The Economics of Working Faster than Others

No alt-ID for this one!

This is a bit of an ethical question, a bit of a practical question, and a bit of a curiosity question. Not everyone will be able to apply to this situation.

Let's say there's a job, and you observe that the average time this job takes is X, and if you focus and work hard - you can do X in half the time - what should you do?

A couple real-life examples:

I type insanely fast - well over 100wpm. When I am doing anything that requires typing as a part of it, I naturally get done way faster. If you have something where you bill by the hour - and the average person finishes 5 units in an hour - and bills $30 for that hour, and I can do 5 units in 30 minutes, am I short-changing myself for only billing for a half-an-hour? Does it look suspicious to the employee when there's an established expectation that someone might finish 4 units, someone might finish 5 units, and someone might finish 6 units within an hour - yet someone else finishes 10? Is there a bit of a "you owe it to everyone else not to show them up?" attached as well?

Or take a computer programmer - and the average computer programmer can debug 100 lines of code in an hour (I'm making this up folks - so if it's not real, it's been awhile since Intro to Computer Programming) - and some new person comes in and can do 200 lines of code in an hour.

What is best practice in a case like this? Complete ethics say you do what you do in the time you can do it - but you may be scrutinized harder as careless doing too much quickly and you might put yourself in a social quandry because bosses might say "Well, if he can do 200 lines an hour, why can't you?"

If you're doing a contract basis by an hour - and they require you to bill hourly - and you get twice as much done in an hour as everyone else, aren't you cheating yourself out of additional money? Sure, you might look good, but if did slightly more than everyone else, you'd look just as good, yet not cost yourself significant money.

Any other thoughts/examples and how you handled it?

I have faced this problem for years. The only practical way I have found it is to turn projects in near the time when they are expected. I fill the void with FWF and other money making and educational endeavors. It's very much like office space in that I probably do 9-15 hours of real work in a given week, which is equivalent output of colleagues putting in more time. How much more time colleagues put in is hard to say. I'm not convinced I'm exceedingly more productive than them - perhaps many of them are doing the same thing. FYI I have worked white collar jobs since graduation in case that matters.

jkimcpa said:   It all evens out in the end, cream rises to the job, [insert cliches here]. My philosophy is to always work yourself out of a job, and you will free yourself up to do more value added functions (usually management functions) and you will get promoted, given more responsibilities, which should result in higher pay, etc. If it doesn't work out like that, then you shouldn't want to work for such a company. In the modern economy human capital is the most valuable asset, and if you don't work for a company that values/understands that you should seek to find one that does.

If you have a bunch of menial tasks that are given to you at work with no colleague below your level, how do you rise from that?
I definitely want to take on more value adding functions and pick up skills.

release213 said:   jkimcpa said:   It all evens out in the end, cream rises to the job, [insert cliches here]. My philosophy is to always work yourself out of a job, and you will free yourself up to do more value added functions (usually management functions) and you will get promoted, given more responsibilities, which should result in higher pay, etc. If it doesn't work out like that, then you shouldn't want to work for such a company. In the modern economy human capital is the most valuable asset, and if you don't work for a company that values/understands that you should seek to find one that does.

If you have a bunch of menial tasks that are given to you at work with no colleague below your level, how do you rise from that?
I definitely want to take on more value adding functions and pick up skills.If you're able to streamline your "day to day" work so that you have free time, you engage with your manager on taking on more responsibilities (presumably his). If he's smart and a team player then he will train you on his stuff so that he has less work to do, and can focus on other things, etc.

If your boss doesn't play ball, then find another place to work. It's imperative that you have a good boss in order to advance.

whodini said:   Ironically, they make the fast ones help out the slow ones. If you are smart, you slow down a bit.

It is absolutely smart - but is it right? Is it a best practice to do this? Is it better to fade in the crowd?

Here are some thoughts I picked up over the years.
Generally speaking, when projects are priced, they are priced at or below average worker speed in mind. Taking from your example, if the average Joe Programmer debugs 100 lines of code (LOC) per hour, then quite likely, the project is priced for the average to be about 80-100 LOC/Hr. So if you are getting the job done twice as fast, you're not doing anyone any favors, because the time you are saving on one task will most likely get eaten up by some one else doing something else slower then average (plus there are illnesses, vacations etc.)
Remember Parkinson's law -- Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Rule of thumb: ask for (realistic) ECD and finish your work within that expectation. There is no race here. If you get done faster, you're probably either over qualified for the job, or not challenging yourself enough. There is no need to think you're faster or better then others ALL the time -- no such thing! Even a broken clock will beat you to giving exact time twice a day!
Good Luck!

