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Take Back Your Time!
pycnanthemum writes "Today is national Take Back Your Time Day. Boston.com has a story about it, it's a Seattle-based movement to get overworked Americans to value the non-material parts of their lives. When I read the article I thought of a lot of techies I know."
"You took 4 minutes of my life and I want them baaaaaack!! ....oh I'd only waste them anyway."
I avoid being needed at 3:00AM. I've been there before. I've had the VPN software installed on my own computer so I could fix someone else's bugs in the middle of the night.
I have a Palm and a cell phone, but they are mine. Work doesn't have the cell number, nor will they. I no longer have the VPN setup on my computer.
I've refused to work at all hours and on my own time, and it has prevented me from advancing to a position that requires it. That is a feature, not a bug. I know in these days it is hard to be picky, and if I was faced with the prospect of carrying a pager or being unemployed, I'd suck it up, but I would start looking elsewhere.
I work with way too many people who see working as a programmer as a gateway into management. They don't understand why I don't want to "advance" (advance by their definition). It completely baffles them that I'd rather be happy than make more money.
Life is tradeoffs. If the coolest opportunity came round, but it required me to be on call now and then, I'd take it. Likewise, I'd rather not make the extra few thousand a year, but have my time be mine.
And I'll take it back when my boss and the schedule say I can!
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
At this point we have the technology and know-how to reduce work to a quarter or less, with likely more production. Some serious social change is needed to make this happen--but it will.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
That very episode was on last nigh... Oops, does watching Simpsons count as wasting time?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
"It leads to growing neglect and abuse of pets. " Apparently Fluffy cares, and she's gonna break out the can on your pants the next time you VNC into the office.
That's just letting the terrorists win...isn't it?
Quit surfing the web all day at work and at home. You rarely learn anything. In fact, you're rarely even truly entertained!
The dearth of recreational and family time in America is nothing new, although work hours have been increasing decade by decade leading to mini 'revolts' like this. However, who actually took your time away in the first place? You did. If you let yourself be conned into working 80 hour weeks, that was your call.
"But I won't be able to afford the mortgage on my $500,000 home!" many will cry. A lot of people think it's some sort of given that they must have a large house, 2.4 children, a Lexus and an SUV parked outside. Not so! A lot of people have escaped from the 'rat race' to start farms out in the boonies, backpack around the world, or live as a family out on the ocean waves.
Living in a 60-80 hour workweek society is your choice, and if you're too blinkered to do something about improving the quality of your life, fine.. but it's YOUR CALL!
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Life was great!!
Then, I get a new boss. Classic 'Type A' personality. Worked 60+ hours a week, claimed it took her 40 hours a week to read her email.
Long story short, she fired me. Claimed I couldn't do the job that I had been doing for over nine years.
Former coworkers basically said she couldn't handle the fact that she worked 60+ hours a week, and I worked 32 to 36 hours a week...
So, try this at your own risk!
Value the non-material parts of your life: Have kids. Well...if you're the right kinda person to have kids that is. I've never felt more moved on a genetic, propagation of the family name level, then when I held my boys for the first time. It's really an indescribable feeling. And after that, you learn a LOT of the $hit you thought was important isn't.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I don't know about y'all, but I'm so sick of various days and weeks and months being devoted to all this random crap. In this case it is entirely ironic because everyone's going to be 'taking back their time' rather than doing what they really want to do. Some people actually like working. It's just a bunch of people deciding that they know what you should really be spending your time doing.
Maybe partying will help...
Seems there was this clause in my contract concerning ownership of my soul...
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Someone call me the WAAAAAAAAAAAMBulance please.
20 Credit hours this semester, fall of my senior year in college.
I signed up for 1700+ hours for Americorps.
My fiance and I are planning a Spring 05 wedding.
I run a small IT consulting company.
Free time = 0
Rewards = Huge.
