Ask, and I shall justify any particular position.
Good investment: Appropriate target year fund with vanguard
Bad Investment: Anything with "active" in the fund title
Good idea: running.
Bad idea: Looking at a map of how far you ran as compared to daily metro.
Good idea: Chromebooks
Bad idea: using ancient software
Good idea: net neutrality
Bad idea: verizon selling your data
Good idea: minimum basic income
Bad idea: means or work or drug or whatever tests for government funding
Good idea: democracy
Bad Idea: the electoral college
Good idea: automation
bad idea: refusing automation because it may destroy your job
Good idea: Work payments based on output
Bad Idea: Work payments based on raw time
I'm sure I have more. I'm also happy to see other pairs.
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Please explain the last one? Spontaneously, I think it only to be good accompanied by a minimum basic income...
ReplyDeleteEssentially incentives. If I am paid for my time, then my incentive is to take as long as possible to get things done. If I am paid for the output, then I have the incentive to get're done so I can go home.
ReplyDeleteI've got a local friend who had this temp gig. The job was hourly, and it was finished when he did the work. He didn't know much work there was. Job was supposed to last 12 weeks.
It lasted 8, because he got done faster than expected. That is, he was negatively rewarded for getting the job done and learned a really valuable lesson for next time: do jobs slower.
Which isn't exactly one that's good to have.
The problems with "base payments on output" are (a) the measurement of output is almost universally in the hands of the people making (or, by preference, not making) the payments, and (b) value is not correlated with difficulty, such that cherry-picked easy jobs become a commodity to be distributed to favorites.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a system that tried to do this. Trust me when I say that you are underestimating how spectacularly dystopian it can get.
Also, not using ancient software means not playing old video games. Your argument is invalid. :P
You know, playing Master of Orion 2 for the millionth time is almost assuredly a bad idea. I'll still do it; I'm allowed to do idiotic things to myself.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, my sitting here and talking to you while at work is pretty much the example case of why time is a dumb measurement for work.
When I've done private contracting, it was very much "you'll get product A by time T and pay P for it, some now, some then" which worked well as a model. And when an uncle of mine was building cars on an assembly line, management tried to claim the time when there was nothing for his station to do should not be paid. Which is pretty clear nonsense, since the cars were getting made.
I'll tell you what ... how about we reform corporate culture so that employers stop imagining they can infringe my freedom as regards:
ReplyDelete(1) When (or whether) I come in to an office to work,
(2) How I behave once I'm there,
(3) How long I stay,
(4) Whether I attend meetings
(5) Whether I answer questions, or am even present to be asked,
(6) The big grab bag of "every other possible factor of 'professionalism' that has nothing to do with my measurable output."
If you can offer me that, then heck yeah I will gladly accept a job that pays me based on output.
But if what is actually being said is "I'll pay you for making Product A, but you also must do any unpaid work in the above categories that I see fit to assign you," then screw that noise. You want me to spend an hour in the office, you pay me for the hour.
Accepting a fixed payment for a job is a dangerous game if you guess wrong about how long it will take to complete. If the job is longer than you expect, you lose money. I bill my time hourly and it's a terrible system, but the other system has issues as well (though i would prefer it overall).
ReplyDeleteI love how every single comment has been about 1 of the 8, as well as private IMs.
ReplyDeleteThat's ... interesting. I'm not sure what it means, but it is interesting.
It probably means it's the one people find interesting/controversial.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I feel compelled to point out that Tony commented on at least two things there. ;)
Matt Johnson He did, but only because he knows I love old games. Its a rhetorical flourish to draw attention. He's good at that.
ReplyDeleteGood idea: running
ReplyDeleteBad idea: knees. seriously, intelligent design my ass.
John Aegard largely agreed. Since my run yesterday, my heel had hurt and I don't know why. At all.
ReplyDeleteOn work for productivity: consider that I left the office at five, and many things are unfinished. This will impact neither my sleep not my pay, as I put in my eight.
ReplyDeleteHow would a school teacher or a hospice nurse be paid on a productivity basis?
ReplyDeleteNot sure, as I'm not much of an expert in either health care nor education. What's the goal of the job?
ReplyDeleteCreating good citizens / helping people die with maximum comfort, dignity, and gentleness.
ReplyDeleteOn that, I believe South Korea does have a thing where school teachers get paid based on the number of students and how well they perform. Using modern computers, some teachers have thousands of students distributed and local proctors, basically.
ReplyDeleteOoh, my evil side wants that job, and I want to be able to choose the students who are already high achievers. Then when they turn out well, I'll take my oodles of cash and use it to buy the cheap labor of teachers who cared enough to engage with students having trouble (and are therefore bankrupt). I'll pay them an assured hourly wage in order to teach the second-best tier of students, take in the dough for my "objective achievement," and continue the pyramid scheme. I will call the destitute teachers I underpay "local proctors" and assure they can't get the qualifications or connections needed to bypass my monopoly on the cherry-picked money-maker students.
ReplyDeleteYeah, incentivizing based on student achievement looks good in a real superficial scientific management way, but it creates all kinds of evil incentives that make kids get left behind harder.
ReplyDeleteWe can read about it together:
ReplyDeletewashingtonpost.com - In South Korea, top tutors have stylists, pop videos and multimillion-dollar paychecks
I'm making dinner, so I'll be less good the rest of the evening.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols: I read the article. Is there somewhere in there (that I missed) where it talks about relating his payment to his students' results? It seems like his payment is related directly to how good a self-salesman he is, and not at all to how much (if anything) his students learn.
ReplyDelete