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Comment by griffinkelly | Hacker News Reader

Purely anecdotal, but my dad has a story around this--his company wasn't doing great, and they needed to increase factory output, so one of the best ideas was to create a factory profit share amongst all the factory employees. They called a random group of employees together to run the idea by them, and after they presented, they asked them what they thought. One guy then asked, "So does this mean I have to work harder?" My dad replied something like, "Well yes, but you'll get a share of the factory's profits if you work harder." Random guy, "Well I don't want to work harder..."

I think it just puts a voice to what a lot of people think, but never say.

[edit] Sorry, to add details, they were trying to increase throughput with the same number of workers. The factory already went 24/7 under EU guidelines, so more hours were out of the question.

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Sure one way to read this story is "I don't want to work harder" and criticizing that attitude.

Here's another way. As the worker, already working full-time, maybe you have better things to do with your life than working harder. Furthermore, the worker is probably thinking:

"If they want me to work more hours, why not pay me for more hours, including time-and-a-half overtime, per the law? Why offer a profit-share? Answer, mostly likely because the profit-share costs them less, and therefore, pays me less".

In that light, unless the factory management can explain how the extra hours they want people to work is likely to work out better for them then just getting paid for more hours, why should they accept?

In the example you are replying to, the employees are literally being promised they will be paid more for increased work.

Profit sharing at a company that "wasn't doing great" is not a promise to be paid more.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this story. But the whole "work harder" is a business euphemism for "put in more hours". It probably wasn't the words that were used. Your dad was asking someone to put in more hours, maybe miss dinners with the family, maybe work some weekends, for an unknown "share of profits". But it seems like you're presenting a worker choosing better work/life balance over higher pay as proof of laziness.

That story describes random employees being asked to become investors, speculators, silent partners in the business. Here are the conditions:

* you do lots of work now, up front

* you have no say in the business

* you have no say in the investment returns, for example, if profits are made, management can just give themselves higher salaries that come straight out of your share of returns

* your investment isn't portable or recoupable, if you leave it's nothing

* if management is bad, it's also nothing

* you're skeptical of current management

Should you invest your time in this business?

I think we all need to re watch the Office Space meeting with the Bobs!

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