Is "looking busy" the moral equivalent of lying?

Working as a consultant, I can never understand why someone would pay me by the hour. Would you pay the guy who plows your driveway by the hour, the guy who paints your house?

I'll tell you what I learned on my first consulting gig. I was hired to do a 10 week job. I got on site and soon found that I could finish my piece of the project, in less than a week. I brought this to the attention of the project manager. Her response - "You need to learn to pace yourself."