Emails while commuting 'should count as work' • Hacker News Board

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#61

Post by Xylakant » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

lx3459683 wrote: post #50

Xylakant wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’d rather like that the employees foot the bill? Someone needs to pay for that prized 24/7. Note that you can scrounge up an on-call schedule with three people, two if you squeeze it. Flex hours is a thing that helps, but even there must be an agreement that when you’re off, you’re off. Companies can be stuck in perceived crisis mode for years at a time.

Having been one of those #1 employees in the past, I didn't feel short changed. It was an arrangement that was beneficial for both myself and the employer. I don't know how many of us there are. But there are people who will take being on call 24/7 in exchange for full autonomy and not having to justify coming and leaving at random hours or taking leave without notice when the opportunity is there. I had the employer…

There’s a huge leap between “I’m founder or employee #1 and if this flies, it’ll be great.” and the sweeping statement that people that don’t pick up their phone after business hours cannot be entrusted with important projects - which is exactly the statement I took offense with.

And even startups need to get out of “we’ll wing it and cover with our lives for our management failures” mode as early as possible because it’s clearly not sustainable.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#62

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #57

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #26

Does this open the door for me billing my evening shower when the design finally clicks in my head?

Depends - what did you do at work while that design didn't click? I was on HN, not doing much work worth paying for.

I believe the answer to that is "dealt with the thousand distractions an open office floor-plan encourages while answering intrusive emails". The shower would have been the first time all day I could think for 10 minutes uninterrupted.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#63

Post by 08-15 » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

meko wrote: post #42

craig1f wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's this black and white. First, I'm sure plenty of companies are basically stealing from their employees, but this is also situational. I answer emails and slack whenever I can. On the flip side, I get work from home privileges, I show up when I want, I leave when I want, and I get put on exciting projects instead of boring ones. People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lea…

Nearly all companies "steal" from their employees. If the company makes any profit whatsoever, that is surplus value which has not been paid to the employees who generated it.

Then maybe those poor exploited employees should go and generate surplus value for themselves without the company.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#64

Post by cmurf » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing." Wernher von Braun

Of course lawyers bill for research, phone calls, and emails. So do consultants. Why would considering work emails during commuting counting as work be at all a controversial? What's the contrary argument?

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#65

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #53

11eleven wrote: post #41

I feel one of the aspects of this that's not covered is: Yes while the employer may not be able to legally force you to handle emails outside of official work hours and doing so counts as working... Depending on your job, if you don't check and reply to some time sensitive emails outside of work hours, you might a) become a roadblock on someone else's project that's due soon b) be late to respond to "emergencies" and…

You could just bounce that back with "A lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on mine". If a project is due soon and needs your attention outside of work hours, it should've been planned earlier. Yes I know that's an ideal world etc. But how did people handle that before there was email? That's right, they didn't, and it had to wait until tomorrow.

Before email there were phones, and from speaking to older friends in manufacturing it was pretty common for people to be called at all hours of the day and night to fix critical machinery (on the phone or to attend site in person) whether officially "on call" or not.

This is not a new phenomenon.

Edit: Just wanted to add that I'm not trying to justify this behaviour. It was wrong to intrude into people's personal lives and expect unpaid work then and it's wrong now.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#66

Post by notfromhere » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

megablast wrote: post #37

adultSwim wrote: post #31

Commuting should count as work

Oh no, lets not reward people who do not value their time, and choose to live further from work than others.

Not everyone can afford to live in the city center or is able to freely move to be next to their job.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#67

Post by Nokinside » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

lx3459683 wrote: post #32

Xylakant wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lead projects with demanding clients. Why not? Requiring off-hour access is admitting project management failure. That’s what on-call is for, and on-call engineers and management should rotate and be paid for on-call duty. For them, it’s working hours. When I’m on call for a client, I bill _for being available_, so basically for keeping the phone…

You two are talking about completely different things. There's no 'on call' for the kind of projects that parent is talking about. There's a small handful of guys who get shit done and maybe a second ring development team around them. For some people, the truly exciting work is the work where none of this stuff has been proceduralized. It's not feasible to train or do knowledge transfer between two shifts for these p…

>For some people, the truly exciting work is the work where none of this stuff has been proceduralized. It's not feasible to train or do knowledge transfer between two shifts for these projects.

This is true, but this is really question about compensation, not work time. Executives are basically always on call but they get executive pay.

If you are not well compensated for doing the work that can't be replaced, you are being exploited.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#68

Post by tvh » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #2

Well, obviously. Doing things which are part of work counts as work is hardly an innovative statement. The question is, how did companies persuade people that they should work for free on the way into the office?

They don't have to persuade anymore. People mostly self convinced long ago that this was acceptable and expected.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#69

Post by tvh » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #28

craig1f wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's this black and white. First, I'm sure plenty of companies are basically stealing from their employees, but this is also situational. I answer emails and slack whenever I can. On the flip side, I get work from home privileges, I show up when I want, I leave when I want, and I get put on exciting projects instead of boring ones. People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lea…

"People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lead projects with demanding clients." If you own the business, you're always on, yeah. If you're a worker, this is paid work. Pinning career advancement to uncompensated work is bullshit.

Yet so common.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#70

Post by tvh » Thu, Aug 30, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

shady-lady wrote: post #45

briandear wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people who have answering emails as part of their job are not working for an hourly wage. The other aspect is that some of us actually like our work and want to succeed at it: we don’t see work as slavery or some kind of adversarial relationship with the “boss.” Many people actually believe in what the company is trying to do and actually care about the job. And the work has to get done at some point right? Most…

> The other aspect is that some of us actually like our work and want to succeed at it: Work is work. Your employer pays you money to do work. If you do work outside of that, it doesn't mean anything other than you don't want/can't enforce a boundary between your work life and private life. Also, yet another aspect is that even more of us like our work and want to succeed at it but have been around for longer than x…

Well said. As someone else said above, tying career success to off-call work is bonkers (both for the employers and the employees), yet sadly common.