Slashdot Mirror
Working Hard?
Two related stories about working hard in the U.S.: U.S. workers are granted less (and take less) vacation time than workers in other industrialized nations. And if that wasn't enough, changes to the overtime laws will eliminate overtime pay for many workers.
Imagine how productive a Beowulf Cluster of these workers would be, eh?;)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
I wonder which Wal mega-company managed Mart to ram THIS one up the asses of American workers?
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
Like, OMG! Isn't that what made us? You work hard to get ahead in life. American Dream? Work hard for what you want...
Unless you're a liberal and think the government should take care of you and you should never have to work I guess....
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Is it just me or does it seem like almost everything Dubya does is intended to lower the quality of life for the average American?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nice to see that an American icon, Wal-Mart, is contributing to people, well, working hard.
2
i apologize in advance for my lack of html skills.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=1296
Kinda scary loading up slashdot at work and seeing a headline that sounds like it's scolding you for not working....
-A
the more physical your labour, the less you get paid.
the less you get paid, the more you work.
the more you work, the less vacation you get.
the rich get richer, and you.. well.. you're still working hand-to-mouth.
I think this is probably not the right crowd to be asking this question ... a ton of us tech types are unemployed, those that have jobs sit at work playing solitaire and the ones that both have a job and actually do it are far too busy to join in this crappy discussion :P
-Rylfaeth
Don't work.
You can all bitch and moan all you like about no vacation time, not enough overtime pay, etc, but the more you take, the more you'll end up paying.
The only way you'll get ahead is to start contracting for yourself. But that's scary and risky!
Guess what... running a business is too. That's why they get compensated so much if they're successful.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Cheers to those like me that spent the entire day reading news and Slashdot, while officially "working hard."
Also, I've been ()*&&^%^^^^^^^...........
>404 - employee not found. The employee you are trying to reach is experiencing technical difficulties and cannot be reached. Please try again later or contact you administrator.
America is too busypaying attention to fiction to be concerned about what's happening in reality.
The more you pay attention to one thing, the less you can pay attention to others. Read the comments on that link. Most of us are permanently out to lunch.
Over time... pay? What's that?
c0w goes moo.
...and eventually, no job.
Avarice, treachery, greed, lying, gluttony, cheating and petty office politics have become their own justification in the average workplace. Unless you "fit in," you will eventually be fired. In order to fit in, you must:
1) Do exactly as you are told: no more, no less.
2) Accept every lunch and meeting invitation
3) Reply enthusiastically to every e-mail, especially if it has a colorful signature.
4) Agree, even when the people you are agreeing with are wrong.
5) Never offer an opinion, or attempt to think about your job or the company.
The educations of an entire generation are being destroyed in the rush to below-average mediocrity.
Only the very few companies actually accomplish anything truly innovative. The rest simply exist, like tree moss, consuming resources and producing very little. This better get fixed, because this process is called "eating your own seedcorn."
Someday, hope will be born of something other than a business case.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
But i've never heard of a case of Karoshi in america.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Democrats = The Gov provides for you. Repubs = You provide for the Gov. Libertarian = You provide for You. Now, which party are you with?
Life is not for the lazy.
I work in 'management'. In fact all of the geeks and tech heads work in management. Who do I manage? Myself.
Why is this important? Because I don't get overtime at all, and haven't for the past 10 years. Last week I worked 4 days out of 5 0800 (8am) - 2300 (11pm). Will I get a dime more on my paycheck? No. Do I have the satisfaction of knowing that I helped get a major project up and running? Yep. Will I have a job at the end of the year? Probably.
Who is getting layed off in my company? Not 'management' (at least not the techy ones); we know too much, and are willing to work until our fingers bleed...tough luck if you can't keep up or don't have useful skills.
Just a fact of life. Of course I'm probably going to die before I'm 65 to a massive aneurism...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I work as a network tech, around $2700 a month and I get three paid weeks of vacation per year, how does it look over there? /040.
" I'd like to refer everybody to my signature for my feelings on this matter...."
Well I guess from now on. Those pants aren't going to be so puffy.
Amazing! This is the direct opposite to the EU, where the employers power to demand you worked more than 40 hours, were stripped several years ago. I remember being asked by a former employer to sign a waver to allow me to work more than 40 hours if necessary. Naturally, guaranteed overtime was part of the deal.
Macka (UK).
Uh-oh, sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!
We are a very materialistic nation -- the majority of us work to buy the things we want. The countries that take a lot of vacation days are generally the countries where the latest SUV and 5 bedroom house is not a necessity. Here in America, we need our ... STUFF!
Even with that said, America ranks up there with Japan and China (both very large countries surrounded by technology...)
Japan 10 days
China 15 days
U.S. 0 days
Besides, we go to work and read Slashdot -- the same thing generally happens during a 'vacation' day. May as well make money while you reload?
All this will serve to do is increase the power base of Unions. More and more workers will find that with Union help, they can negotiate to keep that overtime and employers will find themselves caught with having to negotiate Union contracts when before they wouldn't have to. As a Republican, I find this meddling in Labor laws to go against Conservative principles in that the Government should never get in the way of a guy making an honest buck. While these laws would not currently affect me (I'm salaried already) they will affect people like my little brother that busts his hump on a daily basis as a welder (as challening a trade as any IMO) to make the cash to keep take care of his family, let his wife be a stay at home Mom, and make a better life for his kids. That is a Conservative Philosophy and Bush is hurting it with this.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
As long as it's either intellectually or monitarily fulfilling. I just wrote a long story about an all-hours project here, and despite some pain, I have nothing but positive things to say about the whole experience. One thing I didn't note in the article is that later that year my salary made a HUGE jump... the hard work paid off.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Cite your source(s)??
[quote]
According to the EPI study, which used Labor Department and General Accounting Office data about worker pay and qualifications, the total effect of the three changes is to exclude at least 8.025 million workers from overtime -- and probably more, the study said, since the EPI only looked at 78 of the 257 "white collar" occupations identified by the Labor Department.
[/quote]
So, the EPI looked at only 3.3% (257 / 78) of the facts and came up with this doom and gloom proclimation?
What about the rest of the stats from the Labor Dept and GAO? Don't you think they would have an impact on the figures? It doesn't matter if the results would further prove their point or not. They didn't consider all the facts.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Nothing like generalized is there. What morons modded the parent up?
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
The US also has one of the highest rates of burnout in the world. Japan who was 2nd lowest in the chart also has the same problem.
When will American compaines understand that having their workers take acations is good for the company. People who take time off, do more effecent work. It like the recent studies that show once workers start putting in more hours their productivity can increase to about 10 hours a day but an office worker that is doing 12 hr days less productive than when they were doing 8 hour days since they spend so much work time doing other things.
It will be interesting to see what happens in New Zealand. Its my understanding that they used to have a European model for holiday time but have recently removed some of thouse requirements so they are more like the US model. Maybe that explains why at least 50% of their labor pool is in Australia.
I've currently have 34.5 unused vacation days. Over the next year, I'll collect 20 more. I think its time for a round the world trip.
could this be because the strong dollar ?
The people are having to work a lot to stay competitive with the international markets and some more to balance the exchange rate of the dollar. Unless the dollar weakens i dont see this trend changing.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
I'm justly compensated.
Now, 1.5 times salary is a very nice, very generous, compensation for overtime. But I'd hardly say that anything less is an injustice.
I'd say that as long as you get paid at least in direct proportion to how many hours you work, it's just.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
changes to the overtime laws will eliminate overtime pay for many workers.
With so many ask slashdot questions that are basically "my boss expects me to work 12 hours a day with no compensation, what should I do?", things can't get too much worse.
DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE
okSadly, I was given a programming job at a place in which my supervisor was involved in a scheme to defraud others and many of my co-workers were involved in it as well. When a co-worker of mine tried to blow the whistle, they ran him out and then ran me out as well. They still have their jobs but I'm unemployed.
Email them while you can. Or fax them at this number (202) 693-1432.
If you work in the IT industry at all, this promises to remove any right you have to overtime pay.
just like the panic of 1929. I'm told that people are now working more than anytime since before then. Anyone know if that's true?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
...I think there is an unwritten rule in engineering, at least in the private sector, stating ye shall work your arse off and not receive overtime pay.
Nothing like generalized is there. What morons modded the parent up?
It's an opinion, if you disagree with it, why don't you cite some examples to disprove, or at least support your reasoning? Look at the productivity of Japan, and the US in a field (any field where the two compete), and then look at the average hours worked, and number of workers, per unit delivered. I'll tell you this much, they ain't 1:1...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
"The reason Americans have to work more than the rest of the world is because they are less productive."
Actually, just the opposite. Not only do Americans work more hours than all other industrialized nations (IIRC, only two other countries overall beat us), but we also tend to be more productive. For example, one of the big problems Ottawa has with NAFTA is that American workers are overall more productive hour-per-hour than Canadian workers, giving American businesses a competitive advantage over Canadian businesses.
"I doubt you could sit at a desk for 8 hours and really only be coding for 5"
What you're talking about happened during the so-called internet bubble. Welcome to 2003. And even if that were still true, how many US workers are coders?
Hmmm... this is slashdot... ...so the story title should probably have read:
Hardly Working?
Why is parent post modded "Redundant"? Like he said, this is Slashdot.
"All this will serve to do is increase the power base of Unions. "
That reminds me. Does India have unions?
I take it you haven't been to mainland Europe much?
I spend a lot of time in Italy and they don't work that hard, probably less productive than us lazy Americans. Now the thing is, jobs are hard as hell to find over there, and those with them got them through connections most likely and not performance. So what motivation do they have to actually bust their butt? (And let's not even get started on the government jobs there. oh boy....)
Now Italians, however, put more focus in their life on enjoying and living life (work to live; NOT live to work). So that no matter how crappy a job they have, they make time for family/friends and are reasonably happy.
Plus, pretty much almost everyone goes away during the month of August for a couple weeks at least. August 15 is a national holiday for the workers where NOTHING is open (oh, and the highways aren't built to handle the traffic they get, so enjoy the sweltering heat in the bumper-to-bumper)
So yeah, socialism has overrun much of Europe, but on an average person basis, your average mainland Europeaner is happier than his/her American counterpart.
Can't say I blame them for enjoying life.. I know I really don't like the ratrace here, which is why I try to summer there whenever I can.
My $0.02
What these statistics measure is the amount of vacation people are entitled to by theirwork contracts, not the amount of vacation they actually take. Having worked both in Europe and the US, I am aware that even so Europeans get much more vacation, but the approach to it is much more regulated than in the US. Here, it's enough to ask the boss who gives his approval, in most companies I worked for or had friends working for. In Europe, you need to fill an application, and due to the amount of vacation for everyone, the management must carefully balance when to award a vacation to a particular worker. I personally prefer the US approach...
Another thing to take into account is what this hard work gets the country. Because of so much work and overtime, American workers are the most productive in the world. Cut this productivity by 20%, and you automatically increase the variable cost for a product by 20%. Legislate vacation time, and everything will become more expensive, the foreign trade deficit worsens, the dollar devaluates and everything will become even more expensive. True, we work hard, but our hard work reflects in the low product prices and high standard of living.
I used to work for Tivoli in Austin, TX. People do get pretty pinched when you spend a bunch of your day not working. Meanwhile the Tivoli UK office basically closes down for a three hour lunch while people go out and have a couple pints. Real pints, not the half-assed imitations we tend to get in the US (except, oddly enough, at Bennigan^WShenanigan's. They make a mean Monte Cristo too, but your arteries will hate you for mixing all them carbs with fat. Get the steak instead.) Then people come back and work for maybe an hour, and then go away.
Well, that's how it was then, anyway. I heard similar stories from the Italian office. Meanwhile in TX (a State known for partying) we had the beer bash every Friday, which is quite cool, but it's just another attempt to rope you into staying on the campus and ideally park you back at your desk. Especially if you've been hitting the Spaten Optimator.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I was actually discussing this issue today with some friends of mine from Europe. The consensus was that yes, Americans work harder, but they're also rewarded more for doing so by being allowed easier upward mobility and better value for the money they earn.
:)
Work hard and smart in the US, and you'll find yourself retiring in your forties. The money that you make in a day will buy you more clothing, gasoline, food, etc., than most other places in the world.
As with anything in life, it's a trade-off. I have friends who take it easy at work. They come in late, leave early, etc. They're enjoying their lives, so to speak, but they'll have that same routine until they're all 65 (or older, if Social Security falls apart). Not me, bud. I'm working my ass off, and I'll probably retire within the next five years (before I'm 40).
If you don't like it, you can always move to somewhere more suitable to your work ethic, I guess. Personally, I'd move to Thailand.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I doubt its because were less productive (as movies/trash media may suggest). Its probably because companies are encouraged to keep head count low and put more responsability on fewer employees. It does make sense since its often more efficient to have 2 employees work 1.5x their hours (and pay them 1.5x more) than to hire 3 employees. Sucks for the employees though, but at least they're employed.
If it were up to me, I'd put beds at work and have people live their job. Be glad i'm not your CEO.
Vacations are good though, but you have to think of it this way, you should have a job you actually WANT to do, and you wont have a problem working 12 hours a day. Of course if you work at Mc Donalds you'll hate working 12 hours a day.
So the best way to get a person to work hard is to simply hire people who truely enjoy the job, and let the others sign a temp contract.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Please don't insult genuine liberals by confusing us with the socialists and communists who lie by calling themselves liberals.
Socialists and communists are liberals the same way that script kiddies and crackers are hackers. In other words they're not. In both cases the terms have been misused to such a great extent that the original meaning has been largely forgotten.
If you want to understand genuine liberalism, read John Locke, Adam Smith, or basically anything written by the founding fathers of the US. If you want to understand the bullshit that people call liberalism today, read the Communist Manifesto.
Be sure to keep a bucket nearby when you do to catch your vomit. Also lock up any guns you might have so that you can resist the urge to go out and start shooting the bastards.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
citations plz.
In fact, American workers are more productive per hour than their German and British counterparts.
Whoever modded the parent up got trolled hard.
Japan 10 days
China 15 days
U.S. 0 days
The statistics you cited are the amount of vacation time guaranteed by the respective governments, not how much vacation time is actually taken.
The Japanese do work hard, but I think, generally speaking, America has a monopoly on the consumption culture. I mean, it was invented here.
Their implementation is already a foregone conclusion? Isn't the purpose of the public comment period to evaluate?
But...
The good news is that the regulations would raise that cut-off amount to $425 a week -- about $22,100 per year -- actually adding about 1.3 million lower-wage workers to the ranks of people eligible for overtime, according to the Labor Department.
All right. So more super-low wage workers -- we're talking people making under $10/hr here -- will be guaranteed overtime. That's a very, very good thing.
For one thing, many workers earning a salary of more than $65,000 a year will now be excluded from overtime -- at least 1.3 million workers, according to the EPI study.
And it's really hard for me to feel too sorry for those making $65,000+. Yeah, I know, it's not easy to support a family of 6 on...
But...
n another example, "executives" ineligible for overtime, according to the old rules, were people who hired and fired workers, set wages and assigned work. The new rules broaden the definition of "executives" to include any workers who occasionally supervise other workers, even if they spend most of their time doing manual labor.
This kind of change is insane. Meanwhile, real execs are collecting bonuses and kickbacks in record amounts.
"Once employers are not required to pay for overtime work, they will schedule more of it," the study said.
Exactly. I'd like to request a few things from my government and future employers while we're at it:
Oh. What's that? You mean you can't afford to give out and unlimited amount of finite resources at a fixed cost?
Yeah. Me too.
Tweet, tweet.
I've seen many companies where unlike america they seem to employ 3 people when one would suffice, so most of the time they stand around doing nothing bored out of their gords.
If I look at staffing in a department store in a america. They usually have one person at a till if it's not busy, in Japan they would have three on that same till. Government offices here are even worse, like a 20 to 1 ratio of people doing nothing.
In Japan, they often work longer hours, I think because they actually do less work during the hours they are working.
In America, companies exist only to make profit for their shareholders. In Japan, many companies offer bonuses to their employees even when they are losing loads of cash.
... is the official term. The standard joke at my place of employment is "Yeah, it means you're exempt from having a life."
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Americans are working harder as their country needs more and more money to pay the military, so they can grab oil from Iraq and live thinking their president is anti-terrorist.
You forgot that imbedded linux will be the "likeness" that will be given a voice. That will put *as* many that will not worship it's likeness or recieve the number of the beast to killed.
The dollar is currently incredibly weak. 1 British pound could only buy 140 cents a year or so ago, now it can buy almost 170.
mogorific carpentry experiments
That sounds ridiculus. I can't in my wildest imagination think that people from USA are allowed to slack more at work. For one thing, USA seem to have poor legal protection for workers compared to most industrialized countries. Europeans have normally aquired good protection through a socialistic history. For example; in many countries lunch-breaks are governed by law to protect the workers rights. The article clearly states that many workers in USA doesn't get a proper lunch-break.
And by the way; would you really rather spend those 5 freecell-playing, slashdot-checking hours confined to your work place or at home free to do absoulutely anything you want?
Look a monkey!
People keep posting about 'working hard', when, in fact, they should be 'working smart'. By that I mean:
1. Work long hours initially to set up automation.
2. Let automation do the work. --- this is the working smart part
3. Browse Slashdot and react when the blinkin' lights go off.
4. Profit.
They pay me the big bucks to set up systems so that one person can do the work of 10. If they want me to 'look busy', I just pop open a perl script and point them to it, and ask, "do you know what that is? Do you know what that does?". That is usually when they leave...
Granted, I do spend periods during the year when I am working my butt off - but, once I get into an operational mode things quiet down.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
http://www.theonion.com/onion3836/temp_hides_fun.h tml
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Sarcastic title aside... What will become of the next generation of kids who will hardly have one of their parents in their lives because they have to sell their souls to their companies just to *keep* their jobs? What about kids of single parents?
My father is a consultant, his entire work is business trips. I see him a couple hours for a day or two out of the week, then he's off to his next client. I understand that this is part of the consultant career, but what about people who have to work 12 hour days 6 days a week in one building? How do you explain that to the kids? Daddy can't be with you because he has to streamline the project flow?
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Also check out this piece about minimum wage...
But not anymore. I grew up and got out of that rat race. Work/jobs basically are an agreement where you trade your time for money. I realized that by passing up on upgrading my machine every 12 months and buying all of the cds and movies I wanted, instead eating in more than going out, and driving an older car I could live quite well working only part time.
So what do I do with all of this free time?
I spend it with my family, I go backpacking, skiing, etc. I indulge in hobbies in everything from laser light shows to weaving. I donate time to non-profits like the local farmer's market, church groups, Habitat for Humanity, the Community Farm Aliance, and local theatres.
Living on less is far more rewarding the getting caught up in life as a consumer where the only dominant more or social value is work more to buy more.
Opt out!
H-1B PRESS RELEASE
STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH ON
THE CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATION'S REFUSAL
TO RAISE THE H1-B IMMIGRANT VISA CAP
"America has the best industries in the world. And that means we need the best workers
in the world. By failing to support legislation to increase the number of highly-skilled,
highly-trained immigrants, the Clinton-Gore administration is standing in the way of
continued economic growth.
"I urge the administration to unequivocally support bipartisan efforts in Congress to raise
the number of highly-skilled, highly-trained immigrants who can enter the country each
year. By increasing the number of these H1-B Visas, we can increase the chances that
our economy will continue to grow.
"Still, H1-B visas are a short term solution to a long term problem. As America's need
for highly-trained specialists continues to grow, the solution will be better education. I
have laid out an agenda based on the types of education reforms we passed in Texas,
placing a renewed emphasis on science and technology training.
"I urge the Clinton-Gore administration to put the public's interests ahead of union
bosses and special interests who oppose legal immigration. Let's raise our sights. And
let's raise the number of H1-B Visas."
