Who hasn't come across the situation where an airline has us booking our own flights, processing the payment, doing an online check-in and printing our own boarding passes, saving the airlines millions of working hours every single year? Who hasn't spent hours trying to assemble a piece of furniture, or struggled with an automatic cashier in a supermarket? Who hasn't performed the lunchtime 'job' of queuing up for food, cutlery and coffee, before removing the used tray on the way out? Haven't we all asked ourselves who should be paying whom for doing all the work? Time is money, and don't we know it. But time hasn't always equalled money. Before industrialisation, it followed the rhythms of nature and the seasons, and the concept of 'saving time' or being in a hurry was unknown. Then industry put the clock in control, with its abstract notions of hours, minutes and seconds, and started pushing for 'punctuality' (a new word in the dictionary) and 'efficiency'. As a result, our time has been re-defined as a precious but finite resource, which we are aiming to use as profitably as possible, even in our private lives. We sleep on average 90 minutes less per night than a century ago and take fewer holidays. Our homes and offices are filled with time-saving devices. But ironically, the more we rush around, the less time we have. And now companies are taking the concept of 'time is money' one big step further. They are systematically stealing our time, using it for their own profit, and even selling it back to us! Combining strong characters with highly original expert interviews and rare archive footage, this documentary, in the tradition of The Corporation, and the director's previous film THE LIGHT BULB CONSPIRACY (PRÊT À JETER), will find out how time became a commodity, how the clock has taken over both our working and personal lives, and finally, how the dictates of efficiency and productivity at all cost are threatening our future.