Research: It needs to be an Hourly job

As I see it, there are 3 main ways that jobs can pay money: by the Hour, by the Task, and Salaried. I should note that some Salaried jobs are really Hourly jobs in disguise…if you are required to keep track of the hours you work, or make up for time you missed, then it’s an Hourly job. If you get paid overtime for working extra, it’s an Hourly job. Since working on a dissertation doesn’t pay money (it actually costs money), I am allowed to choose whether I want to think of it as Hourly, by-the-Task or Salaried.

By-the-Task sounds like a good idea, but since I have yet to finish a single dissertation-related Task, I am not optimistic about this approach. Even if I break down the big Tasks into small pieces that can theoretically be done in a day, I know that frequently they will take much longer than I expect (everything does!), and I will give up in despair. If I can’t even finish my single Task of the day, why should I work on research at all?

Thinking of the dissertation as a Salaried job is an even worse idea. With a Salaried job, all I have to do is pretend to work. I’m neither required to complete certain Tasks, nor work a fixed number of Hours. So I could potentially pretend to work on my dissertation for years at a time, continuing to receive my paycheck (remember, it’s negative!), without ever getting any closer to my degree. I must confess that I have done this at times, sometimes for long stretches, but it is definitely a bad plan.

My only hope is to think of my dissertation as an Hourly job, one that requires me to work a certain number of hours each day or week. If I can’t do the scheduled hours one day, I need to make them up later that week. (I think this is called comp time, but I’m not sure, since I have almost no experience with Hourly full-time jobs.) If my paying job were an Hourly job, I would be very motivated to work the required number of hours, because I would know that if did not do so, I would get fired.

Unfortunately, the Hourly research job does not pay money, which means I will have to trick myself into meeting the Hourly requirements. I also (fortunately or unfortunately, not sure which) am unlikely to get fired from the Hourly research job, at least not for a couple more years when I reach the 10-year limit on doctoral studies. Texas A&M would be silly to fire me, as I am a reliable source of income for the university. I cheerfully pay my tuition each semester, while utilizing a very small portion of the resources which my fees support. I am probably a net taker when it comes to the Library Use Fee ($26.45), and perhaps eventually the University Writing Center Fee ($8), but I am definitely a net contributor to the Instructional Equipment Enhancement, the Transportation System, the Recreational Sports System, the Student Center Complex, Student Recreation Center, and the Career Center, for which I pay fees of $75, $72.50, $70, $101.92, $100, and $6.75, respectively, without using them at all. I pay the same $275 for parking as full-time students who are on campus every day, even though I live 70 miles away and come to campus only occasionally. Why on earth would A&M have a 10-year limit? They should be trying to keep me there forever! Of course all this sounds suspiciously like whining, which I honestly did not intend, and is completely off the point. Back to my musings on Hourly jobs….

Another problem is that I have very rarely had Hourly jobs, so I am not used to this. Being required to work a certain number of hours each week is a foreign concept to me. My newspaper-throwing job, which I held for 6 years, was a pay-by-the-Task job: I received a fixed number of pennies for each newspaper I delivered. Thus all my energy was directed into finding ways to shave a few seconds off my total paper-delivery time. Besides continually re-mapping my route, I was always trying creative new schemes, such as hauling my paper bundles to the apartments in advance, or retrofitting giant trash cans with high-tech wheels to withstand the wear and tear of hundreds of 6-pound big-city Sunday newspapers. Except for a select few who copied my schemes, most of my fellow paper carriers thought I was insane, and were satisfied to simply deliver their papers the same old way year after year, with never a thought of improvement. I did track my Hours, as one would with an Hourly job, but only so that I could track changes in my pay rate per hour and per ton of papers delivered.

In a way, the research job is a by-the-Task job, as my only required Task is to write one dissertation—when the Task is finished, I will receive a degree. But somehow having one giant Task that must be done in small pieces over a hundreds of days is far more intimidating than having hundreds of little Tasks (like newspapers) that must be done in one day.

In a way, my current paid job is a by-the-Task job, because I am required to teach a certain number of classes each semester. However, it is not a true by-the-Task job like the newspapers, because the goal in teaching classes is not to get the classes taught with a minimal amount of time and effort each week. Can you imagine a student ever saying, “Wow, that was a wonderful class! That professor did almost nothing the whole semester, what an efficient job of teaching!” For every class taught, I have probably invested more time than just the minimum to get by, but far less than I should. As a new colleague shared with me just today, “Class preparation will take as much time as you let it”. Since no one really knows how much time is “enough” when it comes to preparing a class, I really don’t know if I’ve done “enough”. Since “enough” is not well-defined, teaching is a Salaried job, not a true by-the-Task job. It is definitely not an Hourly job, as I don’t have to track my hours, or make up for days when I work fewer hours than usual, and I don’t get paid overtime. Part of the problem with making research an Hourly job is my continual uncertainty about how much is “enough” time to spend on the Salaried teaching job. I do not want to shortchange my students—it’s not their fault they happened to get an instructor who is working on a dissertation!

The issue is balance…balancing the needs of job, school, and family, balancing short-term goals versus long-term goals, and so on, and becoming at peace with the fact that not everything will be done optimally. Doing one thing optimally usually means doing another sub-optimally, and that’s okay, as long as we are optimizing the most important thing for that time. We must make careful choices, counting the cost of each choice, and praying continually for wisdom, from him who gives it generously and without reproach (James 1:5). So, well-wishing friends, let’s all remind one another that it’s okay for some things to be done imperfectly, as long as those things are chosen with wisdom. And let's be patient with one another, realizing another person's priority may not coincide with our own.