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I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

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Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#221

Post by GuB-42 »

Glawen wrote: post #215
OldHand2018 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's legal because the workers welcomed it. At first. This is one single factory in the entire United States, and it is news because it is so far out of the ordinary. I grew up around a lot of steel mills in the middle of America. What happens is this: Demand increases rapidly but nobody expects it to last. So they go to the union and work out a deal for increased working hours at a higher salary. Everybody, and I re…

The same law has been passed in France where a union's deal can bypass the law (totally crazy idea to be honest). And these deals happen exactly like you described, except that workers are threatened by factory closure. For example it happened for the Smart car factory, they accepted to work more hours for the same pay, with the promise to get investments. Well now the factory is closing and they are pissed off to ha…

Yes, but it is not without limits. The hard limit is (supposed) to be 48h/week down to 44h/week after 12 weeks, including overtime. And even if employees and unions want to work more, legally, they can't.

It can go up to 60h/week in exceptional situations. Notably, it happened during the pandemic for some essential workers. In the article, that's 84h/week.

For the Smart car factory scandal, the work week was 39 hours, which is more than the official 35, but well within the limit and perfectly legal. The problem is that it should have been paid overtime, but it wasn't, which technically meant it was a wage reduction.

There are still some people in France who do absurd work hours, but not factory workers. Among them are medical interns (that's illegal but still done), self-employed people, and some high level employees who don't work on the clock.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#222

Post by djohnston »

bitanarch wrote: post #161
regularjack wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burnout is a legitimate health issue for many people in this forum, and elsewhere.

Agreed. Humans are inherently fragile beings with almost no redundant parts. If I fry your brain with long hours and politically hostile work environment and drive you to depression; vs. I fry your brain with long hours in physically exhausting environments. The results are the same - your brain is fried. One type of hostile work environment is not necessarily better or worse than another type of hostile work environ…

I've worked as both a manual laborer on a construction site and a software engineer at big tech corp. The burnout I get as an engineer is way better than what I felt as a laborer, I don't think most people who have done both would consider them similar.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#223

Post by mcculley »

balfirevic wrote: post #156
mcculley wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aware of Pollan's recently well-publicized assertion that caffeine made the modern world. I am unconvinced. I quit caffeine a few years ago. I'm not an unusual mutant. I have the genes on markers rs4410790 and rs2470893 that indicate a typical reaction to caffeine. ( https://enki.org/2017/08/13/quitting-caffeine/ ) Most people experience a temporary increase in productivity until they build up a tolerance for ca…

> Thereafter, they are just paying and consuming to avoid headaches and reach the baseline. No, it is also for a great deal of enjoyment.

My experience consuming caffeine for 35 years was that the enjoyment required increasing consumptions. This is common for most. Maybe it is different for you.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#224

Post by watwut »

tluyben2 wrote: post #216
peakaboo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing they have incommon is that they refuse to change their lives. They don't make use of their own capabilities to make changes. Specially the American culture has this idiotic thing where people are so afraid to called a failure or to be someone who quits. That's probably doing more damage than anything to yourselfs.

I am not sure that is true though. When I was really into 'becoming a big startup' etc, I was taking lessons from almost exclusively US founders. If things fail, go bankrupt and repeat was a main point. But I was in the EU and here (outside of the UK, at least as far as I have seen in practice) bankruptcy is a big taboo and you are judged by it. Instead of it being something you at least tried but failed, it is seen…

Bankruptcy means that somebody else ends up paying for what you spent on the business attempt. It means that people and companies who provided services don't get paid. It is not no harm done who cares event.

High risk businesses have a cost. Trying multiple of them and expecting others to swallow looses they did not caused sounds to me like abusing the system meant to get you out of genuine failure.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#225

Post by alkonaut »

baron816 wrote: post #84

> I stay here because in two years, I'll be 62 and I have a union pension acquired over 37 years. I've spent so much time here that I might as well take that pension and social security and call it quits. Had they not been locked in by the pension, I'd imagine most of them would've quit, and Frito-Lay would've been force to improve conditions. I wonder if unions prefer pensions pretty much for the same reason--it all…

A pension should never be conditional on “not quitting”. Can it legally be? If you work 10 years you earned 10 years of pension. It should be yours regardless of what happened (e.g if you get fired).

If pensions can be conditional on not quitting, not getting fired or similar, then unions already failed (but this should be law and not require unions).

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#227

Post by afpx »

regularjack wrote: post #140
cj wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s these people I think about when reading the weekly threads here on developer burn out.

Burnout is a legitimate health issue for many people in this forum, and elsewhere.

Wait until they experience several years of continuous, high-level cortisol, and they'll believe in burnout.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#228

Post by rvieira »

spiritplumber wrote: post #112
vasco wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no "siesta" (a spanish word and custom) anywhere in Portugal, including Madeira. Businesses may close for an hour or so for lunch, but "siesta" is not a thing. Not sure why you picked that as an example out of any other work expectation in any country.

Why not? Siesta makes sense in the climate of Spain and Southern Italy. Isn't Portugal just as hot?

Some parts of Portugal are hot, others are temperate (just like Spain).

Siesta is mostly a cultural thing and Portugal doesn't have it.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#229

Post by blindmute »

samatman wrote: post #36
mcculley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the many insightful replies here add: Once you have a working class addicted to some combination of fast food, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, pot, opioids, and other drugs which cost money, they have a reduced capability to dig themselves out of a hole.

Man it is super weird that you put caffeine on that list. I assume, because you did it, that you're one of those mutants who doesn't use it nor like it much. Good for you and all, but caffeine made the modern world , the majority of the population uses it every day, and industrial society wouldn't function without it. It's also super-cheap even on a modest salary, and most workplaces give it away for free because of…

All studies confirm that caffeine consumed regularly does not improve alertness or anything else above baseline. After a tolerance is built, daily caffeine only returns the user to baseline performance, that they have fallen under due to withdrawal. If you use caffeine for more than about 2 or 3 days in a row, it stops doing anything useful. If everyone quit caffeine immediately, there would be a couple weeks of awful productivity, and then everything would go back to normal.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#230

Post by cherrycherry98 »

mchusma wrote: post #152

I thought about this case more and the root issue appears to be pensions. They create a situation where someone will do a job they don't want to, not because they are forced but because their entire retirement relies on it. Pensions are just a bad idea.

Same with 401ks and vesting periods and employer sponsored healthcare. It gives leverage to the employer to keep people working a job they otherwise wouldn't. Jobs should pay cash and in some cases equity. Expand tax advantaged accounts for retirement (IRAs), do something with healthcare (maybe single payer, idk).
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