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The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

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Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#21

Post by nindalf »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #12
jillesvangurp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a reason for this is that not everybody agrees that drugs are all that bad. Half of silicon valley allegedly is micro-dosing all sorts of things and apparently benefiting from that. Steve Jobs famously advocated using LSD. The Vietnam war famously had a lot of drug abuse. WW II soldiers and leadership were consuming epic amounts of amphetamines. And that wasn't just the Nazis. Companies aren't testing for thi…

> Perhaps a reason for this is that not everybody agrees that drugs are all that bad As an explanation, this is implausible to the point of impossible. The same employers drug test lower-level employees but (e.g. in the warehouse) but don't test other employees (e.g. in the office). Amazon drug tests warehouse workers but not AWS engineers. It is difficult to come up for a coherent theory for that that includes "as a…

As an organisation we’d like to drug test everyone, except those with enough leverage to tell us to get lost.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#22

Post by calvinmorrison »

chii wrote: post #19
freddie_mercury wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps a reason for this is that not everybody agrees that drugs are all that bad As an explanation, this is implausible to the point of impossible. The same employers drug test lower-level employees but (e.g. in the warehouse) but don't test other employees (e.g. in the office). Amazon drug tests warehouse workers but not AWS engineers. It is difficult to come up for a coherent theory for that that includes "as a…

obviously it is the belief of upper management that low level workers cannot be trusted to behave and work to their maximum if they're on drugs, while the "elites" require such drugs to reach their maximum potential.

No its because usually low level jobs require you to operate heavy machinery like driving a truck or operating a forklift or work on the floor of the factory, or being around those things. Or for example handling cash at registers etc. I feel like this conspiracy is the author, and apparently hn needs to touch grass a little bit

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#23

Post by unsupp0rted »

The other day I phoned a service provider and the lady’s kid was babbling in the background and a children’s show was playing throughout the call.

I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.

Either invest in voice isolation or don’t work from home.

Functionally this lady brought her kid to my home office and blasted a cartoon during our meeting.

Is this harsh of me and an unpopular opinion? Yes.

I agree that Human beings should be able to have work-life balance and kids are a natural and necessary part of that balance.

I just don’t want them in my ear.

If the lady had had gangster rap music or 8-bit video game music on in the background of the call I’d have been equally annoyed.

Work calls are for doing work.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#24

Post by madsbuch »

throwup238 wrote: post #2

The same inequality exists with drug testing too. A lot of low wage roles get drug tested on a regular basis while higher paying careers don’t. Outside the military, pilots rarely get tested despite the fact they’re responsible for many more lives than fork lift operators or truck drivers (who often do get tested). Doctors pretty much only get tested if they botch a surgery or someone reports them. Lawyers? Wallstree…

this comment represent a weird sentiment: if you drugt test in one field, you should equally drug test I all fields.

How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs?

it seems like introducing a whole machinery to just have the same resting is an industrial scale waste of resources.

However, people regularly die because of drunk and tired drivers.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#25

Post by sshine »

madsbuch wrote: post #24
throwup238 wrote: post #2

The same inequality exists with drug testing too. A lot of low wage roles get drug tested on a regular basis while higher paying careers don’t. Outside the military, pilots rarely get tested despite the fact they’re responsible for many more lives than fork lift operators or truck drivers (who often do get tested). Doctors pretty much only get tested if they botch a surgery or someone reports them. Lawyers? Wallstree…

this comment represent a weird sentiment: if you drugt test in one field, you should equally drug test I all fields. How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs? it seems like introducing a whole machinery to just have the same resting is an industrial scale waste of resources. However, people regularly die because of drunk and tired drivers.

There is some implicit assumption that drug testing is a safety measure.

I am quite convinced it is a productivity measure.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#26

Post by locallost »

Duanemclemore wrote: post #17
jghn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NSA even had to make an official exceptio The way I had it explained to me in the 90s was while drug use was disqualifying for things like the FBI, for the NSA it was fine-ish provided you were open about it.

