Time Millionaires

[51notout]

Interesting article in The Guardian about how people are valuing their time over their jobs.

Brings up several points discussed on ER.org such as Time > Money, companies overworking people, no pay for excess hours, etc.

These folks are willing to keep working at reduced hours and pay for the sake of their lifestyle much like some on here take smaller jobs after actual retirement. However, some forget to tell their employers about their plan [emoji849]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifean...t-the-people-pursuing-the-pleasure-of-leisure

You can click through the request to contribute to The Guardian

 

[Chuckanut]

These folks are willing to keep working at reduced hours and pay for the sake of their lifestyle much like some on here take smaller jobs after actual retirement. However, some forget to tell their employers about their plan [emoji849]

My first job out of college was for MegaCorp. I met Hank, a jolly fellow, who never seemed to be under pressure and always had time for another coffee break or to shoot the breeze in the copier room.

One day he took this youngster to his side and told me his secret, "I retired four years ago at full pay and benefits. I just never told MegaCorp and as long as I show up, they don't realize it." Alas, all good things..... MegaCorp insisted that people of a certain rank assume a lot more responsibility including managing underlings. Hank was offered a sweetened retirement package and took it. He did burn up most of his accumulated sick pay by taking almost every Friday off.

 

[Amethyst]

Sure his name wasn't Wally? or Milton?

As a manager I sometimes "inherited" human coatracks, as other managers cleverly managed to pass them on. Given the government salary system, some of them made as much as I did (or more) which irked me.

"Hank" (or Sally) Goldbrick would receive a concrete performance plan and a set of goals to achieve by a set date. After a period of passive aggressiveness, trying to evade/undermine the mean new boss, he would either produce, find a sleepier office, or retire.

One fellow was a napper - so I made a point of wandering by to wake him up with a question. After about six months, he retired. I learned that he'd done his share of complaining, only to find that his co-workers were on my side. They were fed up with his naps while they worked their butts off.

My first job out of college was for MegaCorp. I met Hank, a jolly fellow, who never seemed to be under pressure and always had time for another coffee break or to shoot the breeze in the copier room.

One day he took this youngster to his side and told me his secret, "I retired four years ago at full pay and benefits. I just never told MegaCorp and as long as I show up, they don't realize it." .

 

[Montecfo]

I think Time Thieves would be a better title. I'm all for people making lifestyle decisions to work less. But unless you work somewhere where slacking is ignored (sad organizations for sure) at some point you wish to move on or retire and you have a reputation which makes it hard to find new employment. And guess what, it's hard to accumulate when your focus is not on your job (some exceptions could apply say for certain government type jobs).

Balance is helpful and desirable but challenging. I achieved it the last 4-5 years of employment, but it was not something I could have just chosen earlier.

I was able to do my job in less time, that's it. But I didn't work slowly or slack off.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

We called that the ROAD program for the sandbaggers in the military (Retired On Active Duty)

 

[Chuckanut]

Sure his name wasn't Wally? or Milton?

Hank would have loved Wally. IIRC, Wally's career goal is to "work myself into a position where I have no effect on anything". Hank had managed that, if you don't count the staff coffee pot.

 

[Music Lover]

Guilty as charged.

I had a govt job that involved analyzing accounts, writing a report, and making recommendations. I was able to make expected production (+15%) working just 3 hours a day by working efficiently and using copy/paste for most of the reports (changing each one a little so as not to be obvious). So that's what I did for years.

We were allowed to work 9 hour days on 37.5 hour weeks. So I worked Monday to Thursday 36 hours and took 3 Fridays off working 6 hours on the 4th Friday. 3 long weekends every month, 36 a year before the stat holidays. I would often take vacation following a Monday stat holiday requiring only 27 hours of time because of a scheduled Friday off which gave me a 10 day break (Friday to Sunday). I also took 6 - 8 weeks unpaid leave in spring/summer. All that combined with generous vacation credits meant that I usually worked less than half the days in the year.

On the other hand, I rarely called in sick, never turned down a request from my supervisor, and never rocked the boat. My annual performance reviews were always "above satisfactory".

 

[rodi]

I negotiated part time work when I had my first son. At the time it was 60% of full time (3 days a week.) When I changed departments, a year later, I had to up it to 80% (4 days/week). I protected my unpaid day off, declining meetings on that day off. I was willing to put in extra hours for project 'pushes' - but only on the same day I was scheduled - no weekends and not on my unpaid day off. Coworkers expressed envy of my day off. I'd point out my salary was prorated - they could have more time off if they were willing to take less pay. That universally shut them up. None were willing to give up salary to work less. At one of my annual reviews my boss asked me when I was going to go back to full time. He stressed that he really wanted me to go full time. I felt a lot of pressure - but dug deep for the confidence to say "This 80% part time solution works for me and my family. Unless I will be fired for not going back to full time, I would continue to work part time. I wasn't fired.

I quit /retired when the boss (same one) tried to schedule me for 6 days travel every 3 weeks. So not only would I be giving up a weekend day (for travel), I'd be giving up the unpaid day off. (It was also unnecessary for the project and being done just to fluff the customer.) He outlined the new travel initiative that 3 of us would be doing on a Thursday. I had Friday off. I gave notice on Monday.

So I get the argument about time millionaires... And protecting your time as earnestly as you protect your wealth.

Unfortunately, that article presented slackers who wanted full pay for part time work

 

[youbet]

One fellow was a napper - so I made a point of wandering by to wake him up with a question. After about six months, he retired. I learned that he'd done his share of complaining, only to find that his co-workers were on my side. They were fed up with his naps while they worked their butts off.

