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VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

reuters.com

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Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#51

Post by j45 »

nknight wrote: post #16
yock wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor planning on someone else's part doesn't make an emergency in my part. I've always hated this statement. I can understand, to some extent, not bailing out those who are habitually poorly prepared, but how can you justify not bailing someone out if it's what's best for your company?

Why should I be more concerned about what's best for an abstract concept than what's best for me?

(If) What's best for you is making the most money you can.

and .. if you want to achieve this by doing the least work possible, and creating work for others, they will not help you be more successful at your job.

A real successful team, person, and company will all believe in getting more work done with less collective effort. So, if I make my job easier, it shouldn't make your job harder.

Sadly, too many people in management don't get team building, team development, but instead narrow minded views and babysitting everyone through it.

Edit: Added the word If at the beginning, I was examining what I interpreted the previous commenter to be saying.

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#52

Post by rdouble »

nostrademons wrote: post #19
vaksel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has plenty of unions and Mercedes, BMW, Audi seem to be doing well enough You have two sides, with U.S. on one side where workers just work, with little thought for quality of life, and the other side is Europe, where they get paid a bit less, but they have 4 weeks vacation and much less demanding work load. I dunno about you, but I'd gladly sacrifice $10K(which is pretty much the whole difference between the…

You can quit and take time between jobs. $10K should let you backpack around Europe for about 3-6 months, which is more of a perk than Europeans get. I'm not quite sure why more people don't do this. Bank a bunch of money at a nice professional job, then quit and be funemployed for 6-12 months while they do lots of cool, life-affirming things. A bunch of my friends have done it - either backpacking around the U.S, or…

I'm not quite sure why more people don't do this

It's currently pretty hard to get a job again on the other side of the vacation. Plus for most people in the USA wages are so low it's hard to even save $10K. 48% of the population are living on or below the poverty line.

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#53

Post by LearnYouALisp »

heydenberk wrote: post #20
s1rech wrote: post #3

I live in Germany, and I know many engineers who work for one of the big carmakers (either directly or through some external company). Most of them are under some form of collective bargaining agreement. They have a lot of nice perks, like paid overtime (in the form of days of) and pretty good salaries. Meanwhile I work as a developer for an internet company. I've never heard of anybody working under a CBA, or any ki…

"extreme cases, like working on sundays" Oh, Germany.

Did you know most stores close at 8PM on weekdays?

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#54

Post by j45 »

gojomo wrote: post #23
j45 wrote: post #6

Cool idea. Sounds like you can still send emails but not receive any until work. I noticed that mobile email doesn't always help get more work done, unless you're the person asking the questions in the emails. If a bb user is busy answering other people's questions... you're likely doing their work too. The culture of "we're waiting on you" that grows in an organization is the real enemy. Interruptions are bad too. W…

There could be serious/hilarious consequences to this send-but-not-receive policy... inability to correct a mistake in an email sent right before the embargo-period... a bunch of work done on cancelled/already-solved issues... expectation mismatches with new/outside/other-time-zone correspondents. For some reason I'm also reminded of the scene in Swingers where Jon Favreau's character leaves a string of increasingly…

I think it might slam inboxes early in the morning and late at night but over time (I would hope) people would learn to prioritize communications....

Ever tried making plans with someone who doesn't have a cell phone? I damn well make sure I'm not late because I have no way to reach them. Maybe the same will happen with less available email.

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#55

Post by nknight »

j45 wrote: post #51
nknight wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I be more concerned about what's best for an abstract concept than what's best for me?

(If) What's best for you is making the most money you can. and .. if you want to achieve this by doing the least work possible, and creating work for others, they will not help you be more successful at your job. A real successful team, person, and company will all believe in getting more work done with less collective effort. So, if I make my job easier, it shouldn't make your job harder. Sadly, too many people in m…

> What's best for you is making the most money you can.

I can't even begin to fathom that mindset. No amount of money is worth my health. None. I walked out on a great-paying job that turned into a clusterfuck and voluntarily did nothing for a year for exactly that reason.

I worked way below market for quite a while for that reason.

I'm working somewhat below market even now for that reason.

I keep score in happiness and satisfaction, not dollars.

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#56

Post by koenigdavidmj »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #10
mchanson wrote: post #2

Union knowledge workers. Outside of healthcare do they exist in the US?

Boeing engineers are unionized: http://www.speea.org/

They get overtime too. Something related to being a government contractor, if I recall correctly.

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#57

Post by georgieporgie »

nostrademons wrote: post #45
_delirium wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a few months that's possible, but at 12 months it starts getting tricky if you ever want a job again. May be less of a problem in tech, but in a lot of areas if you're "long-term unemployed", HR just screens out your resume; companies seem to only want to hire employed or recently-employed people (cf. http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/tribu/ct-biz-0905-wor... ).

Start a blog about your experiences and then call yourself a self-employed travel blogger. Might even make a little AdSense cash off of it too. There are all sorts of creative ways to get around HR.

HR isn't going to read your blog, and HR is, sadly, the gateway to (just a guess here) 90% of job opportunities. If you have an 'in' at the company, you can bypass HR's initial gating, and your plan will work, otherwise it's unlikely.

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#58

Post by hammock »

LearnYouALisp wrote: post #53
heydenberk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"extreme cases, like working on sundays" Oh, Germany.

Did you know most stores close at 8PM on weekdays?

Is that supposed to be different from the states, where many retail stores close sometime between 7-9pm?

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#59

Post by RShackleford »

vaksel wrote: post #12
[deleted] wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Germany has plenty of unions and Mercedes, BMW, Audi seem to be doing well enough You have two sides, with U.S. on one side where workers just work, with little thought for quality of life, and the other side is Europe, where they get paid a bit less, but they have 4 weeks vacation and much less demanding work load. I dunno about you, but I'd gladly sacrifice $10K(which is pretty much the whole difference between the…

We have only two week vacation at Turkey, fuck :(

Re: VW deactivates employee email outside working hours

#60

Post by kalid »

afterburner wrote: post #13
vaksel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has plenty of unions and Mercedes, BMW, Audi seem to be doing well enough You have two sides, with U.S. on one side where workers just work, with little thought for quality of life, and the other side is Europe, where they get paid a bit less, but they have 4 weeks vacation and much less demanding work load. I dunno about you, but I'd gladly sacrifice $10K(which is pretty much the whole difference between the…

4 is the absolute minimum, and in most countries that minimum is 5. The average is more like 7 weeks.

I was shocked when I looked at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_emplo...

The US has 0 (zero!) mandated days off. Even China gives people 5-15 days minimum.

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