Feeling guilty for doing the bare minimum at work

Read up a bit on ADHD. That 'hyperfocus' that occurs either with deadlines or on a passion project is a symptom, as is the inability to get excited about projects you simply don't want to do - especially given your otherwise positive reviews and your ability to clear your mind and hyperfocus near a deadline, it's something to consider.

I was diagnosed at 33, and it changed my life infinitely for the better. YMMV, and you may not have ADHD, but if you do, it is nothing to feel guilty about - it, in fact, gives you some insanely useful abilities that others simply don't have, as evidenced by the number of comments on this post explaining you have no guilt to feel, and your positive performance reviews.

But being able to understand why we do these things, and being able to understand how to adjust for them (whether through medication or coping mechanisms) is, alone, insanely relieving.

Consider picking up 'Driven to Distraction,' or 'Delivered From Distraction,' or check out these posts by Mark Suster which was what led me to get started on the path:

* https://bothsidesofthetable.com/how-to-know-if-you-have-add-...

* https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-add-might-actually-benef...

* https://bothsidesofthetable.com/developing-an-action-plan-fo...

This sounds like it might be good thing for the company. Having employees who have extra capacity is incredibly important for an organization that wants to get things done; if you're constantly hard at work on something important, when something else comes up (someone has a question, there's a bug or an outage, whatever), you either have to delay the thing you're already working on, or delay the thing that came up. This tends to have a cascade effect on most kinds of work, locking up all your people resources.

Plus, those other things you're doing sound like they overall, in the long-term, probably give you a wider range of knowledge, improving your usefulness.

Just wanted to add a voice against that sort of Taylorism perspective on work.

This is exactly why I've concluded trying to go my own way is the best long-term plan for me. Before learning about YC and HN and such, the thought never really occurred to me.

When I'm working on a personal project I'm really passionate about, my productivity is literally orders of magnitude higher than at any day job I've had. Months or years are compressed into days.

For any ambitious personal project that I'm intrinsically motivated by, I'm working on it and designing it pretty much every free moment I have. It's actually crazy to me how much I can get done if there's absolutely zero "ugh field" [1] inhibiting me. It doesn't feel like work at all. I'd happily take 20% of my current salary if it meant I could do that all day instead.

Even if it's stressful and even if I might fail miserably, I think life should be lived. If there's even the tiniest sliver of a chance that I could support myself just doing something like that, I know I'd be much happier. And if turning such a thing into a job or organization sucks the fun out of it, then I'll just keep trying again and again until I can find a project with a sufficiently viable enjoyment:financial stability ratio.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EFQ3F6kmt4WHXRqik/ugh-fields (Regarding the author's username: yes, it's that one.)

I was in a similar rut. Not just professionally but academically as well for most of my life. Motivation had to be forced to do more than just enough to blend into the crowd. It took me saying enough is enough in my 40's to go get tested. Turns out I have ADHD. Getting therapy to deal with anxiety and depression stuff as well as getting on Adderall has done wonders.

I'm not suddenly working 40+ hours always in the zone. What has happened is that I've been better able to enjoy/engage with coworkers around helping them. Instead of feeling stuck and anxious, it's been easier to feel at ease at work and less fixated on metrics or usefulness. That engagement with my coworkers coupled with lowering how much effort was needed to do work that was previously seen as "busy" work has done wonders for my outlook about work.

In my case the benefit/problem of hyperfixation due to ADHD meant that when I had an interesting bit of work in front of me I could knock it out the park and it didn't feel like any effort. Those infrequent home runs were enough to make up for the times where I just couldn't be bothered to do other less interesting things. Didn't want to do them and because no one was asking me to do them it was ok that I didn't. Deep down I knew I was overcompensating in my strong areas to avoid the uninteresting items. This may not be you but if it is you may want to think on it. It's helped me outside of work as well. Parenting and dating.

If your employer is happy with you, there is no reason to 'feel guilty'.

Being competent (top 20%) and working 3hrs / day is way more productive than a middle performer working 12 hrs / day.

