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Is my advice too mercenary?

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Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#181

Post by escapedmoose »

noncoml wrote: post #109
duxup wrote: post #22

I’m not inclined to do an exit interview because I’ve likely already expressed my opinions. I do think the “the company doesn’t care about you” type advice does require some nuance. Different companies make different choices and just because someone moves from mega corporation to mega corp doesn’t mean you shouldn’t trust anyone… There’s space in between giving your entire self to a company and imagining everyone is…

My experiences while at Cisco about 4-5 years ago: 1st experience: Told my boss I am leaving. My boss’s boss calls me in a room , tells me he has some great projects for me and that we will work together on them. I agree. Turns out it was his last day! 2nd experience: Similar situation, told my boss I am going to a startup. Boss’s boss calls me and gives me a lecture about how it is a bad idea to go to a startup. I l…

My partner and I have found ourselves in similar situations 4-5 times already within a combined ~12 years of professional experience. I don’t have the capacity to trust management anymore.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#182

Post by replygirl »

nobody9999 wrote: post #154
replygirl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who purchases insurance from the NY marketplace, that just isn't true. So have I, and I stopped purchasing insurance because I cannot find the coverage I want. I need a specific variant of a certain operation which is only performed by a few surgeons in the country, and the one surgeon in New York who offers it only takes Aetna for that operation. Aetna reentered marketplaces starting 2022, but I'm movin…

>So have I, and I stopped purchasing insurance because I cannot find the coverage I want. I need a specific variant of a certain operation which is only performed by a few surgeons in the country, and the one surgeon in New York who offers it only takes Aetna for that operation. Aetna reentered marketplaces starting 2022, but I'm moving and the operation has a year-plus waitlist, so I'm SOL. It has made a ton of sens…

no worries, i didn't feel attacked, just pushing back because prior to the edit you said emphatically that what i stated was not true

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#183

Post by guelo »

kbenson wrote: post #126
rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

How is that any different than some fiefdom ruled over by some noble? The whole point of democracy and elective government is that you can't rely on a system like that to be consistently good, whether it's the Duke's son squandering all the wealth and not listening to the people or a shift in management at the company. Just because sometimes there were benevolent companies that decided to contribute to their communit…

It worked and was stable for decades because unions ensured a balance of power between capital and labor. NAFTA and other pro-capital regulation broke that balance and shifted the balance towards capital.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#184

Post by Ambolia »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #161
rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

> There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. The problem with these advice columns is that they aren't saying "don't give your all to a company". They end up saying "your company is the enemy ". The original article that this blog refers to was titled "Exit interviews are a trap", which many pointed out was a gross exaggeration. It assumes that every company perform…

I think the message is more "you shouldn't form loyalty ties with your company, because your company won't form them with you".

Loyalty ties are still important, but not something you will find in most employer-employee relationships. Better to have a more "extractive" vision of companies and build loyalty ties somewhere else.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#185

Post by danaris »

tomerv wrote: post #120
noncoml wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experiences while at Cisco about 4-5 years ago: 1st experience: Told my boss I am leaving. My boss’s boss calls me in a room , tells me he has some great projects for me and that we will work together on them. I agree. Turns out it was his last day! 2nd experience: Similar situation, told my boss I am going to a startup. Boss’s boss calls me and gives me a lecture about how it is a bad idea to go to a startup. I l…

I can't imagine what would cause a person to act like that, and on his last day/week of work! Some kind of psycopathy?

Someone who sees a fundamental divide between Workers and Managers, and sees the job of the latter as being extracting the maximum possible work from the former. (And, based on my experience, sees the former as universally trying to do the least work possible for the most money, up to and including trying to defraud the company.)

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#186

Post by kube-system »

dragonwriter wrote: post #155
kube-system wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health insurance is "tied to employment" because of wage controls that were implemented in WWII. Employers still had trouble hiring people, and because they were prohibited from raising wages, they had to find other ways to attract people: benefits. Health insurance then became a popular benefit. Also, note that you can buy your own health insurance in the US. You are not required to use health insurance provided by…

> Health insurance is "tied to employment" because of wage controls that were implemented in WWII. If that was the only or even dominant reason, then the removal of those controls in 1945 would have seen that tie rapidly unravel, instead, health care has become more, not less, tied to employment since the end of that policy, reinforced by deliberate policy choices like tax policy and explicit mandates. The historical…

> the removal of those controls in 1945 would have seen that tie rapidly unravel

One might rationally assume that, but human brains are weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#187

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #161
rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

> There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. The problem with these advice columns is that they aren't saying "don't give your all to a company". They end up saying "your company is the enemy ". The original article that this blog refers to was titled "Exit interviews are a trap", which many pointed out was a gross exaggeration. It assumes that every company perform…

I read the article and I disagree. It does not say it either explicitly or implicitly. The article only urges the reader to think of the benefits to themselves first.. like a company would.

I don't think it is an unreasonable approach.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#188

Post by escapedmoose »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

It truly is shocking that health insurance is tied to employment status. I really think this is a large part of the trend towards overt ruthlessness in the USA, no one has their back so they have no ones back, as people age and experience medical bankruptcy (or narrowly avoid it at great cost) they are realizing this ruthlessness in our system.

THIS is for real. If I don’t have a job with good benefits, I can’t pay our medical bills anymore, and we could lose everything. So even though I’ve had the “team player” personality from birth, I cannot allow myself to put my faith in any employer. The moment they start turning the screw on benefits, I’m out.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#189

Post by thegrimmest »

replygirl wrote: post #168
thegrimmest wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pandemic/disease control Edit: also a much more significant factor only in densely populated areas

sure, just pointing out that the _funding and availability_ of a social service wasn't a point of contention there. unintuitive as it is, the discourse around public health and health care aren't really related. anyway i was just giving people some background, not opining. if i was feeling saucy i might say something incoherent about people feeling entitled to a service they previously resented as soon as it's useful…

Well, you made the case that police were previously privatized. I'm not sure that's true exactly. You also compare healthcare to police and fire services. I was just elaborating as to why that comparison may not be apt. Public health, insofar as controlling the spread of communicable disease, has always been a function requiring government authority.

The idea that people who set bones and cure cancer should be included in this category is a more modern take, one that requires much more careful discussion of what should and should not be a "public service".

> people feeling entitled to a service they previously resented as soon as it's useful to them

I think we should expect people to prefer suffering and death with dignity, rather than greedily and desperately peering into the pockets of strangers, but that's just my take.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#190

Post by escapedmoose »

kube-system wrote: post #19
AYBABTME wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming this is by design to keep the US population "on their toes" and at work doing productive things. Otherwise why would it be tied to employment?

Health insurance is "tied to employment" because of wage controls that were implemented in WWII. Employers still had trouble hiring people, and because they were prohibited from raising wages, they had to find other ways to attract people: benefits. Health insurance then became a popular benefit. Also, note that you can buy your own health insurance in the US. You are not required to use health insurance provided by…

Have you seen the prices of marketplace health insurance? Completely untenable for our household.
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