No one tells me what to do with my business. You need me more than I need you.
I hire people to make stuff for me, I don't make stuff to hire people.
I know I'm going to get flamed big time for this, but it has to be said...
The reason Americans have to work more than the rest of the world is because they are less productive. If you were in Japan, I doubt you could sit at a desk for 8 hours and really only be coding for 5. In North America most companies let you get away with that, and then try and make up for the lack of productivity by forcing people to work longer hours... So 8 hours in the US = about 5 hours in the rest of the world.
I much rather work for 12 hours a day, than work hard for 8. You guys just don't know when to quit complaining!
I know you just should be flamed, but I'll bite...
As far as I know the americans work just as efficient as people in the rest of the world. Where you base your numbers on Japanese, I'll base my ideas on the Dutch. Most of my friends in Holland do not work nearly as long OR efficient as the people I am around here in America. Then again, they get rewarded pretty much for that effort (no where near as much as I am). Overtime isn't big in Holland either, but is rewarded. Here overtime isn't rewarded directly, but check the difference in pay between the top-hard working engineers vs the bottom of the pile at the same company. I know that at my company there is as much as a 2x difference in salaries between the hard-workers and the slackers. I'll admit that this isn't always very well balanced.
As far as slacking for 12 hours vs working efficient for 8, well...I'll take the hard work any time. Getting bored and wasting your time is one of the worst things that you can do to yourself. This is where the real issue lies, how come the americans all work so hard, yet don't have the imagination to take time of and do fun things with their hard earned money? Really, here is where we can learn from the Dutch and the rest of the world.
Just as an example, as an ex-US employee and now a French one (Dubya made me flee ;^), I'd like to outline the difference in the vacation package for the approximate same work in the same company.
In the US, after 6 years in the company I was entitled to 18 days off. Each day you are sick is decounted on your vacation days. I only got a handfull of 'US Holidays' free vacation days (New year, Memorial day, Independance day, Thanksgiving and Christmas). That's it. And that's considered fairly generous.
In France it doesn't matter how long you've been in the company, we all get the same package:25 days of vacations plus another 12 days of RTT (you cannot cumulate those RTT with regular vacations days, and you can't take more than 5 consecutive RTTs). In addition there is a mountain of free 'French Holiday': New Year, Easter Monday, Labor Day, WWII veterans' day, Ascension, Whit Monday, Bastille day, Assumption, All Saints' Day, WWI Veteran day, Christmas. 11!
Total?
Us: A grand total of 23 days off.
France: 48 days off.
Guess where I choose to live?
More employees = more overhead (health care, taxes, etc.)
Overtime = overtime
I'm sure a little bit of overtime is less than another worker cost-wise.
But I realize you are just explaining their viewpoint so I'm trying to not slam you for saying it.
Yes, I know, "tell that to Dubya."
Live under your means, and if you can, snag a working spouse from a different industry so you aren't both on "vacation" at the same time.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
. . . Or hardly working?
If you're reading Slashdot, how is this even a question?
The coolest voice ever.
... can be found here. Check it out.
The Gordian knot is cut.
...you know the ones. all that corruption that gave us the eight hour day, the five day week, overtime pay, benefits, worksman comp. Who needed that? We obviously didn't. Ooooh, nooo, tickle down economics will take care of all of us, right?
We were hosed.
I was tired of getting sent home every few months at the end of a project. So I started my own company and things have never been better. The money is GREAT, the hours are long, but I love it. Screw working for anyone but the customer. Yeah Captialism!
Yes, anyone can do it. For about $500 in the U.S. you can get an "S Corporation". Then you are self employed and your own boss. Whatever your "deliverable" is, consulting, whatever, learn about SELLING. Learn to cold call, warm call, market, etc. Read three books on each at least, because chances are two are shit and one will be good. USE that book store. Don't just peruse Guns and Ammo and PC Mag. Now read up on accounting. Then basic tax law. Then get yourself an accountant and an attornet to handle the little bits. Initially, you need only $2000 or $3000 the first year (of course this is to keep the S Corp running, I'm not talking about savings to pay for rent).
Now sell your deliverable. DOn't spend money on adverts. CALL. USE THE PHONE. Sell. Then deliver. Sell more. After a year you might end up where I am after doing this, and where many small business people are... making a nice upper-middle class income that is comfy, and you are self employed and your own boss. Work harder... for yourself. Enjoy the great amazing tax breaks US Gov gives you for trying to start a biz. Work harder for less vacation time? Not if you are self employed.
It almost is that easy. After 5 years of GUI Java development, the last of the dot com bubble popped me out of the wall st area. Now I'm self employed and loving it. HARD WORK. You could make 0 but there is NO salary cap. Anyway, use that bookstore. Amazing what's in there. When I sit there reading a good selling book and a tax book, and I look around at all the slobs dripping coffee ofer their shitty little magazines before they have to go to sleep and be ready at their cubicle at 9:00am the next morning, I laugh. End of rant. Go sell. Good luck.
The educations of an entire generation are being destroyed in the rush to below-average mediocrity.
Only the very few companies actually accomplish anything truly innovative. The rest simply exist, like tree moss, consuming resources and producing very little. This better get fixed, because this process is called "eating your own seedcorn."
How right you are! And this is not only apparent in the god of economy and it's consumerism laws, but also in morality, ecology, and science. I'm so glad this kind of good article content is finally gaining ground in the U.S., even if it's just a small step.
Sir, you just made my day!
With great power comes great electricity bills.
The greedy bastards just don't get it... I have been ineligible for overtime for my entire career and I'm ok with that. When I get off work after a full day typing and my wrists ache and I can't seem to focus on anything outside the beamwidth of 19" at 2.5 feet, I just have to sit down for some Belgian Waffles at the local restaurant and watch someone really hussle for < 1/3rd of my wage and I just can't bring myself to snivel.
So it's not with any personal sense of unfair treatment, that I state the following:
A minimum wage, while coincidently fair to an employee, serves it's greatest purpose in motivating employers to make good business decisions.
As an average employee works more than 40 hours a week his/her work quality steadily declines and his/her chance of having some kind of accident goes up hyperbolicly.
The accidents cost everyone. That cost is spread around in insurance premiums and workman's comp., but we all pay for it. The cost of mediocre work in a global economy is that it makes slave labor from struggling countries more appealing to use because the quality differential has decreased.
Very few business owners are so farsighted as to spend extra cash to help with these problems. The primary benefit of the overtime pay that it forces them to.
When you have four employees working 50 hour weeks, it is cheaper for the business to hire the extra employee the need than it is to pay 40 hours a week in overtime. This system makes the bean-counters make better decisions for their own workplace and for the country as well.
If I find a place for public comment I will propose a counter amendment.
In order to ignore the welfare of the worker to the same extent as the currently proposed bill, continue to withhold overtime pay from people who have earned it, but force the employer to pay it directly to a non-profit hospital, food bank, or homeless shelter, so that the business is still motivated to keep employee hours sane, and the charitable systems that will bear the brunt of the cost for this extreme lack of foresight will be better funded.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
I'm wondering how the "vacation time" chart would stack up with paid holidays included. Yes, they aren't required by law, but most white collar jobs get at least 5 or 6 per year - I get 10 on top of my vacation time, and I think I've heard of a few places getting even more. What about sick pay and other benefits? Do I care that I get less vacation time than Norweigans if the bottom line for benefits puts me on top?
In all seriousness, I work harder than a gynecologist. I put in so many overtime hours that my employer is forced to give me comp time.
Yes, I'm on salary and yes I am already ineligible for overtime because of my pay scale. However, the laws that are currently in place enable me able to say, "Hey - enough is enough and this is too much." Fortunately I am in the enviable position where the company would likely fold if I were to leave.
If they were to relax the laws of overtime - there would be nothing stopping some unscrupulous employers from taking full advantage of their employees.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
I much rather work for 12 hours a day, than work hard for 8.
Speak for yourself. I'd rather work hard, and play hard. What sort of social life could I have if I was forced to be at work for 12 hours, doing work I could do, if properly motivated, in 8?
I don't want to sit at work pretending to be doing stuff, I want to either be busy, or off home!
That's nice for you, I'm glad you are happy with your life. Some of us, however, want the satisfaction of seeing our children grow up and have other intersts. So while you voluteer to bust your ass, please don't think that's normal and that you should force everone else into your lifestyle. One day, when the non-technical managers decide to screw you in some kind of SCO like blaze of bullshit and stock manipulation, you might have regrets.
Slave driving is a bad sign. Some fields really are competitive like this. Most are not and an honest day's work brings an honest day's profits. Management that tries to squeze normal occumpations to frenzies like this are simply greedy. If your management is willing to screw you, the stockholders and cutomers are next and it's time to go.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Eliminating mandatory overtime pay will help many many people. Employers often limit the number of hours that an hourly employee can make to avoid having to pay them overtime. If overtime pay isn't mandatory then people will be allowed to work more hours and therefore make more money.
One thing I didn't note in the article is that later that year my salary made a HUGE jump... the hard work paid off.
Yeah, shit. I worked hard. I got fired. My former peers got a bigger bonus with my former salary. My former management can fuck itself.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
This is the only site I can go to at work - eh hem 'tech related' but honestly doesnt the internet need more than this?!
When you work just for the money, of course you dont want to be there, you dont want to be doing what you are doing, but you do it because you get paid to.
Clerk Jobs, and many of these other meaningless jobs, of course no ones going to be motivated to work long and hard doing that, how the hell can you motivate yourself to go to your mc donalds job everyday? Whats your motivation? To be the best burger flipper who ever lived? No thats not it, to help people by making them fat? Maybe thats not it either, you see there are no motivations to these jobs.
This is why I hate the corperate world and the corperate attitude, I myself would prefer to work for a non profit because I dont see myself ever being motivated by money.
Say your a grocery clerk earning $12.00 an hour stocking shelves. You work 4 days a week and you work on a sunday. You opt to NOT work that 5th weekday because you know that you can make double time, or time and half on sundays. So you work your way up the ladder and get that sunday as a "cherry" day where you could have simply worked that "normal day". There is SO MUCH of this, it's crazy.
You see? Thats the exact problem, it doesnt matter how much you pay a grocery clerk, they will NEVER care about their job, but you know what? It also doesnt matter how much you pay a manager because they will never care about their job either.
Most jobs people have simply dont matter, they dont improve the world in any way, they dont improve you as a person, and no one cares if you are good at it. Why not be a teacher? Even a construction worker matters more than some guy in an office working in a cubical.
Remember, these laws cost us. The employer eats this salary and doesn't get to claim that employee's hours on the books -- it's considered "overtime" and not part of the 40 hours work week. It effects unemployement taxes and is a huge burden on the accounting side.
Who cares about the empoyer? Most of the time Employers dont matter any more than Employees, does Bill Gates matter to society? No, maybe he did back when he made Windows95, but that was the 90s, right now he doesnt matter.
So it depends on who your Employer is, and how important they are to both the industry and to society as a whole. Some Employers are better off being hurt.
It eventually hurts the employer by costing them lot's of money which they eventually push back to us by keeping the prices up and/or hiring less employees.
Bad logic, if they raise prices and we dont buy, they go out of business. If they hire less employees they cannot expand their business.
I say "shit or get off the pot". If you want sunday to be a "holy day" or you don't want to have overtime pay for over 40 hours for certain types of "non-exempt" employee's then you can't have "wishy washy" blue law's that just don't make sense anymore in 2003.
I think workers should be able to decide their contracts, I dont think the government should have any control over this. If I sign a contract to work 7 days a week 12 hours a day, THATS THE AGREEMENT. If I sign on to do it at a certain price, THAT IS THE AGREEMENT.
If I sign on to work 5 days a week 40 hours a week, THAT is the agreement. If my employer wants me to work overtime, they must sign a new overtime agreement with me!
I know one thing. My brother-in-law who's in a union and works for a grocery chain here in MA was complaining recently that he has to now pay for health insurance. I thought (that sucks), then he told me it was $50.00 a month. I almost puked. We (I own a software company here in Boston) pay $925 per family to BCBS -- I'd kill for $50.00 a month... But, yet, he complains.
If your brother had a job that MATTERED, your brother wouldnt be complaining. He must not really like his job if he complains, perhaps he should quit.
Yes, he's very angry that he can't earn $34.00 an hour on sunday's anymore instead of making $22.00 on a n
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Your missing the point.
Employers can now work people more than 40 hours a week without having to pay the overtime. This isn't going to get people more money, it's going to force longer hours and more or less kill the whole concept of a 40 jour work week.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
I was told by my employer that twenty percent overtime is mandatory. Do we get overtime pay? Nope. When I asked why we need to put in the extra twenty percent when our billable utilization target is only ninety percent regular hours, I was told "That's just the way it is".
We don't have any goal we are actually working that extra twenty percent for. We just have to look busy so we don't get an unfavorable review at the end of the year.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem putting in weekends and overtime when there is a particular job to be done. But when I am getting paid for a certain number of hours per year to work and I exceed that number, how about monetary compensation to reflect that?
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Someone who is married with children can never dedicate themselves to any job. You work for your wife and kids, thats what motivates you to go to work every day. You want to see your kid get a good education, you want a house, etc etc
However, we have alot of people who arent married, and who dont have kids, who work also, in fact half the population is unmarried and without kids.
12 hours a day is not out of the question for me. I dont have a wife or kids, so I can dedicate myself 100%, I WONT however dedicate myself 100% to a pointless job like Mc Donalds, I want to make the world a better place, thats what motivates me. MC Donalds does what for the world?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I would gladly take a pay cut to get a 30 hour work week. Unfortunately, in any "real" job, they want to own you, which means full time, 40 hours a week. So, my choice is between forty plus hours of week for a six figure income, or McDonalds. Kind of sucks.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Maybe they get better incentives to work harder over in Japan. Working harder in the US just lessens the possibility of getting laid off faster.
.smell my feet.
It doesnt matter if you work 5, or 7 days a week if its a job you actually want. I mean really, if I could have the job I wanted I'd do it 7 days a week, a vacation here and there and I'm all set.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Companies set aside a certain amount of money for payroll. Then they subtract from that amount all the HR overhead factors, such as sick time, vacation time, personal time, benefits, payroll taxes, etc. Wouldn't you rather simply get paid the full amount (minus taxes of course) and then have the benefit of managing your money yourself? If you want to take a lot of vacation you can; if you don't, then at least you aren't forced to subsidize everyone else's vacation and sick time. Just remember, every time a co-worker of yours takes more vacation/sick time than you do, you are indirectly funding that for them.
I'd imagine 90+% of slashdot already falls into the "learned professional" category (rtfa)...meaning, if we're salaried, we're already not getting overtime.
The only software/IT people I know that get overtime are either contractors, or working for a goveernment contractor.
all too true... I wish I could keep living the grad student life. :-/
Work to live, don't live to work.
Anything else is just crazy.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Think how much this will help the economy!
Overheads will be lower for almost all companies since overtime will be gone, so everything will be cheaper!
And even though you the consumer will have less money to spend on the finer things in life, it won't matter because you will be working 72 hours a week and will not have time to spend your money anyway! So you will be saving money, which according to old Ben, "a penny saved is a penny earned" so it will be like doubling your wages!
See! win-win situation!
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
It's called a job interview. That's where an employer and a potential employee meet to see if they agree on mutual terms regarding the purchase of labor by the employer, who is the customer here.
The customer is always right. He who writes the checks, gets ultimate say. No one tell YOU how to spend your money, right? Same here.
As for moving a business, then I'll simply move. It'll happen, threat or not.
Guess what... EVERY PIECE OF LEGISLATION HE SIGNS IS SENT TO HIM FROM CONGRESS
I see the problem here. Misunderstanding of the fundamental logic of the situation. Suppose someone is handing you marbles. The marbles are either green or blue. Suppose that you throw the green ones away and keep the blue ones.
1.) What color will all of your marbles be at the end of the day?
a.)green
b.)blue
c.)red
d.)none of the above
2.)Your choice of marbles impacted the color of marbles you ended up with at the end of the day.
a.)true
b.)false
3.) Suppose you decided to keep the green ones and threw out the blue ones. What color would your marbles be at the end of the day?
a.)green
b.)blue
c.)red
d.)none of the above
When you're able to answer all questions correctly, you will have a better grasp of the discussion in which you're trying to participate.
Because when you just work for money you dont actually care about your job, and so you do a shitty job.
We are a very materialistic nation -- the majority of us work to buy the things we want. The countries that take a lot of vacation days are generally the countries where the latest SUV and 5 bedroom house is not a necessity. Here in America, we need our
Stuff is useless, stuff doesnt make me happy, stuff is just tools which I can use to "waste" time, this time could be used to do work that matters.
As far as vacation days, I'm a supporter of vacations, I dont think anyone can do a good job forever without getting sick, losing their creativity, or draining themselves and just needing a break.
I dont think you should get paid for your vacation, but you should get a couple weeks vacation a year.
Anyway, the materialist people you mention, these people are the exact ones who work the least and who do a terrible job.
If you become a police officer just for the paycheck you'll never be a good crime fighter. You'll be a fat cop who sits around giving people tickets all day.
So let the materialists work at Mc Donalds, and or in their cubical at the office,
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I'm an IT professional that was laid for a while, though I've been back to work for about a year now, so I count myself luckier than many out there. I'm working as a contractor. I'm making less than I was before, getting less time off, and working harder.
The work is generally more fun right now as I'm more technical than management. The company is not allowing overtime at this point, but with new laws, even that possibility might go away. You end up working more hours than 40 anyway to keep your job, but not reporting them.
Being off of work for a while changes your perspective on how hard you're willing to work to keep a job.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Work everyday with one day off in a month, thank God for Religious holidays!
Check out the numbers for China (second lowest in terms of average time taken). Their average vacation time taken is exactly the same as the minimum amount that must be offered. Maybe someone made the mistake of collecting that data by asking the Chinese government.
-- . . ramblin' . . .
Yeah, but if the average person doesn't realize it until it's too late, then your policy succeeded. Reference: DMCA, PATRIOT Act, Bible.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
WORK HARDER! Millions on welfare are depending on YOU!
(swiped from a bumper sticker)
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Just want to throw this out there, see if anyone else has had similar experiences...
I work for a company in a Boston suburb, hit three years there this June. At the beginning of this year I was finally given an explanation of my paid time off (10 days vacation, 0 days sick). In early January, my grandmother had a stroke, and asked for a few days off to go back to Maine to visit family. The CEO said I could and I wouldn't have to worry about losing vacation days. I came back the following Monday to find a message from the CEO asking to talk to me. The long and the short of it was, in the 4 days I was away, I had forfeited all my vacation days. Fine, I can deal I suppose. In April, my grandmother passed away. Again, I asked for time off to go to Maine to visit family again. It was granted, including by the person I was working under on a project at the time. I went to Maine again for 4 days, returned the following Monday. This time the CEO was furious that I didn't have the current project I'd been working on done, and suffered a 20% pay cut that week, 'to compensate for lost time.'
Fun fun. If I recall (I don't have the paper at the moment) I will gain an additional 5 vacation days per year when I hit 5 years at the company, if I last that long...
To start with a day off for everyone.
Protest include buying one product and boycotts.
It really does. I make about $13.40 an hour at the moment. When I work overtime I make about $20/hr. Great, right? The problem is because my employer is legaly required to pay me overtime for any hours worked over 40, they just refuse to let me work more than 40. And guess what? I'm only 20, I want to work more than 40 a week. I don't care about OT, just give me the same $13.40. I'll work for that, and I should have the right to work for that, too, without the goverment coming in and telling me that I can't. You don't want to work more than 40 a week without OT, then tell your employer that and if you've made yourself valuable enough they won't make you. But don't you dare tell ME what I cand do with MY life!
