how work works

[narwhalParticipant]

Something I’ve thought a lot about recently is the actual nature of work as well as the common intentional misunderstanding of work.

Work is about supply and demand at it’s core. A person’s salary is directly tied to their willingness and ability to do the work compared to everyone else’s willingness and ability (supply)…against how badly people want that work (work). Just looking on the supply side, this explains why education and/or skills are so important. But willingness is so often forgotten. As well, the volume of people willing and able to do the same work is also often forgotten.

Demand is also forgotten. There are few people willing and able to lift extremely heavy weights. The skill doesn’t pay well because there is little demand for that skill these days since machines can handle the work.

These days, people want to define salary based on fairness, a rather nebulous term that means nothing really. It’s just an excuse to strong arm money without providing actual benefit.

People want to be paid because they have the skills, yet do not realize that they don’t display a willingness to do the job well, or that supply for the job is relatively high. Or they are bothered that someone gets paid well for a relatively easy skillset, yet it is in high demand.

The biggest misconception about work that are often twisted around are the aspects of capability and level of effort. Neither one of these has an impact on supply or demand and therefore should not have an impact on salary.

Say for example a man and a woman work in a warehouse. The man is more capable of moving heavy things around, so the false argument would be that the man should be expected to perform more work for the same pay level of work as the woman. Stated another way, the man and woman should be paid for their level of effort, not the results of their effort. The reality is that if a man moves 100 boxes in one hour while the woman only moves 50, then the pay should be half for the woman.

To use a different example, a man who works as a garbage collector is likely to earn a smaller salary then an desk jockey, even though he is putting in a lot less effort. You could even argue that the garbage collector does more work than the desk jockey. But the supply of potential garbage collectors is much higher, and probably less demand. All that really matters is supply and demand.

I see this tying back to relationships because supply and demand are never considered, yet it should be. A couple with a shared income where one earns a 6 figure salary while the other works as a teacher are treated as equal contributors to the relationship. Why? Because of made up fairness and the misconception that the fact that men are generally more capable than women matters. Instead, actual contributions are ignored and effort is measured instead. Level of effort is irrelevant, and often lied and manipulated to the lesser contributors advantage anyway.

Ok. Then do it.

[joetechParticipant]

That’s why marriage and co-habitation are not and never were equal partnerships. More like a hostile takeover by a hedge fund. In the end, the stronger source is drained to the benefit of the weaker.

"Don't follow in my footsteps...I stepped in something."

[Author]

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