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The Machine Fired Me

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Re: The Machine Fired Me

#421

Post by pqs »

jexah wrote: post #304
teekert wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a human and you can see in the computer that the prescription is regularly updated and you can even call the doctor if you doubted it. You can even check the prescription afterwards and if my story doesn't check out, do something about it. The migraine was pretty bad, imo it was like not treating a broken leg because of a missing insurance card or something.

You're really blaming the wrong people. Blame the doctor for screwing it up, your wife for not checking the prescription, or the government for creating/enforcing the relevant laws that would have put not only the chemist but their entire franchise underground for "doing the right thing". Laws are laws, broskie, don't expect everybody to break them for you. If the migraine was really bad (bad enough to cause tangible…

My mother had a pharmacy and she often called the doctor to solve this issues. The doctor is a phone call away, and the pharmacist job is to do whatever he cans to improved the patient's illness.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#422

Post by organsnyder »

mseebach wrote: post #378
rectang wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fishy" is a very ungenerous read on the worker opting out of an arduous appeals process and cutting their losses. And if there's anything in the comments about "the manager and director being supportive", I don't see it -- where did you get that?

The bit about the manager and director is in the main article. There's nothing about pay, but they're presented as entirely sympathetic and angry about the system on his behalf. As for "fishy", I find it very strange that someone writes an article emphasising twice that they're out three weeks of pay, but then couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. There's breach of contract, this isn't a long and arduous appe…

The article is written, I think, to criticize the reliance on machines—not this individual company. I don't think he wrote it out of a grudge.

Even if he's legally entitled to the money, bringing a lawyer into the mix is likely to sour his relationship with his client (he's a contractor), and—rightly or wrongly—could give him a bad reputation in the local community, making it harder to find work in the future.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#423

Post by pavel_lishin »

> My manager at the time was from the previous administration. One morning I came to work to see that his desk had been wiped clean, as if he was disappeared. As a full time employee, he had been laid off. He was to work from home as a contractor for the duration of a transition.

Aside from the sheer inhumanity of it all, if I were laid off and "re-hired" as a contractor, I'd tell them that I'd be glad to - once they re-negotiated my new contractor salary.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#424

Post by bb611 »

newest_user_ wrote: post #343
detaro wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't a US employer have their employees social security number, which would fulfill exactly this role if people cared to look at it?

Social security numbers are not unique, but combine them with a birthday and name, and it gets pretty close.

SSNs should be unique, the only exceptions are fraud or errors.

According to the Social Security Administration:

> At its inception, the SSN's only purpose was to uniquely identify U.S. workers, enabling employers to submit accurate reports of covered earnings for use in administering benefits under the new Social Security program. That is still the primary purpose for the SSN.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#425

Post by std_throwaway »

tigershark wrote: post #253

Something eerily similar happened to me. One day I arrived at work as usual and the turnstile didn’t work. I had to request a guest pass and call some colleague to escort me because I was disabled in the security system. I went up and I obviously couldn’t open the door and access my pc. The scary thing was that I was still in the middle of my contract, it would have expired only 3 months later. I contacted my boss an…

> and went home

Did your boss send you home? If not, you should probably stay and be ready for work assignments (even if they don't come). For good measure contact some colleagues each day so they remember you and take a picture before you enter and after you leave.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#426

Post by workinthehead »

wolfi1 wrote: post #361
Rjevski wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t pay the invoice until they either fix it or let it go (they can’t go to court as you’re in the right from a legal point of view). That’s what I always do with shitty utility providers - it’s funny how the “computer says no” excuse suddenly disappears when they start to be out of pocket.

that could pose a problem in some European countries as it is very easy to get a court order (no humans involved, it`s an automated process) to collect the money from you. it would be your duty to prove you don`t have to pay.

Interesting, as the duty of proof is the other way around in the US, but usually it seems to be the EU that favors the little guy.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#427

Post by teekert »

jexah wrote: post #402
teekert wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they (the machines) break, a human should be able to override, i.e., I was once stuck in a malfunctioning parking garage (no ability to pay, barrier stayed shut), so I lifted the barrier and let everyone out without paying. This could be illegal, but keeping me in a parking garage without telling me how long it will take is also a crime. Please don't make human un-openable parking garages, ever (meaning: don't l…

This is a completely different scenario to the one described above. You yourself are potentially breaking the law (if the boom gate is damaged, assisting in potential theft of services rendered, etc) to prevent your car being stuck in the parking lot (which very likely has a clause in the conditions of entry, so may not be illegal). The two key points are that you are committing the crime yourself, not asking somebod…

We don't have a suing culture so much here so I don't think that is relevant. Also, I feel that medical personnel should minimize suffering to the best of their ability, they don't take an oath swearing to fully emulate an emotionless robot.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#428

Post by rectang »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #369
rectang wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the letter of your legal analysis, it should not be "the best the company could do" to make the worker whole. It ought to be expected that both parties behave ethically. The worker should not abandon the company during their time of need because of an unfortunate legal SNAFU. The company, in turn, should take it upon themselves to ensure that the worker doesn't suffer economically for having done t…

Why wouldn't a contractor leave the company when the company has done everything in its power to show the contractor the door? Aside from doing the job properly, the contractor has zero obligation to the company whose property he's working on.

In the 2-3 days after the glitch, when "there was an emergency on the multimillion dollar tool I was working on", I think it was good of the worker to not get hung up on the contract status and trust that it could be worked out by people in good faith.

Workers and management on a team ought to be able to trust each other to that degree, even if we understand that the interests of all parties are not fully aligned. That trust goes both ways.

Take that too far, tolerating abuse of trust, and you betray your obligation to yourself. But in small amounts, it's admirable.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#429

Post by baud147258 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #405
DoctorOetker wrote: post #164

This is the problem of imperative/functional programming languages, instead of using provers/verifiers. Edit: In "The Count of MonteCristo" by Alexandre Dumas, the protagonist was accused of aiding Bonaparte, and in the French island prison meets the priest who was accused (under Bonaparte) of aiding royalty. (I may have switched that around, it's been a while since reading). So even though switches in power occur, o…

I believe it became custom in many parts of Europe around that time to clean out the prisons whenever a new monarch took office, obviously that wouldn't have always happened, but at least they saw it as a problem and took steps to rectify it. It did, after all, cost some amount of money to house them, and obviously the new king would have wanted room to house prisoners of his own. It wasn't until modern times that pr…

> It wasn't until modern times that prison became a place for common criminals, in those days only political offenders would be put away

I don't think it was universally true, for example, when the Bastille prison in Paris was taken at the start of the French Revolution, it held only common criminals, with the political prisoners having been moved before the start of the unrest.

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