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Comment by kadoban | Hacker News Reader

> Will I work less if I become more productive? No.

Why not?

Yeah, I'm confused by this one, as salaried employeees. Unless your salaried job is making you clock in, why not work the 3-4 hours it takes to do your normal job, take whatever meetings, and go do literally anything else with the rest of your now paid-for free time?

I mean, I don't subscribe to the mentality (I usually have side projects for my work that have tangibly lead to promotions in the past), but if I were, I'd just use it for more free time.

Yeah, if I manage to find a way to do something really efficiently, or alternatively if I force myself to power through something more quickly than usual, then I'm happy that I helped out my boss and my company. But I'm also sure as hell going to take a nice relaxing lunch, go for a walk and enjoy my day just a bit extra too, or just stop for the day earlier.

Half for them, half for me and we're both better off than if I was slower at my work.

Because the people above you don't typically have that attitude about your work - somehow you're not being paid to do the work (as salaried implies), you're being paid to sit in your seat for at least 40 hours AND do the work (just in case that's going to take more than 40 hours).

So use your now-free hours to look for a different job ?

I mean it's hackernews after all, we are talking FAANG or startup kind of things not Walmart bag-boy

Do you know of FAANG or startups that let you leave work if you're done early for the day, every day?

The key is that you don't ask permission, you just leave.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/productivity-workforc...

Industrial Revolution and automation lead to better profit margin returns for owners, not less work for workers

At least where I work we have to record our hours down to 1/10th of an hour, and charge specific numbers for specific contracts. There's some reasonable flexibility/tolerance, but if I get all my work done in half a day and spend the rest of the day on youtube, but charge a full day, that's called mischarging and is one of the few quick ways to be fired.

I think most folks here would file this under the "terrible job" category and move on. Most jobs don't require this sort of micromanagement, and none of the really great ones do.

Haha, the hours are extremely flexible, so it's not so bad. Can blame some contract fraud my fortune 500 employer committed back in the 80s. It's been a requirement ever since.

When your employer is contracting people out against hourly rate you generally have to be accurate with the hours. When customers pay by the hour I find it quite reasonable. Also in some countries keeping track of hours worked is required by law for the employees benefit.

How does one measure "knowledge work" with such fine granularity? Isn't output/deliverable over total time spent a better metric?

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