--Greg
So the US doesn't guarantee any vacation time and its workers take less vacation time per year compared to other countries ... but what about legal holidays? There are quite a few legal holidays in the US, and a lot of people (not all) get most of those days off. Do other countries have more or less legal holidays? I mean if Japaneese workers take 7 more vacation days, but they get 10 less legal holidays ... well you do the math. I'm not saying this is the case, just that these statistics are necesarry for proper analysis.
If the government pays for my food, along with room & board, I'll do it.
Any Employee who wants to hire me, I'll work for free as long as you give me food, water and a bed.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
....then I'll just shut it down, start anew, simple as that. New agreements that suit me. If I can't find a agreement I like, fuck it, no new business. I won't be forced to "be" a businessman just for the socialist sake of providing a job, this isn't Atlas Shrugged.
Yeah, sure, wait until you pull a 20 hour shift one night. See how you'd like doing that for the same pay you get normally.
There's a difference, hard work is expected during your 40 hours, then you go home and do the family thing.
Overtime, is taking from your family time and giving you a higher pay in trade for that.
When you look at it, it's basically a slap in the face, saying "Your not worth jack to us, why should we pay you more for messing with your life?". If you pull an 80 hour week, you should get more than 2 normal weeks worth of pay since your outside life is being taken.
I guess you never had to do a real job and push pencils or keys all day. Any schmoe can come in and type for 18 hours, now go and install 70 servers in a day. Tell me how your arms and back feel now that you have been mounting 60pound machines onto racks all day and have had a chance to stretch and strain every single muscle and ligament in your back, shoulders, and arms. Any job requiring heavy lifting is as bad.
Not all jobs are working the ticket booth at the theatre or phone service. Plenty of them are quite physical, some downright abusive.
BTW I'm up to hour 76 this week, and I have a nice shift tomorrow, lifting those 70 pound servers onto a banch, configuring them and putting them back. Not to mention moving the carts we keep them on, which probably weight as much as an old vw bug. Have fun with your desk work chap.
I rate this troll's attempt a 12/100. You can do better...
Ok, so I'm ineligible for overtime based both on my pay scale and my degree. I make what most snivelers would call "damn good money" but somehow after two years out of school, and under the crushing load of student loans, it doesn't seem like a whole hell of a lot of money to me. After Uncle Sam and the Commonwealth are finished raping me for more than 55% of my income (including all taxes, like sales, property, gasoline, income, wage, etc), I actually end up making just as much money working for $7.25/hr at the bikeshop where I have my moonlight job. The bike shop is a hell of a lot more fun, so I'm wondering why I don't just do that.
Oh yeah, those student loans... all $60k worth of them.
"Make an investment in your future" they tell you. "You'll be worth so much more money" they tell you. I drive a 15 year old car with 200k miles on it, live in a dumpy three bedroom house in the ghetto with two other technical "professionals," and have a very hard time making ends meet on what's left of my biweekly pittance.
What I've learned from the last 10 or so years of my life is that a) a college degree isn't worth it - as it will only be used to prove that you're capable of training your replacements from India and b) get a job because you enjoy it, not because it pays well. It's amazing how much I sit in my cubicle teaching the three guys from Bangalore how to do my job, looking forward to making my seven bucks at the bike shop.
I used to work for Tivoli in Austin, TX.
/stuck working on a Tivoli project..
I would like to go on record as saying that I hate you. Nothing personal, but I do. And all your other evil, evil Tivoli brethren.
Would it have killed you to produce a non-shitty product?
I know I'm going to get flamed big time for this
I'm not going to flame you, just point out the fact that you are utterly wrong; published statistics show that the average US worker outproduces the average Japanese worker by about $7/hr according to studies like the KILM. In fact the only two countries in the world that have a higher per hour productivity than the US are France and Belgium, and by relatively small margins. It is quite striking that the US is at the top in both hours worked and in per hour productivity, and is currently enjoying extremely rapid productivity growth.
In fact some economicists are blaming the current US slow job market on the very strong productivity gains over the past few years.
I once read a quote from a multi-millionaire, who's name I can't remember for the life of me. Basicly, he said: "most people are too busy earning a living, to make any real money". And it's true.
If the only thing that keeps you showing up at work every day is your paycheck, then I suppose you have a reason to want to be paid overtime for enduring another hour of hell. You do that knowing that you're just another warm body.
However, many occupations exist where performance counts more than just putting in hours. Millions of these jobs exist in the U.S. -- in the traditional professions, in new professions, in the government and military, etc. It has been my experience that people in these jobs routinely work 50-70 weeks per week.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Here's a link to get you started...
PeaceCorps
The math is simple. Before, 1 employee will vote for Bush. The other is unemployed and won't vote.
Before: 1 employee $100, 1 unemployed $0
After this law passes, the newly employed will vote for bush, the previously $100 employee is pissed and won't vote.
After: 2 employees $50 each
lowered unemployment rate
But the unemployment rate is lower... that's killing 2 birds with the same stone.
The ideal of democracy is simple: together we are strong, divided we are weak. Each shall have an equal say.
Sounds like a union to me.
See ya.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Thats what Americans get for voting in a fascist. (Bareley, admittedly). I wonder why they don't laugh when pronunciations are made to the effect that the U.S. is the leading democracy on earth. Funny thing is, one of their founding fathers, Jefferson, warned about this way back when he talked about the then blooming corporations. Workers of the U.S., UNITE!!!
p.s. And you programmers and sysadmins, quit imagining that you are a breed apart, say, from plumbers. We all know that an awful lot of what you do is, well, just plain mechanical. (But valuable and useful).
American workers are also more stressed, shorter lived, more irate, more likely to commit suicide, more likely to murder someone else, less fulfilled, and more likely to trade their humanity for The Company than their German and British counterparts.
I wonder if there's a correlation?
Java coders are the same way. I'm all about making it easier to write good software, garbage collection and clean syntax rules. Nothing against java or the people who use it but I'm just amazed at how many of these guys call themselves software engineers and have no idea what is actually happening in the system on with the hardware. I was working with a team working on a tomcat based JSP web application, the question came up, why does this app need 512MB of RAM and a 800Mhz Pentium-III to run slowly with only 2 clients attached? We need it to work with at least 20 clients attached. Does that strike anyone as a little heavy? (It just reads a few tables from a SQL database and formats them in to html, not even fancy shit yet... it's practically serving up static HTML) silence, has anyone done any performance work? How about memory consumption, how can we improve it? silence. Do we need to rewrite this using a different technology? Panic! "Maybe if we bump it up to a dual or quad processor machine with 2GB of RAM...
I'm not a superstar. I did well at a good university, there is a lot more that I don't know than I do, I've only got about 15 years of professional experience, but there are a shit load of people who know next to nothing, and they are trying to draw down $70k, $80k, $100K a year and the job simply doesn't get done with that kind of talent flooding the workplace.
I can count the number of top notch professionals I've worked with. I care about my craft, I'm always learning and like to keep current and know about things, there just more people who like to play video games and surf the web and somehow equate that to being a professional tech worker. 10 years ago there was a lot more talent amongst the people in this biz, I looked up to people I worked with knowing I could learn from them. Now I'm just floored by the kids we bring in, they want the money, they want the sexy work, they just can't do it and they think that they can.
So why do we work long hours? Well now the teams are twice as big if not bigger than they were in the 80's and early 90's, the expenses are higher, the costs are higher, we have to produce more. The talent is dilluted. The expectation is there but there isn't the talent to deliver on it. Result? Fewer people can actually do the work, you'll be damned if they will stand by and let you cut out after a rough 6 hours or web browsing. We're working dumber. People do shit manually. People write code that get's rewritten because they can't read their own damn perl. People do things the only ways they know how and then they get redone completely because the web based calendar system takes the biggest computer in the client's office to serve up 2 calendars at a time... I hope 4 of the 50 employees don't want to see the vacation schedule too close to the same time.
Maybe I'm getting too old for it but the people in this biz aren't as good as they were as a whole, there are just more of them and they make a lot more money. You do the math, why don't we get overtime pay?
Hes correct, Marx attacked "liberals" i don't know what the hyperparent was on when he posted.
Its hard to mod someone down who is already posting at -1
That's how it works in the real world. Even an idiot can say whatever he wants, doesn't mean he has to be listened to.
but they don't because Bush is republican.
:-)
If a democratic president pushed thru the same legislation, there would be praises:
"The poor now get overtime pay! Isn't our democratic president wonderful!!"
Of course, if liberals created the bill, they would never include themselves in the group of people who no longer get overtime pay.
I found it difficult to masturbate to that story.
I find it ironic that this story was posted at 05:19 PM on a Friday. I'm still at work, but that's because sometimes I'm not quite bright enough to go home.
-Mike
This sig no verb.
Slashdot had a review of a book by Tom Demarco called "Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency". The Slashdot review is here. The author makes several excellent points, which all tie into the idea that you can only work so much before productivity, flexibility and creativity have diminished to the point where its not worth putting in more hours. It's amazing how many managers out there don't have this message...
What do you know, a cure for homosexuality.
Sorry, congrates on the canada thing.
In Europe, you need to fill an application, and due to the amount of vacation for everyone, the management must carefully balance when to award a vacation to a particular worker. I personally prefer the US approach...
This is total fiction. I'm an American who's lived and worked most of his life in Europe, so I know what I'm talking about when I say this is bull.
We don't have a set amount of paid sickdays. If we get sick, we go see a doctor on company insurance, get a diagnosis, and just take paid leave for as many days as the doctor prescribes. If you work for a company which doesn't take extra group health insurance for employees (very rare, never personally seen such a tech company) you just go to a public hospital where you might have to wait in line for two hours in non-emergency cases, but the treatment is completely free.The way you count vacation days here is a bit funny. The start of the vacation count period is somewhere in March, and from there on, you get 2,5 days of paid vacation per month. I usually take one month of vacation straight in June, and divide the rest for little spring and fall breaks.
Oh yeah, and the employers have to pay a special compensation when I get back from the holidays, the amount of 50% of my vacation salary. In addition to all this, none of the people I know have ever been shot, or even shot at. The country is that peaceful. People in general are very intelligent, there are virtually no civil lawsuits (none of my friends or acquaintances have ever been sued for anything) and everyone speaks English."And, if you like liberty for conglomerates at the expense of individual sovereignty, vote Libertarian" You couldn't be more wrong even if you tried. Being a libertarian is about individual sovereignty and freedom based around the foundation that was put to gether by out forefathers in the Constitution of the United States of America.
Life is not for the lazy.
Seriously, I would just be happy to get a job after my current contract runs out. With all the jobs going to India I would gladly work 60 hours a week to stay employed.
Attention World: Learn from our mistakes as you have with other countries that have gone off the deep end of history, we're fucking doomed over here and we know it. Just wait a bit and you'll get to see it all implode anyways (but only after it gets MUCH worse).
In the America that rises from this catastrophe of a Republic, corporations will no longer be citizens.
Hammer of Truth
If the business plan is fundamentally flawed, no amount of above-and-beyond effort will save the company. Take what you can, punch out, try again.
Eventually, you'll land at a company whose business model isn't fundamentally flawed, and where you still get most, if not all, of the perks of the fuckedcompany.com bait.
> Work/jobs basically are an agreement where you trade your time for money. I realized that by passing up on upgrading my machine every 12 months and buying all of the cds and movies I wanted, instead eating in more than going out, and driving an older car I could live quite well working only part time.
Extend and escape. You'll still work part-time for the rest of your life.
I've discovered the same thing, except that as long as times are good (and after a few jumps, I've been lucky enough to land in a pretty fucking nice niche in this here economy of ours :), stick around and make hay while the sun shines.
In 10 years, my skills will be obsolete. 15 if I really push at keeping up with my industry. Then I become unemployable.
But after about 10 years of work and living "beneath my means" (like you - limited system upgrades, drive the car until it falls apart, etc), I've accumulated about 5-10 years of savings. Good investments (yes, even during the bear market, one can make money) have added about two or three more years to that.
In short, if a girder fell on my head, nuking the part of my brain that I use for work, I could pull the plug on my job today and last a good 10 years, with no change in lifestyle, on what I've accumulated.
By the time my skills are well and truly obsolete, that figure will be "the rest of my probable lifespan".
And since I'm not in the game to rack up the highest score (Bill, for all his evil, has already done that. Larry was the only guy who could have come close, but the dot-com fiasco took Oracle down to the point that the best use of his capital is buying his competitors out of the market ;), it'll be time to sit back, crack open a cold one, and figure out what to do with half a lifetime of freedom.
> Living on less is far more rewarding the getting caught up in life as a consumer where the only dominant more or social value is work more to buy more.
As you say - work is where you trade your time for money. Opting out is much easier when you trade that money back for time.
(We're doing the same thing - the only fundamental difference is that you're doing it a few hours a day, and I'm gambling that I won't get hit by a bus before I cash in a two-decade time card. To the reader - whichever option is "better" is up to you to figure out. IMO there's no right answer to this one; I'm just tossing out an alternative version of the same strategy.)
Work hard and $$ and vacation time follow. You cannot legislate vacation time without souring an economy.
Look at... Europe. You whiny btches are worried about 5% unemployment? Try 15%.
You just have to truely WANT to do the job. I'm not saying working in the peacecorp or for a non-profit would be fun, I'm saying I wouldnt have a problem doing it because it would improve the world and it would matter.
Jobs dont have to be enjoyable for a person to work hard, a perosn simply must be motivated to accept the mission, and not just treat it like quick money.
People should make their job their lifes work, their meaning of living, and put 100% of themselves into their job, if each person were to do this they'd not only do a better job at work, but they wouldnt complain or care if the job isnt "Enjoyable"
They'd know they are doing what they are good at, and doing something which matters either to them, or to many people in the world.
I am currently working full-time as an English teacher, which I do *gasp!* to pay the bills. The work isn't onerous, and leaves me plenty of time for the good stuff. I'm paid full-time, yet contractually obligated to only work 35 hours a week. I'm guaranteed 20 days of vacation a year, and the difference is carried over into the new year. I still freelance for producers I know at home, so I get to have my cake and eat it, too.
If I were an English teacher I'd make it my life, I'd dedicate my life to perfecting English and teaching it to kids.It wouldnt matter how many hours I worked because hours are a means to an end, to be the best English teacher in the world you do whatever it takes. The ultimate goal is to produce students who know english, but you see the reason people dont take jobs seriously is because American employers treat employees like shit.
A job like teacher should be held up as high as congressman, president, CEO, Doctor, or any of these other big jobs, but its not,
The reason its not is because people work for money, and employers take them for granted, no one wants to respect the hard work of a teacher even though a teachers job is more important than a Lawyer, a Doctor, a CEO, a Banker, a Programmer.
Lets not even mention policeman, fireman and some of these other jobs with great importance to the world and society which people never give enough credit to.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
germany currently:
~ 6 weeks paid vacation + 10 holidays (depending on state, some have even more)
Coincidence? There's an article in The Age about the Australian workplace: The office, Australia style.
... oh, go ahead, everyone's heard me mouthing off about it anyway."
:-)
Quote: Perth-based American computer technician Tom Cash agrees. "This is not what I'm used to," he says. "Not that I'm complaining! Australians are more into holidays and weekends and having a life than Americans. They're a bit lazy, though. Don't print that
I'm French and have lived in Melbourne for more than five years now, I really like the Australian culture and work/life balance. And I can be lazy too (any programmer who isn't?
I'm happy that my employer doesn't mind at all paying me overtime for anything over 40 a week. I am paid hourly anyway. Amazingly enough, I have no problem putting in the extra hours for a project when I am getting properly compensated for my time.
In my limited international experience, Americans do work more than workers in other countries. For example, I was just in Germany, and everything opened late and closed early. The only things open past 7PM were bars and restaurants. I suppose thats the only thing that matters after 7PM, because it was nice leaving the hostels at 8PM to go drink a beer or three. Its also like that in Australia. Its hard to find something in America that isn't open from 8AM-8PM. Hell, even PHARMACIES are closed in Germany on weekends. Very shitty for those who are sick.
PS: Lowenbrau! (yes, I forgot umlauts. So sue me.)
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
QUOTE: "Because of so much work and overtime, American workers are the most productive in the world. Cut this productivity by 20%, and you automatically increase the variable cost for a product by 20%. Legislate vacation time, and everything will become more expensive, the foreign trade deficit worsens, the dollar devaluates and everything will become even more expensive. True, we work hard, but our hard work reflects in the low product prices and high standard of living." END QUOTE
Hmmm, I found this which states that "overtime leads to an average drop in worker productivity of about 15 percent for work weeks exceeding 40 hours." from the Penn State College of Engineering.
Increased time at work != increased output.
-> Increased time at work != cheaper output.
-> Decreased time at work != more expensive output.
~Tetravus
I rarely took vacation because I needed the overtime hours to make ends meet. I'm living in one of the most expensive areas in the US. I was working for a company with pay lower then the national average. This ment that even as a skilled programmer, I was being paid just bellow the cost of living for a single parent. I never had the money to take vacation. If I did, my paycheck would be $300 light. And when I did it was because I had to do something around the house or fix my truck. So much for the f**king California Life Style.
He's just as proud and ambitous as anyone -- your SO wrong.
The problem with everything you replied too? Your assuming that people in lower wage jobs don't like thier job. Actually, my brother-in-law likes his job very much and is very good at it (he's a grocery manager). He has pretty good hours too, he's up at 3am and back home by noon ot have the rest of the day to do the things he enjoyes in life (golf, woodworking etc.). He makes about $60-75K a year and has a great house and three kids. A very typical American if you ask me.
Your assumption that people in blue-collar jobs are miserable. You forget, people actually like to do these jobs and enjoy it.
Not everything is high-tech, and not everything is geek related. When you buy a gallon of milk, remember how that milk got to the store and got priced. Someone had to do it, last time I checked the 2.4.20 kernel couldn't actually move mile from a dairy to a store (yet).
Obviously you have not or you would know that only a very small amount of your taxes per year (a few dollars) goes to support welfare recipiants.
Could you provide a source for that assertion?
Most corporations don't get money from big daddy government, they get to KEEP more of what THEY ALREADY EARNED THEMSELVES and sometimes are (somewhat unfairly) robbed less than the rest of us.
EOM
I would rather have $foo/hour than $(foo*.9)/hour with overtime limited to 40 hours a week.
If I was getting paid an hourly wage for my private programming projects, I'd be working more as well.
Overtime is a scam anyways. Offer employees what they're worth and the hours they deserve. Programming is hour-independent for the most part. Most of us get more done from 1pm to 3am anyways.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
If your brother likes his job whys he complain?
and he makes good money
Well i guess some people do enjoy flipping burgers and selling shoes.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
In Alberta, the OT was (when I moved to Ontario two years ago anyway) anything over 8 hours/day AND anything over 44 hours/week. I don't give a shit, the labour laws should ALWAYS be in the workers favour. If a company can't compete, then hit the road and let a company that will play by the rules move in. I'm a labourer, don't fsck me on pay, and I'll bust my ass for you. Ya that might mean overtime.
I work at the University of Rochester Medical Center, where starters get 15 days of vacation by the 6th month of satisfactory job-performance. If vacation isn't taken, then those 15 days are paid for as if full salary.
For starting lab technicians, that's two weaks of salary, or about $900 dollars after taxes.
The down-side is that there's no over-time, because hours aren't clocked. In a lab-environment, the "hours" you put in don't really matter, as long as you take care of your responsibilities. Most lab-technicians, and all grad students and phDs, do more than their minimum responsibilities, and run several experiments at once; so, they do more than their minimum required duties.
Quite frankly, I think alot of the bitching about overtime and vacation and etc here is not well-considered. Sure, we work harder and get less vacation. But we also have lower taxes. The tax-rates in Europe are astronomical.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
First Quote: "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Second Quote: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. " {{End of Quotes}} I believe it is no hyperbole if I were to declare now the vastest majority of American children now wake up, "homeless", their "fatheres conqured".
