Ask Mr. Burzlaff

I’m thinking about starting a weekly Q&A session for this website. Here’s a troubled reader who requests some insight.

Dear Chrisforaday,
I thought you were swamped at work and had to get stuff done? All I hear about is how you can finally ease up since people are gone. How does that work? I need to get out of the produce business.
Sincerely,
Girthy in Bakersfield

Well Girthy, there’s a simple mathematical formula to explain how work actually gets done in my industry:

Where:
T = Total time available (held constant)
w = Available work time
n = The number of people present
c = Number of pots of coffee made
b = Average bladder capacity of n people per c pots made
x = Average consumed liquid associated with bladder b
Ga = Actual budget spent
Gp = Projected budget
j = Number of projects
k = Costs associated with projects
u = Urgency of projects
M = Conversion factor into meetings held
R = Personal time spent
Φ = random probability factor dependant upon seasonal, presentational and mandatory training factors.

As you can see, people provide that x-factor in my daily routine. What's shown aside from work time, w, and personal time, R, is the impact people have on meetings. As the number of people decrease, meeting time decreases and as a result more time can be distributed to work time and relaxation time. You will also notice that the actual business aspect of it all enters the equation, but is rated minimally compared to the impact that people have since meetings cannot occur without personnel. If meeting time is reduced to a minimum and work time is held constant, my personal time increases, thus I can do the same amount of work in a day without meetings as a day with meetings and feel more at ease with the increase of personal time. See how simple it is! I hope this clears it up for you Girthy, and keep those questions coming!