Many people have the joy of flexible hours. Many people can have the luxury of working from home. It sounds awesome but it seems like for many this is just not an option. The only way out would be to quit the job and start your own company or move to the areas where jobs are like this: in ships like mine, this can be quite infeasible. This is more an office politics issue but I'd probably be laughed out of the door if I said I wanted to work x - y.

In terms of productivity, hours are indeed bullshit. Hours don't mean productivity or anything like that. Some days I can get stuff done in one hour which could take two in my low days.

I will tell you that hours are not meaningless though. In some instances, they're not bullshit. The hours I work, for example, often determines the hours I sleep at night. This isn't because I'm actively reducing the amount hours I sleep but because I just can't sleep knowing that I face any work not completed during the day plus another pile of work tomorrow.

This isn't a rant against my job, I love my job, but it just isn't practical to just work when I feel like I'm good enough to work. I have an employer who'll strictly forbid such things and, in all honesty, I can see where he's coming from: I share an office with other employees who require a rigid structure and definite times - waltzing in at 3pm would be quite unfair in their eyes and would cause undue headache.