3 ms·

Actually 20-30hrs/week might be an overshoot. I'm surprised to see that for a lot of my friends teleworking means about 1h of work per day and an occasional mee

Actually 20-30hrs/week might be an overshoot. I'm surprised to see that for a lot of my friends teleworking means about 1h of work per day and an occasional meeting.

matwood 6y ago
Now the question is what is 'work', and what is the company paying for? Knowledge work is tricky because it straddles the line between hours worked and knowledge applied. A junior employee might work 10h/day to figure out a problem/get something working/etc... whereas a senior person may solve the same thing in 1h. This isn't the mythical 10x programmer, it's just experience and knowledge coming out when needed. The one with more knowledge also tends to accelerate their acquisition. One, because they can get the work done so quickly, they have time to keep expanding their knowledge. Two, they have all this groundwork knowledge which makes it easier to expand on. So while it may look like your friend only 'works' for 1h/day, you could be missing all the time spent so that your friend could finish the work in only 1h.
- samsonradu 6y ago
  I follow your point, though knowing more about them I actually incline for a different conclusion. There is a lot of slack in the corporate economy which became more transparent under wfh.
  - matwood 6y ago
    > There is a lot of slack in the corporate economy which became more transparent under wfh. Sure, but that's nothing new. When I was younger I worked in a big corp type job. After a few weeks I noticed this older guy would go play tennis at lunch a few times/week, and then take a nap under his desk afterwards. Normally, he would then leave around 3pm. One day after this happened, I ask someone what's this guys deal. Turns out, he's the only one who knew how to work on system XYZ. Others had some vague idea in case this guy was hit by a bus, but he did 99.9% of the work on this system. Also turns out, it didn't need a lot of work done.

Actually 20-30hrs/week might be an overshoot. I'm surprised to see that for a lot of my friends teleworking means about 1h of work per day and an occasional meeting.

matwood 6y ago

Now the question is what is 'work', and what is the company paying for? Knowledge work is tricky because it straddles the line between hours worked and knowledge applied. A junior employee might work 10h/day to figure out a problem/get something working/etc... whereas a senior person may solve the same thing in 1h. This isn't the mythical 10x programmer, it's just experience and knowledge coming out when needed. The one with more knowledge also tends to accelerate their acquisition. One, because they can get the work done so quickly, they have time to keep expanding their knowledge. Two, they have all this groundwork knowledge which makes it easier to expand on. So while it may look like your friend only 'works' for 1h/day, you could be missing all the time spent so that your friend could finish the work in only 1h.

samsonradu 6y ago
I follow your point, though knowing more about them I actually incline for a different conclusion. There is a lot of slack in the corporate economy which became more transparent under wfh.
- matwood 6y ago
  > There is a lot of slack in the corporate economy which became more transparent under wfh. Sure, but that's nothing new. When I was younger I worked in a big corp type job. After a few weeks I noticed this older guy would go play tennis at lunch a few times/week, and then take a nap under his desk afterwards. Normally, he would then leave around 3pm. One day after this happened, I ask someone what's this guys deal. Turns out, he's the only one who knew how to work on system XYZ. Others had some vague idea in case this guy was hit by a bus, but he did 99.9% of the work on this system. Also turns out, it didn't need a lot of work done.