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"And we know many people who work barely a fraction of the week, yet need to maintain this kind of presenteeism." I don't disagree with you necessarily but the

"And we know many people who work barely a fraction of the week, yet need to maintain this kind of presenteeism." I don't disagree with you necessarily but the people who game it now, will game it with 4 day week as well. Slackers are always going to slack. 5 day or 4 day.

gnulinux 4y ago
I do not consider myself a slacker, in fact I consider myself a miracle worker in terms of the output I generate (in terms of code, business organization, end product, $$$ generated in the long term); but I do not "work" even a fraction of a 5 day work week, I would even admit this to my manager. Do you have any evidence to suggest programmers/engineers/managers who are productive work every moment of a 9AM-5PM day? Literally never seen a person do that before and I've seen some productivity legends. Let's be real here we're all on HN at 3PM on a Thursday. EDIT: To give context, I'm a software engineer.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  There’s a lot of background thinking that happens with knowledge work. Spending 3 hours at a desk and 5 hours milling about in the office isn’t necessarily “not being productive”. It’s pretty often that I’ll get stuck on a problem, distract myself on HN for a few minutes, then pump out a solution in minutes or otherwise have an epiphany. Similarly, talking to coworkers, even (especially) at unrelated parts of a company can be super valuable, even if it codes as “unproductive time wasting”. TLDR your definition of work might be too constrained.
_flat20 4y ago
Choosing life over work isn't slacking.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  If your compensation agreement is based on x-hours of work and you deliberately put in less to “choose life” then you are slacking. You agreed to exchange a fixed amount of time for a fixed amount of money and are not delivering on your promise because you are slacking. I wouldn’t call it theft, but it’s definitely slacking.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    contract standards at some point in history don't dictate ethics just as laws don't either. it's not as obvious and rule-based as you suggest. it's also peculiar in my opinion to point out worker laziness without apparent recognition of the worker-employer power dynamic where wage theft vastly outweighs so called time theft dollar to dollar
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      You can rationalize all you'd like, but you made an agreement under sound mind and choosing to not fulfill it is slacking. It's dishonest. Wage theft or anything else is immaterial to your agreement. You are free to leave at any time and market yourself to another employer if you no longer wish to partner with your current employer. Or, if you feel your agreement is no longer fair or meets your goals, you can speak with your employer about changing the terms of the agreement.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        you're atomizing the solution space by saying that workers must negotiate their conditions individually with their employers directly. that's not how this stuff has changed in the past and how we got to where the current status quo is with contracts. you're even repeating union busting talking points that are hardly settled ethics
- spoils19 4y ago
  In our short lives, work will probably be the most fulfilling endeavor we undertake, and we should be grateful that there are so many great companies willing to offer jobs to workers like us.
  - gusgus01 4y ago
    I really can't tell if this a satirical or parodical comment. Bumping right up against: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
    - MikeTheRocker 4y ago
      I sure hope this was intended to be sarcastic. I have always found my job interesting and rewarding, but I think most people (myself included) would attribute personal relationships to be a lot more fulfilling.
lm28469 4y ago
One thing is clear, if we continue equalling people who want to work less than full time with slackers we'll never get anywhere... What should be allowed is to work as much as you want and get the pro rata of the full time salary I'll let people waste their lives in the office and enjoy the world, if I could get the monthly equivalent of a min wage in my country while working one day a week I'd do it, call me a slacker if you want
TrackerFF 4y ago
Truth be told, some jobs just involve little actual work. The most typical example I've seen, are gov. / state jobs where one person was basically working 150%. Then they created an extra position to offload that worker, and suddenly you have two workers with 75% work. And if it turns out they miscalculated the need, because maybe the new worker is much faster / more efficient at their task, said worker is now only working 50% of the time. Same goes for inefficient workers. I've worked with people that had zero knowledge in how to automate tasks, and would spend a whole day doing stuff in Excel, which could be automated to just seconds. No need for VBA, just basic macros would do the trick.

gnulinux 4y ago

I do not consider myself a slacker, in fact I consider myself a miracle worker in terms of the output I generate (in terms of code, business organization, end product, $$$ generated in the long term); but I do not "work" even a fraction of a 5 day work week, I would even admit this to my manager. Do you have any evidence to suggest programmers/engineers/managers who are productive work every moment of a 9AM-5PM day? Literally never seen a person do that before and I've seen some productivity legends. Let's be real here we're all on HN at 3PM on a Thursday. EDIT: To give context, I'm a software engineer.

n8cpdx 4y ago
There’s a lot of background thinking that happens with knowledge work. Spending 3 hours at a desk and 5 hours milling about in the office isn’t necessarily “not being productive”. It’s pretty often that I’ll get stuck on a problem, distract myself on HN for a few minutes, then pump out a solution in minutes or otherwise have an epiphany. Similarly, talking to coworkers, even (especially) at unrelated parts of a company can be super valuable, even if it codes as “unproductive time wasting”. TLDR your definition of work might be too constrained.

_flat20 4y ago

Choosing life over work isn't slacking.

nemo44x 4y ago
If your compensation agreement is based on x-hours of work and you deliberately put in less to “choose life” then you are slacking. You agreed to exchange a fixed amount of time for a fixed amount of money and are not delivering on your promise because you are slacking. I wouldn’t call it theft, but it’s definitely slacking.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  contract standards at some point in history don't dictate ethics just as laws don't either. it's not as obvious and rule-based as you suggest. it's also peculiar in my opinion to point out worker laziness without apparent recognition of the worker-employer power dynamic where wage theft vastly outweighs so called time theft dollar to dollar
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    You can rationalize all you'd like, but you made an agreement under sound mind and choosing to not fulfill it is slacking. It's dishonest. Wage theft or anything else is immaterial to your agreement. You are free to leave at any time and market yourself to another employer if you no longer wish to partner with your current employer. Or, if you feel your agreement is no longer fair or meets your goals, you can speak with your employer about changing the terms of the agreement.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      you're atomizing the solution space by saying that workers must negotiate their conditions individually with their employers directly. that's not how this stuff has changed in the past and how we got to where the current status quo is with contracts. you're even repeating union busting talking points that are hardly settled ethics
spoils19 4y ago
In our short lives, work will probably be the most fulfilling endeavor we undertake, and we should be grateful that there are so many great companies willing to offer jobs to workers like us.
- gusgus01 4y ago
  I really can't tell if this a satirical or parodical comment. Bumping right up against: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
  - MikeTheRocker 4y ago
    I sure hope this was intended to be sarcastic. I have always found my job interesting and rewarding, but I think most people (myself included) would attribute personal relationships to be a lot more fulfilling.

lm28469 4y ago

One thing is clear, if we continue equalling people who want to work less than full time with slackers we'll never get anywhere... What should be allowed is to work as much as you want and get the pro rata of the full time salary I'll let people waste their lives in the office and enjoy the world, if I could get the monthly equivalent of a min wage in my country while working one day a week I'd do it, call me a slacker if you want

TrackerFF 4y ago

Truth be told, some jobs just involve little actual work. The most typical example I've seen, are gov. / state jobs where one person was basically working 150%. Then they created an extra position to offload that worker, and suddenly you have two workers with 75% work. And if it turns out they miscalculated the need, because maybe the new worker is much faster / more efficient at their task, said worker is now only working 50% of the time. Same goes for inefficient workers. I've worked with people that had zero knowledge in how to automate tasks, and would spend a whole day doing stuff in Excel, which could be automated to just seconds. No need for VBA, just basic macros would do the trick.