I often found a high level of correlation between the "bitch about management" types and the "retire on the job" types. They say the best defense is a good offense, so they'd proactively try to let everyone know how picked on and besieged they were. Then when they were noticed snoozing in their cube (again), it became the boss's fault for demanding too much.......

 

[jollystomper]

Interesting. Megacorp paid me too much and made the job too much like a hobby for me to slack off . My idea of "slacking off" was playing around with technology that was outside of my "official" support area. It was amazing how much of that "play around" time made a difference in advancing my career, as projects came up that needed what I learned "playing around" along with my "official" scope, which made me very valuable.

At time my management would "force" our team to have slack time. For example, many times on the last workday before a long weekend, or the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, or the day before Christmas eve, word would go out that "if a client does not need you, slack off and have a good weekend/holiday. It was a balance, there were many times we worked weekends or nights solving problems or preparing for a client facing event, but good management recognized this and would try to balance it out.

I was fortunate to have some good clients who supported this "slack off" move in stealth ways. One fond situation happened when executives from the client company raised what was (in their mind) a serious issue, demanding that Megacorp send a team onsite, which would include me. The actual client workers apologized to us Megacorp team workers, saying they thought they could figure it out without us coming, but we had a good relationship with them and we were happy to. To make a long story short, the client workers "conspired" to tell the execs it would be best if they and the Megacorp workers could work on the problem and test the solution at one of their data center sites in San Diego. Our team flew in Sunday afternoon, we met with the client workers then evening and pretty much solved the issue,. The rest of the week was mostly a vacation in San Diego - we would have a status call at 8AM, then refine the solution until about 11, then disappear the rest of the day ("offsite brainstorming") to enjoy various San Diego attractions. Good times .

 

[rk911]

Interesting article in The Guardian about how people are valuing their time over their jobs.

Brings up several points discussed on ER.org such as Time > Money, companies overworking people, no pay for excess hours, etc.

These folks are willing to keep working at reduced hours and pay for the sake of their lifestyle much like some on here take smaller jobs after actual retirement. However, some forget to tell their employers about their plan [emoji849]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifean...t-the-people-pursuing-the-pleasure-of-leisure

You can click through the request to contribute to The Guardian

before i moved into an exempt position whenever i worked OT, and while we still had an option, I always chose to take the OT as time off to be taken later. that meant more to me than the $.

 

[RobbieB]

I'm a slacker, I fully admit it. I like to do stuff I like to do and I don't like to do stuff that I don't. Easy eh?

I was always held in high regard though, because I got the job done. I delivered when it was needed.

And when it was not needed, I went home early or played poker on the computer -

I was always exempt, travelled on my own time a lot and worked OT for nothing all the time. So, "short days", drive over to the customer, start up his stuff, educate him on operation, take him out to lunch, and go home are par for the course.

 

[stepford]

Wally was my idol! I'm proudest of the time I found myself Chief Scientist on a big project - way too much work - and arranged to hire a new project manager just so he could fire me from the program. I ended up happily puttering around in my lab for 5 years after that. Bliss.

 

[Amethyst]

That strategy works well when nobody likes or respects the boss. They may not like or respect Wally, either, but at least he's no threat.

When the co-workers are tired of picking up Wally's slack, though, they start to grumble about management needing to Do Their Job, a.k.a. light a fire under Wally or get rid of him (or her).

I often found a high level of correlation between the "bitch about management" types and the "retire on the job" types. They say the best defense is a good offense, so they'd proactively try to let everyone know how picked on and besieged they were. Then when they were noticed snoozing in their cube (again), it became the boss's fault for demanding too much.......

 

[skyking1]

I'm doing it now. I am between job starts, and I can only clean or service the equipment so much. I will put in the hours once the jobs get going, and there seems to be an endless supply of those just around the corner.

 

[pjigar]

Interesting. Megacorp paid me too much and made the job too much like a hobby for me to slack off . My idea of "slacking off" was playing around with technology that was outside of my "official" support area. It was amazing how much of that "play around" time made a difference in advancing my career, as projects came up that needed what I learned "playing around" along with my "official" scope, which made me very valuable.

My manager who hired me on the current job knew me (through company events) in the past job but he worked in a completely different domain. Software vs hardware. But he still hired me on this job because (paraphrasing his words) "I can figure things out and make them work". So yes, my extra curricular hobbies were noticed by everyone around me including different teams all together.

 

[MRG]

I was exempt and I worked around a bunch of crazy people. Megacorp worked hard and played hard too. I should have known during orientation they talked about losing the MVS system catalog(imagine losing the card catalog in a large reference library; the books are there just no way to find them) over a holiday weekend. The entire programming staff came in over the weekend re-cataloging millions of datasets. Not a great holiday.

However I had a manager later in my career who really took care of me. He frequently asked "how my wife was and why don't we go out to dinner on Megacorp, under $200". Those years were enjoyable and he always knew I'd be there 100 hours any week he needed me.

During my last big customer conversion I was in Saturday morning from 6AM till 2AM Sunday and came back at 8AM and finally around 2AM Monday I looked at my manager and said "I'm going home, I'll be back in by 8AM". He looked at me like I was insane, "customer still has issues!" I stood firm and left. Later I asked how long he stayed? "About 15 minutes after you left, I was exhausted and needed to sleep". It wasn't until that Thursday evening, 2AM Friday morning till either of us slept much. "The Good Old Days".