5 ms·

Salary is explicitly not paying for time, but output — the performance of duties. You want my time? Pay hourly.

cassianoleal 3y ago
So if you perform badly, you get paid less? Or if you perform exemplarily do you get paid more? How much do you get paid for each unit of output? Can you measure it so it's always the same, for every person, at any time? If not, you're selling your time - not your output.
- bbor 3y ago
  This is just… false? Yes, if they cared/could, they would lower the salary of underperformers. The definition of a salary is that you’re paid to fulfill a role, not to work specific hours. That’s why hourly is called hourly. Either I’m taking crazy pills or this is a silly debate :)
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    Obviously I'm not privy to your contract of employment, but so far in over 20 years in the market, all of mine established work hours. If I worked less than that, I'd get paid less. Some contracts had provisions for overtime, in which case I could be paid more for more hours of work. That's selling my time. I'd still get paid the same for the same number of hours, regardless of my output. With good or great output, there was a small chance I'd get a promotion, or a pay rise in the next round of performance reviews (which in my experience are nothing of the sort). With bad output, there was a small chance I'd get fired. In either case, my pay was never tied to my output. I'd still get paid for the hours I worked, regardless of how well I performed. > you’re paid to fulfill a role See above. You're usually getting paid to fulfill a role for a certain amount of time. If "number of hours you've fulfilled your role" is how you measure your output, then I 100% agree this is a silly debate. That is not what I consider output though. A factory is paid per output. If they produce 100 cars, they get paid 100 * price of 1 car. If they produce 90 cars, they get paid 10% less, and so on.
    - bbor 3y ago
      Thanks for the polite reply :) I am very confident I am right about this very pedantic point, though obviously it matters little in the end for many roles, as you’ve noted. For example, this is a good link: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/salary-vs-hourly-pay https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/salary-vs-ho... Your job may require you work 40h, but that’s more of a employment requirement, such as “you’re a boat captain and need to be on the bridge for X hours in normal workdays, but get paid a monthly salary regardless.” That doesn’t mean you’re paid for your time any more than a dress code clause means you’re being paid for your fashion :) But again all moot in our industry in most cases! Really gets important in cases such as fast food, where they’ll promote people to salaried “manager” positions paying $40K/y that have no set working hours, but their responsibilities require them to work well over 40h/week EDIT: perhaps a clearer example: if you had to crunch and work 50h this week, and couldn’t take 10h off next week, would you require extra pay for that? If no, you’re salaried!
      - Delk 3y ago
        > EDIT: perhaps a clearer example: if you had to crunch and work 50h this week, and couldn’t take 10h off next week, would you require extra pay for that? If no, you’re salaried! That's what a salaried position seems to mean in the US from what I can gather. Perhaps a lot of this entire conversation is had from more or less of an American point of view, so maybe your definition is relevant. I don't think that's a universal definition of salary, though. I get paid the same sum every month, and I have a fixed number of hours I'm expected to fill per week. If I work ten hours more than that one week, that counts as +10 hours in the records, and that allows me to do 10 hours less at some point. Maybe next week, maybe next month, but it's in the books. That's still different from an hourly wage where the pay is calculated directly per hour and varies with the exact number of hours worked and recorded. The pay also doesn't directly vary based on actual useful output. Whether I work one day's worth of hours effectively or half as effectively doesn't affect how much I'm paid. So, I'm really directly selling my time, not my output. (The amount of useful output may of course make bosses more or less happy and deadlines reached or not reached.) That, to me, seems to be approximately what some of the other comments in this thread mean when they're saying you're selling your time, not your output. Whether they're talking about the US or not. Of course if you have a set amount of real output you're expected to produce within a day or a week and it's entirely your problem if you don't manage to produce that in a set number of hours, you're in some sense paid for your output. Your quantifiable useful output probably doesn't directly map to bucks paid, though; most knowledge workers probably don't even have such an easily quantifiable unit of actual output that you could do that. I assume that even in the US, you'd still be expected to be present for a set number of hours even if you managed to produce the expected output in less. In that sense you'd also be selling your time, not output. So maybe it's a bit of a mix of both in reality.
TheLML 3y ago
I get paid for 40 hours of my time per week, on average. So I am being paid for my time. Every extra hour I work in one week, I have to compensate in another. And vice versa.
- bbor 3y ago
  Not the law, just your preference. Lots and lots of salaried employees work more or less than 40h/week, every week. Almost always the former ofc lol
elefanten 3y ago
Is that why its measured and paid in time-based increments while output is only measured in arbitrary ways and at fuzzy granularity?
- bbor 3y ago
  “I am paid every two weeks” != “I am paid for my time”. Social security also pays out biweekly, and it has nothing to do with time
  - elefanten 3y ago
    Both salary and hourly roles ultimately have expectations around both time spent and work contributed. On average, in both cases, the time spent portion is tracked more closely while the worked performed portion is functionally given more leeway. That’s why the original comment nails it in the first two paragraphs. It may not be intended this way, but effectively people are paid for their time much moreso than their output.
farazzz 3y ago
Maybe it would be more clear if you specified salary is in exchange for a certain minimum amount of output, then I would kinda agree. But then you also are expected be at work for the remainder of your contractual work hours. So it’s not as easy as saying one or the other is completely true, it’s a mixture of both time and output
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  I haven’t been at any salaried position: My contract explicitly states that any week in which I perform any work, I’m to be paid a prorated weekly amount. Managers do not care what hours I put in if my tickets + other duties are performed — and typically, I managed to get away with 35-37 hours. Some weeks were more like 50. Again, the role was duty based, not hourly. Every salaried job I’ve had has been output, not time.

