[HN Gopher] We're All Working, All the Time: Workers Deserve the... ___________________________________________________________________ We're All Working, All the Time: Workers Deserve the Right to Disconnect Author : adrianhoward Score : 94 points Date : 2022-05-17 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (novaramedia.com) (TXT) w3m dump (novaramedia.com) | imapeopleperson wrote: | Siru Murugesan, an engineer at Twitter, admits to working just 4 | hours a week. | | Disconnected enough imo | sys_64738 wrote: | Don't tell them your phone number then they can't add you to some | BS WhatsApp group. | midislack wrote: | It's called taking an hourly position. Many people prefer it. | When you're on salary you're owned by the company, period. That's | what getting a salary means, you're no longer getting compensated | for individual slices of time because all your time is owned. | It's only by the good graces of the company which purchased you a | year at a time that you get time off. But that too is highly | discouraged. Taking all your time off every year shows you might | have priorities other than your employer, and by extension your | career. | | Don't they teach people what being on salary even means any more? | dools wrote: | Outside of North America, most professionals wind up using the | same mobile number for personal and business use, or they have to | carry 2 phones. | | That's why my product BenkoPhone is so important! Currently | Australia only, coming to a virtual mobile number starved | territory near you. | [deleted] | thih9 wrote: | Isn't the answer as simple as: "turn off work devices and work | notifications when you finish work"? | VGltZUNvbnN1 wrote: | Even if you're able to disconnect physically from your work, it | can be hard to disconnect mentally especially if you fear | repercussion from your superiors. | sys_64738 wrote: | Write all the things on your mind down so you can forget | them. If you fear retaliation from your superiors then get | another job. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | I'm a dev. There's a certain amount of "being available" that | comes with the job. I accept it... _as long as it 's rare_. | | At a previous job, we had a yearly trade show that we displayed | at. I knew that the month before, I was going to be working more | than 40 hours a week. The rest of the year was pretty much | straight 40 hour weeks. I accepted that. | | At my current job, my boss once called me in at 9 PM for an | emergency. I was there until 1 AM (and he was there both before | me and later than me). That happened _once_ (in 13 years). I | accept that. | | If it's every week, that's a management problem, not a worker | problem. I'm not management, and they don't pay me to fix | management problems. | gsibble wrote: | They make a case that there's a difference between men and women | in how much overtime work is put upon them. In my household with | my wife and I both working from home with lots of off-hour | communications and demands, I see a clear difference. I'll put my | phone into do not disturb or other modes and disconnect from | work. I also turn off many/most notifications normally including | email. She's entirely unable to detach from work, even refusing | to put her phone on do not disturb, for fear of missing some | critical Slack/Email/Text/Call/Whatsapp/Telegram/Signal. I'm | comfortable in my role that I can turn off and not get yelled at | while she isn't. I've noticed this pattern with previous partners | as well. So it may be a difference between how willing women and | men are to detach and risk missing something vs. employers | treating them differently. Honestly, this article draws some | conclusions about that without any supporting data. | turtledove wrote: | Women also pick up a huge amount of work in the form of chores, | childcare, emotional labor, and general running of the house. | | This labor is typically unpaid and expected to be done on up of | whatever other work the women do to pay the bills. | bennysomething wrote: | Sorry this might be true, but certainly never been true for | me. I work late, cook dinner, do house work, do garden work, | do all the life admin, organise any repairs or do then | myself. I am the main bread winner too. Yes my wife spends | more time with our daughter but that's only because she works | part time. | | It's feels a bit unfair to be told that because I'm a man I | don't do enough. | turtledove wrote: | I'm sorry, where did anyone tell you that you didn't do | enough (because you are a man)? | | I think you might be reading things that no one is saying. | | Saying, "this commonly happens" is not the same as saying, | "you are doing this." | UnpossibleJim wrote: | >>Women also pick up a huge amount of work in the form of | chores, childcare, emotional labor, and general running | of the house<< | | It seems implicit in this statement. I'm also the cook | (my wife doesn't know how), we split laundry, handle | child care together when possible (with my mother coming | over to help). My wife is in school and doesn't earn an | income ATM and we aren't sure what happens when she | graduates, but even with me working full time chores are | split as I work from home. Different people have | different strengths. We have a son and there are some | things I like that he does that she doesn't. | turtledove wrote: | A generalization implicitly does not include all cases. | The existence of counter examples does not invalidate the | general case. | | Saying a pattern exists in no way implies you, | specifically, fit that pattern. | nickff wrote: | Your first post in this thread wasn't a clear | generalization, it was a vague statement about what | 'women do'. This could be interpreted as saying 'all | women do', 'many women do', 'more women than men do', | 'some women do', or 'modal women do'. | PretzelPirate wrote: | I want to support turtledove here. | | They weren't expressing an opinion that men don't do | work, but stating what research shows: that women tend to | take on unpaid work disproportionately to men, including | house work: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34465574/ | fknorangesite wrote: | Who said anything about you specifically? | DontMindit wrote: | RappingBoomer wrote: | >The uncoupling of work from the office - something that long | preceded the pandemic, but has been accelerated by it - has meant | work could be done at any time and from any location. | | oh look, yet another piece of propaganda pushing the idea of | ending working from home in favor of returning to the office! | rr808 wrote: | I've worked in Europe and USA and the attitudes to days off are | very different. People in Europe always take 1 or 2 week | vacations and dont stay in touch - no one expects them to. At the | end of year they have to use or lose vacation time so natrually | everyone takes time off. USA people will go to their lake house | but stay on call all the time. Finish the year with unused | vacation time - seems just quite common. | travisgriggs wrote: | For me, the root cause of problems here, is not the "soft", after | work hours--some jobs need that kind of thing--but rather the | escalation of expectations without another negotiating | opportunity. | | It's a lot of work to enter into employment arrangements with a | company. For both the employee and employer. What's problematic | is when either side is "surprised" by a change in expected | behavior after the fact. It's frustrating, because you have sunk | cost in entering the employment agreement. So middle managers | abuse their employees by springing these types of things after | the job has gotten going. The employee has the freedom to walk, | but not without paying a certain opportunity cost. | | The job offer should make very clear up front in the listing what | these "soft" expectations will be. And if they do, the | employee/employer needs the recourse to renegotiate the | situation. | | I've seen this go the other way as well. Employee takes job, puts | in a few months, and then springs untold issues on the employer. | Like the abusive middle manager, if they make it minimal enough | to just be annoying, it's not worth firing them for it, it just | becomes a drag on everyone else. | jpdaigle wrote: | > It's frustrating, because you have sunk cost in entering the | employment agreement | | It's even more precarious for US immigrants where many types of | immigrant visa (H1B, L1, TN) are tied to continuing to hold a | specific job. | | Don't like that job anymore? Get laid off, or reclassified into | a different position? Oops, you're in violation of your visa, | you have a week to leave the country. | | There's a huge power imbalance between the class of workers | that have US permanent residency or citizenship, and those on | work visas. | spaniard89277 wrote: | In spain we have mandated clock in and clock out, even | remotely. I've had this for years but it seems it solved this | problem for other people. | jmyeet wrote: | This is an especially American problem, at least in the developed | world. | | And what sets the US apart from the rest of the developed world? | The almost complete lack of labor organization ie unions. | | Your shitty life isn't because of [insert wedge issue here]. It's | because of your material conditions. Poor white people have way | more in common with poor black people than either do with rich | people. But so many Americans believe they are simply temporarily | embarrassed millionaires [1]. | | This propaganda is so successful that something like 30% of | Americans believe in the Great Replacement [2]. It's pushed on | mainstream media [3]. | | [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/328134-john-steinbeck- | once-... | | [2]: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1099233034/the-great- | replacem... | | [3]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us- | politic... | EddieDante wrote: | If workers want the right to disconnect, they need to exercise it | without asking permission of management or the government. | | I sure as hell don't ask permission to turn off my company-issued | devices at 5pm and ignore them until 8am the next morning. Nor do | I ask permission to ignore work-related comms outside of business | hours, because I don't work for free. I already have the right to | disconnect. I have _always_ had it, because I am a human being | and autonomy is a human right. | | Remember: power yields nothing without a demand, and direct | action gets the goods. | zwieback wrote: | Same here, when my hours are up I'm done, work will be there | for me in the morning. I'm surprised how many of my coworkers | say they "feel" like they can't do that. I'm working in an | engineering organization with major retention issues so at this | point there's no way we will be punished for insisting on work- | life balance. | | I think at least 50% of the problem is on the employee side. | cameronh90 wrote: | Hell, most of the time I don't even reply to things immediately | during work hours. | | Unless it requires absolute immediate attention, don't expect | an immediate response. If you want sync comms for | collaboration, organize a meeting and I'm all yours for two | hours or as long as it takes. Otherwise, I'm putting myself on | DND and checking my email and IMs every few hours so I have | some space for deep focus. | gsibble wrote: | This is my attitude. Come 5pm, the phone goes into a focus mode | ignoring work. I ignore any other desktop communications, | frequently closing Slack and Superhuman. Disconnecting from | work is the only way to stay sane. No one has yelled at me yet | at this job. Previous jobs were awful though. We started work | at 10am everyday and the CTO woke me up by calling twice at 7am | to break through my do not disturb, just to tell me to push a | feature asap. Nothing critical at all. Some bosses absolutely | have zero respect for personal time and space. | musicale wrote: | > Some bosses absolutely have zero respect for personal time | and space. | | Pecking order is everything. | | In most organizations, exercising said disrespect for | subordinates is a key method for management to demonstrate, | enforce, and enjoy their higher social status. | | Similarly, subordinates must exercise respect and deference | to the time, space, and attention of management. This is a | key method to help employees demonstrate, acknowledge, and | internalize their lower social status. | | Any threats to the status hierarchy threaten the structure of | the organization and are usually dealt with harshly. | pnutjam wrote: | Last place I worked, I was on call once every 4 weeks or so | which entailed getting up in the middle of the night at least | 3 days and often more then once. They also practiced dog-pile | trouble shooting where everyone was expected to hop on "red | alerts" and stay on the call until the issue was resolved. | | I've seen it take 6hrs+, running past 5 o'clock or sometimes | starting in the evening and running for hours. | | During the pandemic, I unplugged around 3pm to grab some new | shoes for a kid that had ripped theirs out, because other | guys were around and after 5pm I'm on my own. Boss starts | texting me, "where are you" and "you should do this stuff | after hours"... | | This really left a sour taste and I've since moved on. | | We need some sort of ability to demand OT, hour for hour comp | time, and after hours compensation. One person can fight | back, but we are constantly undercut by management. I would | often try to comp time and get hit up because it's a busy | week, then later that comp time would evaporate and I'd get | alot of flack trying to claw it back. My preference is not to | comp my time in the morning, but I'd end up clocking in an | hour later afew times a week just to try and get some of my | time back. | zrail wrote: | > We need some sort of ability to demand OT, hour for hour | comp time, and after hours compensation. | | The word is "union". You want a union. | taf2 wrote: | Did you get a new job and does it have better options for | you requiring less time? | pnutjam wrote: | Yes, more pay and better on call hours. All remote. | cameronh90 wrote: | Compensation or time off in lieu for overtime and callouts | is the bare minimum we should expect. That shouldn't even | be up for debate, and I'm glad to say, everywhere I've | worked (in the UK) respects that. | | Where I have problems is being expected to be available | while "on call" but not being paid for it. In my opinion: | if you can't get shit faced, you're working, and should be | compensated accordingly with all working time regulations | applying as normal. | pnutjam wrote: | Yeah, we didn't get anything above our regular salary. | genewitch wrote: | Remember the hurricane that hit Virginia in 2012 or 2013? | I wasn't even "on call" - i was just the only person with | credentials. I told the DBA and the boss and the CTO that | you can't just fix an outage at a cloud provider due to | hurricane