Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours • Hacker News Board

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#261

Post by consteval » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:13 PM UTC

euroderf wrote: post #228

euroderf wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

(replying to myself...) One might accept this crap as inevitable if we were talking about a consumer market, like for barbeque grills or dog food or some such. But railroads? We're talking key infra. So, which totalitarian dictatorships are behind this wrecking of America's railroads ? Russia? China? Norfolk Southern (et al.) ?

> We're talking key infra

Not in the US. I mean, not culturally. Trains here are viewed as a plague, as stupid, as a waste of time. Of course they're really important and move around a lot of shit.

I would not be surprised that the train company doesn't give 2 fucks about trains. Nobody cares about trains. If you asked the average American if shutting down the railroads would be a good thing, they'd probably say yes. They're old, nasty, derail, loud...

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#262

Post by 627467 » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

Vegenoid wrote: post #260

627467 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, hiding true intentions and needs is better? Why is regulation not to force companies to be clear that you may be expected to be flexible with your corp comunication before signing the contract?

> So, hiding true intentions and needs is better? No, it is illegal. Your proposed law would have the opposite effect of the law that passed: every company would include this in their employment contract and would have legal protections to make employees work overtime. In addition, there are exceptions: > To cater for emergencies and jobs with irregular hours, the rule still allows employers to contact their workers,…

[flagged]

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#263

Post by ghaff » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

neom wrote: post #230

Akronymus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure you heard of red lobster going bankrupt because of endless shrimp. Well, that wasnt actually the case but once again private equity. They forced red lobster to sell off their land/buildings to a PE controlled entity. Which rented it back to them. Also forced them to go to a specific, PE controlled, fish seller. In fact, they got forced into starting the endless shrimp stuff because that seller had too much…

Darden group sold Red Lobster to GGC because it was massively underperforming in it's portfolio due to mismanagement through the 90s. GGC wasn't able to make much headway with it, and so it sold 25% to a vendor on the supply chain as part of debt restructuring and forgiveness, that allowed them to get some unit economics back into reality and the owner of the supply chain company took the rest of the position to cont…

A lot of the time, private equity (like MBAs etc.) is a convenient bogeyman for why crappy underperforming companies are crappy and underperforming. But private equity often gets involved because they are crappy and underperforming (or are just in a line of business that doesn't have good prospects any longer).

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#264

Post by neom » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #252

neom wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Darden group sold Red Lobster to GGC because it was massively underperforming in it's portfolio due to mismanagement through the 90s. GGC wasn't able to make much headway with it, and so it sold 25% to a vendor on the supply chain as part of debt restructuring and forgiveness, that allowed them to get some unit economics back into reality and the owner of the supply chain company took the rest of the position to cont…

McDonald's, a non-failing firm, not owned by PE, was once described by a former CFO thusly: "We are not technically in the food business. We are in the real estate business." They realised that owning the land upon which their restaurants, allowed them to succeed. Red Lobster's PE firm, on the other hand, did the exact opposite : sold the most valuable asset out from under their restaraunts, to another PE firm, which…

They're in Chapter 11, they're not out of business yet.

Why do you think that is what happened? It doesn't seem to be in line with what GGC told their LPs, so I'm curious where you get your interpretation of the events from? Do you have any links or reading you could provide me with?

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#265

Post by mapt » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #130

crossroadsguy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from India and this is very common thing from Indian managers whether they are in India or working abroad (and I am sure this is not limited to India but since I am from there I am sharing this example). It's just a thing. I often am a pariah at workplace when it comes to views on work-life balance. So I have learnt to never get into discussions about it and just shut up and keep my head down while never giving…

This isn't some Indian specific thing. Private equity is destroying US infrastructure to make a quick buck. It's happening in almost every sector of the economy you can imagine. I'm not exaggerating when I say that PE firms are buying up nursing homes, transfering ownership of the land and building off into a separate entity, and have that entity charge the nursing home rent which keeps going up and up. This forces m…

I know a number of nursing homes had >50% mortality from COVID, as there was not even a real attempt at isolation. While visiting hours may have been restricted, we pretended that nurses and staff (already scarce) were simply unable to transmit COVID, taking them on and off premises on regular shifts, and the result is hundreds of thousands of people killed.

