3 ms·

> It's not clear to me there was ever a time people were properly compensated for the amount of work they do. A family friend of mine operates a couple small b

> It's not clear to me there was ever a time people were properly compensated for the amount of work they do. A family friend of mine operates a couple small businesses in a rural community. They’ve tried to bootstrap or acquire a couple companies over time, operating them at a loss for a while as they try to make them efficient enough to work. It’s surprisingly hard to make a break-even business. There’s a common misconception that business owners are all raking in cash at the expensive of their employees, but that’s not easy or common. A lot of small businesses close because it costs more to pay employees than the business can actually bring in (minus operating expenses). Even many big companies like Uber are operating at a loss, contrary to the public perception that these companies are a rip-off that exploit everyone to the max. Ironically, in software I’ve seen a lot of people getting compensated far above their output for many years before the company finally catches on. This is one field where people who interview well can get a foot in the door and then coast on organizational inefficiencies at a lot of places while doing very little work. Obviously this doesn’t apply at all companies, but it’s weirdly common to hear engineers bragging here on HN about how few hours they work each week, or even people expressing disbelief that anyone can do more than an hour or two of work each day.

cyberlurker 4y ago
Most times when I see people talking about hours worked on HN they are referring to their productive problem solving hours, like coding or research. They still put in the other hours doing stuff like meetings and emails. But even if someone only works 2 hours but provides value surpassing their salary, then who cares?
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Why would someone not consider time spent on work meetings or work emails "hours worked"?
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> It’s surprisingly hard to make a break-even business. Because workers aren't productive, because you get paid by the lowest common denominator, because that's all businesses expect - and anyone doing more - unless to gain skills for the benefit of themselves - is a fool.
KidComputer 4y ago
> Even many big companies like Uber are operating at a loss, contrary to the public perception that these companies are a rip-off that exploit everyone to the max. To state the obvious, operating at a loss is not contrary to exploiting your workers.
watwut 4y ago
Uber was operating as a loss during to its strategy of trying to kill competition and availability of free VC money. It would be better for economy long term if companies like Uber would charge market based prices. And I waste a lot of time here and did not seen much bragging about working too little.

cyberlurker 4y ago

Most times when I see people talking about hours worked on HN they are referring to their productive problem solving hours, like coding or research. They still put in the other hours doing stuff like meetings and emails. But even if someone only works 2 hours but provides value surpassing their salary, then who cares?

sokoloff 4y ago
Why would someone not consider time spent on work meetings or work emails "hours worked"?

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

> It’s surprisingly hard to make a break-even business. Because workers aren't productive, because you get paid by the lowest common denominator, because that's all businesses expect - and anyone doing more - unless to gain skills for the benefit of themselves - is a fool.

KidComputer 4y ago

> Even many big companies like Uber are operating at a loss, contrary to the public perception that these companies are a rip-off that exploit everyone to the max. To state the obvious, operating at a loss is not contrary to exploiting your workers.

watwut 4y ago

Uber was operating as a loss during to its strategy of trying to kill competition and availability of free VC money. It would be better for economy long term if companies like Uber would charge market based prices. And I waste a lot of time here and did not seen much bragging about working too little.