I have had personal conversations with people who went through involved security clearance processes in the 70's, 80's, 90's, and 00's. Between those times I can tell you that everyone but the FBI got more lax about pot (but not cocaine) and homosexuality (even the FBI didn't care about that by the mid 2000's) but not more lax about gambling - even in states where it was already legal. They aren't on the lookout for…

Sounds like a circular argument. The FBI fires gay people, so they had to fire them to prevent them from leaking information because of possible blackmail. But once they stopped firing them for homosexuality there was no need to fire them because of fear they might be blackmailed because of the possibility to fire them. It's probably true for gambling, but the rest sounds like whitewashing. They fired gay people because society was hostile towards them and those agencies were part of society.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#28

Post by awongh »

madsbuch wrote: post #24
throwup238 wrote: post #2

The same inequality exists with drug testing too. A lot of low wage roles get drug tested on a regular basis while higher paying careers don’t. Outside the military, pilots rarely get tested despite the fact they’re responsible for many more lives than fork lift operators or truck drivers (who often do get tested). Doctors pretty much only get tested if they botch a surgery or someone reports them. Lawyers? Wallstree…

this comment represent a weird sentiment: if you drugt test in one field, you should equally drug test I all fields. How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs? it seems like introducing a whole machinery to just have the same resting is an industrial scale waste of resources. However, people regularly die because of drunk and tired drivers.

> How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs?

As long as testing is uncommon you could say that number will remain at zero or near zero simply for lack of data.

You comment implies but doesn’t state explicitly that you think truck drivers are more likely than pilots to be on drugs, is that true though?

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#29

Post by conductr »

silisili wrote: post #14
starttoaster wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think those are the kinds of jobs that have workers that expect to work from home. If you deal with physical assets, machinery, direct-customer communication, etc, you probably don't expect to be able to do your job outside of your company-assigned post anyway. On the other hand, anybody that works in a cubical and mostly deals with a phone/computer could probably easily expect that they would be able to work…

I for some reason think about these things a lot, even though I guess I'm not in the front line anymore and have it pretty nice. I can remember in 2010 or so having two friends who worked from home - one doing generic helpdesk in a small apartment, and one doing medical coding in a trailer. Neither paid well at all, and never did I get this sense of jealousy. Perhaps their lives were easier because of it, but it was…

On the service front I think what you’ve witnessed is work culture evolution. If you think about retail and food service, people churn in and out fast. The culture evolves quicker than you’d normally expect because of the people changing and many adaptations to new management, policies, technologies, etc. It’s become common place for workers to just not be present at all in these settings. Nobody to ask where to find something and certainly nobody trustworthy enough to ask about a products features/ or for a recommendation. The employees on the floor are likely preoccupied by something else like stocking shelves and it’s as if you’re interrupting them to ask as any question. So new employees come on board and they’re never taught how to help customers. Then they get promoted and maybe they know the POS the best but they can’t deal with customers well. They’re responsible for hiring and training new hires. So since they don’t value customer service, they don’t mind when new hire wants to wear AirPods while stocking. Now suddenly everyone is wearing AirPods while working. So you literally are interrupting them as a customer. They have to pause their podcast to have you repeat the question you already asked 3 times while trying to get their attention. It’s likely they don’t know how to help you if you really do need help did solving your problem is not their default, they think shrugging and saying I don’t know is acceptable and you’re on your own.

This happens over and over and now a workforce that’s too ambivalent to be productively helpful to customers experiences. Not even proactively in common sense ways. An example I’ve run into a couple time from quick service food joints goes like this. I order a fountain drink with my food. Pay, walk to drink machine that’s out of order. I ask clerk if there’s anything else to drink, they say no. I then ask why they sold me a fountain drink if they know machine is broken? I tell them I want a refund. They say they don’t know how. Takes 15 minutes and a manager to get the refund. As I’m waiting, cashier continues selling fountain drinks to customers in line.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#30

Post by rapidaneurism »

bitschubser_ wrote: post #11

The same inequality between c level and frontline workers exists on so many levels with other perks is it possible that the c level just don’t want to lose its privileges? In Europe as a manager you get subsidized cars where the company pays for gas, private corner offices, equity or special bonus programs not always are benefits packages available for frontline workers… and now they talk about inequality if more sta…

I think that this is partly because in Europe taxation is progressive and it quickly becomes quite high. (In the UK £100k-£120k is effectively taxed at 60%+ more if you have young kids)

So there is a point where giving someone 10k take home pay rise costs the business much more than giving a frontline worker a 10k take home pay rise.

But an EV car in the UK is taxed 98% less than the same amount in cash.

Rest zones, work from home etc have 0 tax implications .

Arguably lower paid staff is better off getting the cash instead of the benefits and using it as they see fit

Edit typo

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