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EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

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Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#371

Post by notreallytrue »

chrisseaton wrote: post #222
CalRobert wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is reasonable. The buck stops somewhere. If you're on call sure but there are rules around that. Don't guilt people who happen to have lifesaving jobs for taking vacations.

> Don't guilt people who happen to have lifesaving jobs for taking vacations. In many cases taking that job means accepting you may be forced to come in and work. Often called 'unlimited liability' for example. If you can't accept that, then leave the job to someone who can. > The buck stops somewhere. In this case apparently it's fine for it to stop with a dead person.

> In this case apparently it's fine for it to stop with a dead person.

People that do a job where they can save lives accept the fact that saving lives is not granted.

People don't die because someone is slacking.

Do you realize how stupid that sounds?

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#372

Post by MaxBarraclough »

hobs wrote: post #101
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like roughly the right solution. Sick days should exist to protect people who are unfortunate enough to get sick. Bad luck shouldn't cost you your pay, your job, or your holiday days. Sick days should not be a simple pool of days off that you get to treat as equivalent to holiday days. This approach has the effect of (further) rewarding people who are lucky with their health, and incentivises not taking sick da…

That's a huge waste of a doctor to get a note saying someone has the snuffles or diarrhea. In america you have to realize that getting that note would actually cost people money and time.

That's incidental to my main point. It's reasonable to just use the honour system if, say, at most 3 consecutive sick-days are being taken.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#373

Post by GekkePrutser »

tzs wrote: post #299
vfc1 wrote: post #106

You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. I can't see this soon enough, I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. Most ma…

I check email and sometimes answer when on vacation, because often 10 minutes spent addressing a small issue while I'm away prevents several days or a week or two of dealing with a huge issue when I get back. I'm the guy who if something messes up has to go through the databases trying to figure out what data is incorrect, and goes through logs and reports to try to infer what the data should be, and then figure out…

This exactly! And knowing there is all this crap waiting when you get back is also not helping to relax.

I'd rather spend 10 minutes every day on my vacation making sure things are good and fixing small issues, it gives me a feeling nothing is getting out of control.

Besides, I like my job. It's not the saltmines.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#374

Post by MaxBarraclough »

mamon wrote: post #147
pc86 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but how many people can get into a doctor the same day for the note? If they get sick on Monday you're potentially forcing someone to choose between unpaid time off, burning a day of PTO, or going into the doctor's office Wednesday or Thursday (if they're lucky) and saying "I feel find but had a cold Monday, can I get a note?" And how to juggle the logistics of that Wed/Thur doctor's visit with work? I…

> Not only that but how many people can get into a doctor the same day for the note? No, it doesn't work like that in Poland. You can just call it in, saying "I'm sick" and then go to the doctor. Doctor's note can cover up to 3 days before the visit.

Additionally, requiring a doctor's note doesn't necessarily mean insisting that unwell people physically leave their homes to visit their doctor.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#375

Post by 908B64B197 »

skohan wrote: post #345
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have actually seriously considered it, and this international company is one of the reasons why I joined it because of the opportunity to relocate. US also has much better opportunities for entrepreneurship and other things in my opinion. Simply due to scale of English speaking crowd and of course people there are more likely to buy things. But it would require coming out of my comfort zone so much. I have a girlfr…

> Why do you think US has so many big tech firms compared to Europe and other places? And why is there so much war between tech companies specifically in US? Historical/incidental reasons I suppose. I think a lot of it has to do with a lot of the big tech giants, and a lot of VC being centered there (especially around SV specifically) so there is a lot of defensive hiring. When facebook pays a developer $250k per yea…

It's no accident.

- World class universities

- Weak/non-existent non-compete

- Better risk tolerance from VC (Can't just park the money in real-estate. Worth it to invest in the Next Big Thing)

- Higher compensation means the best world-wide come work in that ecosystem

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#376

Post by 908B64B197 »

treis wrote: post #204
Hamuko wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. If there's no concept of overtime in most salaried jobs, there's a problem with your country as well. I'm a salaried, full-time employee and I'm paid to work 37.5 hours a week, no more, no less. And the collective agreement for IT services industry (which is what concerns me as a developer)…

