Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 179 posts

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#131

Post by epx »

User23 wrote: post #77
devmunchies wrote: post #75

Women joining the workforce increased the labor supply which decreased wages on the whole. This makes it so many women HAVE to work as opposed to GET to work. A double income for many families is required nowadays.

Women joining the workforce lead to a long term decrease in the labor supply. The only reason wages haven’t gone up is a massive influx of foreign born workers that keeps supply high.

Anticonceptional techniques are IMHO the game changer. Humans have always tried to limit their offspring. Once it was possible without extreme measures, parents prefer to pour more resources on fewer kids.

My wife haven't worked out a single day in life, and haven't ever taken a single anticonceptional pill, either. The only thing we agreed without discussion in our marriage was having a single kid. I went to vasectomy the month after my son was born.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#132

Post by msiyer »

psychometry wrote: post #123
devmunchies wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be a joke? Are you one of those man-haters?

Because it takes a very special type of daftness to think for centuries men were "supporting" women by not allowing them to work.

This world is built upon the dead bodies of men. Men who fought wars to protect their kin, men who fell from the top of buildings they were constructing, men who suffocated to death deep in the tunnels, or drowned in the ocean...

Let us not forget them. Let us not belittle their sacrifices.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#134

Post by msiyer »

tomnipotent wrote: post #112
msiyer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is your argument, I would say men have done a commendable job. They supported women for centuries while building a society that would eventually let women not be dependent on men.

They never needed to be dependent in the first place. We're probably centuries behind where we could have been if half the population had been allowed to contribute from the start.

We are centuries behind because we do not embrace the beauty of dimorphism. One sex complements the other. This is not a war for supremacy.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#135

Post by msiyer »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #126
msiyer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is your argument, I would say men have done a commendable job. They supported women for centuries while building a society that would eventually let women not be dependent on men.

I absolutely would not suggest men have done a commendable job, because for much of that time women were basically treated as property.

That is a myopic view of history.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#136

Post by rhombocombus »

iambateman wrote: post #15
stephengillie wrote: post #4

Please don't read/send email while driving. Use your bus/train time to study things that will help your career, at this job and the next. Don't just give that time away to your current employer for free - unless your employer is a charity. Edit: Even if you work for a charity, giving away your time for free may not be a good idea. ;)

As an employee of a charity, I don’t think working off the clock makes sense there either. ;) Charities pay for work just like anyone else. If you like, sure, make a donation. But make sure it’s formal. Otherwise you are robbing someone else of an opportunity to generously support the work AND if the “employee stretching to give” becomes organizational culture it can endanger the entire organization. Burn out is real…

Also, just because they are a charity, does not mean that I am, or that I can afford to be. I spend a third of my waking hours working for someone else, which makes the time I spend with my family outside the walls pretty close to non-negotiable, exceptional circumstances notwithstanding.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#137

Post by tomnipotent »

msiyer wrote: post #134
tomnipotent wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never needed to be dependent in the first place. We're probably centuries behind where we could have been if half the population had been allowed to contribute from the start.

We are centuries behind because we do not embrace the beauty of dimorphism. One sex complements the other. This is not a war for supremacy.

> This is not a war for supremacy

Tell that to generations of men that have used violence to stay on top. Hard not to consider it a war when it looks, talks, and walks like a duck.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#138

Post by Spooky23 »

yacse wrote: post #104
vesak wrote: post #90

If your employer tracks you by the hour, then of course email while commuting is work. Also thinking about a design while taking a shower in the evening is work. Also waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall asleep because work issues are bothering you is work. Why employers (in the knowledge business at least) track people by the hour is beyond my understanding.

From an employers point of view, tracking hours does not make sense. At least as long as we are talking about creative work, where people tend to stay longer than they would be required to, without even noticing how much time they were working. At least in Germany, working unions are fighting against not counting working hours, because it is better for the employees and is also a saftey net against related health iss…

I worked as a salaried government employee for a long time. Time reporting is a key part of our business, as without it you cannot spend appropriately.

Attorneys do the same thing. It’s no big deal.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#139

Post by Bluecobra »

dagw wrote: post #20
stephengillie wrote: post #4

Please don't read/send email while driving. Use your bus/train time to study things that will help your career, at this job and the next. Don't just give that time away to your current employer for free - unless your employer is a charity. Edit: Even if you work for a charity, giving away your time for free may not be a good idea. ;)

Use your bus/train time to study things that will help your career Or leave 45 minutes early and work those 45 minutes on the train.

This is what I do. Working in IT, I'm basically on call 24/7 (if there is a major issue) anyways. The typical shift here is 9 hours (1 for lunch). I typically take an hour for lunch and I'm at my desk for 7 hours. I "make up" that other hour for all the times I answer work email on the train or fix something after hours at home.

It's important to have a good work/life balance.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#140

Post by outside1234 »

punnerud wrote: post #128
caymanjim wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not reasonable to expect your employer to pay for your commute time if you don't use that commute time to work. You can work for them on the train. You shouldn't work for them on the train if you're not getting paid for it, but you're generally also not expected to work on the train. You can't work for them while you're driving. You can think of that driving time as work, but you shouldn't expect your employer t…

In Norway you have to be paid when you ‘are available to the job’. If you are on standby the minimum pay is 1/3. If you have to work outside your normal workhours the pay is minimum 50% extra. If you are «forced» to drive, example as a consulatant normaly based in the city and have to comute longer than normaly, the comute is paid.

That works when you can pump oil to pay for everything and don't need to be competitive on cost. The rest of the world can't pay for overhead like that.
Post reply on HN