from Hacker News

Time Millionaires

by ccity88 on 10/13/21, 9:13 AM with 75 comments

• by vertis on 10/13/21, 10:04 AM

  A lot of the HN are familiar with balancing work for employers with time clawed back for side projects and startups. We do this a lot more on the level though, by only taking a enough contract work to make ends meet rather than what I can only argue is somewhere between contract violation and fraud.

  This person is to be despised. Not because they don't want to work, but because they want to cheat the system. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

  They're making it worse for everyone that would like to work from home rather than a crowded office post-pandemic every time they get caught (or flaunt it in a news article). This article will get pointed at when managers want to bring employees back into the office.

  If you want a better work-life balance then that's a fair decision to make, but not at the expense of everyone else.

• by jmkd on 10/13/21, 11:08 AM

  We are born into a system we didn't choose. We can however choose to embrace it, to reject it or to manipulate it to our own ends if we spot inefficiencies to exploit.

  This may not seem fair to those who embrace it, but Gavin's point is that the system doesn't present him with a fair choice.

  We may not agree, but philosophically this seems to be a sound position, especially since the cost of rejecting the system is extremely high.

• by fxtentacle on 10/13/21, 10:46 AM

  I'm not surprised. I've rejected quite a few job offers over the years because the company had very precise expectations of how much I should work and at what level, but when I asked for a fair compensation of my time, they weaseled out and claimed that it would disturb the balance of salaries within their company.

  If someone asks me to work at 20% of a fair salary, I have two options: a) laugh at their face and reject the offer or b) accept and only work 20% of the time.

  I always went with a) because I never had a shortage of work offers. But I can understand why someone who needs the money will choose b). In a way, this is a fight against the immoral behavior of big corporations.

• by manigandham on 10/13/21, 10:28 AM

  I'm glad to see this large-scale shift in attitudes. Many have realized during this pandemic that decades of work can amount to nothing when you lose your health or wealth in an instant, and all you have to show for it is hours in the office.

  Time is freedom, pursue and protect it at all costs.

• by grecy on 10/13/21, 11:03 AM

  I used to be a Software Engineer, but after only a few years sitting at a desk I realized I wanted time a lot more than I wanted money. So I made a choice and left that life.

  Since then I've spent 5 years driving through 55 countries (Alaska to Argentina and Around Africa). I've gone on week-long wilderness moose and bison hunting trips near the Arctic Circle, I've played a lot of disc golf, snowboarded many 100 day seasons, hiked for thousands of hours and generally enjoyed a huge amount of "free" time. I've poked lava with a stick, climbed a 20,000ft active volcano, gone skydiving, got lots of SCUBA certificates, had to veer off road not to hit lions and elephants and met all kinds of interesting people all over the world. I've also published a couple of books and achieved a few life goals like speaking on stage at major events, getting published in magazines I highly respect. All of that was only possible because I had the time.

  Of course, I have way less money than I did before. I've spent 6 years of my adult life living in a tent. I've never owned a new phone (actually I've never really had a phone), no tv, basically never buy anything new at all.

  I'm also about a thousand times happier than before.

  We all have a limited number of hours we get to live, and how you spend them is your choice. I find it's most heavily constrained by how you choose to spend money. If you choose to spend less at every opportunity, that means you'll be able to work a lot less. Find ways to find enjoyment and fulfillment that don't cost money - i.e. a walk in the mountains or throwing the Frisbee instead of a day at Disneyland or going to the movies. These days I "work" something like 10-20 hours a week on my own passion projects, which provides enough money for the lifestyle I want to live (for the last 8 years I've earned around $15k-$20k a year, total)

• by bruce343434 on 10/13/21, 10:37 AM

  This seems to be a manifestation of the growing "anti work" movement. I'm wondering if we, in the face of growing inequality, will have a worker's uprising in the somewhat near future, such as a renewed form of communism. Throughout history the power/wealth distribution seems to ebb and flow and perhaps it's time for a correction.

• by mg794613 on 10/13/21, 12:18 PM

  Nice how this article pus together people who want more flexibility in work location with people who hate work and try to work as less as possible. Makes you almost guess where theguardian.com owners stand on this issue.

• by hermitcrab on 10/13/21, 11:09 AM

  An alternative to doing less of a job you hate is to find a job you like doing. Easier for some people than others, obviously.

• by hermannj314 on 10/13/21, 12:14 PM

  If you are a 2x or 3x engineer, it makes more sense to work 0.5x or 0.33x hours than to give all your energy to one company. Get a 2nd job before you give one company everything.

  I recommend you do the same work of the next person on the team and shirk the rest. Any company that despises this practice is trying to get something from you they aren't willing to pay for.

  I assure you, your company doesn't deliver 3x what it promised in their contracts.

  If you are salaried, you promise to be available for so many hours a week and do duties as assigned. Perfect. Honor that end of the contract and shirk away.

  Dont let the capitalists invent a morality to shame you to give them 100% while they are in a meeting with their lawyer on how to incorporate in Luxembourg and strongarm municipalities into giving them handouts.

• by sam_lowry_ on 10/13/21, 12:05 PM

  Along the lines of David Graeber's ‘On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs’ in Strike! Magazine http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf

• by bojangleslover on 10/13/21, 11:51 AM

  Give people free money, they will not work. It's just human nature. I put it up there with the law of thermodynamics.

  I have to actively fight my own lazy tendencies every single day to make sure I don't become Gavin.

• by a_imho on 10/13/21, 11:40 AM

  minimum wage -> minimum work