Ask HN: Would you rather have 20% more money or 20% more time
If you manager offered you a choice between a 20% raise or never having to work a particular day of the week again (your choice which day), what would you choose?
As a software developer I can always grant myself 20% more time. I will find a way to either automate areas of my responsibilities or reconfigure them as to be delegated to others in a more efficient configuration. This sort of social problem solving is always of greater interest to me than more money. I suspect that is why they promoted me to management and made me lead of operations for this big project.
20% raise. I happen to enjoy the work I do - Ive taken extended time off (6month+) to do personal stuff and didn't really touch anything tech related, and felt myself getting dumber as I was missing out on tech. Being engaged in it every day is like a workout for my brain.
I'm unemployed, so consider this as a general observation.
There are many considerations both employers and employees make beyond money and time.
The question is unrealistic because it forces whoever answers to choose between restricted choices. It sounds more like a poll than the representation of an actual choice a real person would have.
Both the pursuit of extra money or extra time, in my books, leads to degeneration of work relations. The exploration of these kinds of incentives also leads to degeneration of work relations. Therefore, to me, the question sounds like an affirmation of the (perhaps unconscious) desire to keep companies in control of employees choices.
That, obviously leads to the question of "if not time and money, what should an employee want then?", with many possible answers to pick from (all probably irrelevant when considered individually).
I obviously want to work as little as possible, and have as many resources as possible fruit of that minimal work, in order to pursuit a simple but happy and fullfilling life. What that entails, is highly incompatible with the array of possible off the shelf answers available for such an inquiry.
In that perspective, it seems that the whole world is in debt and out of time. We work for things we don't need and have resources incompatible with it. All my previous employers owe me, a lot. The same goes for all kinds of workers. Their superiors, either direct or implicit, owe them, and so on. 20%, or any number, any vague simplistic idea, is futile.
Why is it that wanting more money or time degenerates relations if you're the employee, but not if you're the employer? In a job, the pursuit of money defines my work relation. Paying me for my time is literally the only relation I have with my job. If I didn't work there, I wouldn't be speaking to these people or doing coding work for fun
I have given it, but you don't comprehend some parts of it.
The point which you are asking me to elaborate on is a discussion dead end. You are compelled to see it as an adversarial employee-employer dispute instead of a more complex dynamic. I can't waste my time on that.
I don't think there's really a monetary price that would make me conflicted about it. If I were struggling to survive, I'd likely think very differently, but I'm not. As long as my income is sufficient for me to live the life I prefer (which it is), money is not a very large motivator for me.
However, the time taken up by the need to work is a very large price to pay. I'd be fine taking a pay cut to have more time for living.
After you're stable there's just not that much to spend money on if you don't have a family. You might not be able to find a number that flips it for a lot of us. For me it would probably be above 500% and I'd still be conflicted there, especially if I had to commute.
Yeah I'm at that point now, too. I had a coworker lament to me the other day that his friends at [Big N tech company] make more money than him. Maybe he gets paid a lot less than me, but I don't really think there's much more money I'd take to go work for a Big N. Like if they offered me 20,000,000 a year, I'd be stupid not to work there for at least like 6 months, but obviously that's never gonna happen
This is an unrealistic question, it deserves an unrealistic answer.
There are many considerations both employers and employees make beyond money and time.
The question is unrealistic because it forces whoever answers to choose between restricted choices. It sounds more like a poll than the representation of an actual choice a real person would have.
Both the pursuit of extra money or extra time, in my books, leads to degeneration of work relations. The exploration of these kinds of incentives also leads to degeneration of work relations. Therefore, to me, the question sounds like an affirmation of the (perhaps unconscious) desire to keep companies in control of employees choices.
That, obviously leads to the question of "if not time and money, what should an employee want then?", with many possible answers to pick from (all probably irrelevant when considered individually).
I obviously want to work as little as possible, and have as many resources as possible fruit of that minimal work, in order to pursuit a simple but happy and fullfilling life. What that entails, is highly incompatible with the array of possible off the shelf answers available for such an inquiry.
In that perspective, it seems that the whole world is in debt and out of time. We work for things we don't need and have resources incompatible with it. All my previous employers owe me, a lot. The same goes for all kinds of workers. Their superiors, either direct or implicit, owe them, and so on. 20%, or any number, any vague simplistic idea, is futile.
Do you understand?
The point which you are asking me to elaborate on is a discussion dead end. You are compelled to see it as an adversarial employee-employer dispute instead of a more complex dynamic. I can't waste my time on that.
However, the time taken up by the need to work is a very large price to pay. I'd be fine taking a pay cut to have more time for living.