[AznHisoka]

No.. I think you're an consultant yourself and extrapolating your experience to the 9-to-5'ers. day jobbers can get their work done before lunch, but they're still stuck in their chair until 5 because that's the nature of a day job, and having a salary.

[davelnewton]

No.

If they have nothing else to do and they're just sitting around then there's a systemic issue and the employee/employer relationship is broken in one or more of several ways, e.g., employer is over-staffed, employee is under-utilized, etc. An idle employee is a waste of money--e.g., they're effectively making more per hour and/or the employer is incapable of managing their resources, etc.

There's no extrapolation here. If you're idle at work then something is broken, and you're wasting the employer's money. If the employer is ok with the wasted money then it's all good, but the underlying economics haven't changed. If the employer isn't ok with this, or is unaware of this, then there's fraud.

[AznHisoka]

Nobody's arguing whether the system is broken or not. Or whether it's fraud or not. You're attacking a straw man.

The truth is most salaried workers aren't billed per hour.

[davelnewton]

... And I'm saying you're being pedantic, because the underlying economics are that they are. Workers are paid for output vs. time, whether or not it's shown that way on the record books.