with telnet and a prayer candle. | | Then i opened a bottle of whisky, and listened to them | try to figure out how much data we lost, until about 5 | AM. I don't remember if i was hourly contract or hourly | employee at that point, but i did get ~8 hours of pay | that evening for doing nothing but not unmuting my voice | on the phone call! | | I don't do Disaster Recovery anymore, no one _really_ | listens. | jedberg wrote: | This is the standard argument as to why no government | regulation is necessary -- "because you can just walk | away/change jobs!" | | You are lucky because you have the privilege of being able to | do this. Not everyone does. A lot of people need they job they | have to continue, and their boss _will_ fire them for not | responding to an email at 9pm. | | Those are the people that need government protection and | regulation, or a union, or both. Because their employer won't | do it unless forced to and they don't have to privilege to | ignore it like you do. | jpdaigle wrote: | I'm not sure how regulation can hope to really solve this | when the problem isn't that an employer is forcing anything | on you, but usually more one where your coworkers are | independently making decisions about out-of-hours | availability that create an unspoken culture, and usual and | customary expectations that differ from the official written | ones. | | You're perfectly free to completely ignore work after 5pm! | Nothing bad will happen! A company will swear up and down all | day long that they support flex time and you're not expected | to ever answer any queries outside of your own working hours! | | But if a number of your coworkers decide of their own | volition they're going to be in touch at all hours of the day | and that becomes the default soft expectation, then _you_ | might look worse in comparison. Maybe not in the short term, | maybe people will make a strong effort to un-bias themselves | during performance reviews and not pay that any mind, but | over time, you 're sharing the bonus and raises pool with | workers who valued their time less than you and perhaps ended | up getting higher visibility for it. | | Should regulation then mandate that your coworkers | disconnect? Maybe. We do it for truckers, pilots, and flight | attendants in safety-critical jobs: they're not _allowed_ to | work more than a certain set of hours regardless of whether | they 'd gladly do so. | daenz wrote: | >A lot of people need they job they have to continue, and | their boss will fire them for not responding to an email at | 9pm. | | If you have a boss like that, no amount of regulation or | protection is going to help you. They will find a way to | manipulate you and get around the rules. That isn't to say | there shouldn't be any rules and regulations, but it is to | say that this is the point of diminishing returns. | jedberg wrote: | The way the regulations help is that it sets the | expectation that the next person will probably also say no, | or that someone might try to fight you on it because they | have stronger ground to stand on. | | Child labor laws work because company owners know that | eventually they'll get caught. OSHA works the same -- | because they know there are penalties for it. Sure, | sometimes companies get away with stuff, but there is | always the chance that they won't. | EddieDante wrote: | > This is the standard argument as to why no government | regulation is necessary -- "because you can just walk | away/change jobs!" | | I didn't say this because I think government regulation or | unionization isn't necessary. | | I said it because I don't believe government regulation will | happen in the US in my lifetime. Nor do I expect to see the | big 4 consulting firms unionized before Judgment Day. And, | yes, I have lost jobs for not picking up the phone at 10pm on | a Saturday night. Freedom isn't free. | | I look for individual solutions to systemic issues because I | don't trust the collective to have my back. I understand that | collective action is necessary, but let's face it: the left | in the US is too busy dicking around with the culture war to | show up for the class war. They think that labels describing | race, gender, sexuality, etc matter more than whether you're | working-class or owning-class. | | I'm looking out for myself because I've given up on anybody | else looking out for me. I advise others to do the same. | jedberg wrote: | > And, yes, I have lost jobs for not picking up the phone | at 10pm on a Saturday night. Freedom isn't free. | | Luckily you had the safety net to survive that. | | > I'm looking out for myself because I've given up on | anybody else looking out for me. I advise others to do the | same. | | Why not both? Look out for yourself but also try to help | others? | | I honestly think tech workers for all the big companies | will be unionized in the next decade. There is already a | perfect model out there: The screen actors guild. That | union sets minimum rules around pay, safety, overtime, | residuals, and