Murdered.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#266

Post by xivzgrev » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:18 PM UTC

dools wrote: post #258

steelframe wrote: post #39

I've dabbled in management a few times in my career. This meant attending manager-only meetings and trainings. I'll never forget one time when a manager in a focus group said something along the lines of, "The tech sector is going through a rough patch, so we can turn the screws on our employees and they'll have to take it because they will have a hard time trying to find a job somewhere else." This is at a company w…

Early on in my career when I was first put into the position of hiring both employees and contractors, a guy I was working with said "We can ask him for a better price and promise to give him a better deal on the next one", and I said "but we won't have any more work after this one" and he said "yeah I know but we can just tell him that to get a better price". It was one of the first times I realised that people are…

Being a jerk extends all around.

As a manager I’ve had two employees tell HR that I was racist. The evidence? One I fired for performance, the other I had on a performance improvement plan. Mind you I had other minorities on my team in parallel that had no performance issues and strangely enough did not say I was a racist.

Also one time the HR guy (who also doubled as office manager) ran a large scheme where he claimed employees were expensing things, he did it on their behalf and got reimbursed. I found this out after the fact where I was asked if I ever asked him to order laptops or ran up huge Uber bills.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#267

Post by space_oddity » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:18 PM UTC

When I first started working, I would respond outside of working hours, work overtime, and try to please everyone. As I got older, I developed a rule: as soon as I finish work, I just ignore all work chats, calls, and emails. Did it affect my well-being? Yes, I highly recommend it to everyone!

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#268

Post by space_oddity » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:20 PM UTC

PlunderBunny wrote: post #24

Maybe we should think of these things as employment flags? There's no right-to-disconnect in my country, but sometime this year my boss started putting "I don’t expect a response to this email outside of your normal working hours." on the end of his email signature. I might not be earning FAANG money, but it's just another sign I'm working for a 'good' company.

Yes, it is! You are the lucky one

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#269

Post by ghaff » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:20 PM UTC

consteval wrote: post #261

euroderf wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(replying to myself...) One might accept this crap as inevitable if we were talking about a consumer market, like for barbeque grills or dog food or some such. But railroads? We're talking key infra. So, which totalitarian dictatorships are behind this wrecking of America's railroads ? Russia? China? Norfolk Southern (et al.) ?

> We're talking key infra Not in the US. I mean, not culturally. Trains here are viewed as a plague, as stupid, as a waste of time. Of course they're really important and move around a lot of shit. I would not be surprised that the train company doesn't give 2 fucks about trains. Nobody cares about trains. If you asked the average American if shutting down the railroads would be a good thing, they'd probably say yes.…

Freight rail is absolutely key infrastructure even if the average American doesn't think about it day to day. No, except for a few places (including commuter rail in some cities), Americans don't care about and aren't willing to pay for passenger rail given that they can drive or take a plane.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#270

Post by consteval » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 2:21 PM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #116

nine_zeros wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After I picked my jaw up off the floor I realized I simply lacked the scruples I'd need to be "one of them." This is the reason why I always tell young engineers to treat companies with utmost business-only mentality. It's not that all managers are bad. It's that the company rewards psychopathic behaviors - that aren't easily apparent to humble people. Companies are merely out there squeezing and exploring employee…

Unfortunately the word "company" encompasses hundreds of millions of entities, of enormously different cultures, attitudes, ethics and so on. Personally, I think behavior does (and likely has to) evolve with size. Unfortunately bigger tends to be worse. Culture is also primarily a top-down flow. I'd the CEO is a screamer expect screamers all the way down and so on. Of course there are companies, too many of them, tha…

I disagree. The fundamental idea of a company causes this behavior. They, the company, actually doesn't have a choice.

You have to turn a profit and the only way to achieve that is exploitation. You have to take labor and pay less than it's worth and pocket the difference. There's no way around it.

You might say "well you can be less exploitative" - but not really. Because you ALSO have to thrive in your market. Even if you are an angel sent from God to save corporate America, your competition isn't. They lie, they cheat, they steal. If you don't you're a sucker, and it's only a matter of time until your company goes under.

Because consumers will choose the cheaper option almost every time. And they don't actually know much about the company, they only know advertising. And they don't know much about the product either, because products are complex. Even domain-specific products, like, say, medical equipment - the buyers don't know shit. They know what the product should do, but do they know the materials are reliable? Do they know the power system is reliable? Do they know the software is written in a memory-safe manor? No, they don't.

So you lie (advertise). And you steal (pay your employees a low wage). And you cheat (use capital to undercut competitors, sometimes selling at a loss in new markets). And if you say no, then you will be replaced by someone who does. Nobody has any choice in this system.