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Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

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Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#71

Post by tbrownaw »

darth_avocado wrote: post #69
tbrownaw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone is telling you the world works differently for them than it does for you, which means you've got an opportunity to learn something new about the world and expand your model. ...than it does for you, which means there's an opportunity for someone to expend resources verifying and characterizing the claimed difference.

It’s easy to dismiss something by saying “it’s not been my experience”. It would be a huge waste of time if every such claim requires expending resources verifying and characterizing the difference. There should be a higher bar for discourse on HN.

The comment I was replying to appears to be a call for unquestioning belief. Which is the far extreme in the opposite direction.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#72

Post by grayhatter »

roughly wrote: post #58

There's a weird incuriosity in the responses here for a place that calls itself Hacker News. "This doesn't happen to me" is about the least interesting or useful response you could have to someone telling you something happens to them. Someone is telling you the world works differently for them than it does for you, which means you've got an opportunity to learn something new about the world and expand your model. Ev…

> someone telling you about their lived experience of the world is a gift.

I'm not sure about that, but to your higher point, HN hasn't taken pride in it's nominative determinism nature, nor does it appear to be a desired trait from the majority. But the continued enshittifcation aside, "it doesn't happen to me" is still a useful observation. That shouldn't be read as a refutation, because I already agree with your point. The intent of most of the comments your objecting to, likely does come from a narcissistic compulsion, to turn the topic to something about them.

But I could easily say "it doesn't happen to me" while (poorly) trying to convey a message of encouragement towards self-confidence, and self-worth. Rather, it doesn't happen to me, because I haven't been gaslit into the shared and common delusion that: if you get fired, it'll because of something you did, and not because your manager felt like it. "Employee didn't answer the call/message at 10pm" is the reason they'll invent to fire you after they've decided to fire you. It won't be the root cause. You can just turn your messages off, and nothing bad will happen because you didn't respond.

Are there dysfunctional companies where something like that will get you fired? Absolutely! I would have hoped that existing wrongful termination laws would have already prevented this kinda thing, (if they don't that's a much larger problem) but I have no objections to making this an explicit law to compel the behavior of the sub-human group that would rather mistreat their coworkers. But given that within places that behave like this, this law would only fix a small subset of the pervasive human rights abuses inflicted during non-working hours. I feel like something more expansive should be done to protect those people from clearly abusive behavior.

I still expect that the vast majority of the people that would benefit from this, could simply just turn their phone off, and no one would notice... because while it's a problem, that does happen to some people, one that needs to be fixed! It doesn't happen to me, and probably doesn't really happen to you (most people) either.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#73

Post by brendoelfrendo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #9
pwg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. If $job is not willing to buy and hand me a "work phone" then they are out of luck, nothing for $job gets put onto my private phone. If they think they need this ability, then they also need to add a line item to their budgets for the cost of the phone and the service. And when faced with this alternative, they have not, so far, decided they want to pay for a phone.

Where do you draw the line? If the employer wants you to install a 2FA app on your phone, do you demand a separate phone or alternate 2FA device for that and mark yourself as a troublemaker? Or do you just do what 99.8% of the staff does and install the app?

They can buy a USB Fido token. I've had this argument with employers in the past; some states have laws that require the employer compensate employees for requiring the use of their personal mobile device, even for something as simple as MFA. There's no such thing as a free lunch: if you want to require an employee do something, you must be willing to pay for that capability. Ethically, I think all employers should be held to this standard. Legally, anyone who employs people in California, Montana, and I think Massachusetts must be aware of that standard.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#75

Post by grayhatter »

tbrownaw wrote: post #71
darth_avocado wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to dismiss something by saying “it’s not been my experience”. It would be a huge waste of time if every such claim requires expending resources verifying and characterizing the difference. There should be a higher bar for discourse on HN.

The comment I was replying to appears to be a call for unquestioning belief. Which is the far extreme in the opposite direction.

No, it doesn't, or at the very least, that wasn't my read and I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation. The comment starts with the topic, shock at the lack of curiosity from a group happy to comment in the theme of news interesting to hackers, and concludes with an argument that someone sharing their life/experience is something valuable.

IMO, the only reasonable argument one could take, is that roughly believes hackers should be curious, and that if you want to treat humans with the respect they deserve as individuals, you should default to trying to believe what they say, listening when they try to communicate, and avoid ignoring what they're trying to communicate just so you can interject something unrelated about yourself.

I not only agree, but I'm glad someone took a moment to encourage treating others with respect.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#76

Post by malcolmgreaves »

tbrownaw wrote: post #71
darth_avocado wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to dismiss something by saying “it’s not been my experience”. It would be a huge waste of time if every such claim requires expending resources verifying and characterizing the difference. There should be a higher bar for discourse on HN.

The comment I was replying to appears to be a call for unquestioning belief. Which is the far extreme in the opposite direction.

Not at all.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#77

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

roughly wrote: post #58

There's a weird incuriosity in the responses here for a place that calls itself Hacker News. "This doesn't happen to me" is about the least interesting or useful response you could have to someone telling you something happens to them. Someone is telling you the world works differently for them than it does for you, which means you've got an opportunity to learn something new about the world and expand your model. Ev…

Are there particular responses you have in mind? I can find two comments making this point, one which opens with

>Maybe I just have abnormal leverage

while the other opens with

>I'm curious

The top two top-level comments are responding to this trend, so I assume it is or was present, but I'm not seeing it. I do wish people would reply to the comments they find objectionable instead of doing these meta comments subtweeting them because I find I run into this issue often lately here (pot-kettle objection noted and accurate).

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#78

Post by toomuchtodo »

headz wrote: post #66
toomuchtodo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are lucky. This bill is for the unlucky, because luck is not a strategy as it relates to labor rights and protections.

Yeah, now I see that my message came out a bit differently than I wanted it to. What I wanted to say is that it sucks this needs to be a law instead of just being common sense.

Absolutely sucks, but it’s where we’re at, so it must be done. If your policy isn’t law, it doesn’t exist except as a suggestion.

Personally, I was very lucky. I recognize it was almost all luck. Born at the right place to the right people. Opportunities I was lucky to have because of that. Winning when gambling on relationships, professional work, and in the capital markets. I advocate for unlucky people whenever possible, because humans who did not choose to be here should not suffer due to their poor luck.

“We must take the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.” —- Maurice Allais

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#79

Post by lokar »

tbrownaw wrote: post #71
darth_avocado wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to dismiss something by saying “it’s not been my experience”. It would be a huge waste of time if every such claim requires expending resources verifying and characterizing the difference. There should be a higher bar for discourse on HN.

The comment I was replying to appears to be a call for unquestioning belief. Which is the far extreme in the opposite direction.

Assume good faith. Don’t cross examine.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#80

Post by stackskipton »

nickjj wrote: post #18

I'm curious, how often are people getting contacted outside of work hours for "regular" jobs? I do SRE / Platform type of work where I'm technically on-call 24/7/365 but as a salaried worker I don't receive over time or anything like that. If an on-call event happens where I end up putting in 2 hours on a Saturday or Thursday night, I'd use my discretion to leave early or start late another day. In the roles where on…

I'm SRE/Platform, I got paged out last night because Devs apparently can't properly crash applications. Sure, I can move hours as well but my partner doesn't care that I get off at 3 on this Friday instead of 5, she has to work till 5 and my page out interrupted our outing to the movies. Not everyone life is ultra flexible.
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