And you probably get paid 1/3 to 1/2 of what a developer in the US can make. The reality of the world is that if you're the lead developer for some product you will have times that you need to work off hours. Like if production is down how can you say: "My 40 hours is up this week, I'll look at it on Monday". It's a balance. You shouldn't routinely be working a ton of nights and weekends. But sometimes shit hits the…

At 1/2 1/3 the pay, I can't really see why a dev would work more than 30 hours a week. Especially if there's no stock comp.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#377

Post by GekkePrutser »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #300
tzs wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I check email and sometimes answer when on vacation, because often 10 minutes spent addressing a small issue while I'm away prevents several days or a week or two of dealing with a huge issue when I get back. I'm the guy who if something messes up has to go through the databases trying to figure out what data is incorrect, and goes through logs and reports to try to infer what the data should be, and then figure out…

That's a management issue of having no redundancy for someone performing something so crucial. If you're that crucial to operations, then you should be paid extremely lavishly, or be the owner, otherwise you're getting the short end of the stick.

Not really. If you formalise this kind of redundancy it leads to super annoying things like on-call rosters. Which are awful for a worker because it means you MUST be available immediately, can't drink or go out to the shop or whatever.

I much rather just have them call me for that one critical issue that happens in a very long time, and appreciating me putting in the time after hours, than being forced to sit at home waiting for something to break which never actually happens.

In practice there is always someone available who is able to make time for it so there is really no need for on-call rosters. As such the act of stepping up and helping out avoids having this heavy commitment.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#378

Post by notreallytrue »

tzs wrote: post #299
vfc1 wrote: post #106

You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. I can't see this soon enough, I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. Most ma…

I check email and sometimes answer when on vacation, because often 10 minutes spent addressing a small issue while I'm away prevents several days or a week or two of dealing with a huge issue when I get back. I'm the guy who if something messes up has to go through the databases trying to figure out what data is incorrect, and goes through logs and reports to try to infer what the data should be, and then figure out…

> I check email and sometimes answer when on vacation, because often 10 minutes spent addressing a small issue while I'm away prevents several days or a week or two of dealing with a huge issue when I get back.

The question is why ten minutes from home save days of work.

There's something horribly wrong going on if that's the case.

I'm on call a week every month, I get payed for it.

When I go back to work something happened that requires days or weeks of work to fix the issue, I will work to fix the issue for days or weeks, while still working no more than 40 hours/week.

Fixing management problems is above my pay grade.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#379

Post by chrisseaton »

notreallytrue wrote: post #370
chrisseaton wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then the work doesn't get completed on time! Do you realise in some fields work not getting completed on time could in some cases cause people to die? Sometimes there is an emergency, and a professional saying 'sorry nope on vacation your fault for not having enough people to cover every eventuality' just isn't reasonable.

> Do you realise in some fields work not getting completed on time could in some cases cause people to die? It doesn't work like that. > Sometimes there is an emergency, and a professional saying 'sorry nope on vacation Why are they relying on someone that is on vacation in the first place? Are firemen supposed to not go on holiday ever during their work life? That's simply the symptom of very bad management and on a…

> Why are they relying on someone that is on vacation in the first place?

Sometimes there are only so many people who can solve a problem and society can't afford to have an excess number of them sitting around doing nothing in case there is an emergency.

> Are firemen supposed to not go on holiday ever during their work life?

Firemen, police, politicians, military, are all subject to getting recalled from leave if there is an emergency and they are needed to prevent life being lost. Nobody ever said they can't ever go on leave.

> That's simply the symptom of very bad management

No it's reality!

Look at how many people criticise presidents who are 'golfing' when there is a crisis and life is being lost.

Some people just need to be able to respond no matter what.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#380

Post by stevekemp »

claudiawerner wrote: post #156
stevekemp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK you'd generally be trusted for 1-2 days. If you said you were (still) sick for 3+ days you'd need some kind of doctor's note. Though these are easy to receive - the hardest part is usually getting an appointment in a hurry.

That's not true, as far as I know (and only because I looked this up when I worried about it). You get up to and including 7 days and you shouldn't have to give a note. From gov.uk[0]: >If employees are off work for 7 days or less, they do not need to give their employer a fit note or other proof of sickness from a medical professional. >When they return to work, their employer can ask them to confirm they’ve been of…

That's interesting, thanks for looking it up!
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