In my personal experience:

I work with people that, in 5 minutes, I can accomplish more than they can in a day. And those people are not stupid / unmotivated.

I also work with people that, in 5 minutes, can accomplish more than I can in a day. I'm not stupid, or unmotivated.

Some people are just more experienced, have better judgement, are smarter etc.

Output is what counts, not time.

At 3 hours a day, you work as much as everyone else does. [0]

[0] https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver...

I work 7-hour days, but I might work 2 or 3 hours during that time. A lot of the time I find the work unbearable and can only bring myself to do it in short intervals. When the task is interesting, involves my skills, and I'm making progress, I can work for hours with almost no breaks. It really is an emotional thing. I won't force myself to do anything that is really painful because it ruins my mood for the whole day. At the same time I feel guilty of days I get little or nothing done and I feel trapped by the time constraint of the work day, even though I work from home. I would really like to make a deal where I work independent of a work day, with no set hours and no expectations, and not feel like I'm on call all day, so I can do things other than work through the day and not feel like I'm cheating.

by the end of my employment at Google, I was working about 2 hours a day (and getting Meets Expectations at L6, which is OK but not great). While I'd be online and available to respond to chat for 8 hours, I only exerted about 2 hours and most of that was just explaining to executives just how bad our fleet was.

Before that I had worked at least 6 hours a day. And I assumed that to be "right" i should be working at least 8.

From the feedback I got, I wasn't much more productive working more hours. At first I felt guilty and then I realized in my career that working harder isn't going to make any difference in terms of $, career security, or opportunity to work on cooler stuff. So, I just upped my anxiety meds and got back to working 2 hours a day.

Thank you for slacking, sincerely.

Management tends to set a bar for effort based on how hard our peers work. In a competitive environment this can lead to an ugly race to burnout. By straining to meet expectations, devs inadvertently increase the pressure on each other to perform - higher and higher - to the point that 60+hr weeks are normalized.

By doing the minimum, you're pushing back against that and helping to keep the bar in a reasonable place. It is really a favor to other developers (and in many cases to the company, since burnout can destroy whole projects in the end).

They pay you the bare minimum needed to keep you, so why would you do anything but the bare minimum amount of work? Passion is things you are actually invested in, like hobbies, or your family, or a business you own, or a particularly interesting question, or career development, etc.

Congrats! You have found a comfortable job. Also my condolences, you've found a comfortable job.

Jobs like these are a warm and cozy trap. If you're spending time reading blogs you may not be spending your time in a way you can look back on with pride. Time is your ultimate limited resource and the one thing you will regret not spending more wisely.

Depending on your risk tolerance I recommend:

1. Quit, start a company of your own.

2. Quit, get one or more remote jobs.

3. Work on open source during work time.

4. Volunteer for something that benefits you and uses your time better (e.g. running training sessions on tech you know / want to know)

5. Reduce your life costs, accumulate money, retire early (FIRE)

I was and sort of still continue to be a mental wreck because of isolation / life stuff that changed because of covid. We were all locked in a room for basically a year, let's all just think about that for a second.

Yes, I currently for the lack of a better definition coast at my job. I work maybe 20hrs a week and get paid the full degree, increased hours a bit to still get a raise after my last review.

This is okay to heal and get back to normal, but will undoubtably stagnate your motivation, mental health and career advancement long-term.

I'm probably going to leave this current job (since perception of my velocity is now set in stone) take a 2-3 weeks off and then start interviewing for a job with better pay.

The way I see it, I'm just gaming the system to maximize my efficiency with a large bias for recovering my mental health. This is why companies are scared of work from home long term ;)

My 2c: your value may be a net positive. Maybe not the largest positive, but remember: a lot of people actually are of negative value. You don’t distract coworkers. You don’t schedule meetings. You don’t overengineer or start crazy projects.

You’re just a living sign that we could work 3 hours a day and still create good value, and that our attempts at maximum efficiency isn’t actually working.

