I feel like there’s a bit of a moral dilemma here. You’re charging for a full day’s of work but only working a few hours a day. How do you deal with it?
It took some time but now I realize that it is not code lines per hour that they hire me for but for my knowledge and experience. It is my ability to estimate work and deliver project on time. Also in knowledge professions, you are always thinking of the work even if not actively doung it.
Wfh has dispensed away with a huge amount of office based busy work and bs socializing so I’m finding myself productive enough in less than 8 hours as well.
I am really not a morning person, but being able to split a 2 hour commute + 8 hour work day into just casually checking in even at 3 am, when you have an aha moment go code, I honestly feel like the company is extracting more value out of me this way and getting more even though I'm putting in less than half the "butts in seats" hours.
I pop in 10-15 minute blocks completing a quest in Path of Exile during a particularly boring meeting that was called for no reason and was already answered in documentation, while answering questions, I'm sure this would look terrible if I was physically doing this in the open plan office - but the work is getting done, effectively, any problems are being resolved in the same time or faster. My team is also pretty OK with this probably because I'm always happy to deal with on call incidents in the middle of the night so the people with kids don't have to - I'm online anyway...
I'm entirely confident that work is extracting more value from me for the same wage - and thus I don't feel bad about it.
It's also nice to not have multiple-hour commute in a completely packed metal tube with standing room only.
What they paid hasn't changed, but they get more value out of me than before (removing the constant interruptions, people always behind me, loud typing, the only thing for lunch being 8 different kale salad bars for $25 each with lines out the door, hours of commute wasted).
I mentally "stay later" because I don't need to leave early to catch the train right before peak hours that isn't so packed there is no room to board.