The first person you pay

Processing is the bottleneck, so processing is what gets handed over, in a specific order.

What to hand over

Cleaning of robust material, once somebody has been shown what not to wash.

Housing: transferring specimens into boxes, cutting cushions, filling flats.

Photography, once the setup is fixed and the process is a routine.

Packing and shipping.

Data entry from a written sheet.

All of them are checkable by eye and all of them are the bulk of the hours.

What not to hand over

Trimming, which is irreversible.

Identification, until they can do it and state a basis.

Grading and pricing, which is judgment built over years.

Anything touching the labels, longest of all. A helper tidying a collection can destroy more value in an afternoon than a year of decay, and they will think they were helping.

The rule to state on day one: specimen and label move together, or neither moves.

Making the work handable

A written procedure per task, with the actual steps, not a demonstration.

A reference specimen or a reference photograph to compare against.

And a hazard list: which specimens are asbestiform, radioactive or arsenic-bearing, and what to do about them. Somebody else handling the collection has a right to know that before they start.

The employment part

Employee and contractor are distinguished by the reality of the arrangement rather than by what it is called. Somebody working your hours, in your space, with your equipment, to your instructions is generally an employee.

Wage and hour obligations attach from the first person, and so does an insurance conversation.

References