If people around you are happy and things get done when they need to and others don't get blocked, it sounds like you are doing a great job and are merely baffled at how effecient you've gotten!

If you have any interest, consider trying management? A lazy manager is a good manager, in the same long-term sense as a lazy developer is a good developer. Knowing what the real priorities are despite the bluster is a key manager skill. Nothing more wasteful than putting in tons of hours on a project that sounds important but ultimately isn't to the stakeholders that run the company, and the best managers have an incredible ability to read between the lines and predict what will end up mattering, and prioritize their own teams work accordingly.

While I don't seem to have all the information here, what I do have is enough to make a really good suggestion. I have some of the same issues with goofing off and such like that. So with this, a couple of questions.

1. Do you find yourself avoiding work you don't want to do outside of the job? 2. Was this a problem in school? 3. Have you talked to a doctor about this?

Number three is the most important. I have ADHD, and it sounds like you might too. Go see your doctor as soon as you can. Once you know what's going on, you can make yourself a plan to improve yourself.

I just wanted to say that I also suffer from this problem. I think I only do real work a couple of hours per week.

One thing that works for me is pair programming, but I can't do that every day because it is so exhausting.

It is so interesting to think of this dilemma in tech/computer oriented jobs vs something that requires one to be present(retail/customer service/etc...).

I work as a dev now, but worked as a gas station clerk for 6 years starting at the age of 16. If I came in for an 8 hour shift, I honestly think 7 of it was spent doing 'work'. I would have to pretend to go to the bathroom for a #2 just to get a 5 minute breather(and thats not to say the environment was oppressive, but the work standard was high and we felt valued at the company).

Einstein spent the better part of three years wandering around the Princeton campus before he presented his theory on relativity. During that time he was mocked by his peers for not "working hard". In retrospect, Einstein noted the time he spent ambling the campus allowed him the space required to finish his postulation.

Focus on you. Don't look at the other animals in the cage to try and measure yourself.

That's great until the economy changes and you have to start competing again.

I had a slack job for my mid career when I should have been busting my ass and positioning myself for my later career. I wasted tons of time and regret it. You may have ADHD. You may just be lacking self discipline. I don't know. You should get your shit together now when you have the option and not wait for life circumstances to demand it.

It's not about what you owe the company. It's about what you owe yourself.

Working for several hours a day is unfeasible for most people, unless you're working on something you actively love.

From my perspective, as long as you're not holding anyone back, I think you're doing a decent job of modulating your energy for moments when you need it, as opposed to marathon running all day long.

Very common. I know several people in this same boat. They're all smart and can get things done when they're motivated. Unfortunately, most of this work is not too interesting so 70%+ of the time they're bored, half checked-out, doing the minimum, browsing HN, reddit, or checking their stock portfolios.

Most people work a bit, then slack a bit, or just pace themselves at a constant sustainable rate. You're doing fine.

What you don't want to find yourself in was my system administration job. At first there was plenty to do, my manager had me keep a log, so if a problem re-arose I could solve it more quickly. I did that, and things were good. After a few years, I'd done such a good job that I had a lot of slack time. There were some changes I wanted to make to the database, so I built a prototype of a new system that would have made things a lot better for everyone, and the production manager wouldn't even TRY it. I did this three different times before I finally gave up.

For the last few years, I showed up, jumped on any problem that arose, and waiting for quitting time, all the while knowing that I wasn't really delivering much value (other than absorbing uncertainty as far as the computers were concerned). Eventually economics caught up, and they outsourced the job.

You've got a steady flow of work... you'll be fine.

My company gets utility from me when I'm sleeping, showering, or sitting on the throne. I'm thinking about my work tasks and how to solve them in those situations. When I'm at my desk in my open plan office (pre-COVID), the constant interruptions meant not getting any work done.

To me it sounds like the fact that you're "slacking" for five hours a day is what enables you to complete your work effectively during the other three hours.

I expect that if you forced yourself to slack less and do more hours of "real work", you would get less done in more time, and with degraded quality.

