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

141–150 of 179 posts

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#141

Post by msiyer »

tomnipotent wrote: post #137
msiyer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A very few powerful men have been abusing other men for generations too. Women in such powerful families were no less abusive. Why are we ignoring the suffering of men?

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#142

Post by walterstucco »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #121
ChuckMcM wrote: post #119

I disagree strongly with this statement in the article: "There's a real challenge in deciding what constitutes work," said Dr Jain, from the university's Centre for Transport and Society. "Work" is anything I would be doing while sitting at my desk in your office building. So if I'm doing that on a train or in your office they are both "work." And if my train ride takes 1.5 hours to the office and 1.5 hours home, I'l…

Possible alternate definition: Anything that you wouldn't do if you weren't paid for it. This would include driving to the office.

Yes, and it's included in your paycheck

But most of the times one could take advantage of it by living closer to the job and reducing commute time

I always wonder why people decide to leave faraway from work which isn't in any way cheaper if you include commute cost and time, for a room more

A room you don't use because you don't have time to use it

Best thing my parents taught me is living at walking distance from work

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#143

Post by Kluny »

I still don't understand why half the threads on HN talk about how there's not as much work anymore due to automation, and the other half talk about how people are overworked and working longer hours. We can't have UBI because that would encourage people to be lazy, but all jobs are bullshit anyway. When are we going to rise up and seize the means of production?

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#144

Post by michaelt »

caymanjim wrote: post #59
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. ;)

If you're studying things that will help your career, you're working. Don't study for free either. Many employers will pay you for this time (if hourly) or credit you in other ways. If not, find a better employer. Never work for free. Your employer isn't your friend or your family.

If you only study things your employer will pay you to study, you'll be an expert in things you need for your current job - you want to be an expert in things you need for your next job too.

If my current job is programming engine control units, they'll pay me to train in things relevant to that, like MISRA standards - but if I think my next job will involve blockchains, the ECU manufacturer ain't going to pay me to study those.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#145

Post by toomuchtodo »

outside1234 wrote: post #140
punnerud wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure it can, as long as workers see that comp instead of shareholders.

The problem is America has become beholden to shareholders, and the narrative is you're unpatriotic or naive if you want to disrupt the status quo. The resources exist to appropriately compensate workers for their time.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#146

Post by nawitus »

outside1234 wrote: post #140
punnerud wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Finland has roughly similar rules (without any oil production), though the rules differ depending on the industry.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#147

Post by chefkoch »

outside1234 wrote: post #140
punnerud wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Germany has similar employment laws, but i haven't read of oil around here.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#148

Post by anoncoward111 »

rhombocombus wrote: post #136
iambateman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And when you are someone like me who is precariously employed in an expensive area, you suck it up and get it done :)

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#149

Post by tmnvix »

08-15 wrote: post #130
chongli wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may not have the capital to do so. That doesn't mean they're not aggrieved. It just suggests they do not have the means to do anything about it.

In other words, the employees can't generate the same surplus value without the company. So the company did in fact generate some of it, so the profit isn't stolen at all, it's earned. Marx has been dead for 135 years, and people still parrot his confused ramblings without thinking. Amazing.

> So the company did in fact generate some of it, so the profit isn't stolen at all, it's earned.

It is common to refer to this as unearned income because it is income received by virtue of ownership not work.

Re: Emails while commuting 'should count as work'

#150

Post by yomly »

jstanley wrote: post #78
yomly wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>After declining for nearly one and a half centuries, the time spend per family on salaried employment post WWII has gone up back to around the level it was at the end of the 19th century. While per person average 'working' hours are down in large parts of what we call the Western world, woman were brought en mass into salaried employment, raising the time on the company clock for a family significantly. >The cost-of…

> I am quite convinced we are losing at the wealth game globally - despite many people's attempts to illustrate that global poverty is decreasing (I lack data and drive to prove this point sadly) So what is it that has convinced you that we're losing, in the face of evidence to the contrary?

I apologise for the following unstructured stream of unconsciousness. It would be interesting to know what age group you are in as that could well colour your perspective.

For me, my anecdata leads me to believe it is very hard to get on the wealth ladder. I have built this perspective from associating with people ranging from backgrounds of very working class to ultra high net worth people. We live in a world where (thanks to things like QE) it's easy to make money if you have money - equity markets have gone through a sustained bull period and housing prices have seen a sustained period of growth which has only in the past few years cooled down.

An easy thing for many people to relate to is house prices (which is often most people's entry into wealth). If you live in a major city like London, good luck buying a house without parental help. The past decade has seen growth which has basically been faster than most people can save at. What's even more crazy is that the gap is small enough to see within (half) a generation - I have an older brother and people in their mid 30s face a very different situation to people in their mid 20s now. If you got on the housing ladder around or before 08 you'd have made widened the gap between those who didn't in a stepwise fashion.

Meanwhile, my father was able to buy a house and have a kid when he was 27 after arriving in the UK with nothing on his back - he didn't even have a university degree. Contrast that with today, people who work in classically "elite" jobs live paycheck to paycheck in the city. Do you know any junior doctors in London? Most of them are amongst the most miserable people I know - they work all kinds of crazy shifts (night oncall) then have 1-2 hour commutes home.

So if you're in a situation where most people are struggling to move out of home, let alone get on the ladder, while it is known that the rich are getting richer can we say that we live in more equal times?

Post reply on HN