so on, but still allows for "superstars" to | make far more. | | That's the kind of union developers need. One that | specifies some minimums that companies must follow (like | protecting after hours disconnection and making sure all | the workers get a piece of the success) but still allows | people to make more and get better benefits. | EddieDante wrote: | > Luckily you had the safety net to survive that. | | The only safety net I had was two months' salary saved | up. I didn't even get unemployment compensation; by the | time the company got nailed for classifying me as a 1099 | while treating me as a W-2 I had already found a | different job. | | > I honestly think tech workers for all the big companies | will be unionized in the next decade. There is already a | perfect model out there: The screen actors guild. That | union sets minimum rules around pay, safety, overtime, | residuals, and so on, but still allows for "superstars" | to make far more. | | I'd love to see that happen. I'm not counting on it. And | I've given up on trying to persuade my coworkers to | unionize. If I were at all charismatic or persuasive I | wouldn't be working in tech to begin with. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | > I honestly think tech workers for all the big companies | will be unionized in the next decade. | | 0% to even lets say 50% instead of "all" in 10 years is | just not possible. The "valuable" employees (engineers) | for these companies don't even want to unionize. You'll | have to convince them that somehow it would work out in | there favor before you could even start the effort and | that would take years alone. | nicoburns wrote: | I can't see tech workers unionising over salary any time | soon, but I can imagine it happening over something like | the freedom to work remotely. | neither_color wrote: | In the early days of the labor movement when factory | workers went on strike they had the problem of scabs | -temporary workers brought in. These days any job done | fully online can be outsourced, do you think we'll see | instances of virtual scabs? | toomuchtodo wrote: | Just because you've given up doesn't mean you should advise | others to do the same. Like an airplane, put the oxygen | mask on yourself before helping others. You've then de- | risked individually while supporting improvements for | workers collectively. | EddieDante wrote: | Who says I'm giving up? I'm engaging in industrial action | on my own since others in my workplace are unwilling to | join me. I'm being the change I want to see in the world | by engaging in work-to-rule. | jedberg wrote: | Work to rule only works if everyone does it, so that they | can't single anyone out. If only people who can afford it | do it, then it doesn't do anything at all. | EddieDante wrote: | I'm not sure what else I can do _on my own_. | hinkley wrote: | There are certainly situations where if you say "not it" the | work just falls to other people (or worse, a single person) | who is less comfortable or able to say no. | | But there are also situations where a person has been said | 'yes' to so many times that they just assume something is | wrong with anyone who tells them 'no'. Enough people have to | say 'no' that it becomes normalized. Either a more 'fair' | process is made or they finally hire enough people to do the | job right (haha, who am I kidding, they'll never do that, but | you can at least get to 'less wrong'). | | It's really a tough matter of reading the room. Sometimes if | you see someone asking for something that doesn't necessarily | interest you, asking for it too makes it okay. Other times it | causes the boss to catastrophize (well now everyone will want | to do this so I'm not going to let anyone do it) and shut | down. | | Asking people to follow labor laws that are almost 100 years | old is not that big of an ask. I know everyone is busy | LARPing feudal England half the time but someone has to call | bullshit, and it's mostly the people with just a little bit | of power who can actually do anything about it. | onesafari wrote: | Is that a real thing? Is it common to be fired for not | answering email at 9pm in a job that doesn't require it? | eikenberry wrote: | IMO it's not about changing jobs, it's about setting | expectations at jobs. That boss will only fire them for not | responding at 9pm because they have the expectation that you | will respond at 9pm. You need to set expectations early in | the job when you aren't defying a standard behavior but | setting that. | | If you are already stuck you might need to have a sit down | with your boss and try to work something out. Maybe they are | actually usually OK with your not responding until morning | but you just have no way to differentiate between normal and | urgent. It is possible that you could work something out that | doesn't require changing jobs to reset expectations. | turtledove wrote: | Tech workers (and workers in general) can and should be forming | unions to protect