Is it immoral to only spend 50% of the time at work productively?

2 pointsujjain7y ago2 comments

I feel that people often make a big deal of somebody using 5 minutes of Facebook a day during the boss' time. I have the feeling that the average person only works 3 hours effective per hour, most people don't do that much and lie to themselves.

Should I feel bad for feeling that I should not feel bad about spending 4 hours a day productively as I still seem to get paid more and be more productive than most other colleagues.

At school I was told that when people start working their office work, that they work so hard and people have it so bad, but I feel lots of us are being extremely moralistic and hyper-critical of others, making them feel quilty, while being quiet lazy themselves.

Should I really work my ass of 8 hours per hour or should I just feel good with myself if with working 4 hours per week the results are better than average anyway?

2 comments

eksemplar7y ago

I don’t think it’s immoral, but I do think being unproductive is fairly boring. I mean, I’m in bed with the flu, and I’m extremely bored shuffling through social media. I can’t for the life of me imagine why you’d rather spend time on Facebook than working on something, assuming you have an interesting job.

If I’m engaged with something productive, it’ll make 8 hours feel like 4, if I’m trolling social media it’ll make 4 hours feel like 8.

Most people aren’t productive for 8 hours a day though, I think 4 is probably the low average, but not by much.

throwaway52507y ago

There are very few jobs that allow one to be productive most of the day (and almost invariably they are low-paying). This is indeed shocking to discover in your first jobs after college, etc.

Rather than goofing on FB, I'd look for ways to learn new skills (that ideally somehow might help your employer in the future). Or, alternatively, to find side projects that might aid the organization.

Ultimately it's your manager's job to determine whether you're sufficiently productive. Not yours.

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