[varnaud]

I used to work 10h shifts in a warehouse unloading trucks. Managers would talk about time theft like slow walking to the bathroom and taking lots of time in there, recent walk to the water fountain or just too much talking with the other workers. From their POV, the hours we spent in the warehouse must be used to unload trucks, store the goods and load trucks. Any time outside the allowed breaks not spent doing that is stolen from them, because they own it by paying the worker a salary. There was workers also complaining about time theft if one annoying person was working less hard than them. Sometimes, out of boredom, I would push myself to unload a truck as quickly as possible. Most of the time, I would work at a comfortable pace. Often, the goods in the truck were tricky to unload an in a team of 2 people, 1 would be ilde while the other with the right equipment deals with the problem. In this case, managers would say the idle person should "find something to do". It usually was taking a broom and stand with it, occasionally swooping it across the floor. Some people worked fast. Some worked slow. The pay was a flat yearly increase until you reached a cap.

Today I'm a SWE, writing this comment while working from home. I often get praises by my manager for my work. I plan to clean my apartment this afternoon and maybe do some groceries. Never heard anything about time theft at my current workplace.

Unfortunately, managers can see how many boxes are left in a truck and how many were unloaded, they can't really see how many more line of codes are needed to finish a feature or how much thinking about the problem is required to find a solution.