their time, their benefits, their IP, etc. | | I constantly see developers say they are paid well but treated | poorly by their employers (unpaid overtime, oncall rotations, | receding benefits). A union fights for what people need, and we | absolutely should be unionizing to advocate for all the workers. | Terry_Roll wrote: | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | Alternative is to start demanding startups form co-ops. | Probably heretical on HN as it flies in the face of the whole | tech start-up dream, which is for a couple tech bros to get | massively rich at exit after overworking and under-rewarding a | few employees. But a co-op would fairly represent the interests | of all the workers without the adversarial nature of a union. | You could represent your own interest and take votes on company | direction. | ratww wrote: | In my personal and limited experience of being present in | Union meetings, tech startups (the kind of we see on HN) were | consistently more cut-throat and stubborn than enterprise, | consulting and other tech businesses, so I doubt we'll see | that voluntarily. Lifestyle business are a better bet... are | those startups? | turtledove wrote: | Tech coops are great, and we need more of them. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | But if I'm joining another startup I explicit don't want "But | a co-op would fairly represent the interests of all the | workers without the adversarial nature of a union. You could | represent your own interest and take votes on company | direction.". I know exactly what I'm signing up for and it's | not to guarantee failure. The reason I joined is because | someone else has the vision and the dream or I would have | done it myself. | EddieDante wrote: | > Probably heretical on HN as it flies in the face of the | whole tech start-up dream, which is for a couple tech bros to | get massively rich at exit after overworking and under- | rewarding a few employees | | I feel like a substantial portion of HN is basically College | Republicans who majored in CS. | greedo wrote: | Temporarily embarrassed millionaires... | Layke1123 wrote: | I think it's more likely that it's run by the Venture | Capitalists and they help curate and drive the narrative | more than not in an attempt to hopefully capture a small | portion of people who can actually do software well and | believe their stories. | l33t2328 wrote: | Smartish people who wanted the possibility of getting | really rich used to go to wall street (as bankers, funds | managers, etc), but tech is all the rage these days. | [deleted] | EddieDante wrote: | airforce1 wrote: | I think the video game "Dead Cells" was created by a co-op | EddieDante wrote: | Yes, a _French_ co-op. | turtledove wrote: | See also The Glory Society, KO_OP, Lucid Tales, Triple | Topping, Future Club, Soft Not Weak, Stray Bombay, Pixel | Pushers Union 512, Hopoo, Chromatic Games, to name a few | other coop games studios. | hinkley wrote: | Software developers are top tier practitioners of Not Asking | for Help When You Need It. | | We'll get unions about the same time it becomes normalized for | developers to talk about seeing a therapist. | turtledove wrote: | For what it's worth, most of the devs I roll with these days | have discovered therapy over the past couple years and are | extremely thankful for it. | alexfromapex wrote: | I'm sure a lot of them exist but which one(s) are most popular | so we can join? | turtledove wrote: | Communications Workers of America (CWA) and Industrial | Workers of the World (IWW) are two working on unionizing | workplaces at the moment. | [deleted] | exolymph wrote: | In white-collar environments a lot of this shit is self- | inflicted. Like if you let Slack send you notifications on your | phone and check your email more than once a day when you don't | really need to... stop doing that. | greedo wrote: | My department is required to have Outlook/Teams on our phones. | We get reimbursed for part of our cell bill, but it's a | pittance. We're expected to be reachable in an "emergency." | HWR_14 wrote: | Get a second cheap Android phone? | ajmurmann wrote: | Don't underestimate the power of peer pressure. If everyone but | you is 24/7 responsive on Slack, you are at a disadvantage if | you are not. Conversations might take place without you and | come out in a way that you disagree with or your opportunities | to contribute to important decisions is simply diminished. You | might be seen as providing less value than others and be the | one missing out on promotions. | EddieDante wrote: | If I wanted a promotion I'd cut my hair, dry-clean my suit, | and update my resume. Best way to get a raise is to get a new | job. | marginalia_nu wrote: | On the flip side, we shouldn't underestimate the competitive | edge of actually having life-work balance. Recovering | properly when you're off work makes you smarter and more | productive when you're at work. Being chronically exhausted, | bordering on burn-out is not a recipe for