Katie’s Notebook: August 10, 2023
Happy Thursday, friends.
Is anyone else ready for back to school and more normal routines again? I know I am. This week’s notebook entry is a mix of fun and serious. Drop me a note if something hits with you. I’m curious about what you have enjoyed! A friend replied to one entry where I shared children’s books on different food cultures around the world and his plan to check them out for his own kids. That made me smile. It’s nice to know we are in the world together. Here’s my top 5 for the week:
Barbie and Boobs: After seeing the Barbie movie over the weekend, I did a deep dive into Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler. I was fascinated to find out that after she left Mattel (under some dubious circumstances) she was an early inventor of post-mastectomy breast prosthesis! So cool! And yes, you should see the movie.
A favorite WFH lunch: About once a month I make this quiche over the weekend and eat it with a salad or piece of fruit as my #girllunch for the week.
For the #fempreneurs: I came across these 15 Resources for Women-Owned Businesses and thought they were worth a share. One of my own personal favorite resources is a quarterly lunch I have with other Raleigh/Durham/ Chapel Hill based independent business ladies. If you are in the area, send me an email for an invite.
The most insane podcast: My friend suggested The Retrievals podcast about the Yale Fertility Clinic. A nurse was stealing Fentanyl, the pain medication used for egg retrievals, and swapping it with saline. The first episode alone got me thinking about how female pain is justified, swatted away, and ignored, and even worse, just considered to be part of the women’s reproductive health experience. This gripping story is a must listen. Healthcare workers should considering having a ‘podcast club’ in lieu of a journal club to discuss the individual and systematic failures that led to hundreds of women facing traumatic IVF procedures.
Salaries vs. Hours vs. Value Based Pricing: This article from Gusto on the history of time tracking is fascinating.
“The labor theory of value indicates the economic value of a good or service as determined by its total amount of labor required to produce it. … You can determine the economic value of a good or service by how much time [or] how much of your labor was required to produce it.”
This is still a very common way for companies to bill for their efforts, and it makes a lot of sense in the ‘clock in/ clock out’ world. However, in a world of work/life integration with intellectual effort as currency and product impact as a measurement of value, I think hourly billing makes less sense. Salaried workers receive a flat rate for being employees — not tied to hours or effort (ok…they may have expected hours per week in the office but we all know that isn’t a great indicator of everyone’s productivity. Ahem.)We check emails while brushing our teeth, respond to Slack messages at random hours of the day, and think in the shower.
In a recent convo with a fellow contractor, she mentioned angst about how to account for those tasks in an hourly billing model. Additionally, hourly billing doesn’t motivate a contractor to work faster, nor does it reward experience that improve efficiencies. I’ve moved away from hourly billing for most projects towards retainers and value-based pricing. These are based upon expected amounts of effort, and it make life easier for both me and clients. I know what I’ll get paid and they know how much to budget and we all work towards getting the most of the engagement. Economic value discussions always raise some eyebrows, so I’m curious about your thoughts!