I have absolutely NO ONE to complain to but myself. If I want more time, I make more time. Same thing for everyone else. No one is making you work the job you are at. If you don't like the terms, renegotiate! If you don't like the job, quit. Not that simple because the cost of living is too high where you live? Move. Don't want to move because you like your nice house and nice cars and all that jazz? THEN KEEP WORKING.
No one is forced to work the coal mines 60 hours a week...
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Glad to see this is moving along...
:)
A while back I got fed up, and got rid of my cellphone. That means alot less stress, even more then you'd expect. First, no more phone to keep track of, no more incoming calls, no more calling people when I don't really need to. I do my calls all at once. Oh and I save a forune by not having long distance on the landline (screened, never answeered) and using a nice 3c/min calling card. Anyone worth talking to can email me. And anyone I like can IM me (whitelist only of course).
I also tweaked all my OSX Mail filters to be very aggressive, and the mail to only check once every hour. Again, far less interuptions.
And more and more I'm seeing people I know also burn-out completely on the "time saving technology" and trash it all. And then they start to declutter the rest of their lives too, but that's for another subject...
Life has improved alot since the real-time email and cellphone days
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
This movement touches on one of my central concerns. People are urged -- even required -- to spend more and more time at work.
Not only does this take a toll on life outside of work, it exacts a price at work. Exhaustion increases the likelihood of making mistakes. Perhaps more importantly, it also limits our ability to learn newer and better ways of doing things. It also affects our ability to discover new things.
As far as I can tell, this trend began during the 1970s and accelerated to the present day. What's interesting to me is the fact that the rate of productivity growth -- high in the quarter century after WWII -- dropped precipitously in the 1970s. This rate stayed low until the dot com bubble in the 1990s when productivity apparently soared. Now we're busy restating that productivity burst -- downwards.
Summing up, exhaustion carries a real price not only for society as a whole, but also possibly for business in particular.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
It is unfortunate that the web site complains about how we work more hours than other Western nations but fails to mention that we produce the greatest amount of technological, scientific, etc. innovations of any nation no the planet. Not that working less is bad. Rather, we need to not be delluded into thinking that working less is nothing 100% pure good. The gains of working longer are more subtle. By being more industrious and creating more innovations, we speed up the increase in the standard of living via invention and mass production. By working less we have more spare time but also less progress. Taking it to the extreme, the idea that we should be able to sit on our butts most of the time doing nothing productive for maintaining our lives while still have a good and growing standard of living is demanding a fantasy devoid of any objective reality.
So yes, we work more than the medival workers as the web site says, but we are also progressing technology, industry, science, etc. and thus our standard of living many times faster than they ever did.
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
I went from a 80 hour work week to a 50 hour work week and from a place I really didn't like to the number one location on my list.
......
I used to work for a semi-conductor manufacturer in Devlopement (no hints--but its product was the P4) and they were nice enough to hire me staright outta grad school. Then they were nice enough to expect stupifying hours, no weekends and 24 hours on call. But it paid my internet bills to
Find a job!
But it took a lot of persistance and didn't happen overnight. I spent roughly 16 months send out app after app, resume after resume, searching and searching for the right job. And then it happened.
Benifits:
No more anti-depresents
No more anxiety medication
Weekends off
Evenings off
Hair growing back
Threw pager in trash (ok so I turned it in when I left)
Downside:
None
Moral of story--if you don't like it CHANGE.
Soon enough companies figure out that they are losing their best people becuase of stress and overwork. But Why wait yourself--you can find an eqaul paying job with less stress. It takes only time and persistance.
Cthulhu for president!
I feel for you, as I've had those same bosses that, even in technical positions, don't understand the difference between just sitting in your office, pulling a George Costanza, and sitting in your office a few less hours per week because you do good work.
On the flip side, there are those that claim they are working at home, or work short weeks, that are basically trying their best to just get out of work, and then we have the "no one can work at home" statement by the manager after someone brings attention to him or her self. Sheesh, just fire the people that don't respond to their emails in a timely manner, or answer the phone, for goodness sakes!