getting shit done. | HWR_14 wrote: | That's true, but it is a recipe for _looking like_ you 're | getting shit done and claiming credit for the other | people's work. | | Side note, look how much is written about Musks crazy work | schedule. Without going down that rabbit hole too far, you | can see why he makes that information public. | sokoloff wrote: | You're only at a disadvantage if you want to maximize your | career trajectory at the expense of your work-life balance. | | If you wanted that, you'd be playing the same game as your | 24x7 colleagues. That you aren't means you (quite reasonably) | have other priorities. | | Neither you nor they are wrong; you're just optimizing for | different things. | birdyrooster wrote: | So true... also these people are obsessive compulsive, they | really can't stop that easily and their management is all too | happy to reap the benefits while their health deteriorates | slowly. | jimbob45 wrote: | IMHO I stay connected because it saves boatloads of time if | someone just needs a quick yes/no after hours which can then put | us far ahead in productivity compared to if I hadn't stayed | connected. That typically results in less stress and less dense | work for the team overall. | musicale wrote: | I like working at home, but I don't like living at work. | | I would agree that being on call after hours requires | compensation. Unfortunately many "full time" jobs do not pay | overtime and provide no compensation for on call time. | | Keynes was right about the increases in productivity and | automation, but apparently absurdly naive in predicting it would | result in reduced work hours for the same pay rather than in | increased profit and unemployment. | | "Since our workers have become twice as productive, we've decided | to double their pay and cut the work week in half" is not how | most company managers think. | | Yet it would seem to be better for society as a whole if our | lives were not consumed by endless drudgery; reducing the | standard "required" work hours would seem to be a good idea for | human health and happiness. | lefstathiou wrote: | The job market is a marketplace. Workers have a right to say no, | employers have a right to hire someone else... so ask your | employer in plain english what is expected from you and should | they deviate from that, go somewhere else. If someone is willing | to work under those conditions, that's their prerogative. This | nation is at full employment, hiring good people is increasingly | difficult, it's hard to make the case workers don't have options. | They do and so do you. Salaries are increasing at an incredible | rate, seems reasonable to me that expectations are changing along | with them. Maybe the compromise is taking a lower salary or | changing companies. Compromises have to be made... | greedo wrote: | The problem is that expectations are vague, and usually lean | towards benefitting the employer not then employee. Take | "unlimited PTO." That sounds great, but it's a terrible deal | for the employees. | gffrd wrote: | I came here to say this: you are treated how you allow yourself | to be treated. | | If you're working too much, do something about it. You have | power. | | Very, very worst case scenario: you get fired. So what? It's a | job. There are literally millions of them. Like OP said: you'd | probably get a better job right now any way. Companies are | tripping over themselves to acquire talent. | | If you're allowing yourself to be overworked, that's your | choice. | greedo wrote: | The amount of privilege in this comment is amazing. Not | everyone has an in-demand IT career. Some people are new to | the work force, some are old and exposed to ageism. Some are | non-binary, some are women, some are minorities. Some are | poor. Some can't work remote, some need special | accommodations due to disability, some can't afford the costs | of relocating. | hindsightRegret wrote: | I see this argument come up all the time. However, the job | market in general and especially in America is terribly | inefficient. The vast majority of Americans work paycheck-to- | paycheck and are tied down to their geographic location | (family, children, housing). There isn't really a social safety | net (by design, I think) in America for employees who | voluntarily quit their jobs. So lots of people are stuck in | jobs they hate, getting paid less than they deserve, and are a | poor match for their skills. There are still lots of jobs that | don't have the luxury of entirely virtual interview processes. | Over time, I do hope the job market gets more and more liquid | for candidates. | hindsightRegret wrote: | The Great Resignation was a step in the right direction. | tick_tock_tick wrote: | I'm still waiting for proof it was anything more then | people changing jobs or taking time off when they got | stimulus checks. I really doubt anything is coming of it at | this rate let alone "societal" changes. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-17 23:00 UTC)