Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 449 posts

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

#301

Post by rurp »

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.…

This is way off base in my experience. I live near several freight lines and cross the tracks often. The only negative is having to wait at a crossing every once in a while, but that's a very minor problem. I've literally never heard anyone bash trains in general and want them removed. In fact, it's more the opposite. There is a niche of serious train enthusiasts that get really excited about trains of various types.

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

#302

Post by mulmen »

xivzgrev wrote: post #266
dools wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 claim…

In my experience “performance” is code for “I don’t like you”. I have never seen a performance metric that isn’t arbitrary and inconsistent. Not just between peers but day to day for an individual.

PIPs are just CYA for HR.

I can’t speak to these specific situations because I wasn’t there but when managers speak about “performance” they’re using a euphemism for their perception. This can easily feel like racism because it comes from a place of discrimination.

“I have friends who are x” is a common refrain of racists so isn’t a defense, especially in an asymmetric power structure. Maybe you aren’t, or maybe your employees feel you are but they tolerate it to keep their jobs.

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

#303

Post by lemoncookiechip »

You have the right to, and can’t be punished for it. But you can still be punished if they just say it's unrelated to it, whether through missed opportunities, increased workload, undesirable assignments, or even termination with flimsy justifications.

It’s the age-old: “No one is pointing a gun at their head. They’re doing it because they want to.” -Manager XYZ

I can see two ways to prevent it:

1. Ban employers from doing so with potential fees, except in cases where it's a stipulation on the contract. Although this would eventually lead to employers adding it to every contract. Not a fan of this approach.

2. You make them pay you weekend-rate overtime, this would still allow your superiors to contact you, but they would think twice. I would definitely support this, although it might not apply to all circumstances.

3. I honestly don't know, there's probably better solutions from smarter people.

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

#304

Post by JohnMakin »

This new-ish problem speaks to a major reason I personally prefer hybrid/on-site work cultures - there is usually a clear barrier between work/free-time, at least IME. When I'm not in the office there is very little expectation that I am working. I personally prefer this separation - when I worked a fully remote job it felt like I was being pinged at any given hour and expected to respond.

This law would never happen in the united states. 0%.

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

#305

Post by neom »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #295
neom wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>Why do you think that is what happened? The reason I think that is what happened is because that is what happened . Here are some links, as requested: How a bad real estate deal sunk Red Lobster [0] When a private-equity firm bought the iconic seafood chain in 2014, it sold the real estate under the restaurants for $1.5 billion. Then the restaurants struggled to pay the rents [1] It Was A Bad Real Estate Deal, Not A…

The vendor wouldn't have been able to afford the price of the business with the land in the deal, it would have massively complicated chapter 11 if they needed to enter it (they did), given were the company was, reducing tax burden was important (sale was done at near breakeven). Sale+Rent back is a very traditional move in clearing up a business that has very little value and is leaning heavily on a real estate portfolio (not it's core business). You can read all the court filings and disclosures over the years, it paints a different story.

I understand the media told a story, but the story isn't the whole story, in fact it's just that: a story.

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

#306

Post by Rygian »

lemoncookiechip wrote: post #303

You have the right to, and can’t be punished for it. But you can still be punished if they just say it's unrelated to it, whether through missed opportunities, increased workload, undesirable assignments, or even termination with flimsy justifications. It’s the age-old: “No one is pointing a gun at their head. They’re doing it because they want to.” -Manager XYZ I can see two ways to prevent it: 1. Ban employers from…

I don't know about Australia, but in my jurisdiction any illegal contractual clauses are unenforceable.

If the law says "X is forbidden" and the contract says "employee agrees to do X" then the employer has no legal recourse to force employee to do X.

Point 2. is the usual on-call, and it's still regulated (in my jurisdiction) by mandatory rest periods during which a person is legally mandated to not work.

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

#307

Post by MrDarcy »

dathos wrote: post #292
gwbas1c wrote: post #283

> But the Australian Industry Group, an employer group, says ambiguity about how the rule applies will create confusion for bosses and workers. Jobs will become less flexible and in doing so slow the economy, it added. Whenever I encounter someone professionally who can't deal with a little ambiguity about when it's appropriate to interrupt someone; I feel like I'm working with a child trapped in an adult's body. "Ch…

I mean interrupting is one of the harder social actions in my opinion, especially in the workplace. So much of this comes from culture, family and your personality. I say this as someone who interrupts, and loves to be interrupted. Am I a kid in an adult body, or are my norms different than yours?

That depends entirely on if you ask permission before you interrupt another person.

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

#308

Post by ryandrake »

corytheboyd wrote: post #280
space_oddity wrote: post #267

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!

Seriously, just don’t install (or log in to) Slack on your phone. Started doing this myself a few years ago and it has been great. I have a pager, page me if you need me. It’s just… normal to not be obsessed with work.

And/or: Have separate work and personal devices and never cross the streams. When I'm done working on Friday, I put my work laptop and work phone in a soundproof drawer and don't open the drawer until Monday morning.

At the very least don't install work Slack on your personal phone!!

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

#309

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

neom wrote: post #305
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why do you think that is what happened? The reason I think that is what happened is because that is what happened . Here are some links, as requested: How a bad real estate deal sunk Red Lobster [0] When a private-equity firm bought the iconic seafood chain in 2014, it sold the real estate under the restaurants for $1.5 billion. Then the restaurants struggled to pay the rents [1] It Was A Bad Real Estate Deal, Not A…

The vendor wouldn't have been able to afford the price of the business with the land in the deal, it would have massively complicated chapter 11 if they needed to enter it (they did), given were the company was, reducing tax burden was important (sale was done at near breakeven). Sale+Rent back is a very traditional move in clearing up a business that has very little value and is leaning heavily on a real estate port…

The 6 reliable sources provided, which I trust you read in the 30 minutes between their posting and your reply, speak for themselves.

If you can convince all 6 reliable sources I linked, to correct their story, such that it reflects your own personal narrative of what happened, I will believe you.

Alternatively, you could provide 6+ equally-reliable sources which explicitly point out that the 6 reliable sources I cited are wrong (rather than just reframing the issue, or attempting to predict what would have happened had reality been different than what it was).

While I respect you as a person, and as a valuable contributor to this forum, your personal narrative simply isn't as reliable as the 6 reliable sources I provided.

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

#310

Post by Der_Einzige »

mapt wrote: post #265
KennyBlanken wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of old people in red states straight up voted for the day of the pillow and gleefully accepted it.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/texas-lt-governor-thinks-old...

These comments from the lt governor and trump were extremely popular with their base and with the population of Texas.

What do you do when the people being murdered vote for their own murder?

Post reply on HN