If you can change your perspective and feel less guilty, I recommend you keep doing what you do for both your sake and your employer's. It's a long term win-win.

I look at this from a physics perspective. I generally have 3-4 hours a day where I am making something (as I take on more leadership it goes down to 2-3 hours a day). During this time I am doing 'real work', i.e. applying force to our goal posts to move them toward delivery. Simply said, work is force over time and force = mass * acceleration. If I look at that as development force = knowledge x development effort, then my 'real work' is increasing my development effort. However, the time I spend refreshing, increasing my skills and my general knowledge, is increasing my knowledge, aka mass. Therefore it still increases the amount of work I can do. I can do more with 4 hours of work than many junior devs I know can do with a week. Not because I'm special, but just because I've done it before and now the technologies.

I'm very similar, or was. I was diagnosed with ADHD aged 30. If I'm working on something I enjoy or find interesting, I'm all in on it, obsessed. If I find it slightly dull or tedious, I'll have to fight with myself to get it done, just turns into relentless scrolling through hacker news, or get distracted with other things.

The trick, I've found, is to either find ways to enjoy what you're working on if you don't enjoy it. For example, gamifying it or finding some other challenge in it. Or try to insist on specialising on what you do enjoy working on more.

Read the following as well (if, of course you haven't already): - Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Deep Work by Cal Newport - Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey

Oh, and don't beat yourself up for not feeling 100% productive or enthusiastic all the time. Most of this expectation is a tech culture thing and it's just silly. Most jobs don't expect this, most jobs people assume you're sat around talking and eating biscuits several hours a day. Our brains aren't designed to work in well defined, lengthy chunks of time, it's absurd we expect that.

As a few others haven't mentioned as well, it's worth getting screened for ADHD if you haven't already, the meds can really really help. They were a revelation for me anyway.

Check threads here: https://www.teamblind.com/

It is a way of life at FAANG, Uber, etc.

Don’t feel guilty. These companies will eventually realize they need to change, or perhaps they are okay with it.

Slack is our natural born right.

---

> Church members seek to acquire Slack and believe it will allow them the free, comfortable life (without hard work or responsibility) they claim as an entitlement.

> Sex and the avoidance of work are taught as two key ways to gain Slack.

> Davidoff believes that Slack is "the ability to effortlessly achieve your goals". Cusack states that the Church's description of Slack as ineffable recalls the way that Tao is described, and Kirby calls Slack a "unique magical system".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius#Conspi...

---

> Unlike those Christians and their tirades about Original Sin, The Church teaches us that all of us, humans and SubGenii alike, are born with Original Slack. As part of their mission to suppress and subjugate the SubGenii, The Conspiracy starts stealing your Slack from the day you are born.

https://subgenius.fandom.com/wiki/Slack

You’ve got management written all over you!

If the minimum wasn't good enough it wouldn't be the minimum.

Think of it this way. If you can get away with so little work while being recognized as a solid contributor, you must be extremely competent: where a newbie sounds the entire day on busywork to find a solution, you just see the solution and spend the rest 7 hours reading HN. Also, when was the last time your manager approached you with a conversation "hey, out company is doing much better, so we wanted to double your pay and give you this expense card to pay for flights, hotels and restaurants, wherever those might be"? The company isn't seeking an opportunity to spend more money on you, so you should be doing the same. It's just a business relationship.

You're really selling me on moving my company to a 4 day work week.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Don't get into survival mode. Studies show that when people feel guilty/stressed for a behavior, they fall into the behaviors that they are trying to avoid. [1][2]

[1] https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.24.2.254.6...

[2] https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/0003-066X.40....

I wanted to start a business and work the bare minimum, but I felt guilty about it - even though my bare minimum is still impressive to my employers.

My solution was to just switch jobs and take a pay cut. I work a lot less now (with the same kind of arrangement), but I feel a lot less guilty about spending chunks of my time on my own thing.