I'm the one with the money. I'm the one buying. I'm the customer. The customer is always right.
My only obligation is that I don't unknowingly put them in harm's way, and that the check doesn't bounce. I really don't expect them to be loyal to me. Just do the work agreed on. You produce, I pay.
NO ONE EVER died saying "I WISH I had spent one more day in the office" - they die wishing they had spent one more day seeing thier kids, or smelling flowers or watching trains or seeing baseball or ANYTHING but being in the fsking office. get a clue folks
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Ya know, I swore I wasn't gonna get involved in this, but reading all these posts, I just didn't have a choice.
...He wakes in the night in a cold sweat and puts something on paper that looks silly in the morning. All day he shivers at the thought of the bugs which will inevitably appear to jolt his smooth consumation. ...unlike the doctor his is not a life among the weak. Unlike the soldier, destruction is not his purpose. Unlike the lawyer, quarrels are not his daily bread. To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort and hope. ...as years go by people forget which engineer did it, even if they ever knew. Or some politician puts his name on it. Or they credit it to some promoter who used other people's money with which to finance it. But the engineer himself looks back at the unending stream of goodness that flows from his successes with satisfactions that few professions may know. And the verdict of his fellow professionals is all the accolade he wants.
I am 50 years old. I have an engineering degree. About 20 years ago, an engineering student, whose assignment was to interview a working engineer, interviewed me about my career. Well, having just come off a series of 80 hour weeks, trying to meet unrealistic schedules assigned by unknowing bosses, I blasted him. The poor kid probably switched majors. The one question I remember clearly (probably assigned verbatim by the teacher who dreamed up the assignment in the first place) was "exactly what has your engineering degree meant to you in your career?".
My answer was: "My engineering degree is nothing but a license to work free overtime. Sure, I make some money but, if you divide the number of hours I work by the pay I get, I probably make less than factory workers!"
Engineers, at least in my work experience, have always been exempt from overtime pay. And that has led to nothing but abuse by the companies I have worked for. I burned out, left engineering as a career, and then returned to engineering.
I returned because there is nothing else I would rather do. I don't have he words, but let me leave with a quote from someone who does:
Engineering: it is a great profession. There is the satisfaction of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer's high privilege. The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope that the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny that he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned. [It] haunts his nights and dogs his days.
Herbert Hoover
The Profession of Engineering (from his memoirs)
The USA is advancing on a course of economic feudalism. A small elite of "Equity Lords" with a vast army of "salary peasants" to support them. The sad thing is the system is being exported to the rest of the world on the point of a cruise missile.
In third world countries the rich are really rich and the poor are REALLY poor (and by far, most people are poor)
The way we seem to be losing our rights and standard of living in leaps and bounds, looks like the US may become a third world country soon.. -throwing away over two hundred years of progress..
Poor people never make overtime or get paid vacations.. In fact, many of them work 80 hours a week just to eat. Third world countries make VERY profitable places for business.
Someone complains- kill them..
Thats why the 'neoconservatives' want the US to be like them.
Thank you,
Glorious FauxPresidente George BushCo!
I worship at your greedy shrine...
Although I worried like hell about finding another job, the hours that I was working up until now were killing. 12 to 14 hour days regularly 7AM to 7PM with a boss that got upset if I applied for overtime. This was so bloody exhausting that I might very well have had a breakdown if I hadn't been canned.
This is in Switzerland, and you'ld be surprised at how many workers here in Europe will do this in order to hold on to their jobs.
Who the hell are you to tell him his job doesn't matter, what job do you have are you so fed up with your 4'X4' cubical that you can't see the world straight anymore. You know I happen to work for a grocery, in the produce department to be exact, and I happen to like my job, I like my pay, I like the people I work with, and I even like my managers.
Its funny asshole, I want you to think about his job not mattering next time your lost in the grocery and can't find the pinto beans or whatever you just can't seem to find. I guess you'll need one of those useless people to help you find it then.
You know it might not be the most glamerous job but I take pride in it and I do it to the best of my abilities. And its not just about the money dipshit right now I doing an REU at Uni. of Cincy and I am still going back to my home city to work on the weekends there not because I am making more money there than I am here in Cincy, but because its a good job to keep and I don't want to have to quit it. It a good job to come back to during the school breaks.
And what gives you the right to tell him he's not allowed to complain and then somehow draw a relationship between that complaining and the fact that he must not like his job. You know sometimes people have shitty days at any job and they like to vent obviouly he didn't like that fact they were going to be taking 50 extra dollars a month out of his check, screw you for tell him his job doesn't matter solely because he complained, because I am sure you have complained about your job before at least once so obviously your job doesn't matter either.
So why don't you get off your high horse, and come on back down to the real world, where real people work. People who don't fucking tell other people their job doesn't MATTER. I think you've been cramped in your cubicle just a little too long, because obviously your job doesn't matter.
A Bugg
I'd still rather live in the US, where 6% unemployment is considered "bad," than a country like, say, France, in which double-digit unemployment is the norm and perpetual dependence is more of a way of life due to the myriad entitlements, paid for by those foolish enough to work, that are a strong disincentive to keeping a job that is more difficult than watching TV.
I work at one of the few dot-com's to survive the downturn, and am overworked for sure; but I choose to do this because I want the rewards that come with hard work. I'm only 27: I've seen how fast people can progress if they are willing to work long and hard, and am happy to put off some pleasure today to reap the rewards of tomorrow, as long as I have some fun along the way.
[ home ]
Your assuming that people in lower wage jobs don't like thier (sic) job. Actually, my brother-in-law likes his job...He makes about $60-75K a year and has a great house
So 60-75k is not "good money"?
--Joey
this is the most condesending and retarded thing i have read in a long long time ......
..... i think MAYBE your getting the idea.
you assume that people can just quit. no strings attached and no problems what so ever. you couldnt be that stupid ! some people can't quit because of bills, some can't quit because of sick children, or a pregnant wife, there are millions of reasons as to why someone works the job they do, and for you to say that they dont matter is the most high-horse obnocsious shit you could say.
his brothers job does matter. your ass eats dont you ? you go shopping ? you like the things you want to actually be on the shelf ? well they sure as fuck didnt grow arms or legs and put themselves there. they didnt get to the store by magic.
"Most jobs people have simply dont matter, they dont improve the world in any way, they dont improve you as a person, and no one cares if you are good at it. Why not be a teacher? Even a construction worker matters more than some guy in an office working in a cubical."
your a fucking boneified idiot. that person in the cubicle could be making sure grandma gets here social security check, so she can buy her food and medication, so she can live. you think YOU matter ? to whom ? your lonely right hand ? get a grip on reality man not everyone is like you, not everyone wants to work at a non-profit. not everyone is work obsessed.
and whoever the hell modded that shit up needs to be shot in the back of the head and left to rot.
"This is why I hate the corperate world and the corperate attitude"
sure you do when it suits your intrest. do me a favor, dont go out to eat. (all waitress's dont matter, neither do the cooks or the owner) dont go see any movies (actors, grip's, random people dont matter) dont buy any CD's (musicians and studio techs dont matter) dont EAT (farmers, grocers and truckers dont matter) dont DRIVE (truckers and oil rig workers dont matter) and dont go to any hospitals no matter what (its most likely owned by some greedy corporate company)
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
Man, not be too harsh, but you people complain too much. North America has the worst work ethic i have ever seen. Alot of other places, u'd be happy to have a job. There is nothing i hate more than to run into someone who dislikes thier job, and lets it show. If it is that bad, get another job. If ur too lazy to do that, stop whining. You try to compare urselves to people from all over the world, but you neglect to realize that, in my opinion, many are grossly overpaid. When was the last time you ran into an employee in the service industry that obviously did not want to be there. If you answer more than 24 hours, i'll be impressed. If you are going to take the time to do anything, do it right. if you believe u are under-valued and under-paid, find a better job. Can't, ur likely not worth it. My 2 cents!
Even if you don't necessarily agree with the politics, it's good to have intelligent debate here on the subject.
Um, I don't know about where you live, but grocery clerks making $12/hr? Where I live it's more like $7 if they're lucky ( a couple friends of mine were web designers before the bubble burst and the great Bush Wage Rollback started).
When YOUR job gets outsourced to India?
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Sounds like a bunch of crap to me.
I am, of course, thrilled freaking spitless that you aren't motivated by money. You either have everything you need, or you are happy with pimiento cheese as one of the four primary food groups. And since you (obviously) have no kids, that isn't an issue for you.
Work the ideological plain, by all means. The rest of us will just sweat things out in reality.
Regardless of the amount per hour I charge, I do the job I love, and I provide value for the job I do. That would be true whether I was a grocery clerk or an SE (which I am).
If I do a job, whether it is setting up a firewall and site to site VPN or resetting a password, I do it with the same attention to detail. If I worked at Mickey D's flipping burgers, I would do the best I could as well. Why?
My work bears my signature. Even if it was something that I felt was "beneath me", I would give it my best effort. If for no other reason than to prove that I can do anything well that I set my mind to.
You are just another elitist slob that KNOWS that everything else in the world is beneath their time and effort. So you keep on thinking the same way. And when you get laid off some day, turn down unemployment benefits, too. After all, that is way beneath you. Unless, of course, everyone owes you a living. I am guessing you pretty much feel that way, anyways.
Yeah, just keep telling everyone else how to live their lives. Uh huh...
Working too hard? Detach a little from all your material ambitions and you might be ten times happier. Certainly you won't worry about getting laid off. This is so obvious. I'm always amazed at people who work suicidal overtime as if they didn't have a choice. What chickenshits!
"oh and ask Boeing how they feel about those lazy unproductive european workers who are currently grabbing most of their marketshare for civilian airliners despites highly unfavorable exchange rate."
Here's a better one. Ask them how they feel about Airbus winning those contracts because European goverments are subsidizing the consortium.
Not that it matters. I work in the air travel industry. And Airbus is about to eat the same losses Boeing is taking. Why?
Because regional jets are taking over. People are tired of flying through hubs. They want to get from one place to another. Short hops if possible. Regional jets will get all of the hot growth over the next twenty years. The projection for big airliners is flat at best over that period.
How many regional jets does Airbus make? Oh, that's right. Same as Boeing. None.
Changing market forces are killing big airplanes. Not superior European productivity. Please.
Airbus is doing as well as it is because goverment subsidies are allowing Airbus to sell planes at a cost lower than normally possible. This can't last forever, and European governments know it.
The big winners over the next couple of decades? Embraer of Brazil, and Bombardier of Canada.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Not for real jobs. Sorry kids, the world is round the sky is blue. Cope, dudes and adjust your reality.
The very fact you are complaining about OT means you're out of your depth. MD's, JD's, CPA's and a thousand other professionals don't get OT.
In France it doesn't matter how long you've been in the company, we all get the same package:25 days of vacations plus another 12 days of RTT
Out of curiosity, what's "RTT"?
Just for reference, I work in Japan, and get:
- 20 regular vacation days
- 5 summer vacation days (usable only in July-September)
- 4-5 year-end vacation days (29 Dec through 3 Jan)
- 15(!) national holidays (Japan has some great national holidays--Sea Day, Green Day, Exercise Day...)
- 5 extra vacation days every 5 years
- half a day on the anniversary of the company's establishment
for a total of about 46 days a year on average.Here's a story (no I don't have a link to prove it):
A few days ago the DoL found out that this union IFPTE reserved thier auditorium some weeks ago & were planning a rally/press conference with other unions, economists, etc for Monday.
They shat themselves at the potential pie-in-the-face & cancelled all the week's rented events in their auditorium, claiming some interns needed the space for something. So now the party has move outside, in front of the DoL on Constitution Ave, D.C. at 12:00. Geeks will be in attendance.
Some good info and a nice chart half way down the page at the Economic Policy Institute (they make overtime & they're unionized!)
Fair Disclosure: this AC is a union member & a union researcher (obviously) & gets paid overtime. woohoo.
Clerk Jobs, and many of these other meaningless jobs, of course no ones going to be motivated to work long and hard doing that, how the hell can you motivate yourself to go to your mc donalds job everyday? Whats your motivation? To be the best burger flipper who ever lived? No thats not it, to help people by making them fat? Maybe thats not it either, you see there are no motivations to these jobs.
:-S
What may be a meaningless job to you maybe a service that provides necessity to someone else. Just the other day I went to an ice cream parlor and the guys serving the ice cream looked very happy working there and their customs were very appreciative of their service. But I guess to you that is a meaningless job
I think workers should be able to decide their contracts, I dont think the government should have any control over this. If I sign a contract to work 7 days a week 12 hours a day, THATS THE AGREEMENT. If I sign on to do it at a certain price, THAT IS THE AGREEMENT.
If I sign on to work 5 days a week 40 hours a week, THAT is the agreement. If my employer wants me to work overtime, they must sign a new overtime agreement with me!
I see lawsuits written all over this.
If your brother had a job that MATTERED, your brother wouldnt be complaining. He must not really like his job if he complains, perhaps he should quit.
Everyone bitches at their job at one point or another. It is human nature!
His job doesnt really matter, I dont think it matters to him, to his empoyer, or too society, so who cares? Pay him as much as he'll accept. It should be between him and his employer.
I guess your just full of assumptions.
cheerio!
Why so many people think that not being paid overtime will help the economy? I mean, if I make more money I will spend more which is what the government wants from me, no?
"Once employers are not required to pay for overtime work, they will schedule more of it," the study said.
Which mean they'll be able to lay off some employees... Since when unemployment is a good thing for the economy?
Is there something I don't understand?
Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.
How do they collect the "have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks" data ?
How do they collect the "they do not have a job" data?
What are we, commies?
My opinion is that....given the current economic situation, this is a good idea for the short term. There are people that need jobs badly, and one way to get more people jobs is to cut the expenses on the employers, so that they hire more work.... They'll pretty much hafta. Imagine there are the few employees that are totally hard-core, working 80 hours weeks. Sure they deserve every penny they make with the overtime (for workin' hard and all), but it would be better for everyone (except for the hard-workin employee, of course, who is getting screwed out of his timex1.5), if the employer could hire more poeple.
But Again, I say this is decent short-term idea, that I fear will last (much the same as wel-fare...sure it was very necessary after WWII, but not so much today).
I'd hafta say that because of the long-term effects, I definatly disagree with this measure
Though, I am also one of those hard-workin fools working 70-80 hour weeks.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
Er, I'm sorry, I must edit my second paragraph (not counting the quote). I meant to say that the courts cannot take away your home if blah blah blah. I'm moving too fast for my own good. This is what happens when you see your comment (my root one) is at score 5 with 12 replies the first time you look at your user info after posting it...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If it isn't clear to anyone with half a brain by now, you're already gone.
Bush is 'Pro' Business, and this is what a 'Pro' Business Administration wants. It's all about making America strong by supporting the corporations and leaning the general public over 'forwards' to make those corps happy and profitable. This is GREAT news for Wall Street. The biggest cost for most companies is labor, if you can shave just a bit and increase productivity, you will strengthen U.S. companies. This is all well an good for the US, but bad if you happen to be amoung the 90% of Americans who are not independently wealthy, and have to work ultimately to survive.
I am glad I work for a small (6 people) company in a tech related industry. I feel sorry for all those poor bastards who have traded their lives for that 200k+ mortage, SUV, and a 60hr+ work week, high blood pressure, failing marriages, dysfunctional children/families, short unfulfilling lives.
BUSH in 2004!
--
Boy is life easy in the US. Why complain? Just be happy that you have a job and tough it dude...
I switched from 12-14 hours a day jobs in Japan (plus 2h train) to a quiet 9-5 job here in the US. I switched from no vacations to a nice 15 days a year vacation. I worked over y2k overnight. Here, there's no one to complain if a server crashes over the weekend. Ok, I earned a sh!tload of money but was it worth it? I think so but then again, I consider myself a mild workaholic.
Heck, I even got married over the weekend over there and no one was surprised that I didn't go for a honeymoon. Never took a sick day (so anybody else did). Even went to work when I badly twisted my ankle. I can tell you that over there, everyone works hard. It's a dog eat dog world.
I think that USA's economy is going down the drain and if you guys want to kick it up, it won't be done by getting more vacation days. Don't you think?
-- Leeeter than leet
I understand that a population that's working hard reaps the benefits. This may be reflected in low product prices, but NOT in a high standard of living. You're maybe gauging everybody in the US to your own financial situation, but that's closing your eyes to reality. There are a lot of people working 2 to 3 jobs just to get by. If you compare this with Sweden for example, they have a very high standard of living, including the vacation benefits. True, life may be more expensive there, but they also have a good welfare system, so not a lot of people get left behind like in the US. Here's a nice comparison chart
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
do not just "take a risk" when they invest. They
do so after considering risk/reward , and as they teach
you in Business School, you should always choose the
investments with no risk. Risks are for suckers.
Do you want to know who take real risk?
Ask those who just spend 5-6 studing at the University
and have received NOTHING from their investment. The real
risk-takers are those who are today unemployed.
With one murder every three minutes within the United States.
Television has a direct correlation between the 1000% jump between the 60's and late 80's; as more televisions began appearing in homes; murders and violent crimes climbed at the same rate (per capita). Every effort to change through television has only made it worse. There was no other signifigent social or political change.
Negative, positive reinforcement and "quiet time" permitted a mental and emotional torture that left few marks and a great many monsters; many responsible have washed their hands of these people to be hapless victims again and create new ones.
The complete break down of the family occured when the courts suspended fathers rights. Goverment and business replaced the roll the best it could and in doing so and is blameless for any consequence.
Raising one sex from birth as a parent and the other gets lost in the fud has consequences that won't be really be felt until these children hit their forties.
I have legal testomony from workers at women's shelters that sign in lists have been falsified as much as 10x as policy, many of those numbers have been used to set the current legal enviorment. This is 10+ shelters across canada, I know of women who genuinely need this help and have been turned away by these same shelters, even though they were empty. The girls working couldn't be bothered.
Suicide with the use of psychology has become a form of genicide. Everytime that issue is brought forward, an arguementative and dividing issue of race has come from the liberal 100% of the time. Instead of color blind it's seems to have become divide and conquer.
Psychological profiles are a form of rape, anyone who has unwilling and/or unknowingly participated with an offensive individual will agree. Often changing the behaviour of the subject and in extreme cases exibit behaviours of violent rape (with or without knowledge of the information gathered).
Group behaviour can be controlled by it's peers (anyone want a new pair of running shoes).
Well known and proven misconceptions in learning ability and group think (ie girls are smarter then boys/boys are smarter then girls) have been published by *authorities*. When unbias study groups show significant difference. When a class room of youth were told that people with blues eyes were smarter then brown eyes and vise-versa.
The results of this has been better less informed consumers. Cannonized *experts* who of which can't stand up to the most modest scientific scrutny. An evironment that parodies the USSR between the 40's to the 80's (cops standing over unconvicted criminals as they bleed to death). A parenting that parodies the youth of germany in throughout the 30's. No freedom of speech without unnatural consequence, no liberty without unnatural consequence. Division and no escape. With prior knowledge I can only see intent.
Spelling and grammer is atrocious.
Ppl cannot ever have a 3 day work week or better if they can work twice as hard for double money. It seems obvious to me that such a thing would be crazy - don't ppl value their lives?.. but that's exactly what happens.
When _everyone_ has 'double money' it makes the value of money suffer. The dollar - that some ppl have to work very hard and constantly for 5(of which they keep only a percentage of and incur tax if they spend, extra tax if they spend on gas, smokes, booze and annually recurring tax if they instead purchase an asset, etc.) that are already spoken for..
