laura asked an interesting question today...

how many people does it take to do the work here every day? so i sat down and figured it out.

i used the weekend as a guide as to what is needed each day because the volunteers get in here and work hard and well so they are sort of saints optimal effiency workforce functioning level and i then actually used math to figure it all out by how many volunteer hours are the very basic to get everything done each day.

so in the house..ideally to get the work all done well without the volunteers taking laundry home..it takes 4 people from 9am-until about noon or so that is 12 hours combined. now that doesn't include the meds cuz angelina is the only one besides me who does the meds on the weekends and it doesn't include the field runs because the barn folks do those...so i add in another 2 hours per day for meds/runs and the total house time each day to get everything done is 14 hours.

the mp building is harder because when tammy is in there she spends hours making sure everything is perfect for the cats in her care and penny spends a lot of time with the rabbits cleaning, cuddling and grooming so if i include their actual hours..then it screws everything up...but as an estimate to cover the basics including the dog walks and restocking and general organizing and tidy ups...it is about 4 hours total per day for all of the cats, dogs and rabbits care needs who live in that building.

barns and barn yards and undercover areas, feeding, turning out, chickens and ducks is usually averaging about 3 people from 9-1 (sometimes there are WAY more folks but there is also on the weekends the dog walks/memorial time (which goes back to the house staff during the week) so i am averaging it to just 3 folks.)..so that is another 12 hours give or take and that doesn't include ferrier and vet visits which happen frequently during the week and take up extra time, nor does it include putting the barn guys to bed each night.

and none of this includes the stuff that i do either.

so all total..each day..my average guide to working hours needed daily between the three areas is 38 (wo)man hours working hard per day...i think that is pretty average and consistent altho on bad days if someone is really sick or injured..it could add up to more.

during the week mon-fri if the staffing hours are compared to what is needed on the weekend...

then we need a total of 70 hours to cover monday to friday in the house
we need 20 hours to cover the mp building.
and we need 60 hours to cover the barn yards..

that is 150 hours per 5 day week.

we actually only pay staff for 103 hours per 5 day week...so i think we are doing pretty well as far as staff ratios go.

the real problem of course...even if we are doing pretty well with the actual paid hours...we still can't really afford it so that kind of sucks.

personally i think we should just all retire from our paid jobs and then we can volunteer at saints...7 days a week and then saints would have a ton more money and not have to struggle so much!!