Relevant pg essay, under the 'working harder' heading: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html?viewfullsite=1

There's a deeply ingrained conviction (that I'm also a victim of) from generation of our grandparents and blue collar jobs that the work ain't real work unless you put 8hr of sweat and pain and you're dead at the end of the day.

Things work differently in 21st century highly intellectual job. Doing that is a straight recipe for burnout.

I'm the kind of person who typically overly engages in every job but I'm tired full time as a result. I actually think I need to work less (but be better organized).

I spent ~6.5 years at Google working an hour a day at the most (cue Office Space, meeting with the Bobs) with nobody being the wiser. I met or exceeded all performance review expectations. When I left, my colleagues complimented me on my "work ethic". It wasn't just me doing that either. Most ppl are too busy focusing on whatever life goals and ladderisms they've assigned to themselves to really scrutinize what others are doing.

There is a certain subset of programmers who get away with this at work. But if you're posting this, it sounds like you're torn between the comfortable quality of life you're living now, and the boredom and knowing you could be doing more.

Some ideas:

* Can you do a rotation on a different team? (For example, if you're devops, you might learn a lot on SRE/ops.)

* Can you start side projects at work, for work?

3 hours a day? This seems completely reasonable. I'm under the impression the vast majority of developer are in a similar boat.

You sound exactly like me. I've mostly just accepted the fact that this is the best way for me to work. I can buckle down and grind out a full day of work some days but not for many days in a row.

I've come to the conclusion that I am usually as productive/more productive than those around me and I tend to think it is _because_ of the way I work rather than in spite of it. When I do sit and do some work I am less stressed and can use a couple hours of motivation to knock out a days work in 2-3 hours usually in the morning. The rest of the day might be meetings/exercise/reading/social media/youtube and perhaps an additional 30-60min of work.

Ultimately I've found that the reason not to "slack" so much is less because I am not productive enough and more because when slacking I often lean on high dopamine activites like social media/youtube etc. that ultimately make me less happy than being with friends/going for a walk/learning something new.

I will also say I have done the "grind" for months at a time and looking back I know that I would have gotten the same amount of real work done at my current pace. The issue is the added stress makes it harder for me to think, I often end up working on the wrong problem as I am trying to move too quickly, and having too many pending tasks makes it harder to make decisions/prioritize.

I've also worked with those that grind and I've noticed they don't always work on high priority tasks. Often they are too focused on grinding they might not be able to step back and realize they could use their time better.

I think a lot of people could get their work done in ~3 hours a day if they were actually focused for that long. I think a big chunk of folks are in your shoes and just don't recognize it or they think of all of those other things you do as part of work.

I know people who "waste" a huge amount of their time talking to people in the office and probably do less than ~3 of real work a day. They also distract others. But they would call that team building.

This describes my situation pretty well. Working remotely makes "getting away with it" all too easy. Unfortunately the effect it's having on me is a great deal of anxiety. Though the anxiety is probably a combination of many factors: lack of social life/friends post-graduation, feeling stuck at a job I don't enjoy, wanting to move out of my parents' house but not knowing where to go.

I used to always try to be productive during my workday, and would feel extremely guilty for getting distracted. Over time, however, I have drifted steadily towards the bare minimum because I feel like I was always doing the most by far. Now I consider it productive time spent if I learn something new or work on side projects. I still feel guilty, but not nearly as much as I used to.

I'm guessing it's a spectrum in terms of "slacking off" at work. Like yourself I'm quite productive with my work and feel like I can accomplish the same amount in 30 minutes as some others can in a single day.

This gives me wiggle room, working from home I'll take a longer break at lunch, going for a walk after eating and I like to read up on tech news etc as well.

I wouldn't say I do the bare minimum, but I also have a strong sense of not letting people down.

That being said I'm quitting my job as I'm not super motivated by the work and have a side project that I get joy out of every time I touch it.

