When I go to lunch from work, there are two places. One of them is closer to the work, the waiters are fast, and the cost of lunch is € 3,50. The other one is a bit further, the waiters are slow, and the cost of lunch is € 3,30. The quality of food is the same.
I prefer the former one, but some of my colleagues reminded me that I should not ignore the small difference in costs, because it accumulates during the year. Or, as a LW reader would say, when I am making a timeless decision, my costs are not just costs of one lunch, but of all lunches that I will choose by that decision.
The only problem with this argument is that not only the costs of lunch accumulate by the timeless decision. The wasted time accumulates too. Actually, deciding it from the timeless point of view, it seems to me even more important that I should choose the former restaurant.
Some numbers: Lunch in the former restaurant takes 20-30 minutes in total (walking from work to restaurant, waiting for the meal, eating, paying, walking from restaurant to work). Lunch in the latter restaurant takes 40-50 minutes (walking is longer, but mostly it is longer waiting for the meal and for paying). So we are talking about 20 minutes of time in exchange for € 0,20. Or about € 0,60 for an hour of my time spent waiting in the restaurant, which means that I come home from the work later.
Multiply it by 20 working days in a month, that means 6 hours 40 minutes in exchange for € 4. In 24 working days, the difference would be 8 hours (one full day) for € 4,80.
Seriously, would any of my colleagues accept an offer to work more than 8 hours overtime (to be fair, let’s assume that the overtime is not work, they just have to sit there) in exchange for € 4,80 (let’s make it cca €8 pre-tax)? Or, to fight the status quo, wouldn’t any of them accept an offer to take a day off when there is nothing to do, in exchange for € 4,80 (€ 8 pre-tax) deduction from their salary? To me the answer is obvious. My colleagues seem happy to trade their time for less than 1⁄10 of what they make at work.
Time you spend sitting at a table need not be wasted.
Personally, I have a nonfiction book out of the library at all times. If I have to spend 20 minutes sitting at a table, then it’s going to be 20 minutes spent reading, not just waiting.
There are other things you can take with you which can be used to increase the baseline value of the time you spend between other activities.
Using fungibility, in real life:
When I go to lunch from work, there are two places. One of them is closer to the work, the waiters are fast, and the cost of lunch is € 3,50. The other one is a bit further, the waiters are slow, and the cost of lunch is € 3,30. The quality of food is the same.
I prefer the former one, but some of my colleagues reminded me that I should not ignore the small difference in costs, because it accumulates during the year. Or, as a LW reader would say, when I am making a timeless decision, my costs are not just costs of one lunch, but of all lunches that I will choose by that decision.
The only problem with this argument is that not only the costs of lunch accumulate by the timeless decision. The wasted time accumulates too. Actually, deciding it from the timeless point of view, it seems to me even more important that I should choose the former restaurant.
Some numbers: Lunch in the former restaurant takes 20-30 minutes in total (walking from work to restaurant, waiting for the meal, eating, paying, walking from restaurant to work). Lunch in the latter restaurant takes 40-50 minutes (walking is longer, but mostly it is longer waiting for the meal and for paying). So we are talking about 20 minutes of time in exchange for € 0,20. Or about € 0,60 for an hour of my time spent waiting in the restaurant, which means that I come home from the work later.
Multiply it by 20 working days in a month, that means 6 hours 40 minutes in exchange for € 4. In 24 working days, the difference would be 8 hours (one full day) for € 4,80.
Seriously, would any of my colleagues accept an offer to work more than 8 hours overtime (to be fair, let’s assume that the overtime is not work, they just have to sit there) in exchange for € 4,80 (let’s make it cca €8 pre-tax)? Or, to fight the status quo, wouldn’t any of them accept an offer to take a day off when there is nothing to do, in exchange for € 4,80 (€ 8 pre-tax) deduction from their salary? To me the answer is obvious. My colleagues seem happy to trade their time for less than 1⁄10 of what they make at work.
Time you spend sitting at a table need not be wasted.
Personally, I have a nonfiction book out of the library at all times. If I have to spend 20 minutes sitting at a table, then it’s going to be 20 minutes spent reading, not just waiting.
There are other things you can take with you which can be used to increase the baseline value of the time you spend between other activities.