Laboring Tasks

Laboring is taking more time than is necessary to complete tasks. When laboring occurs the time to do a given task increases radically from the norm. If the business is selling a service, and charging by the hour, the practice of laboring the job benefits the business.  To think of what laboring is think of waiting in line to pour yourself some self-serve coffee. The line moves along at a fairly predictable pace day in and day out. Then there is this day a customer who labors pouring coffee, adding sugar and milk, tasting and retasting the coffee consuming more than five minutes of time when a minute and a half might be the standard. When a person is laboring a task all sorts of distractions occur and slow down the task. To labor a task is to be removed from one's conscience. There are no standards; the labor is in a world of their own without reference to anything but themselves. Laboring is also a sign of incompetence, illness, a bad hair day and the like. What is important to know when ethically evaluating laboring in a business is whether or not it repeatedly occurs. Once it has become an acceptable part of business it become ethically questionable. This is also something that can occur when employees reach retirement age.

• Churning up business
• Padding time cards
• Incompetence
• Criminal intent
• Due diligence
• Efficiency
• Leading the customer to false expectation of value