"There just isn't enough room in the limelight for everyone to be remembered for the profound contributions they made to society - and it's also unlikely that a grocery clerk's contributions were that profound. If you want to have a profound sense of satisfaction for your time wasted on earth as a grocery clerk, then more power to you."
I disagree. The profound things in life come from who we are inside shining out. Not the labels (grocery clerk) that society has stuck on our outsides. To say that profound is a matter of were you are, instead of who you are is to forget a simple light can burn bright, day or night. I have known many men. Rich and poor. Downtrodden and upbeat. A face full of sneer, a wrinkle lining a smile. None of us know the future, and a simple act freely given can be far more profound than we may ever know[1]. So putting cans on the shelf, or speaking in front of a crowd, be humble of spirit, kind of words, an courageous of conviction. For profound is not a boisterous affair, but a quiet one. And in it's peace we may yet know it's guiding hand.
[1]It's a wonderful life made that very point.
Praise Bossman morning workbells chime.
Praise him for bits of overtime.
Praise him whose wars we love to fight.
Praise him fat leach and pa-ra-site!
A-MEN
That is the most funny thing I've read here in the last 5 years.
Yup. Idiot Unions making silly demands...oh my. It's the death rattle of socialism.
Blar.
I would kill for that kind of income right now.
Seriously...if you include yourself in the description you posted, you are a chump.
Blar.
Okay, radical means "root". Someone who likes to get to the root of things. And yes, Adam Smit was a radical, but not as we nowadays use it. Thought I should know that.
But I should also note that today's conservative is not liberal either. Today's conservative is nothing more and nothing less than what George Dubija Bush is, a socialist. And lest you think that "oh, he's just a new fuzzy conservative, he's not real", let me remind you about such conservative greats as John Warner, or how the Republican leadership purged the "Contract with America" freshmen, who were looking far too liberal for their taste, and threatening to hijack the show.
In America, conservative really means "pro-military, pro-cartel socialist". In other words, what is normally termed "fascist". "radical", meanwhile, has been redefined to mean "far out", or "outrageous", even "impractical". Which is why you then claim that being a Smith fan today is silly.
Stabilize your definitions, sir, and you'll have a much easier time thinking.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I would venture the guess that someone who is working 2 jobs, supporting several children, possibly as a single parent, is trying a great deal harder than you are. Now, maybe you are an exception, and if so, then I apologize, and I applaud your perseverance, but the odds are that my statement is correct.
Do you have a nice college or university degree? The odds are that there is very little sense in which you deserve it. You didn't deserve to be born to the family you were born to. You didn't deserve to have middle class parents with the means to provide for your physical and mental development. You didn't deserve to have parents who cared about you, or who had the time to care about you.
It just happened that way. You didn't do anything to merit or deserve it happening this way; you couldn't have done anything to merit it.
You probably aren't special. Your existence is very probably it seems, the result of the carrying on of blind natural forces which operate without purpose and without interest in or care for what is produced.
A person who has been born into a working lower-class family or to a single mother on welfare, does not deserve to have been born into this situation any more than a child that is seriouslly mentally handicapped deserves to have been born with this condition. (Although that is not to suggest that a child born into the former situation is similar to the child born into the later case; please don't think that).
It just happened that way.
Many of them have probably worked harder in this life and borne more hardships in this life than President Bush, or any of the congressmen and senators who influence how opportunity is distributed.
If anyone is deserving of their present annual income, many of these lower working class individuals and people living in poverty are as deserving or more deserving of the money you have than are you.
Not only this, but these people have just as much a right as do you in virtue of being a person: to have their needs met, to have opportunities to work in fulfilling jobs, to an education that does not spit in the face of their talents, their abilities, and their possibilities, to the fruits of their hard labor, and to health care.
The only reason to allow the rich to keep their wealth is, if you subscribe to particular economic and political theories, that these individuals will reinvest that wealth in the businesses they own and stimulate the economy. It is said that this will create more jobs for the working class, and that the immense wealth of this minority of individuals will over time 'trickle down' to improve the quality of life of the working masses.
But, I won't comment on that.
I work an average 12 hours a day 6 days a week with no holidays ever except Xmas. But I like programming and being my own boss. Basically I am doing lots of R&D with some friends. We have used our savings to survive. We struggle to make a living. But I give myself a 50/50 chance of becoming a millionaire within 1-2 years. Things have been going well lately and people are very excited with our work. Screw VC's. We get to keep all the profits if we are successfull.
Employee: Boss, I've been working here for thirty years. When can I retire?
Boss: That depends. When do you expect to die?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Sorry, corporate America has crushd the labor movement. Justified or not, unions are essentially through as a force in the American workplace.
Under the table work, if you don't support it and it doesn't represent you why should your money go to work against your best interest.
Under the table work is an option. Every trade I possess allows for it.
You can make your statistics say what you want them to say, as long as you read them correctly.
As of 2000 [it takes a while to compile data], the IRS says otherwise.
Let's try looking at things slightly differently.
Let's suppose that each of us was a slave. If each of us was a slave, then our masters would have to pay for our upkeep. So when you talk about real tax rates, you have to first take the poverty-level upkeep, and then see how much disposable income is paid by each group.
Do that, and you'll quickly see that things are just as the wealthy want it to be: the poor pay for everything, there is a significant fraction of people who are worse off than slaves and working very hard, and the wealthy have both the time and assets to buy the laws. [Rush limbough asks "how can the poor pay for everything"? They pay just as the Egyptian slaves did: with their labor. Let's remember that real wealth is things, not money, and most of that is manufactured by the poor, not the wealthy. Go to a grocery store, and it's a poor person stocking the shelves. Go to a farm, and it's poor people producing the food. Nor is the quantity of food significantly improved by the machinery. I'm writing from an area that has very limited machinery, and much greater food production efficiency than America, with correspondingly lower prices for food.]
I would contend that under this viewpoint, America is very corrupt. But I'd also contend that if your viewpoint makes Daschle look bad, my viewpoint makes him look worse.
But it also makes Bush look much worse.
Things are worse than you see, not better.
(Bible quote with one interpretation: "You say that your sins are as scarlet [like a sore or wound]? I shall make them as white as snow! [look again, that's not a sore, that's leprosy!]". Actually, that's not too far off. Zechariah 11, the people get the masters they deserve. But what you deserve is based on your own individual sins. You want to get out of this, start voluntarily living rightly by your family and neighbors. Which includs no porn, no abortion, and so on.)
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
RTT is for "Reduction du Temps de Travail" (Work time reduction).
These have been introduced with the 39->35 hours work week transition : in many positions (managerial, tech workers) where it's just not practical to work only 35 hours a week, people still do the 39 hour week, but are awarded "RTT" days in compensation.
FRENCH CASUALTIES IN WWI AND WWII
# 1,385,000 soldiers died
# 361,000 were declared missing
# 4,200,000 were wounded
10% of the active population and 3,5% of the total population died on the battlefields. As a comparison, if this were to happen now in the United States, the number of casualties would reach 10 million.
There would also be 680,000 widows and 760,000 orphans. Throughout Europe, the number of crippled soldiers amounted to 6,500,000.
Between 1914 and 1918, the drops in births in France is estimated at 1 million.
Regarding WWII, between 1939 (when war was declared by France and the United Kingdom) and 1940, 120,000 soldiers died, not to mention the number of French citizens who died as war prisoners, forced laborers, deported civilians or in acts of resistence against the Nazis during the German Occupation. The amount of suffering occasioned by WWII in France is impossible to assess and should not be forgotten.
Embassy of France in the U.S. - March 18, 2003
... this line of thought.
>I've known guys who worked for 40+ at a company only to be laid off with no concern whatsoever.
It says something about the company, but it says something more about the laid-off employees. Didn't they realize that it could happen? Did they do nothing like a deer in headlights?
>When you are an employer who hires people to work for you -- you are obligated to take care of them.
This part I really don't understand. Don't they have labour laws? Does it say that a company is obligated? Did the employees have a verbal or written contract with the company that actually says this? If they have the obligation, why not take them to court?
They didn't have an "obligation". If you say they had a "social contract" of some sort, you really need to open your eyes on how the world really works. Even 20 years ago, people didn't believe companies had an obligation.
>If you want people to do your work -- you have to take care of them.
Yes I agree. But taking care of them extended to a weekly pay check and anything else written. I doubt that "eternal employment" was agreed upon.
What ever happen to "a hard days work for a fair pay"? Employees are not married to a company and visa versa.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
my 0.02c..
vacations...I recently came back from vacation. This time it took me 3 days to get 8 prototypes fully working. Last time i hadnt had a vacation for 3 years and it took me 2 months to get 14 working. Of coarse a few manufacturing mistakes made the first lot a bit harder, but 60 days to 3 days... Its not the first time I have noticed this. In R&D where the mind is so important, maintainance of it is also important.
Interestingly, if i recall correctly one of the methods the US Gov used to guide the economy out of the great depression was to restrict working hours. Why??- Because it redistributes wealth to those who need it most, those who tend to turn $ around faster and more efficiently in the economy(I do not call buying a Merc or BMW efficient)...
Often there are complaints about people not working well and waisting time. Perhaps one solution is to restrict working hours considerably more. The results would be that when people are at work they would being working considerably harder as that smaller amount of work becomes more important to them. True a few billionairs might become millionairs, but im sure they will get over it.
As much of this 'must work longer' comes from economic recesion...
The thing I would like to know is has anyone got information of studies correlating distribution of wealth to economic instability. I noticed a few years back in the so called asian crises, many south east asian countries had a massive turn to recesion. However, Australia who is massively dependent on their economies suffered almost nothing. If one looks at the wealth distribution in these economies, its very apparent that australia has a considerably more equitable distribution of wealth. Is it that poor/in equitable distribution of wealth is responisible for the boom- recesion life cycle of modern capatilist economies. If the main threat to capatilism is this boom-recesion cycle, if its simply possible to solve this by putting in place guides that restrict inequitable distribution of wealth?
Cheerios 0.02c..
Geez! I got my BSEE at Cal State University, Long Beach. It was about $500 a semester at the time (mid 1980's). Graduated in 1988. It was the largest EE program west of the Mississippi at the time, and fairly well thought of in the industry as far as I could tell. One interviewer told me that the perception was that CSULB grads had nothing to prove, and just showed up and did the work.
My employer paid for my MSEE from USC, but, honestly, I think I'd be where I am now anyway without it.
I now make $140K a year, just bought a 2003 Mustang GT for cash, and am planning retirement for about age 48... maybe 45 with a bit of luck. That is when I will build the 30" autoguiding, computerized, motorized reflecting telescope in my backyard as my ultimate geek life project (assuming I don't also start work on the directed energy weapons). The mirror alone will set me back $10K or more.
I realzed early on, thanks to some advice from an engineer I knew in high school, that, yeah, the degree isn't worth all *that* much, even from a prestigious school. He told me to learn a lot of hands on stuff, so I joined a ham radio club and built Heathkits all through college (I still use my Heathkit voltmeter at work). Once I was hired post graduation, I learned everything I could, read every application note and data sheet I could get my hands on, and continue my education into the real world stuff.
All that stuff that's so emphasized in college is so unimporant in the real job. I haven't used Kirchoff's law since college. I haven't seen an integral in years.
And, kids, go into hardware engineering. The Indians can't touch me- they're all software weenies. Oh, and take extra courses in electromagnetics. I've lost count of the pure digital guys who don't understand why I am so meticulous about trace impedance and termination stubs when I want to get 10 gigabit data into an FPGA. RF and digital are converging. I regularly deal with digital data streams at 3 GHz or higher, and I don't mean multiplied inside a chip. I mean 3 Gbps data on 20 layer PCBs distributed all over the board, and traces of a couple inches become efficient transmitting and receiving antennas.
--- Ban humanity.
No.
Come on! How many companies are stationed in Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, etc ... perhaps a tiny fraction of the total number of US companies are there.
If you do not have a spouse or dependants, and you can get either a loan or credit to pay your bills until you can find a new job, tell the CEO to go to hell. Detail precisely to him or her, their grevious moral shortcomings, and their status as a member of the human community. If you can, find a job as a waiter, cashier, or laborer while looking for your next job. No future employer has to even know about this temporary job if you do not want them to.
You deserve better. No questions. You deserve better.
You might increase your debt, but debt, possibly refinanced, need not be a major burden.
A matter of principle is as justified a reason to incur debt as is the need for a new car, or any emergency.
And sometimes your principles are all that you have to stand on.
I realize that on /. the demonization of capitalism in general and corporations specifically is as obligatory as praying in church, but the truth of matter is that the overwhelming majority of businesses are small businesses and sole proprietorships. Once you change shoes from being the employee to being the business owner, everything changes. Your main focus is now how to make enough money and minimize your expenses in order to stay in business. If you can't stay in business then your employees' real or imagined sense of entitlement is of little consequence. Now, employees have every advocacy group and government agency under the sun fighting for their interests. Who fights for the interests of small business owners who can't afford to give people vacation or give people 2 weeks off for family and medical leave because it could break the business? A small business owner these days can't dare let someone go these days due to repeated, abusive requests for time off for fear of lawsuits and bogus harrassment/worker's comp. claims by vindictive employees. If there is a system of tyranny, it is the small business owner that suffers most from it. And if you're one of the "business is evil, workers of the World Unite" crowd, do me a favor and start a business someday, and I guarantee that in less than 1 year you'll despise people who think like you do now.
Not that your comments reveal you to be intelligent at all but it's you're not your you fucking idiot. You want to get someone's attention with your clueless ramblings? Learn the english language first.
The problem here seems to be that there many opinionated college kids out there still living under their parents roof and credit card, so they don't understand the pressures of real adult life.
;)
But, there are those that truly feel that a job should be valued solely by the job's contribution to society. Thus, a teacher, a miner, a lumberjack, or a steel worker, should naturally be paid more than one of their respective managers. What was it we called them back in college...um....ah... oh yeah, communists.
Not that there's anything wrong with that
If that's all you see there, then you truly are a twat. The question on the table is whether drastic, feudalistic ownership gaps like we have in the U.S. are healthy for democracy. But you can't even bring yourself to deal with the question. You'd rather make snide, pithy quotes denegrating people who attend community college. Fucking snob.
And, yes, you are a flake if you look at the distribution of wealth in the U.S. and your first impulse is to say, "Why aren't those in the top one percent earning more? It's so unfair!" Flake is putting it kindly.
From the article: "It kind of annoys me and makes me feel unfulfilled"
Oh Yeah? Try working in a third world country! You have to be thankful to god if you have a job. It's true, people go to church and pray for a job to Saint Cayetano.
I know you should have the right to more vacation time, like the rest of us. But, over here there are people searching for food in the trash, and not because they don't want to work....Just to let you know.
The bad news is that it's going to get worse for everyone around the globe. The equation is simple. The number of Jobs out there is very tiny compared to the number of people wanting and capable-of-doing that job. Soon there will be no boundaries between countries and that will make the working man something worse than a slave.
Have a nice day.
Your assuming that people in lower wage jobs don't like thier job. Actually, my brother-in-law likes his job very much and is very good at it (he's a grocery manager). He has pretty good hours too, he's up at 3am and back home by noon ot have the rest of the day to do the things he enjoyes in life (golf, woodworking etc.). He makes about $60-75K a year
Someone making $60-75K a year can sure relate to low-wage earners. How much does his managees earn? $8/hour?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I have done consultancy in the States and in Europe. If you use the overall amount that Americans get done, then they are probably more productive than Europeans.
If however you measure it by how much time spent doing a particular task then Europeans score higher.
There doesn't seem to be the fear of going home before the boss in Europe that I have found in America.
it's 0140 right here in KC. I've been at work since 1030 a.m. yesterday morning. This isn't the first time, and definitely won't be the last. The company I work for is hiring tons of people, but due to various departmental infighting (other groups are trying to take over our crap) we're unable to hire new people. (My boss is trying to keep HIS job by doing all the work the other departments staffed with 12-20 people are doing... but it's only me who's able to do the work).
I have to say.... I'm almost sick of it. Many of my co-workers have been with the company for 15+ years and honestly don't know half of what it takes to know how to do our job. We've been gradually transitioning to heavy-iron mainframes over to (physically) leaner Sun & IBM boxes, but these people are basically "grandfathered in" they've got a couple years til retirement, but the company won't spring for training for ANY of us. They're afraid we'll leave.
If there was a limitation put in place for payment of overtime it would absolutely kill me. I make almost double my base pay because of overtime pay. If all of a sudden I wasn't getting paid for my overtime. well, fsck it. I'd have gone home at 17:00 like the rest of em' AND i'd demand use of my vacation time.
A shoebox is a good enough spot to hoard one's gold anyway.
Nice link.
Let's see... we work harder/better than anyone else, and thanks to that our nation is the only superpower.
Way to go, fellow Americans! All y'all should pat yourselves on the back.
YES, OF COURSE!
M$$$ is TEH EVIL so they must be DoSing poor little Google!
Bill Gates must be stopped!
*tear rolls down cheek*
That was beautiful. In a rambling, incoherent, midwestern sense.
That is exactly how at least 3 of the 6 companies I have worked for worked. All them were US companies and some are household names.
The worst company was the last one. It was the one that got me thinking what the hell am I doing here. From the work point of view, it was the easiest. Furthermore, the product was the lowest quality that I have ever worked on. This particular job was mind numbing. It is also the company with the worst politics.
Part of the problem with the last company was in who they decided not to hire. There was one unfortunate person who was not hired for a management position because she was "too nice."
Having marketing drive the products is not entirely bad - especially when they don't make design decisions. For example, in one of the companies, the sales staff would actually sell something that didn't exist. Ocasionally, they would give the engineering staff a little heads up. That is how I wound up coding a spanish version of our software in around 2 weeks, testing it for around 2 weeks and shipping it in the next month. This brought in around $120 to $160K for the company. Not all projects netted quite so much, however, they were all mad dashes to get the thing out the door.
Stuff actually gets done in the US. I know plenty of people with American firms working with EU contractors, and the Europeans are always on a goddamn vacation. They take off something like 6-8 weeks/year on average (at least in the white-collar jobs), and always at the most inopportune times. And fairly often the entire office closes for "major holidays" which seem to happen dozens of times per year (by contrast, most largish American firms will rotate holidays so everyone isn't gone at once, except perhaps on Christmas Day).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If you're qualified, you don't want to join a union. Want to teach high school and have skills that are in demand for high school teachers (science and math)? Too bad, you'll get paid the same as the dime-a-dozen social studies teachers: union says so. Want to negotiate your own pay? Too bad: union membership (and paying union dues) is mandatory for employment. Etc.
Unions have a bad habit of discouraging merit. It doesn't matter if you have useful skills, or if you're a better employee than the others; all that matters is your seniority. This is why there are absolutely horrid teachers who are getting paid more than everyone else, because they've been there 40 years (oh, and you can't fire them either, unless they do something completely blatant like molest children: union says so).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
1) How effective are you after working 4 16 hour days? How about several weeks of this?
2) How much training have you done in the past few years? If yes, where did you find the time to do this?
3) How long will the "major" project be up an running?
4) How long do you expect it will be before your job heads to 3rd World/India?
I don't understand the new overworked and underpaid turn of events.
Technology is supposed to give you more money or save you more time. Instead we have a lot of companies all competing for the same markets.
We don't have to consider the people who are on the cutting edge where they must work hard. These people are taking risks and therefore must put up or shut up. They have a huge reward if they succeed.
However, look at the ordinary work with known paths of training and execution. In this world there is less risk and more automation. Computers and machines have slowly taken over many well understood tasks. Now a huge number of people come out of schools thinking that they just get a bunch of machines, get them working and life is all good.
This mindset must be identified as a lazy ass attitude.
Look at all the people graduating from schools. How many of them will invent something? How many of them will risk their life savings?
