The problem here is that the first 40 hours of work--which the author believes has low utility--are the hours which generate the money to pay for the author's job. The author places higher utility on the next 20 hours, but those hours don't generate money, but prestige and scientific advancement.
The situation is similar to an artist who cannot (yet) make money off her "artistic" work. Instead she has to do commercial work to support her "artistic" ambitions.
Utility seems to have several dimensions. It's easy to say that the first 40 hours of commercial work have low utility, but without those first hours, you would not able to survive to do the rest of the work that you are more interested in.
At the end of the day, you have to pay your bills. The work that pays your bills is not automatically lower utility than the work that you do for fun/prestige/skill/art/etc.
Except that's likely not the case here. For many professors, their salary is effectively paid by grants they bring to the university, which depend solely on their research. People who are paid to be teaching with no expectation of research do not generally have tenure track positions.
The situation is similar to an artist who cannot (yet) make money off her "artistic" work. Instead she has to do commercial work to support her "artistic" ambitions.
Utility seems to have several dimensions. It's easy to say that the first 40 hours of commercial work have low utility, but without those first hours, you would not able to survive to do the rest of the work that you are more interested in.
At the end of the day, you have to pay your bills. The work that pays your bills is not automatically lower utility than the work that you do for fun/prestige/skill/art/etc.