So I recently figured out something, don't know if it's been said here or not. I have a salaried position with fairly reasonable bosses so far. I work 4 days a week, with a total of 45 hours scheduled. Each day I have a 1 hour lunch(which is counted as”not work”), so by their reckoning I have 41 hours in a work week. That's all fine. On 2 of the days, the next guy comes in an hour before I leave. I have no problem with this guy, he's a decent fellow. But the job we do, doesn't need 2 ppl at the same time, so the whole time he's here I'm just thinking, “I could leave, and nothing would be harmed.” So I started doing that. For the past 2 months I've been only working 43 hours(39) per week and no one has said anything yet.
And I'm terrified someone will.
On the face of it, it doesn't make any sense. What's a couple hours when we already have coverage? No one is being hurt by this, it only benefits me. Why am I so paranoid? But I know that if my bosses or even the wrong coworker gets wind of this, not only will it get taken away, but I could get in trouble. Then it hit me. The system is carefully designed so that everyone hates it, but that few people refuse to participate. That's because when people are low-level miserable and see someone enjoying something they want but cant have, they want to take it away. With the low level of misery built in and jealously guarded, they have created spies that will gleefully report anyone “gaming the system” even if it's harmless.
TL;DR: The system makes people miserable so they will snitch on fellow employees, even if what they do harms no one. The misery has a purpose.