Rather than telling us ahead of time, the Boston Globe informs us of this event on the day it is to occur.
To add insult to injury, Slashdot picks up the story, and runs it at about 3:00pm Eastern time, so that we east coasters have already put in the days work by the time we find out about it.
With a little advanced warning, maybe some of us would have been able to attend some of these events, or at a minimum, skipped work today on principle.
I'd like to see a "Slashdot Skip-Day," like back in high school. Watch the world grind to a halt when those of us that keep it running take a day off simultaneously!
(Actually, if we've all been doing our jobs correctly, everything would work fine in our absence... That's kind of scary too. Back to work I go...)
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
I am just finishing grad school. Some people assumed that I went because I had aspirations of being a professor. The more cynical people suggest that I went to avoid the real world.
In either case, I just want to say that grad school is a great way to take back your time. In computer science at least, they will basically pay you a reasonable salary to go to grad school (plus great benefits). More importantly for me, grad school has been a lot less work than most jobs. You also get to do interesting stuff rather adding feature bloat to the new widget for the local megacorp. Strangely enough, even though this is easy living, it is also very "prestigious" for some reason.
Once you are done, you are also eligible for a lot more jobs. I would suggest avoiding tenure-track professor jobs if you are interested in your time. But you can afford to be selective in finding a job since you are qualified for so many more jobs.
I will say that grad school is not necessarily the best way to get rich. If that is your goal then you may want to choose some other path. Of course, you could lose your money anyway. One nice thing about education is that you can't lose your it (other than through brain injury).
Also, I'm not saying there isn't hard work involved. But you are basically in control. You mostly set your own hours. And you can find (or at least look for) the work that motivates you.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
How does one enjoy a higher standard of living when they spend so much time working?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Type-A management. These people see a group of employees working 40-hour weeks and getting all their work done, and to their overheated little minds, it seems inefficient.
So they cut staff. If the work is still getting done on time, they cut more. Then, when deadlines start getting missed, they say things along the lines of, "well, the work still needs to be done. We all need to pitch in."
Then you get employees working 50-60 hour weeks to meet the deadlines. Then the boss gets a huge bonus for cutting costs and making the business line more efficient, and then goes on to "improve" another business line.
The only solution is to shoot them all (kidding! I'm just kidding! But not by much)
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
...by adding this to your /etc/hosts file:
0.0.0.0 slashdot.org
Has anyone else read the book Faster by James Gleick? It's a really interesting study on how, as a group, our idea of time has been modified in recent years. It seems as if the pace of everything has gotten "faster, quicker, more efficient" and yet, at the same time we should be reaping the rewards of all this efficiency with more free time, which obviously hasn't materialized.
Anyway, the book is really good and I recommend it (in addition to most of Gleick's other stuff.) It explores all the different aspects of how we treat time management in the modern world. For example, take the case of someone buying a complicated PDA or other gadget and then spending a whole lot of time configuring it, wrestling with sync software, entering all their contacts into the device, keeping batteries charged, etc. -- when their old method (probably a little black book or rolodex) took a lot less effort when you sum everything up. And yet, they feel like they're saving time. This is just one type of example that the book tries to delve into, and I'm afraid I haven't done it justice. The book was a very pleasant read and makes you think about a lot of things we do in the "modern age" (whatever that is.)
America's also more successful than the EU and those who choose to work hard in America enjoy a higher standard of living.
I think the definition of success is open to debate. Eight weeks of vacation sounds pretty successful to me.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Work hard, play hard. Americans need to get over being so god damned uptight about everything. We have forgotten how to kick back and have fun. Adults don't have to be stodgy.
Stress is for work, laughter is for the rest of the time.
What if you really do enjoy your job, as I'm sure a lot of the techies you know do?
And who ever said there was anything wrong with that? The article certainly didn't.
If you enjoy being paged in the middle of the night that's great. More power to you. But my time off work is my time. Too many companies expect overtime, pager time, etc. without any additional compensation. Sorry, but I decline.
