<story><title>Is Being Salaried a Scam?</title><url>https://www.askamanager.org/2021/03/is-being-salaried-a-scam.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ipnon</author><text>&amp;gt;The way it’s supposed to work is if you’re salaried&amp;#x2F;exempt, you’re getting paid to do a job, not for a specific number of hours. So if you work 45 hours one week and 36 hours the next, that’s supposed to be okay.&lt;p&gt;I am satisfied with my salary because I finish my responsibilities in 2 to 4 hours, then spend the rest of the &amp;quot;work day&amp;quot; maintaining a green dot on Slack and promptly responding to merge requests, looking as busy as possible. My coworkers who feel the need to work a certain number of hours (40), invariably work overtime every week because their work expands to fit their perceived availability. They all get paid twice as much as me, but if I&amp;#x27;m working half the hours is that equal compensation? I say no, because I still have my hair and my doctor says my blood pressure has improved.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryanSrich</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I am satisfied with my salary because I finish my responsibilities in 2 to 4 hours, then spend the rest of the &amp;quot;work day&amp;quot; maintaining a green dot on Slack&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is precisely why when I started my company I committed to only hiring contract devs for 10-20 hours per week. No meetings. No bullshit. I pay you a high hourly wage, you do as much (often more) work than if you were a salaried 40 hour FTE, and you likely make more money in the process.&lt;p&gt;The model of work and the 40 hour work week is so fundamentally broken I feel like I&amp;#x27;m in a perpetual twilight zone state when I talk to people. They think it&amp;#x27;s normal and okay to have 3+ hours of meetings per day and barely get any work done. I will never understand it.&lt;p&gt;My first 7 years of work life outside of college consisted of THOUSANDS of pointless meetings and months of pretending to be busy. I&amp;#x27;ve promised myself I will never do that shit again, and I will not let my business succumb to that style of work.</text></comment>
<story><title>Is Being Salaried a Scam?</title><url>https://www.askamanager.org/2021/03/is-being-salaried-a-scam.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ipnon</author><text>&amp;gt;The way it’s supposed to work is if you’re salaried&amp;#x2F;exempt, you’re getting paid to do a job, not for a specific number of hours. So if you work 45 hours one week and 36 hours the next, that’s supposed to be okay.&lt;p&gt;I am satisfied with my salary because I finish my responsibilities in 2 to 4 hours, then spend the rest of the &amp;quot;work day&amp;quot; maintaining a green dot on Slack and promptly responding to merge requests, looking as busy as possible. My coworkers who feel the need to work a certain number of hours (40), invariably work overtime every week because their work expands to fit their perceived availability. They all get paid twice as much as me, but if I&amp;#x27;m working half the hours is that equal compensation? I say no, because I still have my hair and my doctor says my blood pressure has improved.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rubicon33</author><text>Where do you work where employees who work twice as much, make twice as much?&lt;p&gt;The issue I have with salary structure is that you have no opportunity for going above and beyond.  If I work a minimum hours to get my job done, I get payed the same amount than if I went overtime and finished my tasks sooner.&lt;p&gt;It seems like software industry needs a bonus system for people who are eager to lean into their work, but struggle to see the reason to when it’s just another company that will do nothing about it.&lt;p&gt;To be clear - salary is much better than an hourly + overtime system.  The former provides a ton of flexibility.  It’s just that it provides little to no incentive for going above and beyond.</text></comment>