The fun part is my job is seriously considering only paying "working hours" as an if you are not "actively working" you don't get paid, seems insane but look around.

Giving a solid and consistent 60% is better even for the company. A burnt out employee is an unproductive and unreliable employee, and good managers realize that.

I work from home putting together bids for construction projects that our project managers want to work on. I'll usually get a project to handle every week or so, but it usually only takes me a couple days of dedicated work to finish one, so I usually just pretend to work until the final few days before a project is due.

Last week we got an emergency project that the project manager forgot to send to us for takeoff, due in only 2 days. I clocked a bunch of OT that I didn't actually need since I could finish the project up at my normal pace anyway, and my boss loves me for finishing it so quickly. Working hard every day would just make that timeframe the norm, and take away any of the appreciation for the work I do.

And when the store smashes the target the manager gets a nice bonus, and the employees who actually did anything can be happy with a free pizza slice.

We've got one colleague who likes to calculate those things. They changed overtime rules a bit. When they asked him to do some work early in the morning for reaching the targets, he refused. When the boss asked for details he sent an excel sheet with all the overtime company and tax rules in it. It turns out you only earn $5 net for coming in at work at o-dark-hundred.

Of course that sheet spread rapidly and management is now very surprised they can't find anybody to come in early.

You didn't get bonus for "smashing" those target?