I agree with you, and I don't. With the way many companies seem to treat salary, I'd certainly rather work hourly, but that's really not the way salary is supposed to work (or does where I work).
When your hourly, if you start feeling sick in the middle of the afternoon go home, you have to put it on your timecard and it shows on your paycheck. Similarly, if shit hits the fan and you pull an extra 20 hours cleaning it up, you have to put it on your timecard and it shows on your paycheck. Seems fair right? And it is. But both you and your employer are spending a fair amount of effort on simply making sure your time (not work) is accounted for correctly.
Salary done right is when both you and your employer agree to skip the bean-counting. They have around, say, 40 hours worth of work they'd like to hire you to do, and they'd like to pay you 'x' much to do it. Now when it'd a lovely spring day and you decide to take an afternoon walk with your significant other, eh you still get paid the same. All caught up and don't feel like being at the office anymore? Eh take off. Whose counting? At the same time when there's a fire in the server room and you all pull all nighters bringing things back up, no one needs to waste time figuring exactly how much time you spent.
The problem with the way so many companies are doing salary currently is that the company is very happy not to count the extra hours you spend at work, but insist on an exact account of the time you didn't. Hell, they usually even go so far as to give you an allotment of time your allowed to not spend at the office. That double standard is the problem with most salaries, not the concept of salary itself.
When your hourly, if you start feeling sick in the middle of the afternoon go home, you have to put it on your timecard and it shows on your paycheck. Similarly, if shit hits the fan and you pull an extra 20 hours cleaning it up, you have to put it on your timecard and it shows on your paycheck. Seems fair right? And it is. But both you and your employer are spending a fair amount of effort on simply making sure your time (not work) is accounted for correctly.
Salary done right is when both you and your employer agree to skip the bean-counting. They have around, say, 40 hours worth of work they'd like to hire you to do, and they'd like to pay you 'x' much to do it. Now when it'd a lovely spring day and you decide to take an afternoon walk with your significant other, eh you still get paid the same. All caught up and don't feel like being at the office anymore? Eh take off. Whose counting? At the same time when there's a fire in the server room and you all pull all nighters bringing things back up, no one needs to waste time figuring exactly how much time you spent.
The problem with the way so many companies are doing salary currently is that the company is very happy not to count the extra hours you spend at work, but insist on an exact account of the time you didn't. Hell, they usually even go so far as to give you an allotment of time your allowed to not spend at the office. That double standard is the problem with most salaries, not the concept of salary itself.