> That's true, but imagine your employees started working only as many hours as they felt they were being paid for.

Why would that be a problem, as long as what they feel they're being paid for matches their actual productive output?

> If the employee feels underpaid, they should renegotiate or, failing that, leave.

The situation you talk about does not necessarily mean they're underpaid. If they do the job they're paid for in half a week, why could they not have all their afternoons with their children, or working at the gym, or going to the beach? Or have 4.5 days weekends? Working 60, 70 or 80 hours a week is not a goal in and of itself, and money is not necessarily the main sticking point and the only valuable result of a job, and if you feel they don't work enough you should renegotiate.

"Why would that be a problem, as long as what they feel they're being paid for matches their actual productive output?"

My point is not "it is not OK for someone to work 5 hours a week." If both employer and employee agree to that, it's fine.

The point is, if you hire someone full-time for $X, you probably expect something like 40 hours a week out of them. If they just stop showing up 4 days of the week without talking to you, it's the same as if they somehow managed to withdraw 5 times their salary from your bank account without talking to you.

> The point is, if you hire someone full-time for $X, you probably expect something like 40 hours a week out of them.

Then you'll get 40 hours of physical presence instead. I'm sure that'll go well.

> If they just stop showing up 4 days of the week without talking to you, it's the same as if they somehow managed to withdraw 5 times their salary from your bank account without talking to you.

No it's not, as long as they're doing the job they're supposed to do in full. That's like saying the guy who runs a 100m in 8s is a thief, and should run the whole 10s. It's retarded.

No, it's not. Analogies are hard, you aren't up it it, stop using them.

If someone provides the work you expect, despite actually sleeping 4/5ths of the time, you're getting what you paid for. That they could have provided five times more work is irrelevant.

The only exception is where the employee's presence, and presence of mind, is the product. Such as with a security guard, retail sales rep, manager, etc.

I don know if its the case that I hang out with deadbeats but people around me do cut back from putting in their best when they feel under appreciated in terms of recognition or reward. It might be because I am currently not working in an aspirational field like Video Game programming where just the privilege of being able to work on a game means that people put in their best no matter what.

Anyway I think that in a interface where there is less than complete communication renegotiation often happens in terms of readjusting deliverables.