Re "set working hours": I think a lot of it goes back to early Industrial Age, when blue-collar people worked a lot more than now, as much as 14-16 hours/day. M

Re "set working hours": I think a lot of it goes back to early Industrial Age, when blue-collar people worked a lot more than now, as much as 14-16 hours/day. Most of their life was work, there wasn't any structure around it, and they worked for a single factory (the same factory, it didn't make sense to move around, or maybe there was only one factory in their town). Set working hours (limited at 8 hours/day) were a limitation imposed by the workers (or unions) against being over-worked (8hrs/day is much better than 14-16hrs/day). In most countries, this is still established by legislation. Re "defined pay schedule": In some fields, you can get paid by a percentage-based commission (real estate, car sales, middle men in general, actors, movie directors etc). That's not always practical, and some employees prefer a fixed monthly salary (versus the insecurity of a percentage).