[sharkweek]

I worked for a startup where the founder/CEO mandated 40 hours of work a week, no more or less.

He would always say “I want you to work your ass off while you’re here but I also don’t want you taking this home with you. The company is paying you for forty hours of your time a week.”

The expectation, which everyone seemed to find fair enough, was that if you didn’t have enough to fill 40 hours that you find other projects to help with or tinker with new ideas.

Honestly it was a great culture and they had a sizable acquisition exit so I guess it worked even as the company got north of 600ish employees by the time they were bought.

Was everyone honest about it? No of course not, but enough were that people bought in.

[dkersten]

There is no incentive to find ways to accomplish more or better other than personal drive then, though (and personal drive eventually wears thin on its own, imho). If you have to work 40 hours, even if you get everything done early (in which case you gotta take the next task from the list, a never ending grind -- when do you get to celebrate a job well done?), even if you're head isn't in it (maybe you're not feeling well, or have something else going on, or are just bored, or have a day of mental block), you gotta get your hours in. Even if you have some very focused productive days and get everything done in record time, you gotta get your hours in.

[kirstenbirgit]

I think I often push work without realizing it, but I feel that often I'm done around 16.00 or before lunch.

If I know I have to be there anyways, I might as well goof off a little.

If no-one cared about the hours but I just had hard deliverables every day/week/month, I'd work much faster so I can go home earlier.

Depends on the project, too. Some I'm more interested in than others.

[dkersten]

Yeah. I’d also add that goofing off isn’t ok, in the sense that it’s time that’s wasted typically on unimportant time wasters while if you could get off early you could use that time for something useful, like spending it with family or on exercise or a hobby. But you can’t do those things because you’re still technically on the clock, so spend the time on HN or twitter or whatever instead, not helping yourself or your employer.