As an employer I am paying you to put my work ahead of yours.
I am paying you to be productive so that with the collective production of the employees, the company can outmaneuver the competition.
This lackadaisical approach and work-ethic means that, of course the mile high task list will always be there. It'll never ever get done!
You're buying his time and experience for agreed upon hours. You don't have the ability to make him put your work ahead of his anymore than you have the ability to make him put your work ahead of his family, personal life, education or retirement savings.
In discussions like this I tend to fall on sympathizing with employers because until you've taken the risk, hired and managed people you don't fully appreciate just how hard it is or how difficult it is to keep people happy.
What you're describing is closer to buying his life - which would be an understandable arrangement from a business partner but not an everyday employee.
People get paid for all sorts of reasons. If you are being paid specifically to put work in front of your hobbies, then that is your job! Think database uptime employees who are paid to get up in the middle of the night to fix a bug, etc. Heck, I even paid a friend to eat a shoe once; you can pay people to do all sorts of things. Paying someone to put work in front of hobbies is hardly novel or extreme.
Of course, this should be clear in the job description!!
...then it is most probably illegal in quite a lot of countries. Labor codes exist for a good reason. Most people are a) employees b) not willing to put life ahead of work and c) not willing to be forced to by competition from desperate/workaholic co-workers.
Database uptime employees work shifts, so even they should not be forced to put life before work.
Do you think it's reasonable to expect a CEO to put work in front of hobbies?
Nevertheless, how numerous are CEOs compared to other employees?
Legally, as an exempt employee, at least in California, my employer is in the clear. Hell, I believe they do it to hourly workers, too. I have worked in the computer industry my whole life, but I am told that it is not uncommon for minimum wage jobs to insist you come in at unexpected hours to cover unexpected events.
I've worked at a lot of IT companies, doing developer, sys admin, dev ops .. I've run the spectrum from health insurance to credit card processors -- very little of the work I've ever done is fulling or contributes to society in any significant way (except maybe the University I worked for briefly).
My personal work matters way more than any of the crap I get paid for. That being said, I write good code. My stuff has solid test cases, good design and readable code. I learn from code reviews and try to give good feedback. I generate good work and get it done in a reasonable amount of time. But I don't do over time. I don't work over 40 hours a week. I will not work on the weekends. If you work at a hospital, I can see how being on-call could be important. Any other job, and it's just money you're losing.
Just become my employer doesn't come first, doesn't make me a bad employee. If anything it makes me a better person because I have a life.
> As an employer I am paying you to put my work ahead of yours.
As an employer you're paying me because I have the skillset required to do whatever your thing is and the bills that require me to work.
I might enjoy the work, don't get me wrong, but I'm primarily here because you either can't or don't want to do what I've been brought on to do and I can and will do it in exchange for money. I'll even consider signing a non-compete if the money part is enough.
> I am paying you to be productive
Correct. Stop there. The rest is waffle.
> Wow, remind me not to hire you for a job then.
Gladly! What company was it you're hiring for?
Nobody wants to work for a coward.
I dunno. There's advantages to having a boss that's a huge pushover...
Boss: "We need this done by the end of the week!"
Employee: "That's just not possible. These sorts of things take research and most importantly, time."
Boss: "Oh. I see. Two weeks OK?"
Employee: "At least a month. Maybe two."
Boss: "But that's too long!"
Employee: "Nine women can't make a baby in a month!"
Boss: "Oh alright. You've got until the end of the quarter."
Big Boss: "Why haven't you delivered the product yet? I was expecting it midweek?"
Boss: "Well, uh, the team you see... well, they don't think they can deliver... and... "
Big Boss: "If your team can't get this done on the timeline this company needs, get a new team. If you can't do that, then I guess I need a new manager."
Boss: "Yes sir, I see your point."
[Later, with employee]
Boss: "I thought I could give you till the end of the quarter, but we need it tomorrow. Oh yeah, and there's extra requirements now."
Employee: "But you...."
Boss: "I've been overruled and just couldn't push back. You know how it is. Have a good... productive night."
Maybe you're an employer in a 3rd world country so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but no worthwhile employer in the US would even pretend to expect that.
In Japan it's even common to expect an employee to move in a weeks notice for up to a year at a time.
I wouldn't tell anyone how to value their time, but I certainly wouldn't tolerate an employer telling me what I could focus on during off-hours.
The work culture in Japan is a very extreme case and can't be used to prove that this type of behavior is common in other parts of the world. I would say the majority of companies in the US and in Europe do a reasonable job of respecting the personal lives of their employees--more so if they are part of a union.
Being conditioned to do something, or being forced to do something to feed yourself because few other job opportunities exist outside Japan's corporate world, are not the same as "certainly worthwhile".
Except, of course, in the sense that not getting homeless or starving is worthwhile.
Do you not consider those worthwhile!? That's like the best example of worthwhile there is!
What point are you making?
To give an example that might sound extreme, but it's the reality for hundreds of millions in other parts of the world (and a decent tens of millions in this part of the world too) a 12 year old child can go work in factories, mines, sweat shops or even prostitute itself to sex-tourist perverts to avoid starving. That doesn't make those "pursuits" worthwhile.
Of course for a privileged or semi-privileged middle/upper-middle class person, on a steady diet of comfortable upbringing, family support, financial support net, cushy jobs, and "do what you love" kind of advice, the situation is probably so alien that what's wrong with it might not even register.
While I'm at the office. You want me to dedicate my entire life to your business instead of mine, that costs more than you can afford.
> I am paying you to be productive so that with the collective production of the employees, the company can outmaneuver the competition
Your employees may be so productive on a project that has no future which at the end will not help the company at all. It is you who should steer the ship for competition. I think you are confusing being a lazy employee with what he/she is saying.
Who told you the parent was interested in working for you and your random company in the first place?
>As an employer I am paying you to put my work ahead of yours.
Nope, employees compensate people for doing specific work for them. Not for "putting their work ahead of their personal life/family/or whatever".
As long as they get their money's worth (and more, since they obviously pay employees less than the value they get out of them, unless the company is merely breaking even), and the job gets done, then they don't get a say in anything else about their employees personal time. Unless they are shitty employees, in which case, let their companies crash and burn.
If I'm passed over for a promotion because of this, meh. I think I'm doing way better than the guy gives his best to his work and what's leftover to himself and family. Additionally, I've found I do better at work anyway because the rest of my life is order and I show up already having accomplished things and on a roll.