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

How Employers Track Their Workers

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 85 posts

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#51

Post by lexicality »

nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

It highly depends on the kind of company (and possibly country) you work in - I work in a startup in the UK and it's nothing like that.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#52

Post by icebraining »

haloux wrote: post #42
nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

As someone who has worked both, I’d encourage you to reconsider what you’re really seeking in an office job. I did aircraft maintenance in the Air Force, paperwork and management in the AF, got out and hopped around with AAA as a roadside assistance tech, and am finally at a remote job doing pentesting. I’ve been in then out then back in again. Let me tell you, I can’t wait to turn wrenches again. If you can tolerate…

A repair job seems like a much closer analogy to a typical software development job than a factory process. My work is mostly identifying and fixing problems and installing custom-designed modules onto machines made by others. If you prefer working more end-to-end, that's also not hard to find in the consulting area.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#53

Post by icebraining »

danharaj wrote: post #30
nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

No one in an office job knows if anyone else is doing anything useful. Or even if they're doing anything useful.

If by useful you mean in a societal scale, I agree. If you mean on a more prosaic level, I'd say that's not true in small bootstrapped companies.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#54

Post by lexicality »

a_imho wrote: post #50

Completely off topic but The Atlantic's GDPR notice is the least intrusive and most compliant I've seen so far. Good job.

Try https://wikia.com. No "manage my preferences" or "are you sure" etc, just a simple yes/no.

As a side note, basically no one complies with Article 7.3.4: "It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent." (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/)

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#55

Post by CaptainZapp »

rifung wrote: post #35
joewee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. Similarly, corporate counsel is responsible to the corporate entity (are companies people?), even if that means recommending removal of the founder. A organization with employee friendly values has leadership willing to challenge HR and Legal, but that means a…

> True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. I really don't like or agree with this characterization at all. Sure part of their job is to prevent the company from being sued but part of their job is (usually) also keeping employees happy.

I work for a global company. When I have an HR issue I call some call center located in Poland, where they open a ticket.

The process is not different than any old tech support call.

Managers have a dedicated line, which leads to a local HR contact.

Do you see anything in this whole process designed to keep employees happy?

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#56

Post by CaptainZapp »

Tade0 wrote: post #7
gorpomon wrote: post #3

Pretty disgusting stuff. There are plenty of places in the world where a video camera provides relief and safety, but work is rarely one. The engineers building this tech should be ashamed, they grew up to be the bad guys.

A few years back a guy I knew from college wanted to have a meeting with me regarding a "business opportunity". He pitched me an idea for a system that would essentially spy on IT contractors through the webcam during work. Fortunately his budget was laughably small and my participation out of the question so he never went through with this. He is known for being utterly shameless but I guess what other kind of perso…

He pitched me an idea for a system that would essentially spy on IT contractors through the webcam during work.

Doing that herearound (and I'd wager in most European countries) would be illegal as hell. Like in prison sentence illegal.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#57

Post by CaptainZapp »

a_imho wrote: post #50

Completely off topic but The Atlantic's GDPR notice is the least intrusive and most compliant I've seen so far. Good job.

I totally agree. The Guardian's is even simpler (track or no track).

Those things were you have to opt-out of 160 companies individually are really the pits (and quite likely illegal, but time will tell).

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#58

Post by dsfyu404ed »

nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

Blue collar jobs are more rewarding and the work environment can be better for all the reasons you described but the money is worth it IMO. If the money were the same I'd hand in my two weeks and get my welding certs.

Also, calling it an idler pitman arm is somewhat contradictory (though probably not a technical contradiction) since pitman arm kinda implies it's located on the bottom of a steering gear. ;)

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#59

Post by C1sc0cat »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #55
rifung wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. I really don't like or agree with this characterization at all. Sure part of their job is to prevent the company from being sued but part of their job is (usually) also keeping employees happy.

I work for a global company. When I have an HR issue I call some call center located in Poland, where they open a ticket. The process is not different than any old tech support call. Managers have a dedicated line, which leads to a local HR contact. Do you see anything in this whole process designed to keep employees happy?

MM will be fun if some one in Poland with no idea of labour law in the UK or USA makes a mistake :-)

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#60

Post by C1sc0cat »

joewee wrote: post #37
rifung wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. I really don't like or agree with this characterization at all. Sure part of their job is to prevent the company from being sued but part of their job is (usually) also keeping employees happy.

A company is made to benefit its shareholders. Sometimes employees are also the shareholders but this has historically not been the case. Historically, because of the focus on benefiting it’s owners above all else, companies have sometimes resorted to using slaves and child labor. The concept of employee-shareholders is a fairly recent invention. The concept of employee rights only gained traction in the USA during t…

Worker coops is a better match, producer coops are rather different as its the farm owners that are members not all their workers.
Post reply on HN