One thing to think about in terms of slacking off is what you're getting besides money in terms of the work you're doing. I suspect that if you aren't getting much personal growth from the work then it's easy to see how you'd be unmotivated to put in more than the bare minimum. In which case you might want to change job / project etc and work on something you feel will allow you to grow.

I spend a lot of time thinking through what needs to be done and how. I don’t stare at a screen and just bang code out anymore.

This sounds like the flight, fight, freeze response. You're lacking stimulation so you coast along until you need to work then you fight.

More: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26371848

One possibility is that whatever you've been doing in these companies just isn't your thing.

Are you sure you're in the right career? Maybe there's something else that you'd be good at and actually interested in?

I've found myself in this sort of situation a few times, and every time it's been due to either me picking up a job for the wrong reasons, or the job just not being a good fit to begin with. I'm not saying this is the case for you necessarily, but you should probably think about it a little bit, and if it is, find something more stimulating to do. Unless, of course, you find the situation you're in acceptable to you.

I don't think what you call "slacking around" is actually bad. You are keeping abreast and learning new things from relevant sites. That's a big part of your job and a tremendous value to you and your employer.

Doing it the other way around in a really small team and a lot of pressure still makes you feel guilty, you do too much work (even working an 8 hour day), burn out and end up very stressed. So careful what you wish for!

+1. I completely feel that and I definitely slacked more when employed by someone else doing something boring.

I was similarly surprised by hearing great things about me and how fast things get done (man, I did 10x the work for my own startup in the same time), but I think it boils down more to interpersonal skills, chatting on slack and showing my knowledge, solving problems quickly in the presence of others. People's feedback is not a good metric to estimate how much work gets done.

At the same time I can work hours straight with no distraction if I enjoy the problem or if I'm working on my business.

I have noticed that biggest inhibitor to my work is having to deal with other people's bullshit. If my manager doesn't really listen or isn't interested (or just fakes an interest) in making things well I kinda my lose motivation too to bring my best. Just being a monkey to churn-out half-assed code is what I hate the most and deteriorate my productivity too.

I can really pump out code with my own projects but doing the same to finish a bunch of nameless JIRA tickets isn't really the same. What do I get for providing some corporation more value? A pat on the shoulder? Hah.

Very, very common.

If you work 3 hours a day but you deliver decent code and you are not on the way, you are not a problem for your manager. He knows that you are slow, but you don't give him problems, so he is ok.

A hyper motivated developers who starts lots of projects and don't finish them, or who writes buggy code, or who creates social problems in the team, will raise more red flags than a "slow but consistent developer".

Talk to your manager. They may be okay with you looking for what to work on on your own.

I started doing that a couple years ago. I'd scout and talk to people about what they needed. Eventually we'd find a project that was worth working on.

It's gone really well. I was okayed to basically choose what I worked on after a while, so that made work more fun. And your employer may recognize that and reward it.

It's certainly not uncommon.

But: Turning it back to you: how is that working out for you? The title of your post — "feeling guilty" — may be telling you something. Either do it and enjoy it or don't.

You can be a genius "slacker". If that's fulfilling for you, great. Otherwise, focus on what you want to be getting out of the situation and not on the guilt.

Guilty, no. I mean, it's your employers and managers who should feel guilt.

Worried? Maybe. Deliberately positioning oneself as a C- (bare minimum) performer might work OK in a time of plenty.

What happens when your skills and endurance have atrophied, but the pressure is actually on?

I call folks like you "the expendables". It's a job with a purpose and I appreciate your sacrifice.

You're probably in a state with "at will" employment so there's nothing stopping your employer from firing you for any reason short of discrimination or retaliation. If they haven't fired you or even so much as given you a warning, then you are clearly satisfying your end of the agreement, by definition. (You don't even have the insight to make this determination, so you have to go by their actions)

That five hours a day of paid time off is the profit you earn for doing a good job. It is up to you to efficiently reallocate those resources as demanded by CAPITALISM because the company is unable to.

Any tips on how to change the timestamp on your Git commits? That way you could get your work done on a Monday and spread the commits out throughout the week. I've looked at this before but there are two timestamps on each commit (can't remember now what each of them denotes) and I could only change one of them.

