I am not particularly fond of driving -- not because I mind doing it myself but because it is necessary to look five directions at once, at all times, to see what the rest of the traffic (in cars or on foot) are doing. Give me a road without other traffic and I am happy to head off for the hills and beyond. These conditions usually take place at night (or in adverse weather conditions -- in which case there is less traffic but it is necessary to watch those others even more carefully). Less traffic, easier on the eyes, and less likely to trigger my mild narcolepsy.
But I can't always get my preferences -- so I drive along in the traffic as it is. I attempt to ignore the car behind me that is 10 feet away from my back bumper while driving at 60 mph. I try to anticipate what merging traffic is going to do and attempt to leave them a proper gap so they can merge. I negotiate changing lanes with some cars going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit and those few who go five to ten miles an hour UNDER the limit. And I usually get to my destination. At which point, my wife usually says "that was easy". Spoken like a true passenger.
This "passenger syndrome" happens in many parts of our lives. Business, personal, recreational, sport spectator and player, during cooking and cleaning, and wherever one person is doing the active portion while others are there to enjoy the endpoints.
There are certainly situations where multiple people work on a project and it is quite possible to appreciate what each person has done -- or to consider what others are doing as less important and less difficult. That reaction is based on internal reasons and are, in part, dependent on how much experience the others have in working within the other roles. In the best of situations, each truly understands that while it is easier for one person, with experience and knowledge, to do something than it would be for another person without such -- that does NOT make it "easy". The group is leveraging the skills, talents, and experiences of each to make it a much better joint project.
But not all work items are joint ones. If the chef comes up with a magnificent meal and they bring it onto the table and flourish it with a bow then most will truly enjoy it. But, if someone is loitering in the kitchen while the chef is doing their measuring, sifting, whisking, blending, preparing, and cooking then the more experienced, and skillful, the chef is -- the "easier" it will appear. Unless the observer has tried that recipe for themselves, watch out that they don't come out with "well, that certainly looked easy". Shoveling snow is always easy for the spectator.
There have been discussions in LinkedIn, and other business forums, about the concept of paying for the product rather than paying for the time. Within a given time, a wide difference of activity is possible depending on experience, skill, and talent. One person might do the task in three hours and another might do it in ten minutes. Is that ten minutes work worth the same amount of compensation as the other's three hours? If both situations produce the same result with the same quality then why shouldn't they each deserve the same compensation? This might mean that the experienced/skilled/talented individual gets an effective rate of 18 times that of the less experienced person -- but is that not fair?
In the upcoming era of remote work, and hybrid/blended work this is something to keep solidly in mind. Evaluate according to the work accomplished. But be careful not to treat it as fully equivalent. That one person may have been able to do the work in 1/18 of the time but if you try to give them 18 times the amount of work start sniffing around, and prepare for the fire sprinkler to go off, as you herd them into an early burnout. Time elapsed is not the same as mental (and sometimes physical) energy needed.
