In Defense of Doing it the Hard Way

My close friends know I’ve been working in my spare time on a novel. I don’t have much spare time, so this pet project has been simmering for a long while. A very long time.???It’s not the number of pages left to write that's the problem. Currently it has 27 chapters and comes out to about 330 paperback size pages so far.??Shouldn’t be too hard to "get 'er done", right?

It’s actually the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted, and I've done a lot of hard things. It’s hard because I have three perfectionist bosses to please and they are: Me, Myself and I. ?The answer to the inevitable question of when it is going to be published is: “When all three of us are satisfied with it!”?

I’m sick of the bickering between them, so I’m taking a break to write this LinkedIn post. It's only about a 3 to 5 minute read.

I’m no stranger to cranking out a lot of words. The longest vehicle test reports I’ve had to do professionally as a Test Engineer were the 20,000 mile durability test reports. It would take about a month to accumulate 20,000 miles by driving 2-3 shifts, 7 days a week, while simultaneously collecting and processing the daily data to create a 300 page report to the customer.?Sales would optimistically promise 21 days so that pressure would be a constant stress because tests rarely go as smoothly as projected.?

Grumbling about the work load and tight deliverable timing would invariably get a “Work smarter, not harder” response. That tired old axiom has been around for as long as I have been working.?

I first heard it during my dealership mechanic days back in the seventies.?In case you don’t know, auto mechanics get paid a flat rate. Each job is given a labor book time that specifies how long a defined repair should take. The mechanic would get paid for those hrs times his hourly pay rate.?

For example, if a job called out a specific repair should take 1.5 hrs, that’s what you would get paid for. ?If it took you two hours, you still only got paid 1.5.?If you got the job done in an hour, you would still get the 1.5 hrs of pay.?If there’s enough repair orders and you can consistently beat the book time, you could make decent pay.???

For some mechanics, the trick to beating the clock was not to work harder, but to Work Smarter by cutting corners and steps to shave off time. However on a slow day, a mechanic could be on the clock for 8 hours but only flag half that in repair time. Cutting corners wouldn’t get you the full 8 hours of pay no matter how fast you got the assigned 4 hours of work done. ???I didn’t like cutting corners but there was no financial reward for taking your time.???

Later on I discovered that having a reputation for taking your time and doing a good job was something wealthy car enthusiasts would pay extra for. Working in a climate controlled, carpeted garage was a nice perk as well.

If you break down the Work Harder- Not Smarter phrase, there’s obviously two parts to it. The Work Smarter part I agree with. In other words don’t be stupid. Most jobs are easier to accomplish and with a higher probability of success, IF there’s some thought and planning involved before proceeding. Having the right tools always makes any chore less of a chore.?Nobody wants to work hard, right?

That brings me to the point where I wish put forth a contrarian view about hard work.

We are told growing up that we live in a capitalist meritocracy that rewards those that excel over those that slack off. If you work hard, you will become rich and successful.?Those lucky few that are in the top 1% claim they got there by working harder than everyone else and those that are not wealthy are merely victims of their own laziness and stupidity.

However, I’ve known some very hard workers that can toil for long stretches with no complaint that will never advance beyond living paycheck to paycheck no matter how hard they work. ?So, if Work Smarter-Not Harder is the secret to success, then is simply working harder not a smart way to be successful??That seems to negate their We-Work-Harder-Than-You argument.

Wealthy people certainly don’t need all those millions to comfortably survive. After some point, you have everything you need and acquiring even more wealth merely becomes a measuring stick to compare position on the social status ladder.

Rather than veer off into a treatise on how diverging wealth inequality is not sustainable, I wish to argue my case for the intrinsic value of hard work, without perpetuating the myth that capitalism is a meritocracy.

It has been said that if dandelions were hard to grow they’d be highly prized by horticulturists. ?Orchids are expensive because they are difficult to grow here in the northern hemisphere but in the South Pacific islands they grow like dandelions.?What something is worth is based partly by scarcity, difficulty or time required to acquire.?If something is easy to find or a job is easy to do, it’s not as valuable. If everybody gets a medal, the medals don’t mean anything.

As I discovered early on, quality work commands a premium over “good enough” work.?I know skilled artisans that don’t have to advertise because people seek them out, willing to wait in line for the best.

Having worked for or been around the very wealthy, one thing they all have in common is the need to brag about how difficult some prize possession was to acquire. A custom bespoke vehicle that takes several years to build by hand for example.?I’ve heard detailed stories around the dinner table about cost-is-no-object, labor intensive methods of custom painting of rare collector cars in the pursuit of absolute perfection.?

Over the several decades of my automotive career, I’ve often had to Work Smarter-Not Harder to meet the mandated deliverables from upper management. Get the job done as quickly and as profitably as possible. Go on to the next job in the queue. ?It’s a living but not very satisfying, unless you were a hamster in a past life.

The projects that that gave me the greatest sense of satisfaction were those that were the most difficult.?Even if it was something that I was not getting any money for, the feeling of conquering an extreme and interesting challenge was priceless. ?

I think most humans have an inherent need to survive, strive and be challenged but for some life has become too comfortable and easy.?Eventually that need becomes a subconscious itch that needs scratching.?

For example, the explosion of extreme endurance sports like triathlons has become an outlet for people in the higher demographics (ever price a Tri-Bike?) seeking to get outside the suburban comfort zone and test their limits.?Hang around these amateur endurance athletes long enough and the conversation frequently centers on how hard an event was. ??

The free climbing community often challenge themselves by climbing the most difficult routes and without safety ropes.??

?To paraphrase John F. Kennedy: “We do these things not because they are easy. We do them because they are hard.”

?

Disclaimers: This unpaid, good-enough-for-the-internet blog post is the sole IP of the writer. All opinions and grammatical mistakes are my own. Even though it would have been a good example of working smarter, no A.I. was used. I did use the spell checker.??All rights reserved. ? Paul C. Wright 3/5/2023