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The absolute worst scenario happened

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Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my EU-centric worldview, the US system of at-will employment, and of two-week notices as the standard courtesy, is crazy. Three months is the typical notice period for tech workers and other highly-skilled jobs. One month is the legal minimum in Sweden, and certainly several other countries. Of course it goes both ways, in fact it's even more difficult for the employer to get rid of an employee. An employee doesn'…

In reality, you can walk out of any job in EU as well. Unless you have some specific clauses in your contract, the worst they can do is simply not pay you anything. There may come a lawsuit after, but I doubt it. You can also get a doctors note and go on sick leave if you feel some serious stress on the job.

Typically a company owes you money when you leave, like the started part of the month, pending holidays, and the annual bonus/extra pay that you already earned.

If you don't respect your notice period they'll remove your salary over the missed time from that final payment. So in that case they'd remove 3-month salary. Sometimes it goes into the negative, and some companies actually send a bill, but there's basically no consequence for ignoring it. Usually companies don't push the matter.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#222
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a reply the poster made in that thread: "So, we have backups on an encrypted drive, which we can't access (authentication is done via our custom ERP software, which is down as well - in hindsight, a very bad idea). And the backups don't work. We can rebuild the DNS servers from scratch, and the records are probably still safely stored somewhere inone of the 3 different databases our ERP software uses, but we don…

> Elsewhere, they say that two years ago, they found they were unable to restore from backups... So their business actually failed a couple years ago, and they have only noticed this month.

The technical people noticed, left, and they had to hire new ones who didn't know yet. Now the new ones also know.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#223
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. If you don't have the right to quit at any time, you are legally a slave / indentured servant. And that is very, very illegal.

The military is sort of a special case however. (And, of course, private employment contracts can make it financially onerous to break.)

Interestingly the case can be made that the military is not exempt from the 13th amendment, which only makes one single exception for prisoners. It's just that the courts have ruled consistently that OBVIOUSLY the military wasn't meant to be included in the ban against involuntary servitude. Obviously.

Just like they have also ruled that mandatory Jury duty is not in violation of the 13th amendment either. Funny how the system protects and perpetuates itself.

But with respect to your point, I am nearly 100% sure that it is not the case that employers can use financial penalties to enforce such a contract. Anything you are paid as wages is pretty much untouchable after it is paid out, unless it was paid in mistake or you intentionally damaged the company or something. The best the company can do is withhold potential future earnings or bonuses, or take back conditional non-wage payments like bonuses within a certain window of time.

This is part of why golden parachutes exist. Your contract has very generous severance clauses which award you lots of money if you follow a certain procedures for leaving, which involves advance notice and such. Fail to follow that and your paycheck just stops the day you walk off. So there are incentives, but they can't go after your already earned wages, paid or still due to you.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#224
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact same thing is happening in Australia in regards to farmers and fruit picking labour. With international borders shut they are unable to exploit foreign workers and complain that young adults are refusing to relocate for $5 an hour hard labour jobs.

Farming is low margin. Farmers don’t get to set the price of their products, and they aren’t handed billions in capital to burn through or 1000x multiples on their profit in the public markets. When most businesses say they can’t hire someone and the reason is because they don’t pay enough, the underlying cause of their low pay is usually because that’s what the company can afford. Sure, farmers could pay $10/hr, but…

The reason I buy expensive eggs, milk and cheese is that I know that the supermarkets fuck over the farmers. I never buy the supermarket brand, unless it's the last one on the shelf. The price difference is sometimes 1.5x but unless you're really "broke" broke, you don't notice the difference. It's a few cents a week.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#225
post #194
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming is low margin. Farmers don’t get to set the price of their products, and they aren’t handed billions in capital to burn through or 1000x multiples on their profit in the public markets. When most businesses say they can’t hire someone and the reason is because they don’t pay enough, the underlying cause of their low pay is usually because that’s what the company can afford. Sure, farmers could pay $10/hr, but…

...yes? The alternative to farmers is not harvesting their crops at all, since with the borders closed foreign labor is not available. If nobody wants to buy $10 doritos, that means the product can't exist in a market without cheap labor.

[deleted]

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Skimmed through the MySQL and Postgres databases, no signs of anything domain-related. I'm betting it's all stored in the custom integrated [and encrypted] KV database.. -- https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/ma4mwl/the_absolu...

If the system is old (going by other replies, introduced in a deal 20 years ago), maybe they'll be able to brute-force the encryption...

Encryption being 20 years old doesn't mean it's easy to break, given that AES is 23 years old :)

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution to their problem is really simple: make better offers. That's certainly a simple solution. The problem with simple solutions is that they are near guaranteed to not actually be feasible or realistic.

Unrelated to the initial post. > The problem with simple solutions is that they are near guaranteed to not actually be feasible or realistic. This. There is no amount of money anyone sane can be given to stay in Romania. Most recently i’ve read they (hospitals) were tying covid patients to their beds. Couldn't help but comment on this as some of things i discovered are shocking for an eu member country (or any countr…

That's every poor country in existence. Not everyone has the same mindset as you, however. Provided with basic incentives, many, if not most, would not want to leave family, friends, common culture, etc, just for a wealthy life - they just want basic stability.

Companies paying more (offering more at least) would begin to slow this domino effect, which raises standards of living and provides more funding for the government to provide services and ultimately pressure for increases in quality of life by the voting public. Everyone wins.

Ultimately not everyone can emigrate - it's an impossibility. The brain drain will continue to be real, so it's incumbent upon these companies hiring to raise their wages and retain talent.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution to their problem is really simple: make better offers. That's certainly a simple solution. The problem with simple solutions is that they are near guaranteed to not actually be feasible or realistic.

Unrelated to the initial post. > The problem with simple solutions is that they are near guaranteed to not actually be feasible or realistic. This. There is no amount of money anyone sane can be given to stay in Romania. Most recently i’ve read they (hospitals) were tying covid patients to their beds. Couldn't help but comment on this as some of things i discovered are shocking for an eu member country (or any countr…

[deleted]

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unrelated to the initial post. > The problem with simple solutions is that they are near guaranteed to not actually be feasible or realistic. This. There is no amount of money anyone sane can be given to stay in Romania. Most recently i’ve read they (hospitals) were tying covid patients to their beds. Couldn't help but comment on this as some of things i discovered are shocking for an eu member country (or any countr…

That's every poor country in existence. Not everyone has the same mindset as you, however. Provided with basic incentives, many, if not most, would not want to leave family, friends, common culture, etc, just for a wealthy life - they just want basic stability. Companies paying more (offering more at least) would begin to slow this domino effect, which raises standards of living and provides more funding for the gove…

Agreed - my statement is in regards to "simple solutions".

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#230

One of the comments in the thread said, simply, "Prepare 3 envelopes." Being a 25-year sysadmin, immersed in thinking about the problem, it caught me totally off-guard. I don't think I've ever seen a more perfect response in a Reddit thread.

Which 3 envelopes would those be?
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