[throwaway2016a]

> And yet, you want to fire people who let their brains relax for a couple of hours.

Not at all. I did not mean to say that if that's what it came out as. My intent was I would fire someone who intentionally works less because they feel they are entitled to because of something another employee is doing.

It's also how they do it. If they come to me and say "I don't think this is fair... here's what I think we should do" I would never punish them. Punishing people for expressing a concern to management is a terrible idea. But if they just start doing it because they decided that's what is fair... all the sudden they disappear for hours on end... that person is not a team player.

I would never fire someone for taking a break unless it became a problem with the work quality. Heck... one of my team just went and took a nap in the break room for an hour and I'm completely OK with that. He's probably exhausted (he has a kid at home) and will come back more productive. Context matters.

> Not a big difference. A lot of those people will forget most of the stuff they "learned" in a few months time.

They might forget the technical details but they will retain some of the vocabulary and now know what the developers are talking about. But if even 5% of them is able to save or make their department money because of what they learned in the class it's probably worth it. You don't need 100% success rate to see net positive returns.