
The Two-Hour Rule - baha_man
http://www.kenrockwell.com/business/two-hour-rule.htm
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bullseye
I think this article is sort of a work ethic litmus test. I'm actually
considering having some contractors and business partners read it, just to see
what their reactions are.

I realized the first time I ever read it that the article was a little tongue-
in-cheek, but I still hated it. I could imagine the hordes of people reading
it and rallying behind a "two-hour rule" banner, as if it in some way
legitimized their poor work ethic.

I liked it a little better this time. If you read it and feel a little
disgusted, then the chances are good that you probably aren't a bottom feeder.

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jsz0
I'm surprised to see so many negative comments. It's not about neglecting your
duties or pawning your work onto someone else. It's about doing your job
quickly and efficiently. My personal opinion is many jobs should not be
structured as hourly full time positions but should instead be based off your
actual value and efficiently. So if you can get the work done in 10 hours a
week that should be it. You get paid 4x as much per hour. Many companies are
starting to move towards independent contractors who are paid on a more
realistic and honest scale and compete against each other on value &
efficiency. I think it's a good thing. Of course it does not apply to all
office jobs and probably not even the majority of jobs. It tends to be more
common with engineers.

~~~
mattm
Ah yes, I've had that dream too. Unfortunately, the 8-hour, structured workday
is in place because it works well for average people. It would be hard to find
a workplace where you can say to your boss "I got my work done for the day by
11:30. I'm gonna take the rest of the day off."

Actually, I did know one guy who worked at a place like this in Australia. He
completed his project for the week by Tuesday and when he asked his boss for
more work, his boss just told him to take the rest of the week off.

Unfortunately, almost every other place requires you to still sit in your seat
for the remaining time.

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tigerthink
I've never really had an office job, and I am having a very hard time
believing this. Can I get a corroborating account or two?

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windsurfer
I'll just chip in an "aye" and leave it at that.

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jkmcf
With government contractors, gov employees, and union workers, they actively
avoid helping anyone out if it is outside their specialty, even if they are
severely under tasked. In fact, they will actively try to avoid doing their
own jobs. I've seen it happen too many times. I've heard worse than I've seen
from people I trust.

The disgusting part is this is accepted as normal behavior. There's rarely
punishment because these people earn their employer serious money. Contractors
tend to be paid 1/2 - 1/4 of the money they actually bring in. For gov't
contractors, there go your tax dollars.

People complain about government workers being lazy. No, they are just as lazy
as most regular Americans[1].

[1] I have no idea if this applies to other countries, but human nature tells
me it probably is.

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ScottWhigham
I love Ken Rockwell - helped me decide on which camera to buy. And I love this
article - "When I had a job, a day of vacation was like finding a pot of gold.
Today, a day off costs me a day's pay. Always."

One odd bit: "42? What's with 42? Simple: at this contractor, we billed time
in tenths of hours. 42 minutes is 0.7 hours." What?

~~~
jsackmann
The union wanted to move up go-home time, and compromised on lunch time
alotted. So instead of working 8-12 then 1-5 with a 1-hour lunch, the schedule
changed to 8-12 then 12:42-4:42.

That doesn't explain why :42 instead of :40 or :45. Hence the mention of 10ths
of hours. That makes the choices :36, :42, :48, etc., and I guess ya gotta
pick one.

