Remote Employee "Brags" About Only Working 30 Minutes a Day in Video, Sparks Debate

There are some jobs that require a person's physical presence for a pre-set amount of time. Let's say you're a security guard at a bank who needs to be available in case of an emergency or to keep a watchful eye during business hours: that's a gig where being charged hourly makes sense because you're being paid for your physical presence.

The same goes for someone who's manning a business, or any other location that necessitates a "reactive role," i.e. meaning that a person should be there in case anything goes down.

However, there are many jobs that are ultimately task-oriented: there are a specific number of tasks that must be completed by specific deadlines.

So if an employee is working a specific task-oriented job and completes those tasks, it would only make sense for them to receive full payment for the completion of those tasks as stipulated by their job description, right?

The thing is, a lot of these job descriptions also indicate that an employee must work a certain number of hours for the company, something that this TikToker is saying they use in creative ways to make them more efficient.

User Rich Alfonso, who posts under the handle @rich_alfonso posted a clip of him dancing in front of an at-home dual monitor computer set-up with a text overlay that reads: "When the company you work for doesn't micromanage so you take a 2-hour lunch, mid-day showers and walks for your dumb mental health so you crush 8 hours of work in 30 minutes."

There are a number of researchers and folks who've offered up just not personal anecdotes but studies on how the 40-hour work week has become obsolete for many industries and vocations.

Okta cited several studies across various decades and different jobs that seem to suggest working less than 40 hours a week ultimately resulted in happier and more productive employees.

YouTuber Cody Engel has stated that "working 40 hours a week is a complete and total scam" in this viral video where he presents several arguments as to why consistently gunning for the 40-hour-a-week mark is a bad idea. Matt D'Avela also published a video discussing the "death of the 40-hour work week" where he discusses that this hourly model is ultimately outmoded.

NPR is one of many outlets that have reported on studies that speak glowingly of 4-day work weeks, like Healthwise CEO Adam Husney who claimed that not only were employees more efficient with their time, but profits were up as a result of implementing the 4-day work week strategy.

"Our revenues went up this year more than we had budgeted. We've delivered on products on time or ahead of where we have done. I would say the things we are able to measure have all been positive," Husney said.

As for Rich's viral TikTok, a litany of folks in the comments section appeared to echo his claims stating that they wished businesses understood that just because someone is "on the clock" for a longer amount of time, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to get any more work done.

Others have said that folks who like to fill up their day with as much work as possible "have drunk the Capitalist kool-aid" and then there were commenters who made some suggestions as to what kind of skills people could learn in order to get jobs that allow them to have more "task-based" roles.

Becoming proficient at spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel, Data Analytics, and programming languages are still in high-demand. If you can learn how to craft creative processes and workflows that can synthesize data efficiently, then you'll be able to generate vital business reports in a shorter amount of time, meaning that you get your work done faster. Which means you have more time to yourself to do other things that bring you joy.

There were some folks however, who thought that Rich shouldn't be "bragging" about this on TikTok in the fear that his employer might see the post and feel some type of way about it.

And then there were other commenters who criticized Rich's claim and said that he either did the 8 hours of work terribly in 30 minutes, or the work he did was actually only a 30 minute task to begin with.

What do you think? Has the nature of the workplace for a lot of different industries changed? Or does time move at the same pace regardless and folks should dedicate a certain portion of their day to being productive, even if they do complete their tasks much sooner?