Hacker News Reader

Comment by whateveracct | Hacker News Reader

> That’s called being an employee. Don’t like it? Start your own business.

It's called being a sucker. If you're salaried, you should be leaving productivity on the table. You get paid the same no matter what. Finding the line is key.

Years ago (around when I started working remote) I started quitting at 1pm every day. And then I started never working Fridays and even some Thursdays (I plan my week so I can push some "leftovers" those days to look like I worked).

I use the spare time to sleep, play with my pets, found businesses, learn new skills, enjoy my marriage to the fullest.

Also I don't have to give my best to stay employed. I have some factors working in my favor. It costs money to replace me. And it costs time to get someone to my level of onboarded. I've never given my best but they keep paying me 100s of Gs to do it - so I think you're off-base on that point ;)

View on HN

I think I understand where you're coming from, but it also sounds like you are making some fundamental decisions that I would not be comfortable with outside of the work/reward equation. I can't imagine a scenario where building a business during work hours doesn't violate an employment contract, or at least isn't very unethical. I'm not prepared to do that. I also want to be good (and get better) at my job, so "giving my best" is for me, not the company. Sure they benefit, but that's a side effect. It sounds like you've got a bit of a moat, which is great, but how deep is it? Calling everyone who isn't taking a questionable to dishonest path a "sucker" might make you feel superior, but your approach is not for me so I guess I'm a sucker. I'm OK with that.

I understand and am close to agreeing with you, but I feel an obligation to be difficult. It’s HN (and the internet) after all.

Plato and others famously pondered over “why be good?”. If nobody sees you, if you get away with everything, why behave at all? And conversely, if all your good actions go unnoticed or even cause you harm, why do them?

It is my experience this lifestyle changes and grinds your character and not in a good way.

I agree with this sentiment completely. Virtue is ultimately internal.

However, when did sacrificing all for 40h a week become the definition of honesty? I think the GP and other expressing the sentiment are pointing out that corporations would love for us to feel a moral imperative not to get distracted or do anything else during the day.

There are other honest frameworks for work. Why not measure output monthly? I would argue that’s it’s far more relevant, and one could choose when and how to work and still feel good at the end of the month with the body of work we deliver.

We do not owe our virtue to a corporation.

I took a few years off from work recently, and I realized that one of the things I missed most was having peers and stakeholders tell appreciate my work. I think that is what our virtue wants: to help those immediately around us and be appreciated and respected for it. You could theoretically take lots of time off and still do that.

My take is a little cynical, but I think, “I’ve never given my best” means that the poster takes some pride in what his potential best is, and it has the side effect of never challenging the idea of what your best is. Doing good work, and being good at the work are different.

In terms of philosophical perspective that seems to address intrinsic or extrinsic motivations for moral behavior, here being transformed into intrinsic or extrinsic motivations for excellence in professional work, not giving your best may be like simply avoiding difficult situations. That is, a king or general would have more opportunities and complex decisions where they even have an opportunity to be moral, compared to a peasant who has fewer opportunities to be immoral or even make decisions.

All that said, professional work isn’t actually equivalent to moral behavior, and the poster pretty clearly explained that the many other aspects to his life are a much greater priority.

I’m not seeing the “more” and “less” moral potential as clearly as you do. That’s probably because I’m somewhat of a peasant myself. The peasant in my eyes has the same conundrum but worse: why be moral if your life sucks? And quite possibly because of it? (You’d possibly be better off plundering)

Every situation calls upon your character, no matter what position.

It seems there is a lot of focus on external results. Like any of that changes the calculus. What I’m taking about is true no matter what the results, even if you are alone in the universe. You (and only you) know what agreements you entered in and what constitutes proper and honorable work. No amount of mental gymnastic will pacify your soul (permanently).

The king’s role is to make executive decisions. He can make them for good and bad reasons, and good or bad results for himself personally and for his subjects. Even if he decides he wants to make the best decision for the best benefit to his subjects, the decisions are still difficult.

A modern analog could be making medical decisions for someone you love. There are many ways that you can avoid having to make those decisions, deferring to the defaults that doctors will perform, or asking a spiritual advisor to make the decision for you. Having someone else make the decisions probably won’t be as good, but it will be easier.

That doesn’t have anything to do with how hard someone works at a professional job when they have other more important priorities. However, I think good moral behavior even with entirely intrinsic motivations changes with the magnitude of responsibilities.

I’m less interested in “objective good” and more in “I know I have agreed to something and I am not doing it for [reasons]”.

I wonder how the poster feels about telling his employer about his decision to stop working on some days? Maybe he would be fine with it?

Again I don’t care about his employer, it could be the biggest prick in existence and deserving of whatever ugly came to him. This is about your own soul, so to speak.

> It is my experience this lifestyle changes and grinds your character and not in a good way.

1. It's not like I do a bad job. In the hours I do allocate to work, I do an excellent job. I am able to do this because I have been in this role for years and that experience justifies the salary if I just show up. It helps to be excellent - especially when the job is so effortless.

2. It's not a lifestyle. What I'm describing isn't a large part of my life or mindset. So it cannot degrade my character. Because my character is being enhanced by several other things going on in my life that I prioritize over work.

It’s your life so take my bullshit morality with a pinch of salt, but you make it seem like at least three of your workdays are dedicated to this job. That seems significant enough.

