There have been information workers for a long time. However, even after all this time, it is amazing that one of the biggest misconceptions is that all information workers are equal (or at least approximately equivalent.) It basically goes like this: an hour of worker A’s time is pretty much equal to an hour of worker B’s time.
In reality this couldn’t be further from reality. It’s like saying a high school graduate today is as smart as Albert Einstein. Well, maybe that example is a little extreme, but it’s really not too far off from how a lot of people think.
I work in the software industry building software, but all information worker jobs seem to have this issue.
It is rather surprising this misconception exists at all since we all know that each person has their own unique talents, strengths and weaknesses. We all see evidence of this in our school days, especially in areas of the arts.
In reality: Worker A could be approximately equivalent to Worker B, however, fairly often one worker is exponentially better or worse than the other.