[skeeter2020]

because by definition you're being paid for your time. I've never seen a non-contract tech position scoped as "here's an exhaustive set of responsibilities; you'll be paid 40 hrs/week to accomplish them but if you finish early the time is yours". According to your profile you're a new EM; can you honestly say there's a point in your day when the job is done-done and you can jump over to your other job?

[ivanhoe]

Depends on the manager and the type of work. When younger I was working as a part of junior admin team for big ISP. Every day we'd all get the roughly same amount of maintenance tasks to do - but since, unlike other guys, I was into programming I automated a lot of it (and probably was a little faster and more focused in general) - so I'd finish it in about a half of the time they needed. Now I was quite clear that I will not do more work than others unless I get paid more, and the manager wanted to keep me, but because of bureaucracy and syndicate I couldn't get the raise. So we stroke an internal deal that once I clear my tasks I'm free to do whatever I want with my time, as long as others don't know about it.

Now, I wish I could say I did something smart with that time, but it was a long time ago, so I mostly spent that time playing Starcraft or chatting on IRC :)

[winterplace]

Then the people who coast should be fired?

The ones who only have 1 job but spend some hours at the company recreation room and less than 40 hours on work should also be fired?