9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?

Aqua Letifer

@Axtremus said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

Don’t care for “by pieces”, it should be hourly with bonuses based on performance levels.

Why?

Oh, just thought of another job payment metric ... "by word count."
@Aqua-Letifer, what do you think of payment by word count?

It's ridiculous.

Mik

That just generates words, not really content.

The art of brevity is underrated.

Axtremus

I’m not surprised by your reactions to “pay by word count.”
I am myself not a fan of that practice.
Still, I brought it up because it’s still being practiced.
https://www.pressboardmedia.com/magazine/why-do-we-pay-writers-by-the-word

Many decades ago a family elder supplemented his income by writing for local newspapers, a lot of times translating poetry from one language to another and provide annotations/explanations. He was paid by word count back then.

Aqua Letifer

@Mik said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

That just generates words, not really content.

The art of brevity is underrated.

Indeed. Other considerations:

It puts the writer at motivational odds against his employer.

They're going to want an article as short as possible, the writer's going to want to pad it. Never pick a cost structure that pits payer and payee against one another.

It illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what a writer does.

Say there's a widget company who hires Writer A to write a blog post with the intention of describing to would-be customers how their lives would benefit from buying one of their widgets.

Writer A writes a 500-word article on how to use the company's widget as a doorstop. It's also not optimized for online use, inaccessible, and boring. The odd person who's never heard of a widget before might find this article helpful, but most site readers are going to bounce after visiting. It's going to tank.

Writer B writes a 500-word article on how to use the company's widget to cut their heating bill in half, make bespoke pizzas that are cheaper and better than any pizza oven and stop all robocalls from reaching the customer. It's also expertly optimized, customer-oriented and fun to read. Far more readers are going to read the whole article and share it. As a result, the company gets the customer reach it was hoping for.

What Writer B has done that Writer A and the employer haven't a clue about is (1) introduce useful novelty, which is what you want out of any creative professional because it's a money faucet and (2) understand the platform and the audience and write to both.

In what universe does it make sense to have both of them be paid the same?

You're an idiot if you hire a writer to write.

Aqua Letifer

@Axtremus said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

Still, I brought it up because it’s still being practiced.
https://www.pressboardmedia.com/magazine/why-do-we-pay-writers-by-the-word

Yes, I am quite aware of that.

It makes more sense in a publication setting, but only so much. The problem is that what you're hiring the writer to do is very hard to quantify. You can't touch it, hear it or even "know it when you see it"—a lot of people don't, because the average age at which most of us stop developing writing skills is about 11th grade English. So pretty much everything you use as a rate method is going to have serious shortcomings.

Doctor Phibes

So, how do you feel about tipping?

Is it counter-productive and confusing?

I think we should tip like they do in France. It's WAY better.

taiwan_girl

@Doctor-Phibes LOL

Aqua Letifer

@Doctor-Phibes said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

So, how do you feel about tipping?

Is it counter-productive and confusing?

I think we should tip like they do in France. It's WAY better.

I note your total lack of working for tips in your job history and politely suggest there's a correlation between that and your feelings on the subject.

(But by the way yes of course the tipping screen bullshit is getting out of hand.)

Doctor Phibes

@Aqua-Letifer said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

@Doctor-Phibes said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

So, how do you feel about tipping?

Is it counter-productive and confusing?

I think we should tip like they do in France. It's WAY better.

I note your total lack of working for tips in your job history and politely suggest there's a correlation between that and your feelings on the subject.

Actually, I did a paper-round for 5 years, and we got mucho tips at Christmas.

Anyway, I don't have particularly strong feelings on the subject. I just find it difficult to figure out what is the expectation because I'm living in a developing nation.

Aqua Letifer

@Doctor-Phibes said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

@Aqua-Letifer said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

@Doctor-Phibes said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:

So, how do you feel about tipping?

Is it counter-productive and confusing?

I think we should tip like they do in France. It's WAY better.

I note your total lack of working for tips in your job history and politely suggest there's a correlation between that and your feelings on the subject.

Actually, I did a paper-round for 5 years, and we got mucho tips at Christmas.

Doesn't actually count if you did the job before you were legally allowed to drive there.

The New Coffee Room

9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?