The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by volkl48 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #358

tuukkah wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the month-long paid summer vacations! EDIT: To be more precise: typically ~20 days in the summer and additional ~5-15 days in the winter. Averages by country, Sweden 26 days: https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/highlights/which-countr... 34 days (minimum?) when you include the 16 paid public holidays such as Christmas, New Year, Easter, Midsummer: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-...

From what I've seen, 10 days vacation per year seems to be the norm in corporate US, though I know people who get even less than that.

I'd say more like 10-15 days (2-3 weeks).

That's said, I will point out that most people posting on this site are in desirable enough roles that US work culture is a choice, not a requirement, even when you're living in the US. It just seems to be a choice that most don't consider.

I could easily find a position which makes 25% salary than my current position. Instead I took one where I never work more than 40hrs, where I have essentially 7 weeks PTO starting and it'll go up if I stay here long-term.

My quality of life is fantastic and I still make more than enough for a very nice lifestyle (and proper retirement/long-term goal savings).

I'm sure I could live even more luxuriously or retire a couple years sooner if I made even more money, but I don't think that would be remotely worth what I get by not going that route. Not to mention the people who just die or develop debilitating ailments before they ever really get to enjoy that retirement.

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

#392

Post by francisofascii » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

jdtang13 wrote: post #91

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In those idyllic societies that you mention, there are still teachers, senators, merchants, and diplomats who have to do work. The only people I can think of who don't do "work" in ancient history are religious monks and rich people living off of an inheritance.

Monks were kept busy writing manuscripts preserving scientific and historical knowledge.

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

#393

Post by lowbloodsugar » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #155

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say "the middle class was better off only a few decades ago". You show me a graph that ends two decades ago. About poverty.

You say "no worries about the future, or how you are going to eat when you retire, if you get to retire," and I pointed out that the number of the elderly in poverty has fallen off a cliff since your mythical golden age. The current poverty rate for seniors is now below that of when the above graph cuts off, naturally [pdf warning]: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

The graph on page 9 shows that the number of people in poverty since your first graph ended (in 2000) has increased by 15 million.

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

#394

Post by ericmcer » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #349

terryf wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work my ass off. Lot more hours than would be technically necessary. High tech as well. I've also gone hiking in the mountains in California. Been on the beach in Italy. Walked around in the center of Munich. As a 14th century peasant I probably never even knew those places existed. I can also get pain medication if I have a headache. I can go to a doctor to fix my broken bones if I happen to get one. Oh, and the l…

But that is a false dichotomy. Your working long hours in an office in no way helps or correlates with the ability of being able to travel, or to have headache medication.

Modern healthcare is the one thing I would be truly scared to give up. Fancy food, elaborate shelters, and rapid transportation are things that don't really matter much to your actual happiness. The idea that a cut on your thumb could kill you in your early twenties is pretty scary though.

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

#395

Post by deminature » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #368

throwa9b8c7d6 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to cancel my honeymoon and my brother's honeymoon because of work. I am an H1B from India working for the American subsidiary of an India company. For a short period of time, I was put on a project that was created by some other team and finally abandoned by the customer. Then, 1-2 years later, new customer management decided to bring the project back to life. Only thing was the new management didn't know it wa…

I want to start off by saying that it was wrong of them to ask you to cancel your vacation, but in the end you threw away your vacation on the hypothetical that they would fire you, only to leave the company voluntarily. It seems like you ended up with the worst of both worlds. If you would have said no, then you'd be no worse off than you are now.

The guy is obviously going through an awful time, is it really necessary to point that out?

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

#396

Post by ghettoimp » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #385

ghettoimp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep yep yep. I've had to fight numerous battles with my boss, along the lines of, "I don't care who scheduled the meeting, I already have plans tonight, and it's not reasonable to make me change them with no notice." This mentality has turned out to be (a) well worth it for my marriage, and (b) not actually a big deal in the scheme of things.