You're not fooling anyone.

You're either in one of two situations.

1) Your boss is a moron and is only managing upward. He trying as hard as he can to keep his job because he's a moron and has no time for you. He doesn't understand what you do, he only has a rough idea of how long he wants it to take. If you take less than that time you get to pocket the time. I know a guy who loved this situation since he was able to work from home and spend more time with the family. Problem is you'll never get promoted, get raises, etc. Awesome if you're coasting into retirement.

2) You boss is smart. He values your work, but understands you're not motivated to do more. He's glad to have you as a reliable member of the team. You won't get promoted or raises obviously since you put in your 9 to 5 and go home.

Reality is hard work pays off and everyone notices. Everyone thinks they're better than average. Statistics says they're not.

That's one of the main reasons I quit. I am much happier and productive working for myself

If you can do the work of 2-3 of the other workers at the same price then a few things happen:
1. your peers become expendable
2. you take on more workload at the same pay and burn yourself out
3. you become chained to your position because your unreplaceable
4. you make your boss look good by improving efficiency

I worked a government job, let's say it was construction-related.

My job was to inspect, say... 8 widgets within a particular geographic area every eight-hour day. I could inspect 8 widgets better than any other widget inspector in about an hour, depending on distance/traffic.

So one day I got bored and inspected probably 20 widgets in one day.

I was taken aside by my supervisor upon my return to the facility and was told in no uncertain terms not to ever pull a stunt like that again.

I did not.

tyrone3971 said:   You're not fooling anyone.

You're either in one of two situations.

1) Your boss is a moron and is only managing upward. He trying as hard as he can to keep his job because he's a moron and has no time for you. He doesn't understand what you do, he only has a rough idea of how long he wants it to take. If you take less than that time you get to pocket the time. I know a guy who loved this situation since he was able to work from home and spend more time with the family. Problem is you'll never get promoted, get raises, etc. Awesome if you're coasting into retirement.

2) You boss is smart. He values your work, but understands you're not motivated to do more. He's glad to have you as a reliable member of the team. You won't get promoted or raises obviously since you put in your 9 to 5 and go home.

Reality is hard work pays off and everyone notices. Everyone thinks they're better than average. Statistics says they're not.

I don't know if you're talking to me or another poster. I'm a college professor - this has nothing to do with my day job. I have to teach 5 courses for 3 hours per course with 6 hours of office hours. I "can't" do it any faster.

If you want the "story" behind the post - a friend of mine has received a project entering in catalogs into a database - and he bills the vendor hourly. He asked what he was expected to do - and he was told about 50 entries an hour - some hours you'll have more, some hours you'll have less. (Why they don't pay per entry is beyond me - maybe they should). He says the very first hour he did it, he did 125 entries - and he asked me if he should do 25 entries, play around for a half an hour and finish it to have about 50 in an hour - or do 50 in 20-25 minutes and bill an hour, or do 120-125 entries and bill an hour - he asked what is right in this case - and I didn't really have an answer. I thought back to some of my previous odd-jobs - mystery shopping, transcribing, editing - and I would always look back and I do get things done quicker - but never had this specific situation.

Recently, we had a search committee where we had to grade 100 or so applicants, and my colleagues complained about how it took 20-25 hours to grade the applicants, and I finished it in about 5 hours.

Then I started thinking about the larger community and economics - and figured you guys have always been brutally honest - and I wonder what the ethics are - and what some different thoughts are.

Crazytree's analogy sounds specifically like what I'm thinking about - and I wonder how other people handle it - and how other people have handled it in the past. I wanted to give a wider variety of examples in my hypothetical just because I thought it might be more relatable than data entry.

This area has a lot of grey in it - but I wonder if everyone somewhat does this in a sense? Some fantastic responses have really contributed to the conversation, and I'm grateful to everyone who has replied.

In all the jobs I had, I never once was rewarded for finishing early. I did get in trouble for sitting at my desk doing nothing - because all my work was done.

I also got assigned to help other people catch up, which they resented greatly.

On the other hand, I was rewarded very well for finishing exactly on deadline. Not early, not late, exactly the moment it was due.

