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Traditional Workplace Math

Jul 12, 2010 » by Jody

Dedicated Employee A: “I worked 62.5 hours last week!”

Dedicated Employee B: “Oh yeah? I worked 75.”

Dedicated Employee A: “Well, I had to give up my kid’s soccer game to finish my project on time.

Dedicated Employee B: “I hear ya. My wedding was last week and the Best Man stood in for me.”

Slacker: Hi guys! Hey – just got back from walking the dog. I’m kickin’ butt on my project. I think I’ll take a little nap. See ya later!

Do you have the dedicated employee hanging around your organization? The one who puts in so much time that the standard week had to be changed from 7 to 8 days? The one who is there at 5am and leaves at 9pm? The one who ‘gives it up’ for the team every week, 52 weeks a year?

Here’s a little test for all you dedicated employees out there. Let’s add up your ‘time’. The only time we’re going to ‘count’ time is when you’re actually performing work. Just being ‘at work’ doesn’t count.

Here we go.
8:00am
• Enter the office building.
• Drop your stuff in your office and head to the coffee maker.
• Chat with a co-worker about last night’s game
• Make coffee – it’s already empty
• Look for creamer – where is the damn creamer?
• Go to the supplies cabinet. Find old creamer and dump it in your coffee. Gag a few times and complain to everyone around you.
• Get sidetracked on the way back to your office. A co-worker wants you to check out their new truck. “Nice wheels” you say.
9:00am
• Plop down in a meeting.
• What’s this meeting about, anyway?
• Listen with one ear while daydreaming about the weekend.
9:30
• Update meeting participants about your project (START THE CLOCK)
• 9:35 Go back to daydreaming. (STOP THE CLOCK)
10:00
• Go to the bathroom
• Run to next meeting
10:05
• Chat with co-workers while waiting for everyone else to show up
10:15
• Start meeting
• Solve issue with last night’s logistics snafu (START THE CLOCK)
• Give update to team on upcoming shipment
10:45
• Blackberry rings – step out of meeting to take a call from child’s school. (STOP THE CLOCK)
11:00
• Go to your office
11:05
• Begin looking at emails (START THE CLOCK)
11:10
• Get interrupted by manager – asks you what you think about this crazy weather. (STOP THE CLOCK)
11:30
• Head to non-working lunch
1:00
• Back in the office.

Okay – so let’s add it up so far.

In a Traditional Workplace, it looks like that dude already put in 5 hours of work!

In a ROWE, all  that dude did was put in exactly 40 minutes of work and wasted 4 hours and 20 minutes displaying presenteeism.

Next time someone says, “I put in 60 hours last week!” you can roll your eyes, because they are probably using Traditional Workplace Math.

Tracking time is so last century.

Good thing the Dedicated Worker is wasting time all day at work and giving up time with family and friends at night and on weekends to actually get work done.

Sounds like a great life to me.

Live your life and get your work done. goROWE!

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  • Brett Legree

    That’s how it works at my workplace, yes – presenteeism is the rule of the day.

    Parkinson’s Law seems to be the official Management Manual, too.

    I was showing a colleague of mine your site and this post this morning, and I remarked that probably my proudest work at this company, the thing that has had and will have the longest lasting impact, was done – in my home – in about two hours, one morning when I took time off work to stay home with a sick child.

    Mind you, official company policy prohibited me from using *my* sick leave for that – I had to use a vacation day.

    The result of my work – two hours of my time – has probably saved hundreds of hours already, as well as preventing grave errors in scheduling a very critical process.

    Good thing we don’t let people work from home here, eh?

  • Maru

    Off-topic, but a comment seems to be the easiest way to tell you about this: the biggest general mainstream magazine in Germany, ‘Der Spiegel’, runs an article about ROWE at Best Buy in its online edition:

    http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/wunderbar/0,1518,706112,00.html

    They don’t yet know what to say about this newest American oddity, but the general tone is positive. If you don’t have anybody there who knows German, just bung it into Google Translate…

  • KellyK

    Another messed-up thing about workplace math is that morning hours count less than evening hours. You get some credit for showing up before everyone else, but you could show up at 6:30, be productive for 8-9 hours, and still get snarky comments and raised eyebrows because you left before 4 PM.

  • Matt

    A couple of years ago, my company terminated the practice of salaried employees keeping ‘timesheets’. Rather than taking the opportunity to focus people on results, ethereal requirements of keeping core hours and meeting minimum hours was maintained. So, today we’re still left with people fearing they aren’t making their minimum hours when the only way to verify it is by perception. Unfortunately, perception is reality, which just leads to the ‘voodoo economics’ of workplace time.

    • KellyK

      That’s impressively messed-up. My guess is that removing timesheets was a legal or CYA move (making sure the people the company is calling exempt are actually treated as salaried), which is why there was half a change rather than a real one.

  • http://www.karensouthallwatts.com Karen Southall Watts

    Love this. Entrepreneurs don’t get to use this type of math; it’s all about results. Sometimes the transition can be tough, and it’s always fun to watch people move from reporting how many hours they spent on something to bragging about accomplishments…especially when they have time left over to have a life.

  • K

    I agree that most traditional office employees waste the day away, but what about employees who really are dedicated? Who go to the office early and doesn’t waste away the day? That doesn’t take lunches Bc they are trying to complete everything on their todo lists?Employees who are the top producers, month after month?

    • Cali

      It’s all about results – not time. And in situations where results are being produced, they should be rewarded. Not because someone isn’t eating lunch or because they enter an office building at a certain time, but because customers are satisfied.