Companies don't have to pay extra for people who work hard but fail, but they should pay big time for real success. Employees have no loyalty because there is no opportunity and because they have a lazy ass attitude. They think there is no need to push. Life is comfortable enough if everyone moves in lockstep. In fact, trying too hard may force one out of this comfort zone.
Well we have a wake up call don't we? Employers want more hours and no overtime. Global competition is here, which is not a bad thing - after all, everyone is stuck on a spherical planet and what if there was no such thing as an international boundary? Additionally, automation will squeeze people into more responsible positions where they have to make tough decisions under constant scrutiny. Nanotechnology will force people to work at a higher quantum level.
Eventually, machines will make life and work comfortable. People might not even have to work for the minimal requirements of life. However, the people with the greatest power will be those who have taken the most risk.
Global competition is forcing us to work harder, counter to our expectations of more for less. This is an illusion. The real problem is not enough desire to create. The truly creative community will be the strongest.
This kind of creativity is not just a matter of new ways for old objectives. I'm talking about new objectives, problems that keep resisting solution. Millions of people are graduating from school at this time of the year, but most of these minds won't even take one step at what they think is impossible. Their goals are so simple - get a job, earn enough for a mansion.
There's no room for failure in a life like that. It makes no sense. This is the 21st century, a time when it is safe to fail. There is always a way to earn a living sufficient to try something. Jobs that involve creativity should involve long hours, but mcjobs that don't really rely on any creativity should be short. The only thing is, people doing a mcjob typically do nothing enlightening when they finish work. It only makes sense to keep them at work longer because their lives are so meaningless outside of work. They don't mean anything to employers - after a few years they can be replaced with bots.
It's kind of subtle. Successful companies grow and hire more people, but they merge and drop so-called redundant people. The market base is served adequately by increased automation. People, you want technology to do more and you want people to create technology, but you have to create too.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
From almost everyone I know who has worked in the US at some point I have heard the same thing: In america they work relatively long hours, but they don't work very hard during the hours they spend at the office, so the total amount of work done is about the same as in europe.
If this is true, then I can imagine some employers migth want to discourage employees from working overtime.
"Shouldn't they provide for me? I mean, I look at how much they take out of my paycheck, those motherfuckers owe me something!" This Mr Anonymous is why we shouldn't be dependent on goverment. The more you depend on the Gov for your needs, the more they will tax you for the services. But the problem is, if you get taxed to much, then you will feel obligated to use the Gov as a major for of support. This is bad...very very BAD. It's a downward spiral to communism. What you can do as an individual is vote wisely, and choose not to depend on the Gov for your needs.
Life is not for the lazy.
Slight misunderstanding. No irony. The rest of the world means it quite literally I'm afraid. 62% of you are overweight, with a quarter of your under 19s already obsese. More than 5 million Americans are so overweight they qualify to have surgery on their stomachs. Of course it may be precisely because of the long hours worked that Americans snack unhealthily etc. Furthermore, I found this quote quite illuminating:
'Basically, in the US, we have a society of production and consumption. Even when we're watching television, we're still consuming. These are the only two modes of activity that we value. In between producing and consuming is a very stressful place for Americans. For instance, the classic place that a lot of weight is gained is in an office between the hours of 3.30pm and 4pm. Things have slowed down, not as many calls are coming in - that's when people can't resist snacking. We do have recreation but, in general, the dominant cultural message is produce or consume. If you're not doing either then what ARE you doing, buddy?' Perhaps this is also why so many Americans eat in their cars.
So there we are. I think if you read the kinds of posts above comparing the European and American ethic and experience of work, theres some anecdotal evidence the quote is correct. Workers of long hours, possessors of relative wealth and a high standard of living, yet also (almost incredibly) fat and lazy. All comes together. (Stats and quote from Fat Land: How Americans Became The Fattest People On Earth by Greg Critzer.)
Janitors become waste supervisors.
Customer service reps become customer care technicians.
Dock workers become cargo engineers.
And so on...
When will American compaines understand that having their workers take acations is good for the company. People who take time off, do more effecent work. It like the recent studies that show once workers start putting in more hours their productivity can increase to about 10 hours a day but an office worker that is doing 12 hr days less productive than when they were doing 8 hour days since they spend so much work time doing other things.
In many companies, there is a fundamental mistrust between true management (those who's job is to manage several employees - not just themselves) and the employees. This is only amplified as you go up the chain. At 2 of the 6 companies I have worked for this was definiatly the case. The 2 situations that I am aware of that emphasize this are:
1) when the CEO of one of those 2 companies got a chance to lay off the entire technical staff - he did so. He did this by merging with another company and using that company's product, and didn't pay attention to our analysis.
2) When the CEO of the other of those 2 companies had the opportunity to pit one development team against the other.
In both companies, anyone could be laid off/terminated at a whim of management, and they were. This just created an us verses them enviroment which is alway bad for this little gut who is not a member of the management fraternity.
I am a salaried employee. I used to be an hourly, with a strict limitation that I couldn't go overtime. Once I went salaried, my boss said something to the effect of "Now you can work 50 hour weeks without me having to pay more."
Naturally, I disagree with this whole thing. Being salaried is a contract between you and the employer. You gaurantee that you are going to work at least 40 hours, and the employer will pay for 40 hours. No more, no less... except for bonus. I put in my 40. The company will not pay me for more than 40, so I'm not ever going to put in more than 40.
I'm not concerned about job security either. I've been with the company long enough, I've done quality work for them. There is little that stands against me, the only things being a healthy dose of /. during the day. They'd be foolish to get rid of me, just as I'd be foolish to lower my hourly rate for them. They can try, but they will not succeed.
You do what you get paid to do. If you get paid for 40, you do 40. Of course, this means that you do the 40 with quality, otherwise you lose your job. But, you'll always be safe doing a 40 quality hour week. If you do happen to work 50, deduct 10 from the next week, or put in a good 10 hours of solitaire for that week.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
You did not think this 17% VAT and highier income tax were only for the show ? And you did not think our "social" law were [School, paid university, medical stuff, retirement pay] were all generate4d spontaneously ?
The one pay for the other. And most people I know over this side of the atlantic take over the 17% VAT and higier tax and social law, rather than the US way.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The point is that the bracket is based on an adjusted number. The deduction (aka loopholes) are MONEY EXCLUDED from calculating your bracket, upon which you pay no tax. These deductions do not show up as income in tax statistics by default because they are not taxable income. But they do represent income to the individual. So what is the percentage tax paid when you average in the 0% rate on excluded income, and the lower capital gains rate, and the dividend rates (this is going to zero? did that get passed?).
clear? I want to see number that takes dividend and capital transactions into acoutn, all wealth accretion vs. tax paid.
-pyrrho
With respect to businesses not being able to afford to let employees take vacations, why is it that in every other industrialized country, small businesses manage to find a way to allow employees to do this?
Even China, widely acclaimed as the last example of robber-baron 19th century capitalism mandates workers 3 weeks paid vacation/year.
Are you saying that America has the least competent small-business managers/owners in the world?
Well, if you actually meet a payroll, maybe you bring down the average a bit.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Amen.
Many people fail to realize that this country, and indeed the world at large, is being shafted by these parasites.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Try again at 6K-12K a year.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Writing from Australia, I am unsure how relevant my post is for you guys in the US and the rest of the world.
The interesting thing I have found about the IT industry in Australia is the divide between people who joined a union and those who didn't join any union.
In Australia, as far as I know, there is no union directly for IT staff, but I know a few people who joined the ETU. This is the Electrical Trades Union, which is about the most left-wing, hard core union in Australia. Those that did this are on easy street. They had the ETU negotiate their pay and conditions and those guys take no prisoners. If the ETU blackbans a workplace, you don't get electricians to fix things, you lose your unionised IT staff, you effectively stop functioning.
Those who are not unionised have really fallen apart in terms of pay and conditions.
As for me? Well, I am joined another union, for media workers, and now enjoy nine weeks per year guaranteed holidays. So am I complaining, yeah, from my kabana in Cuba!
Is there a union just for IT staff in the US, and if so, what is the density of membership?
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
At one company I worked at, with the typical "go-go-go" mentality (that expected a "50 hour professional work week" and most of us put in much more and were for some reason proud of it), there was a guy who had an amazing work output. Nearly every day we would get emails on stuff from him written at 3am or some other ungodly hour. We would talk about it because it was pretty impressive/sick.
He was a real nice guy, young (early 40's?) with a 12-year old kid. I saw him keep up that schedule for about 3 years when a coworker told me that Ron had died of a heart attack.
Sure there were other factors, (like his extra 40 pounds) but he was active and into white-water rafting, kayaking, camping with his kid, etc., so I know he was no couch potato either. But he's the only one I ever knew that worked so hard for so long, and the only person I've known that died of a heart attack so young.
Just remember -- you may work-work-work for the glory of your company and maybe a bigger paycheck too, but is NOT A LIFE and might even take yours.
All you OS-A fucks can't agree with OS-B fucks, thus developing an irrational hatred among our kind. We breed disregard and disrespect for our colleagues because we're too immature to recognize others as being our equals. This is why we can never unionize and protect our labor rights. You little 25-year old twerps think you know everything yet you've seen so little.
The problem with this article is that it does not reveal all of the changes that the Bush administration is planning on making to the FLSA. In a column by Molly Ivins published in the middle of last month (unfortunately I can't find a link to it at her site at www.creators.com, nor is there a link at www.sacbee.com where I normally read her column) she described a bill making it's way through Congress which will allow employers to give TOIL (time off in lieu) rather than paying overtime. This bill will also allow employers to defer awarding the TOIL for up to a year.
The upshot of these two proposals is to deny more workers the right to overtime and to allow employers to pay straight time for those workers who are entitiled to overtime. When you consider that the overtime rules were passed to encourage employers to add more workers (creating more jobs) rather than forcing their workers into overtime, which has costs to the workers far beyond the mere hours worked. In the end, this will have negative consequences for employment and will exacerbate the growing rich-poor gap in the US. It is not good policy.
Isn't theory a great place? Everything works in theory.
Why did you move to Ontario to begin with? Was it due to lack of jobs or other reasons? I'm just curious because I'm in Ontario right now and am thinking of moving to other provinces (I've considered Alberta). There's just so much competition here for the same lousy paying jobs. Now I've started to look for greener pastures elsewhere.
...from a bunch of learned experts, who by and large have never worked the kinds of jobs that most american people depend on to pay their bills. Even the most liberal of this bunch identifies more easily with big money than the guy who picks up their trash or installs their new carpet, etc.
'By the money, for the money, of the money' would be an accurate paraphrase.
Decreasing compensation and less time off, now there's a formula that is good for the market. Unfortunately most of us are not markets.
You must be new here?
Not everybody views work as their life. For some people, it's family. For others, it's about experiencing the world. What you get paid for is not necessarily your life's work; sometimes, you find your life's work in a hobby, even though nobody pays you for it.
Different people have their own motivations.
There just isn't enough room in the limelight for everyone to be remembered for the profound contributions they made to society - and it's also unlikely that a grocery clerk's contributions were that profound. If you want to have a profound sense of satisfaction for your time wasted on earth as a grocery clerk, then more power to you.
I dont care if I remember as long as I do something that matters. I dont care about fame.
Life is about the little moments. A sunset enjoyed with loved ones while camping out at the local lake can be a far more profound and beautiful experience in a couple of hours than you'll ever find in stocking the peas on aisle four for the next twenty years.
I live in the city, I dont have a lake to camp at, not that I'd mind this every once in a while but I'd most likely have my mind on my work anyway.
To me it doesnt matter, my #1 goal is to change the world for the better. If my job leads me to accomplish my mission, it doesnt matter how many hours because the more I work the more I'd accomplish my mission.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Nope.
His employees, who make $19 to 30k plus the income of their working spouse, are typical Americans.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
IF you love what you are good at, thats cool but be realistic too.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Americans like working so what's the big deal? Take away all their holiday time, don't increase it.
Techie Americans like to think of themselves as developers, sysadmins etc and not people, let them rot in hell, they enjoy it.
Fix up a McDonalds machine to their desk, and they'll never leave.
Is every American this stupid?
You know I happen to work for a grocery, in the produce department to be exact, and I happen to like my job, I like my pay, I like the people I work with, and I even like my managers.
How is your job important to planet earth?
Its funny asshole, I want you to think about his job not mattering next time your lost in the grocery and can't find the pinto beans or whatever you just can't seem to find. I guess you'll need one of those useless people to help you find it then.
When I get lose I get out of it on my own.I dont need help.
You know it might not be the most glamerous job but I take pride in it and I do it to the best of my abilities. And its not just about the money dipshit right now I doing an REU at Uni. of Cincy and I am still going back to my home city to work on the weekends there not because I am making more money there than I am here in Cincy, but because its a good job to keep and I don't want to have to quit it. It a good job to come back to during the school breaks.
You are a COLLEGE student, so you dont have a career yet, you do odd jobs just to get by, guess what we are in the same spot. I'm talking about someone who gets a college degree and can actually choose their job.
And what gives you the right to tell him he's not allowed to complain and then somehow draw a relationship between that complaining and the fact that he must not like his job. You know sometimes people have shitty days at any job and they like to vent obviouly he didn't like that fact they were going to be taking 50 extra dollars a month out of his check, screw you for tell him his job doesn't matter solely because he complained,
Most jobs dont matter, I dont think the world needs grocery clerks, I'd prefer a computer do your job, but thats just me.
because I am sure you have complained about your job before at least once so obviously your job doesn't matter either.
So why don't you get off your high horse, and come on back down to the real world, where real people work. People who don't fucking tell other people their job doesn't MATTER. I think you've been cramped in your cubicle just a little too long, because obviously your job doesn't matter.
I never complained about my job, even when I have a job I hate, I dont complain because it was me who picked the job in the first place.
By the way we are talking about careers, not college students getting jobs to pay for school. When you have a career, you want to do something which is important, when you are in college, school is more important than anything, the job just lets you pay for it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If you want to spend your life chained to a desk, go for it. I have better things to do.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
you assume that people can just quit. no strings attached and no problems what so ever. you couldnt be that stupid ! some people can't quit because of bills, some can't quit because of sick children, or a pregnant wife, there are millions of reasons as to why someone works the job they do, and for you to say that they dont matter is the most high-horse obnocsious shit you could say.
..... i think MAYBE your getting the idea.
First tip, dont get married. Second tip, dont live above your means, third tip, dont have kids.
his brothers job does matter. your ass eats dont you ? you go shopping ? you like the things you want to actually be on the shelf ? well they sure as fuck didnt grow arms or legs and put themselves there. they didnt get to the store by magic.
His brothers job doesnt matter to me, I dont need someone to show me around a shopping mall. I also dont need helpdesks and callcenters for computer services, but those jobs exist. Alot of jobs exist which I dont really need. So to me his job doesnt matter. I dont see how his job improves society, the world, or has any impact at all on anything, maybe it saves someone a few seconds worth of time while shopping.
your a fucking boneified idiot. that person in the cubicle could be making sure grandma gets here social security check, so she can buy her food and medication, so she can live. you think YOU matter ? to whom ? your lonely right hand ? get a grip on reality man not everyone is like you, not everyone wants to work at a non-profit. not everyone is work obsessed.
You are funny, you do know the world is filled with mostly starving children, not elderly grandmothers who cant buy their food and medication, but lets assume you were right, instead of hiding behind a desk, work for meals and wheels, work for fedex or UPS, start up a non profit to support the elderly, and you can dedicate your life to helping the elderly.
and whoever the hell modded that shit up needs to be shot in the back of the head and left to rot.
Someone needs anger management, go play quake or something, stop allowing yourself to be filled with hate and rage over a post on the internet, you look stupid with veins popping out of your head and face red over some pixels, some text that doesnt really matter.
sure you do when it suits your intrest. do me a favor, dont go out to eat. (all waitress's dont matter, neither do the cooks or the owner) dont go see any movies (actors, grip's, random people dont matter) dont buy any CD's (musicians and studio techs dont matter) dont EAT (farmers, grocers and truckers dont matter) dont DRIVE (truckers and oil rig workers dont matter) and dont go to any hospitals no matter what (its most likely owned by some greedy corporate company)
Cooks do matter, waitresses dont matter,
I dont buy CDs and thanks to the RIAA I'm about to boycott them and never buy them again. Movies currently serve a purpose to waste time, as does music, I have too much free time in a day, until I actually get my degree and join the peacecorps or take up a job teaching, 12 hour days arent the norm.
truckers dont matter) dont DRIVE (truckers and oil rig workers dont matter) and dont go to any hospitals no matter what (its most likely owned by some greedy corporate company
Truckers do matter, they ship important materials such as food.
Oil rigs do matter because we need electricity for schools and hospitals, hospitals do matter, because people need help when they get sick.
I'm not going to work at a corperate hospital, but I can say that the job does matter, just like if I work at a school in Tokyo teaching English, I can respect a person living In America working at a private school teaching kids English.
The reason is because we both would have the SAME goal and the same IMPACT, just two different ways of accomplishing our mission.
Its all about the impact you have, some jobs are low impact, like grocer.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
First, I dont live with my mother or father. Second my mother makes $30k a year, shes far from rich and not in position to help me, I'm actually on the opposite end of the spectrum, I grew up extremely poor, I learned about adult life early on.
However because I never had much I dont want much, and because I know how to survive with almost nothing, I'm not caring about money.
But, there are those that truly feel that a job should be valued solely by the job's contribution to society. Thus, a teacher, a miner, a lumberjack, or a steel worker, should naturally be paid more than one of their respective managers. What was it we called them back in college...um....ah... oh yeah, communists.
You can call me a communist, I guess I'm a communist, but really the only thing that matters to me is the impact that I have. I dont give a damn about money, I've had jobs which paid 30-40k a year, and I gave most of my money away through donations, I dont need money because I have no one to spend it on.
Sure I wouldnt mind being rich, but after i have my house, and after my mom has a house, why would I do with millions of dollars besides donate it?
I judge a jobs value based on the impact it has on society, my reason for WANTING to work is to improve society and the world.
So of course I'm going to base the value of a job on how much it accomplishes its goal.
I'm not saying teachers and miners should get paid more, I dont care how much they get paid as long as its enough for them to do their job and survive.
I still dont see how you consider this communism but I guess anyone who isnt greedy and selfish is a communist.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"I am, of course, thrilled freaking spitless that you aren't motivated by money. "
Since when could you buy happiness? Having more money is not going to make a person MORE happy.
You either have everything you need, or you are happy with pimiento cheese as one of the four primary food groups. And since you (obviously) have no kids, that isn't an issue for you.
Thats exactly why the condom was invented, and birth control, etc, to prevent a person from having kids before its time. Kids cost alot of money, I'd have to change my whole plan if I had kids, you see right now I can dedicate myself 100% to a job because I dont have kids.
Work the ideological plain, by all means. The rest of us will just sweat things out in reality.
Reality is, we are all connected. Things I do will have a great impact on the world and because we are all connected, it will benefit you even if you never know it.
Regardless of the amount per hour I charge, I do the job I love, and I provide value for the job I do. That would be true whether I was a grocery clerk or an SE (which I am).
Theres two reasons for having a job which I will not dispute. Working because you love the job, or working to benefit society.
You love your job as grocer? go for it.
"My work bears my signature. Even if it was something that I felt was "beneath me", I would give it my best effort. If for no other reason than to prove that I can do anything well that I set my mind to."
Of course do the best you can at your job, but you'll be more likely to do your best all the time if its a job you love, or that you think is important enough to dedicate yourself 100% to.
You are just another elitist slob that KNOWS that everything else in the world is beneath their time and effort. So you keep on thinking the same way. And when you get laid off some day, turn down unemployment benefits, too. After all, that is way beneath you. Unless, of course, everyone owes you a living. I am guessing you pretty much feel that way, anyways.
