The mathematics of co-working
Presh Talwalkar at Mind Your Decisions introduces us to a common co-worker problem in Most US College Students Cannot Solve This Basic Math Problem. The Working Together Riddle.
Alice and Bob can complete a job in 2 hours Alice and Charlie can complete the same job in 3 hours Bob and Charlie can complete the same job in 4 hours How long will the job take if Alice, Bob, and Charlie work together?
To save you having to watch the entire video, the answer is 24/13 hours, which is about 1 hour and 51 minutes.
There are two take-home messages here.
Firstly, the addition of Charlie saves only nine minutes, compared to just Alice and Bob working together. Charlie is quite clearly a deadbeat, a stoner, or middle management. The third possibility not being mutually exclusive to either of the others.
Secondly, Alice is working her fucking tits off carrying two men. I bet she gets paid less as well. Honestly, like cops, there's never an SJW around when you need one, is there?
I tried to work out how long it would take for the three of them to do the job alone, but I gave up in the end. The best that I could come up with was a vague estimation.
From the information given, and accepting that Charlie's help
makes little difference, Alice working alone would take a little over three hours, while Bob would take a little over four hours. Charlie would probably die in harness.
Alice is clearly the most efficient, or hard-working, but Bob's assistance cuts her time by over a third, so he's definitely pulling his weight. The only weight that Charlie's pulling is his gut…or his best friend
. So, definitely middle management.