>" I already have plans tonight, and it's not reasonable to make me change them with no notice." I find the fact that you even feel you need to include this part disgusting. I'm paid for 40 hours a week. You are not required to pay me overtime. You do not get a second extra of my time

Well, yes.

I am salaried, and they do pay me well, so I'm willing to work more than 40 hours from time to time, when schedules are tight.

I think that for me, my criteria for being OK with more-than-40 are probably something like: (0) it had better not be that much more than 40, (1) it had better not be an exception, not the rule, and (2) it had better be something I can plan for, so I'm not jerking around my family/friends.

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

#397

Post by ghettoimp » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

dancek wrote: post #352

xedrac wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids are worth more than all the money in the world as far as I'm concerned. Besides, there's a lot of cushion in that $1,000,000 figure. Frugality is so underrated.

Agreed. If raising a child were to cost $1M in 20 years, that would average $50k/year. I earn about as much and have two kids, so I imagine I would have noticed if it was that expensive.

Maybe it's counting college costs or something.

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

#398

Post by tokai » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

jdtang13 wrote: post #86

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…

Yes, that's a very good point. Work has always been part of the human condition, and middle class people in the first world are enjoying much, much more comfortable working conditions than their ancestors did. I think we should all be very grateful for that. But it's also a very modern thing for people to suffer from alienating, despair-inducing work. I think this alienation, which Marx speaks of in much detail, is t…

This comment made me think of Tolstoy. His portrayal of the noble Konstantin Levin's experience with manual labour, mirrored my own modern white-collar experiences with outdoor labour.

The passage can be read her for anyone interested. http://www.bartleby.com/316/304.html

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

#399

Post by majormajor » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

pharke wrote: post #320

gambiting wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women particularly spent almost all spare time making clothing - because a pair of pants could take a month to make. Sure it wasn't backbreaking work in the fields, but it wasn't spare leisure time either.

You're right, it wasn't either but it was a bit of both. Our perspective often misses many aspects of home life in the past because we are living in such a radically different environment than even our grand parents and great grand parents. When we think of "spare time" we imagine the few hours we can snatch before bed when we zone out and watch netflix or browse social media. Spare time for people living a subsisten…

> potentially expending much less effort and suffering a great deal less stress than we experience

How do we measure this? I've been less well off in the past, having to spend more time doing chores like that, and not having a 9-5 job filling up that part of my day. Compared to now - working more, but with more money - I was more stressed and less fulfilled and very aware of all the effort I was expending because I couldn't afford all the conveniences I would've wanted.

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

#400

Post by pascalxus » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

blackbagboys wrote: post #238

pascalxus wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the right financial planning, it can be done. But, if you've already taken on 20K in student loans and 5 year cell phone contract, it's gonna be much much harder. That's why we need to start teach financial education really early: like K-12. Food and water can be quite cheap: the grocery stores are filled with healthy foods you can get for less than 1$ per lb in most of the US: corn, whole wheat flour, bananas,…

Actually, we need to do is organize politically and demand that our political leaders use the vast resources at our disposal to build a society that takes care of everyone’s essential needs for free, rather than allowing them to be hoarded by a relatively tiny caste of unfathomably wealthy assholes. Teaching people to scrape by on scraps is the opposite of what we need.

I think you're suggesting redistribution of wealth from the ultra wealthy. It sounds logical: i use to think this was the answer to. But, The problem is, they're not wealthy enough for it to matter. even if you take every last bit of wealth 100% taxation of all their income from all time from every single billionaire in the entire US (about 2.3 trillion$ for the forbes 400), and spread it around giving it out equally to all citizens of the US, that would still only be about 8000$ per head. Any years after that, you'd get nothing because they'd having nothing else to give.

So taxation on a massive scale doesn't work. The problem isn't that the super rich are too wealthy. The problem is life is too expensive for most people. That's the problem we should try to address. In order to do that you'd have to reduce the cost of housing and healthcare.