Please I'm not an elitist snob, go to college and get an education, the doors arent slammed shut in your face, you have the ability to open them.
Do I think everyone owes me a living? That has nothing to do with the current topic, I think a living should be more serious than we treat it. I hate the temp job setup and I hope it doesnt because standard.
Some people want a career.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Ok,
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I have supported alot the man has done, but this
one is WAY OUT of line
Ppl work plenty hard as it is without cramming longer
hours down their throats without OT pay
This means if they want to start slave driving ppl
6 days a week there is nothing to stop them from doing it
I have bit my lip on the US patriot BS, and others,
but this is the straw that broke the camel's back
Bush and his pro-corporate crap crowd can take a flying leap
I have had it, and enough is enough
They allow cheap Visa labot to pour in unabated, and
ppl have to train their replacements
This piece of garbage cares nothing for the common
hard working american, and we need to kick his butt
to the curb
Bye Bye Bush baby !! You just lost me and my whole families vote
Why ??? We all work you corporate owned lackey !!!
Grrrrr....
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Everyone likes to believe he is more productive than the rest of the world. I don't buy it. The facts are that the USA is importing much more than it is exporting, and this only works because the Dollar is the dominating currency and the US government can simply print more of them.
This is by the way a much more serious threat than WMD to the USA: that the Arab nations are considering switching to Euro. IIRC Iraq already did and Iran was thinking about it (or did they switch as well? Don't remember). Once the important economies switch to Euros, the Dollar will deflate very rapidly. Since practically nothing is actually produced in the USA anymore, there is nothing (apart from war) that the US government could actually be threatening anyone with. And once people don't depend on the Dollar, there is no reason to listen to the US government anymore.
THAT, my friend, is the real problem of the USA now. How did you believe the USA can survive pushing that giant debt around? The answer is: they can't, unless people don't care about their debt because they need more dollars for the international money exchange.
You might also want to read this article.
And apart from that: my personal statistics indicate that US IT workers are much less productive than others. You can measure it particularly well in the free software world. I suggest you take some time off (hehe) and do some statistics on Sourceforge mailing lists.
Most reasonable companies budget for two Grandmother's funerals per year, per employee.
T&K.
Political language
Congratulations, my friend, you've just been introduced to two vital concepts: managers, and why everyone else hates them. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Between Paid Holidays, Vacations, etc. Americans get enough time off. If you like they way they do business in France, move there. When I was in college, I worked without paid vacations and holidays, and had no problem with it.
I'd guess that you're probably in an urban or suburban area. Grocery clerks matter because if they weren't there, you wouldn't eat and you would die.
The only reason people deliver to grocery stores is because they have clerks there who break down the big pallets that huge agribusiness favors into little individual sized portions that you're willing to buy. The only way for grocery clerks not to matter is for the people they enable to live not to matter either.
Oh, and before you lay on the 'I could feed myself if I wanted to' line, face up to the fact that you're not in isolation and everybody else in your urb/suburb is going to be bidding up those local food/food production resources too.
In the end, the system would survive because somebody would get the bright idea of playing the middle man between the agribusiness conglomorates and the individual people who don't want to buy in case and pallet sizes (and often can't afford to). They wouldn't call themselves clerks but they would end up doing the job.
President for a single term.
This is BS.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that ;)"
I'm guessing you made that as a cutesy joke but no, I can't go along with it anymore. After 100 Million bodies, after the hundreds of millions of lives made miserable and ruined by it, YES, THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THAT! Communism is just plain evil.
Thank you
I needed to get that off my chest.
Wealth creation isn't entirely about you. Right now, there are billions of people out there stuck in substandard economic conditions because their governments are a lying pack of thieves and looters. These bands get propped up and supported by 1st world governments because of a dirty little secret, there isn't enough wealth to go around.
At our current level of technology and wealth, and resource usage patterns we can't afford to spend the money necessary to liberate and uplift all these people (or even to open our borders and let them in to escape their oppressors). It would be such a massive disruption and would bid up resource prices so high that we would end up destroying our own economies before we could improve theirs.
Wealth creation matters because it brings us closer to the day when, as a practical matter, we can write the check to get rid of all the dictators. That's why all the "what do we need all this money for" false saints tick me off. They personally don't see the need for growth and they don't want to let others grow the world economy as fast as possible to end the human shithole known as the 3rd world. They'd rather waste resources redistributing amongst ourselves and congratulating themselves that now *our* poor now have 2 TVs instead of just one.
Growth matters, money matters, efficiency matters, and they matter because when there's enough, the elites will have the option of bringing in the 2nd and 3rd world into the 1st one country at a time and in the meantime those poor bastards still stuck there might get $2/day instead of their current >$1/day. It's a delicate game and we all might end up in armaggedon if we screw it up but its' worth fighting for.
Bottom line translation, you're a selfish idiot.
Your existence is very probably it seems, the result of the carrying on of blind natural forces which operate without purpose and without interest in or care for what is produced.
You obviously don't have children. That is such an uneducated statement about parents I choose to not even respond to it.
If you are going to quote "forces which operate without purpose and without interest," may I suggest the poor in the USA. They don't care about their kids, and it shows. The rest of us (especially immigrants that grew up in crappy countries where you had to bribe to get government employees to approve necessity paperwork, police forces are on a for hire basis, or where flush toilets are a luxury, or where you slept at night fearing the next of an endless string of insurgency groups wanted to kill you because of your ethnicity, shall I go on?) are busting our collective asses to get it all done and get to work.
I am a news photographer in Nashville, TN. A city that has the highest per capita earnings in the USA for a city over one million. People live well out here. Still, every time I go to "the ghetto" I see people out sitting on their porches and talking all day during the week. THEY ARE NOT WORKING. I am working. This is my sixth day in a row. I have five deadlines. They are doing NOTHING. Don't give me crap about not enough jobs around in America. No one just up and deserves 45,000 and a company car.
I hate it when politicians call the ghetto "working class neighborhoods." That is predicated on the idea that they are working. They are not. They are just sucking up to lazy ass voters.
I understand the new labor laws stink. But, entitlement is not what America is about. And yes, you're right about the schools. Who is to blame for this? WE ARE. We care more about roads than schools. We care about convenience store zoning more than schools. WE ELECTED THESE BASTARDS. Now we have to lay in the filth they give us.
Do not call people "the working poor." Just because they are poor doesn't mean they are busting their ass to get a job, or want one. Some carry two jobs. I understand those are the breaks. I have carried two jobs while at a university myself. I got out, though.
Those people need to get off of their asses.
And don't tell me that they "don't know how to work," or have never been taught that work is important.
That talk is just as much an insult to me as it is to them. You're calling them too naturally stupid, and me too naturally entitled.
The place where I work has 9 holidays a year and about 4 weeks of paid vacation. The big catch-22 forced upon everyone not long time ago was that your sick days come straight out of your vacation. If you have some minor ailments or simply have to take care of your family (i.e. doctors, car maint, house fixes, sick dogs, whatnot), these hours WILL be taken out of the time you'd rather spend slacking on the beach. Ain't it clever. By the time your reach Christmas you may end up with no vacation whatsoever. And, of course, there is daily stress and the employer simply does not care about stressed out workers. To put it in perspective, just within the few teams I work with there are four people with the second type of diabetes (i.e. acquired ones, related to stress). One guy who I see from time to time has been with this company longer than me and he had to get a pacemaker even though he is under 40.
So, what was that thing about vacation? I think it is slowly becoming a luxury similar to 401K and a tiny pay raise once in awhile. Besides, why would you want to get a vacation? Get one of those twin-dieseled SUVs and drive it to work and back instead. And don't ever watch Charlie's Modern Times so that you will not find out that for the last few decades nothing changed and you are still being sqeezed out by anyone who can get hold of you.
obligated to give you vacation?
If you don't like the vacation options of your current job, look for another with better ones. If there is enough demand for vacation time in the employee market, then companies will have to compete to give it to you.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Everyone in the world knows this:
1) California is laid back
2) New York is where its at
There may be 2x the amount of IT workers in Cali (depending what you consider is IT) but NY works twice as hard. We are the ones pumping out this sick overworked culture. California is where you go to die, like Florida or Arizona or something.
So whereas that 90's silicon valley era may have created some cult like flocking to CA, NY has evolved IT into so many aspects of the workforce, its hard to define 'IT' jobs - most analyst jobs span from manufacturing, engineering to system administration. Its not uncommon for a guy on a workfloor here writing a perl script to scp data from a industrial AIX to get through a security audit requiring crypto vs cleartext. This is NY - this is where the innovation is, where people adapt and learn on the fly no matter what the domain is. IT is embedded in the culture of New Yorkers - F*ck california!!! What the hell is in California?!?! Screw CA. CA is a beautiful state that loves pointing out problems with the world, but they offer no solution to problems. New York solves the problems.
...vacation takes you.
May spend a lot more time at the office, but they are no more productive than their European peers. They need to work smarter, not longer.
Arbeit macht frei!
The thread is about USian hardworkers being overtaxed. The subthread is about hardworking USian single parents being WAY overtaxed. In both cases, specially if you compare their taxing to that of wealthy (and possibly USian) people.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
i would like to see a law that made them give you the option to pay you for the vacation time if you didnt want to take it in some fashion.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Wow, half troll, half insightful social commentary. God, I love slashdot.
You're right up until the last paragraph, I'm with you entirely on the main body of your comment. The poor spent a much higher percentage of their income on subsistence and thus have no goddamn money. If you didn't have to pay income tax on your rent money or the money you spent on food (which could be solved with a flat tax) then the system would become much more fair. Just one more argument against the IRS. Then the only mandatory stuff you pay tax on is clothing, which is a bummer, but there's no fair way to not tax some clothing purchases. If you want to give that money back to poor people, you can always have them collect receipts.
I do like your "with one interpretation" disclaimer in the closing paragraph, by which you avoid all responsibility. I'll have to remember that one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Find another job ASAP. This CEO obviously does not think you will hold him accountable. It may take some extra time to discover who you can count on as a reliable reference but do it. You've been burned once for a few days vacation time and burned again for a twenty percent pay cut. Leave them before they cut you or damage your reputation, it will allow you to make a much better career move.
~~ What's stopping you?
If you're just starting out in life, and it sounds like you are, then you can afford to do social work.
Don't assume that a degree is an automatic reprieve from working at McDonald's. In major metropolitan cities across the US, you can still find yourself working in fast food with a degree + years of experience. I recently met guy who was an advertising exec, but who now works as a greeter at Wafflehouse. If you're recent to the workforce (less than 10 years in my opinion), you need a degree. I hope I didn't sound like I was advocating not ever going to college.
If you've been in the workforce for a while you usually build financial responsibilities that prevent you from taking jobs as WalMart or McDonald's, or even in nursing. If your financial aid repayments alone are greater than what you make in social work, you should not be in social work (if you want to repay your debt). I understand your desire to improve the world. I think that's great, just so you understand that those who don't, don't because they can't afford the committment... and not all of them have spent beyond their means.
I didn't saw you were a communist, but you at least share one of Hegel's tenet beliefs - judging work by the impact (and hence value) it has on society.
Communism in and of itself isn't plain evil. Stalinism was evil. Maoism was evil. But consider this, some of the most repressive evil regimes in this world (and in history) are not communist but free-market capitalist. Not all capitalist nations are like Western Europe, Japan, or the US. Many countless more are like Uganda, Somalia, Argentina, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, and Burma. The number of ruined lives and dead bodies vastly outnumbers the horrible things Stalin and Mao did.
Of course you're probably talking about Russia in particular. I've spent a lot of time in post-Soviet Russia as an economist trying to help Russian businesses adapt to western economics. The entire culture has been traumatized by communism. Unfortunately their foray into free market capitalism has been rough. China on the other hand has been remarkably stable. Interestingly enough, China's version of the free market is much more stable and trustworthy than the one we have because of the heavy-handedness of the Chinese government. Go figure.
Vacation time is money in the bank- a benefit that accumulates to you- and so shouldn't be forfeited. At the most you should have 'lost' (used up) four days of vacation time, not ten.
Do the numbers. If you have 10 or 15 days, then
- You keep 2 or 3 in reserve for illness or emergencies
- You use up 3-4 for the obligatory visiting one set of relatives.
- If your company is anal you use up 3-4 just to have some long weekends each year, or to stretch out time near holidays. (vs. some companies which let you work longer days for a few days to make up for it)
- You have one trip to Hawaii or Disneyland...
- That's it, you've used up your vacation time.
A proper exploration vacation, where you spend 2-3 weeks in one country or learning one new skill (cooking classes in Provence, learning Spanish by being in Spain, a 2 week Japan Rail Pass for exploring the top castles of Japan) is right out. Only semi-sarcastically would I say "Of cource Europeans know more about the US than Americans know about Europe: Europeans actually have time to visit the US."Ahh, where exactly does this happen? Except for rare exceptions in fields with a temporary boom (see dot com bubble), they just hire the employees with the lowest demands. There is always someone willing to do without, and drag down the standards for everyone else.
This is the reason unions were popular in industrial areas. You need the job more than they need any particular worker. The only way to get enough leverage to have things in your favor is to be in the top 1% of your field, or to have the rest of the workers backing you up. If that won't happen (weakening of current union laws), then workers turn to the government to address the imbalance.
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
No, the other interpretation is "now that you recognize that your sins are shameful [scarlet, as in blush], and repent them, I will make them as pure as the driven snow.
I am not 100% sure which interpretation is correct; therefore I did put that qualifier in. But I tend to lean towards the one I mentioned. Because usually, when I think I know how bad the things I did were... later on I find out it was worse.
Maybe you can clarify what a troll is, but I was under the impression that trolling was inherently insincere. It was an attempt to get people to react, to then say "look how stupid they are." Most of what I say is sincere, though. I think that 100% of this was sincere.
I also tend to think that everything is related; our problems are organic, not to be solved with a simple political panacaea, which is why Christianity pushes holiness. Not that we are very successful living it, are we? Oh, well. I try--better to try, than not to try.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Well, that's what unions are for. A company may easily be able to replace one employee who wants more vacation with some standardless worker imported from a foreign country who thinks that $100/wk is a fortune.
However, they will not so easily be able to replace hundreds, or thousands, of workers. Even if current laws permitted companies to fire individuals while on strike, companies would probably not be able to do it, as there's no way they could replace those workers in a reasonable alotment of time. I am not arguing against unions. Unions serve a very useful role.
Though I don't argue against unions in general, I do argue against some union behaviors in specific. While on strike, workers have no right to be on corporate property; thus, if they are there, they are tresspassing if the owners ask them to leave. They can strike on the nearest public grounds. Blocking entrances for those who do want to work is also not acceptable. Furthermore, forcing indivudals into unions, or taking the overtime salary of those who work while on strike, is unacceptable.
Finally, many union guys are just assholes. My father worked as a manager at a telephone company in Rochester until he retired. While walking down a hallway once, he noticed that something was wrong (an alarm was off, and the problem causing it was not being fixed). So, he fixed it, after which, some asshole from the union ran up to him and told him he wasn't supposed to do that. You see, fixing that broken thing was the responsibility of one of the union members, and his job is "devalued" if others are allowed to fix things he's supposed to fix. Naturally, the reaction to this was that when the lazy union bum fixes things, he won't need to.
There are other conditions where unions are simply assinite as a whole. Companies start to go under, and face hard economic times. So they have to start cutting back on salaries, firing people, and eliminating benefits. Unions then go on strike. This serves no productive purpose, as it only harms the company further, furthering the cause of them having to cut back in the first place.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
It is odd that there is no flexibility on this. Even if you are willing to put in 10% extra hours and take unpaid time off, or are willing to take a 10% cut in pay and benefits, the option of taking a long vacation just isn't there. An employee can be just as productive- I'd say perhaps even more productive- during a year if they take a straight two weeks off along with shorter holidays. But the option isn't there. [As I commented in an earlier thread on temporary 80 hour workweeks, more stress = worse immune system =more time being fatigued from fighting off colds, etc. You're be stressed by not being able to spend a quantity of quality time with your partner, kids, or relatives. You're always in the work-lag (= to jet-lag) of having just left work or being about to go to work. You don't get the stress reduction of being able to think about something else entirely for a week or two.]
Imagine an alternate universe where everyone only gets a 5 minute lunch break: the option of a 1/2 or 1 hour lunch break is alien to them. "Companies can't afford to coddle employees with 1/2 hour lunch breaks: they're not paid to eat" or "If you take a 1 hour break in the middle of the day, you'll be a lot less productive, whether or not that hour is paid time off..." We'd find this alternate universe strange in its lack of flexibility. I find the current vacation time structure in the US equally as strange.
What is holiness precisely? I assume you mean something like "Living according to a strict or highly moral religious or spiritual system; saintly: a holy person." In this case, specifically, living either by the ten commandments, the bible, or both. Based on your quoting the bible, I'm going to (tentatively) operate on your assumption that you mean the bible (the ten commandments simply beng an item thereof, yes?)
I think it's important to keep in mind that someone can have the best of intentions and still make things worse for other people. I'm not debating that living as the bible suggests would make the world a more peaceful place, but there will always be those who do not live it, so it won't lead us to equality. Especially when any man can lie and many who claim to live by the word are not very successful, as you put it; I would go so far as to say that plenty of them don't actually even try. There are con artists everywhere.
Religion, in any case, is another nonfunctional panacea. No one has the answer because life is more complicated than you can sum up in a single sentence, or even a book. Or a movement. Ask two ministers to interpret the same passage of the bible and you will get different answers. Does that mean the bible does not have both possible interpretations, and that we cannot learn both things from it? Certainly not. But it does mean that there is no easy answer.
I could get into long discussions about each of the things you cite as being the root problems with our society - the complaint against pornography was what tipped me off to your being a troll, by the way - but only keep in mind that your suggestion that one live by that set of rules is no sillier than, say, suggesting that all men can live peaceably and happily under one set of laws.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm in a rare job position here - I've been with a big company for 25 years, so I get 5-6 weeks of vacation. When my wife was working at her last couple of startups, she negotiated three weeks of unpaid vacation in addition to whatever paid vacation they got (usually a week or two), which made things able to balance out. I was laid off for about six months back in the mid 90s, and if I'd known I would have been out of work that long, I should have done some much more serious goofing off than I did.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You've been drinking the libertarian Kool-Aid.
I don't think you arguing that all property should be owned by the state are you? I believe you are referring to the free market.
There's no such thing as a "free market", dildo. The "free" in "free market" means "law-free". But of course, you can't have a market without laws. You need laws to create a market. Take contract law, for example. Without it, you have no way of enforcing agreements between parties. Without law, exchange is a custom that anyone may break if they feel they are strong enough to get away with it.
The laws we use to create markets are not universal constants waiting to be discovered. Different laws create different markets. So the only "free market" that exists or ever can exist is the one in your imagination, the same place Dracula and the Wolfman reside.
But your true dildocity shows here:
a) if you enact a libertarian country with government provided law, policing and courts, the CEOs, owners, etc. will all be tried for murder, and anyone affected by the toxic drink will sue for personal damages to the point of potentially running the company into the ground.
What the fuck will they be sued for? There won't be any Pure Food & Drug Act mandating that food must not poison you. First you're for "free markets", then you're for government regulation of markets. You don't know what you believe.
In your libertopia, there can't be any expectation that food is edible, because everything is sold caveat emptor. That's my defense when you try to take me to court for poisoning you. "I never promised you it wouldn't kill you." And if I didn't, then there's no breach of contract. Bwaa haaa haa! Enjoy your ratburger, oops, I mean hamburger!
And we haven't even discussed how you're supposed to sue after you're dead.
Holiness, rather, refers to a completeness of spirit that requires at the same time a dependency on God (one of the persons of God being the Holy Spirit). Except in the case of Christ, it is never absolute. A few people are visibly holier than most; Mother Teresa comes immediately to mind, and yet she was continually plagued by doubts of whether God even existed.
