Subject:
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Re: Preaching to the Choir
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 11 Aug 2004 17:59:20 GMT
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Viewed:
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1860 times
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"Christopher Weeks" <clweeks@eclipse.net> wrote in message
news:I2ALon.22wt@lugnet.com...
> > What happens when two people need holes dug in their yards. One guy • needs a
> > lot done, and he doesn't want his trees damaged. Another guy just wants • some
> > stuff dug up randomly. The first guy probably wants a more careful,
> > efficient, methodical person and probably is willing to pay more "per • hour."
>
> I don't think so. He will merely require more hours of labor because he • wants
> to hire a slower, more careful excavator.
True, that's a lot of it, but not all. He wants to hire the most efficient
excavator, because he knows his job is going to take a long time, and he
wants to manage the cost. Perhaps the other guy just wants it to look like
he's having a grand project done, so he's willing to take anyone willing to
stand around his yard waving a shovel around, but he'd like to pay that guy
less than if he actually wanted that guy to do something useful.
> > The second guy may not care if the digger spends half his time redigging • a
> > hole because he tossed dirt from the second into the first, plus he • takes a
> > 2 minute break every 10 minutes to puff up (ok, you could require him to
> > work a total of 75 minutes to get one man hour of pay - or maybe even • 150
> > minutes because of his inefficiency - but once you do that, you're • changing
> > his hourly wage).
>
> Do you accept that there is some sufficiently small unit of time that • could be
> used (minutes, second, nanoseconds, whatever) that discreppencies in work • time
> could be measured accurately? Let's say we use manminutes instead of • manhours
> and we don't cound time off on smoke breaks. Satisfied? You can't change • their
> per unit time wage.
Sure.
> There is, as is the case in our modern economy, a certain amount of • accepting
> that people will be doing their best. My manager does not keep constant • track
> of my minute by minute doings. Actually, my progress is tracked, I think, • on a
> roughly week by week level of granularity. I write fairly small web apps. • If I
> turn out a new product in a week or a somewhat more complicated tool in a • month,
> I don't get any greif. (But I'm on the clock right now, while typing to • y'all.)
>
> If you want to find faults with the socialist alternative, find faults • that
> don't exist in the current system.
But the current system allows your employer to subjectively rate your
performance, and pay you more if he thinks your a more valuable employee.
Does this work all the time? No, but I think it works enough that employees
who are more valuable to their employer are rewarded. The only way the
socialist alternative gives me of rewarding people differently is to keep
track of exactly how many minutes they are productive because I can't say
"Gee, you and Bob appear to be equally industrious, but somehow you produce
twice as many widgets as Bob." In fact, I may not even be able to find a
time when Bob isn't working. So I guess I decide to fire him. Of course the
ideal is to talk to him first (which theoretically happens in today's
situation).
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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| (...) But, standing around flailing with a shovel _is_ useful, otherwise he wouldn't want it done. And in any case, it takes just as much time out of that person's life to perform those diggerly theatrics as it takes for a real excavator to dig for (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Preaching to the Choir
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| (...) I guess your main point is that _some_ services will have greater demand than supply and the free market provides a method of allocation. Off hand (though I'll continue to think about this) I would leave it to the individual suppliers to (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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