 Linda, still a student, is hired as a temporary for support tasks by a physical therapy business, with the understanding that she will generally take direction from the licensed therapists. On showing up for work, she is told that her duties will include some janitorial tasks, such as servicing the facility's toilets as her first and last duty on any day. Her first thought is this is not why she considered this employment. She wanted to learn the practice, with potential for finding later full-time work and perhaps a career direction. But then she realizes that they may not agree and let her go if she doesn't meet their needs. She accepts this as a duty, but not with enthusiasm. The first lesson is that working with other people always has value. Working with others usually has more personal value than other tasks that have to be performed alone. The second is that employment involves a purchase. The employer purchases the time and effort that the employee is to direct to meet wants and needs. It is up to the employer to coordinate the efforts of the employees, for that is how performance is gained. There is also reality in saying that an employer is not always that good at organizing the efforts of the people who are employed, but still has purchased the time and effort for direction. The quality of management is an issue for the business, not for the one who is employed. The tasks given the employee are generally a matter of management. Setting performance tasks is an issue for management and for technical support of management. Linda has addressed the essentials of her coordination of effort when she accepted the duties that the leader placed upon her. There was sufficient agreement between them as to what would be valued result, and this satisfied both the needs of the employer and Linda's purpose as an employee, which included getting paid for what she does. When people are hired into a work group, there is almost always a foreman or leader who attends to the coordination of their efforts. On a production line, each worker is given tasks to perform so that when everyone performs, the production result is attained. In a work group, the workers are given tasks or areas of application that when each does their part, they accomplish the larger group performance. There are also volunteer performance groups, and these are like employment except that the result is personal value to all those who take part. They agree to their part in the larger coordinated effort because they trust in the one who has arranged the coordination. Johnny has volunteered to help with his church's local effort at replacing its folding chairs with permanent pews. When he arrives, Mr. Brennan, who is in charge of the larger effort, asks him to work alongside Mr. Grayson, removing the old chairs and setting them at the curb for someone else to pick up. When they get that done, they will be removing boxes and packing material, getting them ready for disposal. Mr. Grayson is upbringing in the new pew materials and will be assembling them on-site and fastening most in place. Neither Jimmy nor Grayson will even touch one of the new pews before they are in place, yet they will both be honored as being part of the volunteer effort that resulted in the change. It is the group effort that they took part in, the coordinated effort that has value to all. Their contributions will be honored both by those who did the assembly work and others. They were effective employees, even though they did not require separate payment to sell their time and effort. It was enough that they valued the end result. The same was true for Mr. Brennan, who did none of the work of either getting rid of the excess or assembly and placement of the new pews. He did his part in arranging the coordinated efforts and will be valued by everyone involved for doing this part of the larger effort. Coordination of efforts can be extremely effective in getting things done. People working together in intentional coordination are many times more effective than people who work in isolation, even if they share value in what they would accomplish. Management has value. There is value in having intentional management to assure the coordination of the efforts of groups of people working to a common purpose. Management is a good and reasonable part of any such efforts, and investing in having that management can yield a very good result. The history of performance engineering starts in the early 1900s with the development of the modern foreman, someone who manages the efforts of many workers. The foreman plans their individual tasks, coordinates their efforts while they work, and steps in where needed to assure the coordination continues. These are all skills that the teenage student can address for learning. They may not be used immediately, but can still be learned to raise potential for future applications.