Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

In our brave new world of remote working and such, one thing remains: evidence of work.

A: What are you doing?

B: Working.

A: What have you done?

B: I read three books and six papers as assigned.

A: Uh, why should I believe that?

There is no evidence of work. All that information is in the mind of person B. Person B needs evidence of work.

B: Well, I have written a report on each item I read. See here. Check the notes.

A: Oh, evidence of work. Okay. I’ll, uh, er, get to those reports. Thanks.

All this remote work-from-anywhere stuff we are doing now requires some evidence of work. “See this,” says person B, “it didn’t exist three days ago. It exists now. I created it while I was working. It is evidence of work. You now have something you can use.”

This is pretty simple stuff. It seems we wouldn’t be struggling with it so much, but then we are an odd lot.