I can't say what's moral or ethical. All I can say is what my employers liked and disliked.

If you work the right company, you will be positively recognized for work completed faster than expected. My fellow colleagues that exhibit these traits are quicker to receive promotions - they are also the ones that are the most driven.

I will note though, that no one in my division has enough free time to browse the web or to "use time filler" - we're a very efficient group of employees. People come to work for 50 hours a week and the company probably receives 47.5 hours of pure work, assuming 30 minutes a day for lunch/bathroom.

Horseymen said:   
I don't know if you're talking to me or another poster. I'm a college professor - this has nothing to do with my day job. I have to teach 5 courses for 3 hours per course with 6 hours of office hours. I "can't" do it any faster.

If you want the "story" behind the post - a friend of mine has received a project entering in catalogs into a database - and he bills the vendor hourly. He asked what he was expected to do - and he was told about 50 entries an hour - some hours you'll have more, some hours you'll have less. (Why they don't pay per entry is beyond me - maybe they should). He says the very first hour he did it, he did 125 entries - and he asked me if he should do 25 entries, play around for a half an hour and finish it to have about 50 in an hour - or do 50 in 20-25 minutes and bill an hour, or do 120-125 entries and bill an hour - he asked what is right in this case - and I didn't really have an answer. I thought back to some of my previous odd-jobs - mystery shopping, transcribing, editing - and I would always look back and I do get things done quicker - but never had this specific situation.

Your friend should hire a six sigma consultant to improve his process flow. With the additional time spent going to meetings, he should have no trouble reducing his speed to 50 entries an hour. If that doesn't work, he could also start a committee to help articulate this project's vision statement.

At one point I was a consultant who did computer programming, and I could do in 3 days what it would take others 4-6 weeks. I FACED THIS DILEMMA lol.

When I was working for a consulting firm, I'd balance it out by being extremely thorough and making up non-necessary work, such as over-documenting, over-testing with users, teaching others how to do what I'm doing, explaining what I'm doing to the stakeholders, making everybody feel comfortable.

When I would do this as a free lance contractor, I'd do some of the same things, but my hourly rate was VERY high, but my project bid was very low in hours and I could explain how I'm faster and an expert, with a proven success record.

I do recall once working for the consulting firm and finishing the entire project in a week when I was new, and was told to start over, and do a bunch of unnecessary work that would culminate with me completing the project.

My first job out of college I was hired to complete X amount data a day for a specific project. I had a project partner who did significantly less than me in the same time period. The boss noticed and fired her and gave me more work. I slowed down to the expected pace and was offered a long term job.

You have to weigh the gains from performing better than others both intangible and tangible. I had no pay increase but, the boss respected me more thus later came the tangible benefit of job security.

I do a lot of different things at my job - some of which occur on a set schedule (like accounts payable) and some of which just kind of appear out of nowhere and need to be done. I do complete many tasks earlier than others doing the same job would, and as someone else has said, I "work" probably about half the time I'm actually at my desk. I figure that for the other half of the time, I'm there, ready to do whatever needs doing - kind of like being "on call," but stuck in the office. The boss just gave me a raise, so I can't be doing too badly.

Become a hourly paid consultant. As an Employee, Co-worker incompentence and lack of urgency used to make me mad, now it just results in additional billable hours.

SecondGunman said:   tyrone3971 said:   Everyone thinks they're better than average. Statistics says they're not.

That's actually not true. Statistics say that half of them are right......
Average =/= median. Half are better than the median.

I once had a contract installing upgrades to ATM machines at 711 stores.
The pay was $40 per machine. Once I got past the learning stage it was 7 minutes between arrival and leaving.

I would work overnight when there was no traffic or customers to get in the way. More times than I can count clerks at the store would ask why I was working so late at night.

Sammich said:   If you get paid by the hour the amount of work you do doesnt matter one bit. You are paid to fill a cubicle (human sheep pen), thats it, and if you finish your work early theyll either pile more busy work on top of you or note that you dont finish assignments in a timely manner and it counts AGAINST you. Seriously its all about who you know not how hard you work, and maybe its always been that way. I also have to refer to office space because its just so dam true. As long as you do just enough work to not get fired and have a have friends in high places your career is all set. Look at George W Bush! Haha perfect example...Truer words were never said. It's just so sad how many inexperienced drones are redding you.