Honestly you could do worse than reading HN. I have learned tons on here that I frequently later apply to my day job.

Work smart, not hard. Actually sounds like you are doing just that:

> reading blog posts, HN, often even reading (tech, biz-related) books

You will gain knowledge from doing those things, that will aid you in your job. Technically demanding roles require constant learning, not just bums-on-seats bashing out code.

OP you just sound lazy and to be honest I 100% notice this behavior when my colleagues do it. Do I moan and complain to my manager about them? No. Do I think badly of them? Yes.

You say you're feeling guilty but you also say "I don't really feel bad about it". Which is it?

Yeah, the guilty feeling sucks, I also had a devops job where I worked 2-3 hours a day. I finally found a more demanding job that required 4-6 hours of work per day. Being remote also helped instead of trying to keep up appearances in the office.

Reading hn and other tech related information is working - increasing your depth and breadth. It’s just not direct work. It’s good for you and your employer for you to spend time with indirect work, with related and unrelated general topics.

People know most will just not say anything to you and work around you..I work with someone like this and the team is well aware that he does the bare minimum, but we just don't say anything because nothing good will come of it.

You should make sure you and your manager(s) are on the same page. It would be unfortunate if you think they are happy with your work just to get in trouble later on for working less hours than what your getting paid for.

Dude just enjoy it its simple!

Don't feel bad. Most companies ask you to sign away your intellectual properties even when they're come up during your rest in non-working hours. Your slacking is just your rest time for your work.

As long as the work you DO perform is high-quality, there’s little reason to push you out of your chair. Review code, write docs, provide useful feedback - who could ask for more?

Host file the sites you like. You saying this and me typing this reminded me that I need to do that again... my current one:

127.0.0.1 arstechnica.com

#127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

127.0.0.1 reuters.com

127.0.0.1 techcrunch.com

127.0.0.1 slashdot.org

127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com

127.0.0.1 youtube.com

Don't feel guilty. I work from Colombia for a call center that pays $2/h. I can barely have time to pee. Enjoy your free time for the rest of us that don't

It’s fine. You’re hurting no one really. At most you’re hurting yourself but likely not. If you wanted something different you’d behave differently.

You have no reason to feel guilty. The relationship between employee and employer is fundamentally one of exploitation.

I wish I was like you. I volunteer to get involved in lots of projects then fail at half of them and end up burnt out.

Business could be a better fit for you. Perhaps building your own SaaS app? I'm working on something to help people build businesses, you can sign up for the MVP if you like: https://cxo.industries

from all the reading i do here, you would be a great fit at Google, every G employee here seems to talk about barely working. :x

Obligatory "Office Space" quote : "It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care". Maybe your workplace is uninspiring? Maybe everywhere you've worked it uninspiring? Many workplaces are inefficient. Not surprising if you can get stuff done in fraction of the time. Have you got kids yet? If not, that might explain your issues. ;) Once you have kids its a much as you can do to get work done, look after kids and be a good parent, and do a few hobbies besides. No time for feeling guilty for not doing enough. ;)

Are you guys hiring ?Where can I apply?

Curious about career advancement with this approach? Does this get you promoted and does this get you work on more interesting projects?

The guilt you're feeling is intentional. The culture of capitalism is the driving force behind it. By recognizing it, you're already partway to breaking free.

You have my dream job

how do you find a company like this?

this sounds a bit too much like humble bragging. I mean, you're considered "responsible" for rollouts and you want to tell me you're a relative of George Costanza? get outa here ...

Programmers are inherently incredibly underpaid relative to the immense value they bring to everything so if anything your working hours match what you're being paid. You may still be doing too much work.

Do not worry about it. It's not your job to worry about it.

If you want to work more, then get paid more.

If you are venting this, you know its an issue.

Maybe the theory you should post instead of an excuse is that you are lazy and the skill you perfected is hiding that you don't do anything.