Work by the hour?

There is a picture in this morning's Northwest Herald of a Lake in the Hills Public Works employee working on clean-up after last week-end's Ribfest. It's one of those "picture or 1,000-words" type of pictures. Sorry that you folks who read the Northwest Herald only online will miss it. I can't find it in the online version of the paper.

Hoping that the worker was following all the "rules" of the Public Works Department there, I won't mention him by name. But I wondered who trained him and who supervises him, and who measures his workplace efficiency?

The worker is standing alongside a small pile of about 7-8 plastic beer cups on the ground next to an open cardboard box. He is standing casually, somewhat slouched, left hand on hip, and holding an aluminum pole with a hand grip on one end and a spring-loaded pick-up prong on the other. Picture it; right? He doesn't have to lean over to pick up the beer cups.

Now, how long is it going to take him to pick up eight drink cups? Five minutes? More?

What would be wrong with putting on gloves and picking up all the beer cups in, say, about 10 seconds?

Nothing, except then he'd have to do more work.

How much do you think a maintenance worker in Lake in the Hills earns? $40,000/year? $50,000/year? For picking up beer cups? Are workers paid by the hour or salaried?

Why didn't LITH put kids to work for $8.25/hour?