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Consider the following slightly hypothetical situation. There are five people, who have some washing up to do. It's a small kitchen, so only one person can do the washing up. They all agree to draw lots to determine who will wash up, whilst the other 4 people will go and have fun. Assuming the drawing of lots is perfectly random...
[Poll #736609]

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There are 36 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I think it's mathematically fair, I'm not sure it's socially fair.

As a one-off yes. But not if regular cleaning duties are set and it is someones turn.

I would favour swapping the person doing washing-up occasionally. Estimating the time taken to do the washing up, dividing that by five, and re-drawing lots among the people not washing up that often, to see who replaces the current washer-up, would be best, I think.

Personally I consider the natural unit of washing up to be the amount that can be left to dry by itself, thus eliminating the effort otherwise committed to drying up. Given we're talking about a small kitchen, I think that'd naturally cause the swapping, over time.

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In my experience this natural unit takes 15-20 minutes to produce.

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Depends utterly on whether it's a one-off thing or a regular occurrence. For a once-off yes, go with the lots; if it repeats then draw up a rota.

That was my reason for voting other! I suppose for a first occasion lot is fair, on a subsequent occasion perhaps the one who did it last time doesn't have to draw a lot (which would work for a slightly different grouping of people each time.)

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The 5 people each need to put £30 in to the pot to buy a dishwasher.

Where would that go, in a kitchen only large enough for one person to participate in washing up?

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You haven't seen my kitchen yet.

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In default of knowing who you are, I'll have to take your word for that.

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emperor and several others, er, have, and know the dinky baby dishwasher of cute of which I speak.

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If there's a lot of washing up then take it in turns.

Also, the four other people can sit in earshot of the kitchen and play verbal/word games of some sort so the person doing the washing up can join in, rather than the other four going off somewhere to have fun on their own.

Agreed about one-offness...but surely someone will volunteer in such a situation? And the other four then owe it to put off the MOST fun part of the fun until the washer-upper has rejoined them, as the washer-upper is, like, the hero of the hour!

Each washing-up-ee should have a number of ‘I want to avoid the washing up’ tokens. They should bid the amount that they want to use to avoid the washing up. The player who bids the least does the washing up, and gets all the ‘I want to avoid the washing up’ tokens that were bid by the other washing-up-ees. The tokens can be used to divide up other chores.

Ooh, I like that method... *will have to employ that should a similar situation arise for her*

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The nice thing is that subsets of the individuals taking part in the scheme can still use this method to divide their chores, which doesn't work with the rota system. The disadvantage is that it's open to gamesmanship - people bidding lower than their actual desire and gambling that other people will bid lower.

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A far better solution is for everybody to wash up, in timeslots. Person A washes up a fifth, then person B washes up a fifth, etc. Of course the tricky bit is dividing up the washing up into equal fifths; how many spoons make a plate?

Alternatively each person washes up the things they dirtied. But even that has its problems: everybody used the spoon used to stir the soup, so who washes it up?

The underlying problem is that life isn't fair...

The underlying problem is that life isn't fair...

'zactly :-)

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The washing up isn't worth it. Leave it to moulder and all go and have fun!

It would seem downright unfair to have left the world of shared houses and gone to live on my own at much greater expense, and not at least have the reward of not having to give serious thought to ethical dilemmas about washing up.

Therefore, No Opinion, and I will militate for my right to continue not having to have an opinion. :-þ

what everyone else said about one-offsand time slots.

If everyone involved gives uncoerced consent, then there is nothing that can reasonably be complained about.

If it is unfair, the degree of injury involved is so low as to disappear far below my noise threshold.

For a one-off, I'd think that fair, except that the person doing the cooking should be removed from the lot-drawing.

I've got two conflicting opinions on this

1) in agreement with

arnhem that if everyone thinks it's a fair way of doing it then it is

2) that it depends on the nature of the washing up - it seems unfair, for example, to make someone wash up other peoples burnt-on saucepans when all they've left is a couple of mugs

If they all agree it's fair then that's fine, but as

ixwin said it wouldn't be fair to wash heaps of other people's stuff. I've seen situations like that recently, and I think if one person isn't pulling their weight they should have their grubby washing dumped on their bed or something until they chip in. But then again I'm mean like that. ;)

I think it's equitable whilst not being what I'd choose as an arrangement.

They all agree

Well, that's OK, then.

Less fair than a rota; more fair than assignment by Loud Arguament or Guilt Trip.

I think the mechanism described is fair, unless it defies any pre-existing agreements (such as it being known to be a specific person's turn to wash up). If there's a lot of washing up, having several people each do part of it might be a better arrangement, though no more fair.

As an analogy, five people each contributing £100 to a pot then four of them taking away £125 each while the fifth (chosen fairly at random) goes away with nothing is entirely fair, it's just not necessarily a game people would want to play. The "one person has to do all the washing up" game is also fair, but also not a game people necessarily want to play. However, we are told that they all agreed to play the game.

No, it's not fair. It is a fair method of chosing the washing-uper, yes. However the others should stay and entertain him/her and not bugger off. If there is something to be buggered off to which all parties wish to attend then the washing up should be left (if one person doesn't want to go then they should wash up).

Hmmm... I'm guessing this is about equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome.

It would be fair in the sense that everyone has an equal chance and that, presumably, everyone has given informed consent to this way of deciding things beforehand, and had a genuine possibility of not agreeing to it.

However, if I were in that situation, I don't think I'd agree to that scheme. At any rate, I'd be looking for things like, are there any other common tasks so that they can all be shared out between the group? If not, then how about the random draw scheme, but the others buy the washer-upper a drink down the pub later? And so forth. In other words, I think equality of outcome is a valid concern of fairness as well. Alternatively, fairness includes ex post fairness as well as ex ante. Of course, you can add conditions that say there are no other tasks, and everyone's going away tomorrow to different countries and will never see each other again, so there's no chance to buy the drink, but then you're making the situation wholly artificial and unconneced to any real world question.

I'm good at washing up, I could do it :)

It's fair ceteris paribus.

For example, Justin's sensitive to washing-up liquid. So it's fair that I do the majority of the washing up. I'm allergic to dust, so it's fair that he does the hoovering.

Just because the method of choosing is fair, doesn't mean the result is fair. It might be ok for all concerned to behave like this, as long as they are all ok with it, but it isn't fair.

Personally, I'm in favour of division of labour - so I'd exempt the cook and the two people who shopped, for example - but that's just me.

Fair assuming that it's a one-off and that none of them felt pressurised into saying they were up for it.

That they all agreed to it makes the difference for me.

More generally, for me it depends on if this happens enough for the law of averages to work, the extent to which the people are equally the cause of the washing up, etc.

October