"Okay, but look, a schedule's not about ordering anyone else around," Jim said, even though he knew this was a dumb hill to die on. He just didn't like to hear people dismiss the merits of a chore wheel. "The kind of thing we're talking about is usually settled at random anyway, with dice or the proverbial wheel or something. The schedule's about making sure everyone's covering all the bases, and also making sure that certain people don't get burned out on doing the same chores all the time. It lowers the interpersonal friction and the nagging about this stuff by a huge margin. Like sign-up sheets are one way to do it, for sure, and every community has different dynamics, but I lived with the sign-up system once, and it wasn't as efficient. The sign-ups add another step to the process, and because everybody in this one place was on a different work schedule, some people had an unfair advantage in sniping the best chores from the sign-up sheet, just because they happened to be awake and in the house at the right time. Eventually some new guy wound up with—I'm veering very far afield of the point, I'm sorry," he interrupted himself, embarrassed. Nobody needed to hear him filibuster about his past monastic grievances. "We can—um, we can vote on it, anyway," he finished lamely. "Consensus is good."