131–140 of 141 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Your loss is an expense, and an employee’s loss is the threat of homelessness. That’s the reason I find your perspective difficult to agree with. You’re holding the cards in these interactions.
I know it's important to do science that comes to obvious conclusions, but sometimes the interiority-centric framework of psychology seems comically ill-fit for topics like this In most countries in the world, money is what allows you to have any control over your life. For most people who aren't already rich, their having money relies on being employed, and we tend not to describe people who don't work because they'…
For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes. If you slip into a pattern of not waking up at a reasonable time, staying indoors and not exercising, not making attempts to socialise, etc, then it can be quite easy to throw your brain chemistry out of…
I saw a similar line of reasoning when WFH took off. Many people lamented the death of their social life. But, if your social life consisted of going to the office, did you ever really have a social life? Or did you have the bare minimum and then used to convince yourself everything is fine?
Sometimes people say the true purpose of modern human society is to keep people in poor enough conditions we can extract the maximum value from them, but in just good enough conditions they will never revolt. I think that's ridiculous, but then I read stuff like this and think... maybe there's some truth to it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not in ways that generally matter. If someone is embezzling large amounts of cash to the point that it's causing the business to fail, sure. But that sort of thing is fairly rare; most "abuse" toward employers is low-stakes stuff like stealing office supplies or only pretending to work. Sure, the company is harmed, but not materially. When an employer abuses an employee, we're usually talking about life-altering thin…
It's pretty even. Workers at all levels quit all the time. I've been both employee and employer. > but not materially One employee of mine stole $70,000 (about $200,000 today). It very nearly wiped the company out. (If you can't make payroll, you are forced to close.)
Yes, and that's allowed. If anything workers are much more gracious in this regard - typically termination happens quickly, with no two week notice. Workers typically at least give that, which they're not required to at all in the US. It's purely goodwill and generosity, so you're welcome.
> One employee of mine stole $70,000
Okay? And Bayer Pharmaceuticals gave thousands of people HIV/AIDS. What's your point here?
We gotta look at the big picture, not your experience.
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For many jobs (like programming) measuring productivity is nearly impossible. But if a programmer is being paid for 40 hours of work, and he only does 20, then the employer is going to feel cheated, because the employer is only getting half of the productivity the programmer promised him. The impracticality of measuring the productivity is irrelevant.
I would argue that if what the employer expects to be done in 40 hours can be done in 20 by a skilled employee, then it’s not exactly the employee’s job to tell them to allocate more work on his/her plate for the same amount of pay. That business needs to do a better job of understanding the work they need done. This, of course, won’t apply to a job like a call center or something where the time on the job is itself…
I retired once for 6 weeks. Was bored to death. Started another business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes. If you slip into a pattern of not waking up at a reasonable time, staying indoors and not exercising, not making attempts to socialise, etc, then it can be quite easy to throw your brain chemistry out of…
Really all this tells me is that, for most people, the only thing standing between them and being a husk of a person is their job. Which is kind of sad. I saw a similar line of reasoning when WFH took off. Many people lamented the death of their social life. But, if your social life consisted of going to the office, did you ever really have a social life? Or did you have the bare minimum and then used to convince you…
How is it ridiculous? If too many people achieved financial independence (and as long as labor is still necessary), this would cause inflation until enough are no longer financially independent. In reality losing the gene, health or heritage lottery sets you up for a life of exploitation (as an employee or consumer).
For the average HNer having contact with or awareness of working poor may be beneath them, but they exist, not in small numbers either. The hamster wheel is absolutely real and the intense bubble many on here live in becomes clearer to me by the day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your loss is an expense, and an employee’s loss is the threat of homelessness. That’s the reason I find your perspective difficult to agree with. You’re holding the cards in these interactions.
He said he nearly lost his business, that means his and his employees livelihood. How is this difficult to see.
I know it's important to do science that comes to obvious conclusions, but sometimes the interiority-centric framework of psychology seems comically ill-fit for topics like this In most countries in the world, money is what allows you to have any control over your life. For most people who aren't already rich, their having money relies on being employed, and we tend not to describe people who don't work because they'…
For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes. If you slip into a pattern of not waking up at a reasonable time, staying indoors and not exercising, not making attempts to socialise, etc, then it can be quite easy to throw your brain chemistry out of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that if what the employer expects to be done in 40 hours can be done in 20 by a skilled employee, then it’s not exactly the employee’s job to tell them to allocate more work on his/her plate for the same amount of pay. That business needs to do a better job of understanding the work they need done. This, of course, won’t apply to a job like a call center or something where the time on the job is itself…
Again, it is rarely possible to quantify the productivity of a programmer. That's why we pay them according to how many hours they work. Contracting for 40 hours but only delivering 20 is fraudulent.