you -- yes, you -- need to sweat and find so
by DoreenMichele 6y ago
The world thinks mathematicians are people for whom math is easy. That's wrong.
Relatedly: We convince people that you -- yes, you -- need to sweat and find something burdensome in order to make the big bucks and make the world a better place. We do a poor job of clearly conveying how to add real value and how to capture some portion of that in the form of money in your own pocket.
It actively causes problems for talented people who often think of their talent as something "easy" or fun and wouldn't know how to charge for it or how much to charge for it.
We have all these proxies for providing value -- such as hours worked -- that I think of as "paying you to sweat" rather than paying you to be productive.
I don't know what the solution is but it's something we ought to be more actively working on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jmchuster 6y agoI think for lower-paying jobs, then they are paying you to sweat, and there also is a tighter correlation there with productivity. But higher-paying jobs are all salaried rather than hourly, which seems to indicate that society has already decided pretty low on the scale that more valuable jobs and work has less and less of a correlation with your hours worked. And at the top end, we pay people exponentially higher salaries, with CEOs making hundreds of millions, which in no way means that they're working thousands of times more hours than everyone else. The easiest way to get promoted isn't to work more hours, it's to manage other people. So leverage and scale of impact seems to be what society has decided is most valuable.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoIn theory, salaried positions pay you for adding value, not for your time. In practice, people on salary often work more hours, not fewer hours. (When I had a corporate job, one manager once joked to me "I make less than minimum wage for the hours I put in.") We tend to pay better for positions of trust. This may or may not involve more skill and such positions are often primarily given to people with certain traits, like upper class white males. Certainly, some people have gotten the memo on how to line their pockets for less time and effort. But I think we generally do a somewhat poor job of elucidating how to get paid for the value you provide rather than for who you know, what you are, how many hours you clock, etc. If we want a better world where good things happen, this is a problem. It actively creates social injustice and also maximizes for teaching people to get over rather than add value per se.
- brtkdotse 6y ago> In practice, people on salary often work more hours, not fewer hours. (When I had a corporate job, one manager once joked to me "I make less than minimum wage for the hours I put in.") How I wish that stuff like this, instead of being worn like a badge of honor, was seen as a dunce cap. Why _the hell_ would you work more than agreed to?
- uncledave 6y agoAgree with this. My father was conned by this attitude. He was never at home and died a month after he retired. The people telling you to work hard and promoting that ideology are the ones who will benefit, not you.
- ilammy 6y ago> In theory, salaried positions pay you for adding value, not for your time. A significant part of salary is basically payment for availability: for that when you need to do a specific job, you already have a person hired and onboarded which you can immediately assign the job to. As opposed to looking for a contractor on a short notice (and paying them more for this short notice).
- DoreenMichele 6y agoYeah, I was responding to this: But higher-paying jobs are all salaried rather than hourly, which seems to indicate that society has already decided pretty low on the scale that more valuable jobs and work has less and less of a correlation with your hours worked. A quick google gets me this: While 40 hours of work per week is considered full-time, the average salaried employee does not often exceed 45-50 hours per week. This is because, according to Upcounsel, “If a job requires 55-60 (or more) hours to perform, many would consider it a poorly-designed job.” Even then, The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that almost 10 million American employees in all industries work 60 or more hours per week. https://www.bamboohr.com/hr-glossary/salaried-employee/ https://www.bamboohr.com/hr-glossary/salaried-employee/
- jmchuster 6y ago
- eevilspock 6y agoThe assumption that the free market's "decisions" represents "what society has decided" is both bad and dangerous. If anything, society has abdicated its decision making responsibilities. That a CEO is "worth" hundreds of millions is an artifact of a system that is owned and operated by those the system identifies as valuable. Hmmmm....
- nickthemagicman 6y agoNo system is free from this. Human beings will corrupt any system they're a part of. The trick is to overthrow the system every now and then.
- _the_inflator 6y agoMaster answer to me. For me the "hard part" regarding mindset was learning sales and marketing. This is for me the solution to everyone struggling with charging more money for what they do.
- inglor_cz 6y agoI find writing fairly easy, but to put together a good book does not consist just of the fun stuff. Someone has to take care of the technical details - not very funny for me. But that makes the difference between growing to be an author and staying one of a million bloggers forever.
- 5tefan 6y agoThank you. Work life is very irrational. Good one to describe work hours as proxies.