From: Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.berkeley.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 18 1998 - 14:42:02 MDT
Joe Jenkins writes:
>... returning from a two week vacation, a
>pile of work worth 1000 hours of time has piled up. When this work is
>completed, another 2 weeks vacation have been earned. Well, why not
>spawn off 100 copies who will work for ten hours each including time
>to make "lessons learned" notes. While this work is being done go
>home and unpack your bags. Upon returning all 100 copies will
>voluntarily terminate because 10 hours is not long enough to have
>developed a conflict of interest. The original only has to take the
>time to read the "lessons learned" notes and go pack bags for another
>two weeks vacation. ...
>Today I have 1000 hours of work on my desk, of which the
>experience gained from doing it could easily be replaced with a short
>"lessons learned" list. Especially one written by myself to myself.
After repeating this scenario 26 times, when you are a copy starting
in on a job, you have a stack of 2600 sets of lessons learned in front
of you, and you haven't done a lick of work in a year. Do you really
think you could read them all and then get your job done in ten hours?
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-2627
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