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Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

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Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#71

Post by burntwater »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #40
twblalock wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> almost everybody is underpaid That doesn't make sense. If someone is underpaid, they make less than most other people who do the same job. If "almost everybody" is making a certain amount, then they aren't underpaid -- they make the market rate.

I'm talking about uneven share of profits. Ownership takes it all. We are paid the minimum possible in most cases.

Ownership also takes all the risks. Profits is the reward for taking risks.

All employees can also enjoy profits, by becoming owners of a company, either through stocks or starting their own business.

Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#73

Post by FLUX-YOU »

d0m wrote: post #51
justonepost wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it illegal? There might be a civil case (can you sue an employee for laziness?) but I am unaware of a criminal statute on slacking off.

It's not being lazy, it's being paid for A and working on B, totally different thing. If I hire a freelancer to work on project A and charges me X$/h, but instead work on project B and still charge me for that time, it's illegal. Of course, illegal is a fuzzy term, it really depends of how the contract is crafted and, more importantly, how much one would be willing to take legal action against the freelancer (which w…

>If I hire a freelancer to work on project A and charges me X$/h, but instead work on project B and still charge me for that time, it's illegal.

Employers with exempt full-time employees can mandate you stay for 40 hours/week regardless if you've finished your work for the week in the first 4 hours or not.

With physical labor, it's relatively easy to find the line where it's impossible to go faster.

With software, you can take a 3 month project and solve it in 10 minutes if it happens to be close enough to something available off-the-shelf. I get nothing extra if I deliver before the deadline by knowing about that solution (especially within 10 minutes), and that's the problem. Worst case, you have to write it all yourself and then you're still on-par with physical labor jobs, so you aren't entitled to anything extra for delivering before the deadline.

Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#74

Post by thesmallestcat »

burntwater wrote: post #71
thesmallestcat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about uneven share of profits. Ownership takes it all. We are paid the minimum possible in most cases.

Ownership also takes all the risks. Profits is the reward for taking risks. All employees can also enjoy profits, by becoming owners of a company, either through stocks or starting their own business.

This is exactly the attitude I'm talking about. Employees take risks too. Time has its own opportunity cost risk. and it's felt more by employees slaving away at company initiatives than by the ones who dream up those plans. If I've wasted my time as a business owner, I have only myself to blame. As an employee, there's a real risk of wasted time and the accompanying loss of worthwhile pursuits.

The other obvious risk is that of unexpectedly losing your job. By and large, employees are not financially independent and are at the mercy of their employers. Ownership has the intel and leverage to plan a graceful fall for themselves. Employees are typically terminated with zero notice, while it's a faux pas for an employee to do the same.

Another risk is that an employee will find real conflict with an employer, and stare down the barrel of a well-funded legal team. People have had their lives destroyed by it.

Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#75

Post by throwaway184827 »

decentrality wrote: post #37

From the looks of it, you asked basically this same question within the past year. I think the real question is: are you being honest with yourself? The last time you asked this it was more along the lines of "I hate my job and want out, btw I have wife and 1 child" and now it's more cooled down to "I've accepted that I hate my job and I'm sort of just punishing them with my lack of direction in life" and then lookin…

Good eye. Fun fact: I quit my job there, built these Android apps and started growing my SaaS, then got this job to help further fund my stuff on the side. I wasn’t expecting this job to be so boring (the job description sounded fun), or to be able to get away with doing the same thing as my last job. But a month in I started getting back into the groove of working on my stuff while on the clock. I’d love to quit but my revenue figures aren’t there yet.

Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#76

Post by dccoolgai »

hennsen wrote: post #13
antoinealb wrote: post #3

Be careful, many contracts contain parts that give full ownership of what you make on company time to your employer. You might loose your dream if you are not careful.

Interesting idea, would actually be funny if they can prove he wrote all the coide for his suddenly supersuccessful startup on their paid time and get a great percentage or all of the shares... "We've been a bit unhappy about your performance for our main project but happy you created a more successful one for us..."

Management daydreaming. In reality there are 2 possibilities: the startup is either successful or it's not. In the former case, he'll hire his own better lawyers and bury their claim. In the latter, it's not worth their time. As long as you're not using their equipment and don't give them a way to prove you were using their time, they won't have a leg to stand on to make that claim (even if your employment contract has language that looks scary to an engineer with no legal background).

Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#78

Post by icedchai »

rajangdavis wrote: post #31
antoinealb wrote: post #3

Be careful, many contracts contain parts that give full ownership of what you make on company time to your employer. You might loose your dream if you are not careful.

This right here. Some contracts will have a section regarding intellectual property, you either have to list everything you want to keep and make updates as needed or your employer can claim your IP especially if it is within the same realm of the work you do for your employer.

They won’t be able to claim what they don’t know about. My advice the the OP is keep your mouth shut and don’t draw attention to yourself. Unfortunately you already posted...

Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#79

Post by ryandrake »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #64
twblalock wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to share in a company's profits is through stock. Most large companies have employee stock purchase plans and/or give stock as compensation -- not just tech companies. This gives employees a share of profits and makes them partial owners of the company. I'm not sure what more you want.

Most people aren't getting equity at all. Of those who get equity, it's meaningless. The lion's share of profits go to ownership or shareholders.

Your point is a good one. I’ve never worked anywhere where the gains from equity had any kind of significance. From public companies it was indistinguishable from cash since its value never grew significantly and/or went down. From startups they all ended up worth zero.

I could see equity being a great motivator if it was less of a lottery. I’m happy to do good work for good compensation and that often includes stock. But I’ve never considered myself “motivated as if an owner” of my employer.

Re: Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

#80

Post by [deleted] »

rburhum wrote: post #49

Ugh... Let me give you a different point of view that will most likely not be popular in HNs, but what the hell. I have had employees like you, and I try to scan like the plague during interviews to avoid hiring folks like you. The thing is, that I hate to be micro-managed and by extension, I hate to micro-manage people. Since to have a good work environment, you need to have trust that works both ways. When one pers…

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