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The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

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Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#121

Post by ljw1001 »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #62
osrec wrote: post #24

Work has become a strange thing. I see people foregoing their best years stuck in an office, in the hope they can enjoy their later years. What utter nonsense. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but society has got something very wrong, as our work culture seems to surgically remove the wonder and enjoyment from our days. Hardly surprising that it drives people to ill health. Glad I broke out of that cycle a long…

I find this idea bizarre. It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work. For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live. It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricit…

This is a largely valid point, but it has traditionally been much easier to see the fruits of your labor (often literally, as most people produced food, but if not, then in a small shop, a small manufacture of some kind, a small legal office...). Today we toil for owners we never meet, executives we would barely recognize if we pass them in the hall, customers we never see. We get the stressors, and never see the point.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#122

Post by btilly »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #85
DeusExMachina wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this idea bizarre. It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work. For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live. It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricit…

> For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. No. There's been societies based on slavery or indentured servitude and industrial societies treating workers much like slaves and there's been also almost idyllic, often agrarian, societies far removed from war, exploitation and hunger. Furthermore, given the incredible amount of energy and natural resources that the average person in rich countries is con…

Citation needed.

My understanding of primitive agrarian societies are that they have hard work, hard lives, poor diet, and a population that is generally at the edge of starvation. (In good times, population grows. In bad times...) You might want to read Guns, Germs and Steel as an example of a reference backing this view up. Or read through random snippets of history like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931... and get a sense for the very real struggles that people faced.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#123

Post by nemothekid »

ag_camel wrote: post #108
enraged_camel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Agree this is a US problem and I don't understand why. Because the US has very severe issues related to racism, sexism, ageism and many other types of discrimination. So the laws are much tighter, which results in extreme caution and risk aversion on the part of employers.

And other paces dont? Almost every country has severe issues related to all the above. In the US, we have litigation everywhere, you fall and slip in a supermarket? Lawsuit! You tripped over a pothole? Lawsuit! Heck, lawyers advertise to do this...

Part of this is we don't have a social safety net, like universal health insurance.

>you fall and slip in a supermarket? Lawsuit!

You fall and slip in a supermarket, due to a careless employee and now you owe hundred of thousands in medical bills. Some executive somewhere realized it was easier to extract that cash from a corporation than putting some person deep in debt.

Secondly, I believe America's relationship with race/sex/age discrimination goes a lot deeper than most countries, despite the fact we are younger.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#124

Post by [deleted] »

someone7x wrote: post #19

> I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane. A thousand times this. Very few of the lessons my parents taught me apply in the corporate world. Be honest and straight with people, assume good intent, take responsibility, etc. All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Sure there's room for honesty and responsibility, but only when used appropriately (strategically). Strikes me as acutely inhumane eve…

[deleted]

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#125

Post by r00fus »

enraged_camel wrote: post #92
jriot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree this is a US problem and I don't understand why. It doesn't hurt me why you didn't select me. You didn't think I would fit in culturally. Ok, no worries. You didn't think I knew enough of what you wanted to know. Ok, no worries. You didn't like the way I was dressed. Ok, no worries. You weren't really hiring but were just testing the waters. Ok, probably won't apply again but no worries.

>>Agree this is a US problem and I don't understand why. Because the US has very severe issues related to racism, sexism, ageism and many other types of discrimination. So the laws are much tighter, which results in extreme caution and risk aversion on the part of employers.

I want to agree with you but other countries suffer from similar issues. Why is it different in the US?

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#126

Post by jamiegreen »

osrec wrote: post #75
tzakrajs wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell us more. How does the stress compare? How does the pay compare?

Stress is non-existent now (apart from worrying about family etc). Pay was 0 for the first 3 months - that was scary, but I had some savings and I had an idea I was happy to go along with. My family was against me, but eventually got on board (after a year!). Now pay is an order of magnitude larger than my best salary as an investment banker (1.5 years later). My focus is now technology - it's my passion and I'm good…

I am also interested in the route you took, so I wonder if you would be open to talking about how you found your first clients?

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#127

Post by tomrod »

kartan wrote: post #107
onezerozeroone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really the company's fault here. Policies like this exist because candidates have and will sue the shit out of you for any flimsy accusation of discrimination they can cobble together. Companies didn't create these policies arbitrarily and unprovoked. They became necessary because of some people who took advantage of the legal system to get settlements. It's in the company's best interest to protect itself from f…

>> I am not even allowed to tell a candidate (another human being that probably NEEDS a paycheck) why I didn't hire them and what they can do to improve their viability. > Policies like this exist because candidates have and will sue the shit out of you for any flimsy accusation of discrimination they can cobble together. I thought that it was the other way around. You need to have always ready the reasons why a cand…

> I thought that it was the other way around. You need to have always ready the reasons why a candidate has been rejected and give them on request. Otherwise, they can sue you as your reasons are not clean and transparent.

"We found someone more qualified. Thank you for your interest."

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#128

Post by ThrustVectoring »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #62
osrec wrote: post #24

Work has become a strange thing. I see people foregoing their best years stuck in an office, in the hope they can enjoy their later years. What utter nonsense. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but society has got something very wrong, as our work culture seems to surgically remove the wonder and enjoyment from our days. Hardly surprising that it drives people to ill health. Glad I broke out of that cycle a long…

I find this idea bizarre. It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work. For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live. It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricit…

Yes, we're better off in material terms, but today's work is the most meaningless it has ever been.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#129

Post by walshemj »

btilly wrote: post #74
bob_theslob646 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean liability as in liability for discriminatory hiring practices by providing feedback?

No. Liability as in the more that you have said, the more likely it is that a lawsuit will be filed based on a misunderstanding of what you did say. It doesn't matter how unlikely the lawsuit is to win on the merits. Fighting in court and discovery both bring costs and distractions that institutions would prefer to avoid.

Its more like protecting the company from a Manager going of piste and saying we don't hire xxxx for these sort of jobs.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#130

Post by sjg007 »

onezerozeroone wrote: post #71
someone7x wrote: post #19

> I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane. A thousand times this. Very few of the lessons my parents taught me apply in the corporate world. Be honest and straight with people, assume good intent, take responsibility, etc. All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Sure there's room for honesty and responsibility, but only when used appropriately (strategically). Strikes me as acutely inhumane eve…

Not really the company's fault here. Policies like this exist because candidates have and will sue the shit out of you for any flimsy accusation of discrimination they can cobble together. Companies didn't create these policies arbitrarily and unprovoked. They became necessary because of some people who took advantage of the legal system to get settlements. It's in the company's best interest to protect itself from f…

This fear is overblown in my opinion. If people really want to sue then they will sue based on the fact that companies hire H1Bs into the position that they applied for. Then the company would have to prove not that the H1B was the better candidate but that the American was not qualified. Who decides on that qualification? Well a judge/jury based on the job description. If your resume matches those qualifications and it's truthful then you may have a case. I think that is a bigger risk than giving feedback. Giving objective feedback may actually help you since you communicated the specific lack of qualifications. However, I do think that you can implicitly derive the feedback based on the interview questions anyway.
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