[sudhirj]

There's an interesting read by Taleb:

https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-legally-own-another-person...

The argument made is that being a "good employee" and following the rules is a signal to your employer that you're willing to make personal sacrifices to be dependable - the implication being that someone who follows the rules almost all the time is by necessity sacrificing some part of their personal interest.

It's just that, though - managers want dependability as much as they want competence, sometimes more so. This may or may not be good for the company depending on the company. If the leverage of each employee (in terms of their ability to affect the bottom line) is small, then dependability is far more important. If the leverage is high, then the employee's results dominate - the employee can come in whenever they want wearing whatever they want and say anything they want, as long as they make it rain.

[philipodonnell]

Thank you for that. I think the takeaway for some of the other commentators here is that if you are getting flack for coming in late, it means you are not the type of employee who can really effect the bottom line.

That is not a judgement, not everyone can effect the bottom line and it is not guaranteed that everyone finds themselves in that position over the course of their career.

But, if you have a manager who keeps telling you what a big effect you're having (perhaps to justify a lower salary or discourage a move to a new role) but also gives you flack for coming in late, it should shine a light on the truth as to how they see your role.

[dozzie]

> The argument made is that being a "good employee" [...] is a signal to your employer that you're willing to make personal sacrifices to be dependable

It would be nice if the employer was giving symmetric signal to be a dependable party that will not throw you under the bus for a mildly controversial statement nor lay off at first financial bump.

[sudhirj]

Think this used to be present for white collar jobs in the old world in the form of support for unions and pensions. It’s only asymmetric of late.