So if you perform badly, you get paid less? Or if you perform exemplarily do you get paid more? How much do you get paid for each unit of output? Can you measure it so it's always the same, for every person, at any time? If not, you're selling your time - not your output.

bbor 3y ago
This is just… false? Yes, if they cared/could, they would lower the salary of underperformers. The definition of a salary is that you’re paid to fulfill a role, not to work specific hours. That’s why hourly is called hourly. Either I’m taking crazy pills or this is a silly debate :)
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  Obviously I'm not privy to your contract of employment, but so far in over 20 years in the market, all of mine established work hours. If I worked less than that, I'd get paid less. Some contracts had provisions for overtime, in which case I could be paid more for more hours of work. That's selling my time. I'd still get paid the same for the same number of hours, regardless of my output. With good or great output, there was a small chance I'd get a promotion, or a pay rise in the next round of performance reviews (which in my experience are nothing of the sort). With bad output, there was a small chance I'd get fired. In either case, my pay was never tied to my output. I'd still get paid for the hours I worked, regardless of how well I performed. > you’re paid to fulfill a role See above. You're usually getting paid to fulfill a role for a certain amount of time. If "number of hours you've fulfilled your role" is how you measure your output, then I 100% agree this is a silly debate. That is not what I consider output though. A factory is paid per output. If they produce 100 cars, they get paid 100 * price of 1 car. If they produce 90 cars, they get paid 10% less, and so on.
  - bbor 3y ago
    Thanks for the polite reply :) I am very confident I am right about this very pedantic point, though obviously it matters little in the end for many roles, as you’ve noted. For example, this is a good link: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/salary-vs-hourly-pay https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/salary-vs-ho... Your job may require you work 40h, but that’s more of a employment requirement, such as “you’re a boat captain and need to be on the bridge for X hours in normal workdays, but get paid a monthly salary regardless.” That doesn’t mean you’re paid for your time any more than a dress code clause means you’re being paid for your fashion :) But again all moot in our industry in most cases! Really gets important in cases such as fast food, where they’ll promote people to salaried “manager” positions paying $40K/y that have no set working hours, but their responsibilities require them to work well over 40h/week EDIT: perhaps a clearer example: if you had to crunch and work 50h this week, and couldn’t take 10h off next week, would you require extra pay for that? If no, you’re salaried!
    - Delk 3y ago
      > EDIT: perhaps a clearer example: if you had to crunch and work 50h this week, and couldn’t take 10h off next week, would you require extra pay for that? If no, you’re salaried! That's what a salaried position seems to mean in the US from what I can gather. Perhaps a lot of this entire conversation is had from more or less of an American point of view, so maybe your definition is relevant. I don't think that's a universal definition of salary, though. I get paid the same sum every month, and I have a fixed number of hours I'm expected to fill per week. If I work ten hours more than that one week, that counts as +10 hours in the records, and that allows me to do 10 hours less at some point. Maybe next week, maybe next month, but it's in the books. That's still different from an hourly wage where the pay is calculated directly per hour and varies with the exact number of hours worked and recorded. The pay also doesn't directly vary based on actual useful output. Whether I work one day's worth of hours effectively or half as effectively doesn't affect how much I'm paid. So, I'm really directly selling my time, not my output. (The amount of useful output may of course make bosses more or less happy and deadlines reached or not reached.) That, to me, seems to be approximately what some of the other comments in this thread mean when they're saying you're selling your time, not your output. Whether they're talking about the US or not. Of course if you have a set amount of real output you're expected to produce within a day or a week and it's entirely your problem if you don't manage to produce that in a set number of hours, you're in some sense paid for your output. Your quantifiable useful output probably doesn't directly map to bucks paid, though; most knowledge workers probably don't even have such an easily quantifiable unit of actual output that you could do that. I assume that even in the US, you'd still be expected to be present for a set number of hours even if you managed to produce the expected output in less. In that sense you'd also be selling your time, not output. So maybe it's a bit of a mix of both in reality.

TheLML 3y ago

I get paid for 40 hours of my time per week, on average. So I am being paid for my time. Every extra hour I work in one week, I have to compensate in another. And vice versa.

bbor 3y ago
Not the law, just your preference. Lots and lots of salaried employees work more or less than 40h/week, every week. Almost always the former ofc lol

elefanten 3y ago

Is that why its measured and paid in time-based increments while output is only measured in arbitrary ways and at fuzzy granularity?

bbor 3y ago
“I am paid every two weeks” != “I am paid for my time”. Social security also pays out biweekly, and it has nothing to do with time
- elefanten 3y ago
  Both salary and hourly roles ultimately have expectations around both time spent and work contributed. On average, in both cases, the time spent portion is tracked more closely while the worked performed portion is functionally given more leeway. That’s why the original comment nails it in the first two paragraphs. It may not be intended this way, but effectively people are paid for their time much moreso than their output.

farazzz 3y ago

Maybe it would be more clear if you specified salary is in exchange for a certain minimum amount of output, then I would kinda agree. But then you also are expected be at work for the remainder of your contractual work hours. So it’s not as easy as saying one or the other is completely true, it’s a mixture of both time and output

zmgsabst 3y ago
I haven’t been at any salaried position: My contract explicitly states that any week in which I perform any work, I’m to be paid a prorated weekly amount. Managers do not care what hours I put in if my tickets + other duties are performed — and typically, I managed to get away with 35-37 hours. Some weeks were more like 50. Again, the role was duty based, not hourly. Every salaried job I’ve had has been output, not time.