Texas is the 4th hardest working state

This article at Texas Monthly has a lot of extra words. I skipped most of them to drop down to first, second and third.

Of course, Texas isn’t the hardest-working. That honor belongs to North Dakota, where the employment rate is high, the number of idle youth is low, and, if the movie Fargo is any indication, any attempt to circumvent an honest day’s living through a complicated extortion scheme is met with swift and grisly retribution. Coming in a close second was Alaska, where the always-bustling oil and fishing industries have greatly contributed to the state having the nation’s lowest unemployment rate and the highest average hours in a workweek; meanwhile, every commute presumably involves some sort of Jack London-esque adventure pitting man against nature. Texas was only narrowly beat out for third place by South Dakota, presumably because it takes entire swathes of laborers just to clean the nostrils on Mount Rushmore. That’s just a guess. Look, we didn’t bother digging too deeply into this. We’re only the fourth-hardest-working, right? Go ask North Dakota, why don’t you.

Maybe I should have read the rest because that's funny.

I'm interested in Colorado because the people I see around here work very hard. And what's insane about it is they appear to be cheerful about working.

Joking. It's not insane. It's brilliant. That people can choose their employment is brilliant. It's a tremendous advance for a society, for culture, for civilization. That people are happy doing what they do for income is brilliant. It's all What Color is Your Parachute all over the place. It's turning your fascination into a job, while conversely,  it's a job becoming your fascination.

The link within the article goes to WalletHub.

Colorado is 8th.

But that's below Hawaii at 6th. W-h-a-a-a-t?

It's too hot, too laid back, too amusing to be classified as more hardworking than Colorado. It's people in service industries, people in juice huts, restaurants and hotels, souvenir shops, surf instructors, tour guides, boat captains, fishermen, helicopter pilots, people on the beach who sell pot. That's what I saw anyway.  Come on!

Although I can see Nebraska and Wyoming beating Colorado. I've been to those places too and the people I saw really do work very hard at serious things.

Surprisingly, California is way down at 33. I always saw the people there as real hustlers. In the good sense. There's just so much going on all over the place, top to bottom. Everybody works hard. Even on weekends.  Incredibly brilliantly industrious people.

This list must be wrong.

To determine where Americans work the hardest, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 10 key indicators. They range from average workweek hours to share of workers with multiple jobs to annual volunteer hours per resident. Read on for the results, insight from a panel of experts and a full description of our methodology.

Oh? 10 key indicators. Well then, I'll look for recreation activities that amount to work. Recreation that takes a lot of energy or effort or work to support. Such as skiing and hang gliding. Two of my favorites, but also football and basketball and all the wild things like skate boarding and BMX. When you end up in Aspen during the music festival you'll be forced to notice people practicing their classical instruments on every street. In their hotel rooms with the windows open the sound of music fills the whole town.

Even fly fishing. Our little group of high school friends dropped in on a guy living in a caboose. Housing is quite expensive and Aspen workers are pushed to the outskirts. The guy sat at his table and made a dozen flies then drove down to the stream to catch his dinner. Although it's only fishing, and looks rather passive, that whole thing took a lot of time, energy, knowledge and effort. Work. Standing in the water and casting, concentrating on fish. Work. It doesn't seem like work but it is.

A hobby of restoring old vehicles is very real work.

When you measure work you must include all the hobbies and recreation people do to stay busy. It's real work. And a lot of that type of work is impossible to measure. My own mother did an insane amount of volunteer work. She was always thinking of things. Including mud wrestling in pudding. My sister has the photo album as proof. She purchased and delivered turkeys herself for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. She collected toys for Christmas on her own. She stayed insanely busy in ways that are not recorded.

Do they include these forms of very real work? Let's see.

There are links for 1) main findings 2) ask the experts and 3) methodology.

Methodology: 2 main factors; 1) direct work factors 2) indirect work factors.

1) Direct work factors -- total points 80

* average workweek hours: triple weight ~36.92 points.

* employment rate: full weight ~12.31 points.

* share of households where no adults work: full weight ~12.31

* share of workers leaving vacation time unused: half weight ~6.15 points

* share of engaged workers: half weight ~6.15 points
( the share of employees who are "involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace," defined by Gallup.)

Know where I see this to an extreme? Whole Foods and Trader Joes. The workers in both those places are awesome. Also the workers at Medical Clinic where I just started to go. Those people are always so busy and and cheerful. And you won't know that until you talk to them.

Know where it was the worst? The Federal Reserve Bank where I have most of my work experience. The people work very hard and very well but their heads are not really in it. It's not something one can actually love. It's not what can be described as a calling. Except for a few bank examiners, who write books about what they are doing, and those people are genuinely twisted. They are so sear-ee-us.

* idle youth (16-24), half weight ~6.15 points

2) Indirect work factors -- total points: 20

* average commute time: full weight ~5.00 points

* workers with multiple jobs -- full weight ~5.00

* annual volunteer hours per resident: full weight ~5.00

* average leisure time spent per day; full weight ~5.00

So then, no, they do not include work-like leisure activities and that leaves out quite a lot when you compare it with sitting around all day watching t.v.