The paper asked three workers: how many hours is a week of work?

THE ANT (leafcutter): All of them. I cut, I carry, I come back, I cut. The colony doesn't close. If you're asking whether I'm working a hundred hours a week, yes. If you're asking whether I'm getting a hundred hours of anything done, ask the leaf. Half of what I carry gets dropped on the way.

THE WRASSE (bluestreak cleaner): I run a station. Fish line up. I clean them. They leave, another one comes. I can't take a day off, because if I do, the clients go to the next station and don't come back. So I'm open every day. I'd tell you my hours, but I've never been closed long enough to count them.

THE KOALA : I work about two hours a day.

THE ANT: That's ten hours a week.

THE KOALA: Fourteen. I work weekends.

THE WRASSE: And the rest of the time?

THE KOALA: Sleeping. Eighteen, twenty hours. I'm processing.

The ant and the wrasse looked at each other.

THE ANT: Here is what I don't understand. Every season they ask more. More leaves, faster, longer trail. And every season there's less at the end of it. Less food back at the nest for the ones who did the carrying. Less thanks. The trail's longer and the leaf is smaller.

THE WRASSE: It's the same at the station. More fish, the same mouth. After a point I'm not cleaning better. I'm cleaning worse, faster. Nobody notices until somebody gets bitten.

THE KOALA: That's the point you stop.

THE ANT: We can't stop.

THE KOALA: I know. That's why you're asking me how many hours is a week.

The ant was asked once more: a hundred hours, or ten?

THE ANT: Ask me which of them mattered.

The koala was asleep.