I’m sure you do an excellent job and your boss is probably over the moon with you, but this is not about what “society” notices about you. This is about what you know. If I entered into contract and obliged myself to work a set number of hours (and not “productivity”) then I have honour-bound myself to that and all the mental gymnastics in the world cannot change that. I would know I could be more productive and that is actually contractually agreed upon, that’s the rub. If I thought otherwise I need to change the contract to “value of X” iso “X hours”. (And maybe you have such an agreement?)

That’s just for me though, I don’t judge you and I’m sorry if I seem that way. Just wanted to offer a counter to the “sucker” narrative.

I think you misundestand the purpose of your contract. Your contract is for you to produce value, not just to have your butt on a seat for 8 hours. The problem is that you cannot measure impact in a concrete enough way for a contract. So time is used as a proxy. If you cant deliver your impact in that time, you will get fired regardless. Just fullfilling the contract is NOT enough for the employer, so why take it literally yourself?

I'm afraid that "honor" thing happens one level beneath conscious understanding, so I can't talk myself out of it. I've tried, for years.

idk about all that morality stuff. At the end of the day, my job has become a minimal part of my life. When you can sleepwalk and do a Good Job [1] and get paid a quarter million, why blink?

[1] I just probably saved my company my salary and change in the last month, for instance.

I understand and I applaud you. It’s a good life you got going there (it seems). I’m just personally grabbed by the question “what is virtue” in a way that’s hard to shake. I can come off annoying and I try hard not to.

Have a great weekend.

> I'm just personally grabbed by the question “what is virtue” in a way that’s hard to shake.

Personally, I'm with the GP here... I don't think you'll find it at the bottom of a (contemporary software engineering) employment contract.

My parents bought me a little tongue-in-cheek placard when I was a kid that read, "genius is the ability to avoid doing hard work."

I know they bought it for me as a little joke, but I have strived to live up to that ideal every day of my life ever since. On days where I am stuck doing some hard work, I think to myself, I'll try to be more of a genius tomorrow.

> You get paid the same no matter what.

You don't get paid more if you perform better?

There are extremely obvious productivity and impact differences between some employees, and this should ideally translate into pay differences. At some companies it does, sometimes it doesn't. But you seem to be suggesting performance never impacts pay.

Day-to-day you don't get paid more. An hour of extra effort does not convert to cash.

Promotions and stuff are more about getting assigned to good projects and executing. My core strategy is "do my job well - but check out at 1pm and work 3.5 days/week." That leads to promos and raises.

There is truth in the sense that it is pointless to overwork and ground yourself down, especially in a large corporate environment where recognition is very fickle. It's also totally fair and healthy to value work-life balance and draw a hard line.

That said, I disagree pretty strongly with this:

> Promotions and stuff are more about getting assigned to good projects and executing

As someone who is closely involved in the promo process at a high-paying company, this mentality hits a glass ceiling pretty quick. If anything I'd say your manager (and their cluefulness) matters more than your projects. To get to L6+ you've got to be identifying and solving problems beyond what is doled out by management. It also requires understanding the highest level business concerns, contributing to technical strategy, and a lot more collaboration outside your team. This can be done in a timeboxed way, but at a company with strong engineering talent it becomes harder and harder to half-ass your way through, because now you're surrounded by other top-tier folks who are not only smart but work hard as well.

That glass ceiling is still a lot of money and job security though.

I do think I'm at a local maximum in terms of effective hourly rate. To make more I'd have to work more. And I'd have a lower effective rate. And my time and attention is more valuable than more money at this point. I don't want work to become a more major thing I pay attention too.

That's not how it works at all. Social value is what leads to promotion in the workplace. Productive work is actually the lowest form of value in the workplace. It has always been this way. Worker bees are the lowest on the totem pole in the hive.

> around when I started working remote) I started quitting at 1pm every day. And then I started never working Fridays and even some Thursdays

...and people say that CEOs demanding return-to-office are being unreasonable.

They are. As I've said elsewhere, I am plenty productive - putting me in an office wouldn't make me work more. It would tire and stress me out and make me be less effective.

The point isn't that I'm shirking. It's that I'm hitting and passing the bar of "good employee" in that amount of work time.

If you wanted to own my time, you could've paid me hourly. But you wanted my skills.

Did you sign a contract that said you would work “X” number of hours minimum? If you did, you’re in violation of said contract and being dishonest.

It’s not black and white, I get it, but the proper thing to do would be to negotiate a new contract that actually reflects your working relationship to your employer.

Number of hours is not in my current contract and never has been for a salaried, at-will software development role (in the US). I believe this is the norm for such roles, so many HNers have similar contracts.

So if anything, my behavior is in-line with my contract. They are continuing to employ me at-will and are not exercising their right (per the contract) to terminate the relationship at any time.

I’m in Australia, and the contracts here always specify a min number of hours (normally 38).

I can’t see a problem with how you’re working at an individual level, and as you say, you are productive and working in-line with your contract. However, the original poster was talking about young people not feeling motivated due to inequality.

The fact that you’ve managed to find a job that works well for you as an experienced professional does not change the fact that a young person should be working hard (and potentially long). Would you have gotten to where you are if you’d done the minimum your entire career?

> Would you have gotten to where you are if you’d done the minimum your entire career?

I think so? Or at least somewhere like it. Because I've always been optimizing for working less. I got plenty of D's on final exams because a B or A was assured, for instance. It just so happens a software job in the 2010s was a juicy path of least resistance. I'm glad to have found it (part of that was luck and meeting some people who suggested I do it).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com