I, for one, do believe in the Holy Spirit, and one of the marks of the Holy Spirit is that He does not mislead.
I also agree that there are con artists everywhere; that is very different than trying to live a holy life and sometimes failing. As an example, I'd note that in the past I have had a problem with pornography; I now try to avoid it, but I still sometimes have to deal with iniquity [unclean thoughts], such as today, when Conservative Petitions [a singularly useless and pointless service in my opinion] sent around a petition asking that people sign on saying they'll boycott the advertisers of a pornographic TV program. *sigh*. I don't have a TV, partly for that reason, but I still can trigger on even descriptions. I should have dropped that petition in the trash like a stinking pile of poo, instead of reading it. In my opinion, it is what I call "born again Christian pornography": it's supposed dually titilate and make the person think "well I'm better than that." But I didn't, partly because my wife was asking me to explain why I didn't want to touch it. So I'm not successful. But that doesn't mean I'm a con artist or that I don't try. I do try, though that's not particularly for you to know. My wife, probably will know. My son, possibly will know. God and me, definitely should be able to tell. For others across the internet, I rather doubt that they can tell on their own whether I'm truly genuine.
On the subject of multiple meanings, yes: the multiple meanings are there, and in most cases only one can apply, but which one it is varies by case. Ouch: no wonder so many people give it up so quickly. But that's why one again needs a relationship with the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit guides rightly. Not that I can claim that I have a successful relationship with the Holy Spirit. Some do--I can see it--but I cannot claim that I'm there yet. I'm not.
P.S. in the links provided: I am pretty sure that David Wilkerson is not a con artist. The odds of his story happening without the Holy Spirit leading him are pretty slim. It did happen, you can investigate it to your heart's content. As for the rest, I am inclined to believe they are not con artists, because if the Holy Spirit leads him to pick other leaders, again it won't lead him badly.
But I have no way of knowing for sure. Also, I should note that I have no link with this group except that I read the book, I've purchased used goods and occasionally helped them fix their computers at the Newport News VA Teen Challenge thrift store, and I now get their weekly sermon emailed to me.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I would argue that what you call religiousness can be translated as doing what you are told, and what you call holiness is what I would call living morally. Morality is not necessarily religious in nature, though it can be.
In other words, you do not need god to live in a way that is not harmful to others. All you need do is have standards which value others, and (try to) live by them. Porn doesn't hurt anyone, studies have consistently failed to find a link between porn and any kind of deviant or violent behavior. Some men watch porn and end up cheating on their wives, some people watch porn and end up having sex with their wives. The difference is the person. I guess it's reasonable to say that some people shouldn't watch porn, but not to say that porn itself is bad, just like some people shouldn't have guns, but not all guns are bad. Or, to take it a step further, some people shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car. Hell, you can be dangerous as hell with a baseball bat but basoburo (well, watching it) is the Great American Pasttime, right?
What I'm saying is that the solution that worked for you (if you had a pornography "problem" - I can only imagine what that might be, and I doubt I want to know - then bully for you for kicking the habit) is not necessarily going to work for anyone else. Religion may have helped you, but it's not the answer for everyone, and your suggestion that it's the end-all be-all is just as ridiculous as the statements you decry.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now, some of that may be a measurement artifact, since "unemployment" figures in the US measure people who've told the government they're unemployed who haven't been reclassified as "not part of the work force because they've been unemployed too long and are discouraged ex-job-seekers", and they're real fuzzy about the status of women who might be unemployed or might be stay-at-home moms who don't want to be working or might be married women who are staying at home because they can't find a job but would otherwise be in the workforce.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Your understanding of logic and economics and is as tenuous as your grasp of common sense. Allow me to help you out.
There's no such thing as a "free market", dildo. The "free" in "free market" means "law-free".
Regulation free, not law free. A free market can be law free as well though. Free market == market free of coercion.
You need laws to create a market.
Nonsense. Demand creates a market.
Take contract law, for example. Without it, you have no way of enforcing agreements between parties.
Indeed you can: reputation. You don't enter into any agreements without setting forth guidelines governing the exchange and what each party considers a fair trade. If one stiffs the other, they'll soon find others unwilling to deal with the untrustworthy party. Contract law is simply more formal, explicit and economical.
What the fuck will they be sued for?
How about damages to your health? How about pain and suffering? How about murder? Attempted murder? Assault? Criminal negligence? Take your pick.
There won't be any Pure Food & Drug Act mandating that food must not poison you.
In such a government, there would still be laws preventing people from intentionally harming you (see definition of government below). See response below that to explain the rest.
First you're for "free markets", then you're for government regulation of markets. You don't know what you believe.
Government, as defined by libertarians, is the only agency of legitimate coercion. If anyone else pursues coercive action, then it is by definition illegitimate and subject to persecution. In essence, government has a monopoly on force. Some libertarians agree that it should stay so, some don't. People pouring toxic sludge into "drinks" is an illegitimate, malicious act of force and thus subject to persecution. Explicit enough for you? Would you like pictures?
In your libertopia, there can't be any expectation that food is edible, because everything is sold caveat emptor.
In the uber-libertarian society, that may be partially true in that one would have to be more careful how one makes purchases; one might have to draw up an explicit contract with the local grocer. Chances are grocers would explicitly advertise that they gaurantee their food (up to a certain point) in which case they establish an implicit contract. In the libertarian society with a government, this would not really be the case. If you are selling "food", it is implicit that you are selling something edible (hello? definition of food!).
And we haven't even discussed how you're supposed to sue after you're dead.
Families sue for damages all the time numnuts.
Finally, let's not ignore the incredibly obious fact that killing people is bad for business. Given these silly "counter points", I take it you know next to nothing about libertarianism or economics. Please go read something so you can at least spout some rational arguments quite a few of which have already been spelled out by many great thinkers. Like any position, libertarianism has its flaws, but they are nowhere near as inane as you seem to believe.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Not harder. Be professional, be well skilled, be educated. And if you're going to enter a 'professional' field get used to the idea that you are not compensated for piecework. If that doesn't jibe with your world view, then by all means throw you shoes into the Jacquard looms.
And FWIW every trades person I know is self employed and runs a cash business and is doing better than most white collar people.
Are you really so brainwashed you can't see all the inconsistencies in your post? Christ, you're not drinking the kool-aid, you're fucking injecting it. Try to shrug off the cultspeak.
Regulation free, not law free. A free market can be law free as well though. Free market == market free of coercion.
Laws ARE regulations, you douchebag. That's the whole point. You want to set up this artificial dichotomy between laws and regulations, and there isn't one. What you call regulations are just the laws that you don't agree with.
And I want to get this "free of coercion" garbage out of the way up front. Coercion isn't just "men with guns". People can be coerced by threats, intimidation, and other means -- including the threat of losing one's job. When the boss tells a poor single mom in a rural town that she must fuck him or be fired -- that, too, is a form of coercion. The cult may have impacted your ability to see this. Hopefully there's still enough humanity in you to break through their mindtraps.
Nonsense. Demand creates a market.
Demand does no such thing. Demand is NECESSARY for a market, but it doesn't CREATE that market. Just because you want a thing doesn't mean that a structure magically exists where you can be assured that you can exchange something of your own to get it. That structure has to be created. Anything else is mere custom.
Indeed you can: reputation. You don't enter into any agreements without setting forth guidelines governing the exchange and what each party considers a fair trade. If one stiffs the other, they'll soon find others unwilling to deal with the untrustworthy party. Contract law is simply more formal, explicit and economical.
Wow. What a Pollyanna you are. Contract law doesn't exist because it's "more formal, explicit, and economical". It exists, because without it, there is no way to ensure that mutually beneficial transactions take place. Without law, the rich can exploit the poor indefinitely.
Ask your local stockbroker if he thinks "reputation" is enough to build a stock market on.
Government, as defined by libertarians, is the only agency of legitimate coercion. If anyone else pursues coercive action, then it is by definition illegitimate and subject to persecution.
First of all, you mean prosecution, not persecution. I know they sound kind of alike.
Second, yeah, pretty much everyone agrees that government is the only agency of legitimate coercion. Not just the kool-aid crowd.
In the libertarian society with a government, this would not really be the case. If you are selling "food", it is implicit that you are selling something edible (hello? definition of food!).
You spend a lot of time in your posts berating people for not knowing as much as your haughty self about libertarianism, but you don't seem to understand it yourself.
Bah.
I have to run.
Maybe later I'll finish this.
It is really strange to end up agreeing with someone so quickly on here, but well said. Given the typical poster here, I made the incorrect assumption that you also opposed unions, since most people with that initial point of view do.
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
Yes indeed. However, by Europe I meant the countries which were not in the USSR sphere of influence where things were done in a much different way.
Yep, it is rare. But it's usually possible to at least reach a mutual understanding when two individuals don't automatically reply to eachother, upon finding out they may disagree with eachother, with something like "yoU $ux0r$, m@n".
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Great argument for outsourcing.
CEO:What they want to be paid more! Our shareholders will have a heart attack! Whats next free health care so workers can take care of themselves?
SCREW THIS! I want my third beach house.
If I outsource to Africa, India, and China, I can do this and fire those sorry ass greedy workers who consider themselves human beings. I can make so much money and also be given a bonus by the stock brokers. I can buy a ferrie and a beach house.
http://saveie6.com/
First, life functions best in specific collectives: most of your cells live on after you die, but not for long. But it doesn't stop there; the cell is itself a structure of subunit lifeforms, including mitochondria, DNA, and whatnot, each of which is arguably its own lifeform.
At the level of the human body, we aren't just DNA either. Take away your Vitamin-K-producing bacteria, and you're not going to live for long. We are actually an organization of organisms.
At higher levels, we are family; we are city; and we are country/nation. We don't survive well outside of these units. Therefore, the natural place for holy living is within these units.
[I should note that the Bible also recognizes these units as living entities. Again, that's one interpretation; another interpretation that I feel is *not* correct is that nations, thrones, and powers... are all angels.]
But because the natural unit for holy living is still the family, violence to the family is also violence to the people of the family. But jealousy is inherent to people, and sex outside of marriage hurts the family both through jealousy and through hurting mental/emotional intimacy. Holy living with your family means being more joined to them, not less joined. Therefore, intimacy is important. But when you allow that intimacy to be broken by outsiders, it destroys a certain level of trust; it takes away a lot of the guarantees of the family, and the family does not function well. It is not complete, not holy.
Now, pornography is a violence against the porn actor's lives; but watching it also does violence to your own family, because by watching it, you are saying you support it. And that means that at some level it is possible for you that you could do this too. For example, if I encourage my friends to divorce, saying "well, divorce can be good for you", that's going to make my wife kindof insecure about our own relationship. So pornography also breaks into the relationships of the viewer as well. I'd say that the effect is orders of magnitude less, but it is still significant.
Nor is this a case of only the abuses being bad. I think my reasoning is sound, but it is sound for every single case. That is to say that pornography is inherently violence against the family.
That is why I think that my pornography habit (umm, specifically playboy, penthouse, and hustler magazines that were left out at work) was bad. It is also why I think that the Catholic Church says taht pornography is bad.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
today's Dilbert
<grub> Reading
Again we return to your Holiness panacea. You haven't told me what's wrong with simply living in a way that is considerate to others.
Only if we accept that you must live in a Holy fashion, which I maintain is a great fallacy - Also, violence is still not the right term. While the activity in pornography is sometimes physically violent (though who doesn't like a hard fuck now and then?) that doesn't mean it's nonconsensual. I know that none of my best sexual acts have been in the missionary position :P
So if you knew people who were together and really shouldn't be, because say they were totally different people - to use your terminology, one lived a holy life, and one did not, and thus they were unhappy together - would you not advocate divorce? Let's go ahead and assume that the non-holy party is unwilling to change. Why would that advice be bad for them? And why would your wife need to get nervous because you made that suggestion for someone else? And even if she did, what's wrong with getting a little nervous? I get nervous when my girlfriend goes and hangs out with friends of hers who are guys, but I trust her, not least because I have friends who are girls who I used to hang out with a lot (I Don't live near them now) without having sex with them. Furthermore, I know my moral code does not allow cheating no matter how much lust I might feel toward a person, so why should I believe that she will cheat on me? See, I have faith, too. More than your wife in you, apparently, because I can handle being nervous.
That could only be true if you accept that only sex inside marriage is appropriate (another aspect of Christianity which I cannot agree with - our bodies are beautiful and powerful things and we should revel in them as we can - you can call them a gift from god if you like, that only underscores my point) and therefore sex is only a way to procreate, and a way to convince people that they should marry.
In other words, we continue to go around in circles, which is why I will not be bothering further with this particular OT thread. I don't believe that sex is any more or less "sacred" or "holy" than anything else. Like cars, drugs, guns, etc, it is what you make it. It can be beautiful, or violent, or both at once; it can be terrible and horrible as well, when it is nonconsensual. Hell, it can even be boring. I do actually believe that marriage is a natural state for humans, but not that you should try to force it. Marriage is only appropriate when you are truly in love with someone; as one acquaintance put it, when the pain of being with someone exceeds the pain you feel when you are without them. Too many people get married out of desperation and have unhappy marriages, and that, my brother, leads to violence. Of a very real and literal sort.
Why the hell were you taking pr0n to work anyway? That's just ignorant. That's like taking drugs to school, or a knife to a courthouse. I think the real problem here is that you're a bozo.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That was a pointless and ill-informed comment. India is the world's largest democracy, has a pretty well-educated population, has a stable economy compared to some in the West, and mostly has quite a high standard of living compared to many places in the world. Don't assume that because they don't drive around in snazzy US- or German-made cars, they are some third world backwater place.
In my experience, tech support that has been outsourced to places like India is usually very poor, and one of the things they are worst at. I've commented before on the relatively poor training they have compared to the West, and the fact that these people who get paid so much less to do the job than those in the US or Europe are also worth far less because they don't do it as well.
In general, however, outside of the knowledge-based hi-tech industries, there are far more constructive jobs in India than you appear to give them credit for. Why do you believe that Indians "scoop shit" any more than Americans or Europeans?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This post is truly a troll, and it is unjust. I said magazines that were left out at work. Not by me, but by others including the plant director and my manager.
Your premise was wrong. In the same way, your other premises are wrong too. However, since you are stepping to unjust statements, I suppose this particular conversation is at a close.
- MickLinux
Sorry, I forgot that was the usual protocol. What is it these days, erm...all your bases belong to me :) (Hmm, or is it bas3s...)
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
I guess you dont care much about your country.
You cannot save the world all at once. Start with the USA.
When everyone in the USA eats 3 meals a day and can afford healthcare, then you can worry about country X with the dictator.
Until then I dont see why we bother liberating other countries while millions of people in our own country are suffering and dying.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
" If you're just starting out in life, and it sounds like you are, then you can afford to do social work.
"
And I'll be able to afford to do social work for 50 years if I want to.
Don't assume that a degree is an automatic reprieve from working at McDonald's. In major metropolitan cities across the US, you can still find yourself working in fast food with a degree + years of experience. I recently met guy who was an advertising exec, but who now works as a greeter at Wafflehouse. If you're recent to the workforce (less than 10 years in my opinion), you need a degree. I hope I didn't sound like I was advocating not ever going to college.
I do live in a big city, you can work for the government with that degree and do just fine.
If you've been in the workforce for a while you usually build financial responsibilities that prevent you from taking jobs as WalMart or McDonald's, or even in nursing. If your financial aid repayments alone are greater than what you make in social work, you should not be in social work (if you want to repay your debt). I understand your desire to improve the world. I think that's great, just so you understand that those who don't, don't because they can't afford the committment... and not all of them have spent beyond their means.
Thats why I went to community college. As far as repaying financial aid, if you join the peacecorp or take a job teaching the gov repays alot of your fees.
I know how the world works, but you can do social work and survive, you dont need a lot of money when you are young, you have no kids, etc. I can live with a roomate on the cheap, share rent, and do social work for a living.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The corporate world doesnt owe you a job. In fact, its the duty of corporations to their shareholders to buy your work (or not buy it) for as little as possible. The ideal corporation of the future will have zero employees and will run itself. Thats 100% efficiency.
Doesn't that make you happy?
And still US are making 500 000 000 000 $ (yes, that much 0's !) deficit in international exchanges each year !
.....You work harder, but still lose Money ? ... Welcome to (over)Consumer Society !!!!
Exports:
$723 billion f.o.b. (2001 est.)
Imports:
$1.148 trillion f.o.b. (2001 est.)
-> 425 billions deficit in 2001 (but it just increases with every year)
CIA World Factbook
Amazingly, they stayed by 1995 for eternal debt:
Debt - external:
$862 billion (1995 est.)
One is, I suspect a lot of people like me are surprised to see they are only paying 8-10% income taxes. The reality is that I'm lucky to take home 75% of my paycheck after state taxes, social security and medicare - and this can be a significant issue when you consider that it can be argued that Social Security is actually regressive when you consider all factors (http://www.nber.org/digest/may00/w7520.html).
If you consider the total tax burden (not just what is called a "tax" but everything the government makes you pay money for, which is a tax in my book), the arguments that the rich carry a greater percent burden of the cost of maintaining our government becomes questionable at best (I dunno if a link to Slate is exactly an argument but it's a decent introduction to the various topics at stake http://slate.msn.com/id/2075483/).
The no-new-taxes dogma that is the gospel of many of the local allies of the current Republican administration, coupled with widespread deficits caused by irresponsible spending during the "projected surplus" days by BOTH parties, is panning out in an increased move towards increasing "technically non-tax" costs like license and tab fees etc. Functional taxes of this nature are of course straight-up regressive as they have no index to the wealth of the payer.
Another issue to take into account is that these percentages also look very different if you consider the tax burden as a percentage of people's DISCRETIONARY income rather than their total income. The poorer people are, the higher percentage of their income must be spent on the most basic necessities of housing, food, transportation, and medical care. Taxes and other government charge consequently account for a very high percentage of the discretionary income left after such necessities are eliminated, leaving a smaller percentage for self-improvements such as higher education or simply spending for personal satisfaction. For the wealthy, who have a much higher percentage of discretionary income, taxes and charges then represent a smaller component of the money they are free to spend. In short, even if I accepted that the overall tax system was progressive (which is, as I've shown, arguable), the reality remains that the wealthy have more discretionary income and thus more options.
Personally I'm sick to death of listening to how the rich are getting screwed in this society, which is so ridiculous it borders on the surreal. Wow, some nights I lay up worrying about winning the lottery and having to become one of those poor, overburdened rich folks. Then I think, hey, maybe I'll get lucky and lose my job and then I can live the happy, carefree life of the poor. The rich should carry the highest burden in society because they are receiving the greatest benefits from society and have the greatest access to the political systems that affect society. Their willingness to use this access to exercise their enormous greed deserves nothing but contempt. The fact that there individuals in lower income brackets who are so easily led to jump on the regressive tax bandwagon makes about as much sense to me as a gay Republican, but there you go.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Fucko, you're a pretty big ass-boner.
Rich Americans have no problem taking such vacations. There is no need for reform in the US.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
How is your job important to planet earth?
Congratulations if you know exactly what impact your job is having on the people of Belgium, but most people will never have that luxury - "how is anybody's job important to planet Earth?" If one person isn't doing a job, it doesn't get done. If we didn't have janitors, shit wouldn't get cleaned up. If we didn't have data entry technicians, data would remain unentered. I believe the list goes on. For the sake of a nail, the war was lost, and all that.
PS - Having a college degree (or even two) mean NOTHING about choosing your job. Sometimes the economy is just shite - and if you honestly believe that you will have a career you love because you're qualified for it and competent, then let me be the first to say Happy Birthday from Planet Motherfucker !