(That's my best guess, anyway.)

~~~
wglb
The meaning of life?

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Kirby
I've gone through periods of life where this was true. There were reasons -
truly bad boss, problems in my personal life, etc - but eventually I realized
that slacking off had started to become the primary cause of my depression.

So I did what I had to do to actually start getting things done at work. (In
my case, I did an end-run around the truly awful boss who was going through a
nasty divorce and taking it out on me.) And it didn't take long before I
stopped hating life and myself. And I left that job with my head held high.
(Because once I was useful, why have a truly awful boss?)

I can't say that I go full steam every hour of the day, but I like to go home
at the end of every day knowing I accomplished something real and useful.
There are days where the answer is no, but they're the exception. And since I
started actually working, I've gotten good, my salary has gone up, and I'm
much happier. And I just recently got a great job offer in the middle of a
recession!

So, believe in the two-hour rule at your own peril. There's a sweet spot
between this, and married to your job. (Workaholics really are a drain on
morale too, but that's a different post.)

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hristov
So Ken Rockwell was essentially stealing tax dollars. I am sure that happened
and still happens a lot. It has nothing to do with the supposed lazyness of
the american worker or anything like that -- it has to do with the idiotic
cost plus basis the government uses for military projects. This means that the
higher the cost the higher the profit. The more hours billed the higher the
profit. SO his managers make sure they overlook his slacking as long as there
is government money coming in and he keeps sending those timeslips in.

If cost plus accounting is removed and the military actually did projects
based on competitive bidding and if the government made them stick to those
bids, then you would see that most of the companies Ken worked for would not
allow that type of slacking.

So yeah it sure it happens a lot, but at least you'd expect most people to
feel slightly guilty about it. Ken, on the other hand, feels proud.

BTW I have some friends that are engineers in the defense industry and most of
them work pretty hard, so i am not sure his rule applies for most of the
defense industry even.

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mbenjaminsmith
IIRC there was a study done along these lines a couple of years ago. The
actual number was 90 minutes. Among the chair-moistening set, actual
productivity per week boiled down to 5 * 90 minutes.

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xiaoma
Here's what I've gleaned from this article:

> _If you don't own the business, there isn't much to gain by putting yourself
> out as hard as if it were your own._

Be selfish.

>My dad never fell for this. He completed all his real and personal work on
time, and always left around 4:30 PM as everyone else did (while charging
until 4:42PM) so he was always home for us at about 5PM every night.*

Charge for work you don't do.

> _Because of this, you need to play it cool. It's always good idea to look
> busy. Whenever I was working on important personal projects at work, I
> always had a back story prepared about how that work was critical to my real
> job in case I got busted. I never did; bosses rarely get out and walk
> around._

Lie.

> _Another tactic is, presuming your work has more than one precise location
> where you might be working, is to make it look as if you're at the other
> place working. For instance, those of us who design and build Weapons of
> Mass Destruction (WMDs), have a desk in an office, as well as laboratories,
> machine shops and test ranges. If I'm not sitting at my desk, people then
> look for me down in the lab. If you make each location look as if you're in
> that day, but probably at the other location, you can go home for a few
> hours at a time. For instance, if you leave a half-full drink and your
> jacket at your desk, people will presume you're down in the lab._

Deceive.

Joke or not, this article revolted me. Regardless of the pay, the constant
lying and slacking just screws the "clever" two-hour worker. After a decade or
two of that, they may not be _capable_ of actual productivity. I just may not
be cut out for work in America... at least not the one this guy is living in.

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sethg
I suddenly feel so productive...

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nihilocrat
I'm usually most productive when I am about to leave the office. It's kind of
strange and annoying at times.

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intellectronica
This is one of these "truths" that make you smile, but are actually not worth
writing and reading. Sure, lots of people waste time unproductively in and out
of offices, but these people are b.o.r.i.n.g. I much rather read about the few
that actually accomplish a lot.

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soandso
I read this while at work on an entirely meritless conference call. I would
get far greater satisfaction from additional hours of what I consider to be
actual work. [not regular account]

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nazgulnarsil
I think that thinking of this as satire is a defense mechanism. Because the
turth of what the government does with our money is horrific.

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mmt
>If you don't own the business, there isn't much to gain by putting yourself
out as hard as if it were your own.

The corollary to this is, of course, why one might want to found a startup.

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DanielStraight
I work almost all of the time I'm at work, and I certainly am not most
productive in those hours. I'm most productive from like 8-10 and then from
2-3.

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mkramlich
It's semi-satire, but a lot of it rings true, based on my experience working
in several big corporate office/cubicle types of jobs. In that environment,
people who work smart/fast generally are not rewarded proportionately to their
merit. Whereas if you go freelance/contract or start your own business it does
become more about effectiveness, efficiency and working "smarter, not harder".
What you do, not where you do it. What you achieved, not how many hours you
clocked. Social networking and relationships are still important, but it's
more horizontal and collaborative rather than vertical up/down and
master/slave. Also when working in the corp/office/cubicle/9-to-6 sort of job
a fairly narrow slice of your talent is used, whereas it's more broad and I
think satisfying and challenging intellectually if you're self-employed or
freelance. Again, just a generalization based on experience in both worlds,
and there are exceptions.

