Work count as work ?!? Soooo, anacdote time. I had this boss who walked into my office and saw me sitting in front of my computer, reading the screen and not typing. He asked me: "what are you doing?" I said: "thinking about how to solve problem X." he said: "okay, but why aren't you typing?!?!" For him it was working as a software engineer is only when you type.....

Just to be clear: your boss was a moron. Neither I nor Carmack nor the author of this article is arguing that “thinking doesn’t count”.

You're doing a lot of talking for John Carmack in your posts. This article is not written by John Carmack, the only representations being made here are what his coworker thinks about John Carmack. I'm scoffing at the psychology of someone who thinks to pull out this anecdote in the effort to persuade his peers.

And it sounds like you and I have no disagreement over what the point was, so where is the dishonest misreading? The phrasing of "fucking" around came from the author. Notice that the top posts on this discussion thread all have the same response. We all read the same point.

To repeat myself, going to the bathroom is productivity. Similarly, not paying for healthcare is externalization and it is not increasing the net productivity of the individual just because a hypothetical Amazon gets to pocket the difference. This bathroom anecdote just happens to be what Amazon thinks of warehouse productivity.

This guy is talking about being productive as an individual, he is not talking about how you can play accounting with your body and apportion productivity wins to Amazon while externalizing the penalties to yourself.