Recently at work we were told that a deadline for a project was too far out and that something would have to change. The scope could not change, and if we couldn't figure out a way to do the work faster then I'd just have to work overtime. I said, outright, that I would not -- I have a nursery to finish and I'm not going to sacrifice my personal life because someone arbitrarily decided we should do more work in less time.
As it happens, we found a way to provide them with some of what they needed as a stop gap until the project is done, and doing so didn't impact the time schedule at all.
I don't despise my employer, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let them treat me like a disposable employee either. If you value your employees then you'll respect their lives. Too many companies have forgotten this, and then wonder why moral and productivity is so low.
America's also more successful than the EU and those who choose to work hard in America enjoy a higher standard of living.
Your argument is based on the potentially erroneous argument that "higher standard of living" equals "more happiness." Just because Americans have "more stuff" doesn't mean that they are happy. Basically - "Woo hoo, I have an Escalade, a Tivo and a 27" plasma TV - too bad I'm on my way to the hospital for my 2nd heart attack after my divorce."
Ref: This study by New Scientist. Note that Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world despite having a substantially lower "standard of living" than the US.
Also, I remember hearing that a survey showed a majority of Americans would rather have and additional week off from work rather than a raise of equal value, but I don't have time to look it up now.
The article didn't point out that this was due to the HUGE number of holidays the Europeans have.
All the food, wine and beer over there tastes better and most of the people you meet aren't self-involved assholes like they are here. You can talk about our "Higher standard of living" all you want to, but I'd have to contest the term "living". We're not living here in America. We're just keeping busy while waiting to die.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm working 40-50 hours a week, with 10 days of paid time off per year. That includes Days I Had The Flu (2), Days My Car Didnt Work (3). This would also include days I had to go to court for speeding tickets recieved while trying not to be late (0), but I just dont go to court. It would piss me off too much to think I could have saved that day for vacation. There are 2 months left in the year to take a vacation now, and since I left early one friday to beat the traffic (mistakenly, traffic was worse) I now have 4 1/2 days of vacation left after taking none.
I used to enjoy going on expeditions that would span months: kayaking, canoeing, hiking, biking, rock climbing, you name it. Now that I work all the time, I've spent a total of 2 days in the wilderness this entire year (illegal canoe trip on a polluted Illinois river). I'm completely burned out, have little interest in writing software anymore and have a bad case of insomnia.
All I have to say is you don't see people going postal too often in Canada. Or any other country for that matter.
TallGreen CMS hosting
I agree with this notion entirely... I took 4 months off work last year. I gave my last client 4 months notice before I left and they begged me to stay on for another month when it was time for me to leave. I said sure but I would only work 2 days a week.
During those 4 months I took off, I left chilly Ottawa in December and visited some friends in California for about 3 weeks and spent some time re-evaluating what I wanted out of life. I've been through work burnout a couple of times and I promised myself that I wouldn't let it happen again after I had a relationship fail as a result of it.
As for working for free, I don't agree with it. You are paid for a 37.5 hour workweek or whatever you sign for when you get hired. Any extra time you do should be rewarded somehow (and not with the promise of keeping your job either) because that is time taken away from your personal life.
I have some friends at Accenture who are fed the whole "Up or Out" crap speech at their town hall meetings. After putting in 60+ hour work weeks, for months, they were given a speech on how things have been going well but they really needed people to sacrifice their time at home to make the project succeed.
My friend then told me that several of her teammates were in tears because their family life was already suffering enough and then they were told that they need to sacrifice more (without pay of course). My friend is almost done the project she is working on there and then she is leaving because she doesn't believe in their attitude that family is last on the priority list.
Some people have noted though that it is your choice to work the 60+ hour work weeks. And someone mentioned that working for a workaholic who doesn't have kids or good friends is tough as well because they expect you to do the same. I agree, I've been there and you are made to feel guilty if you leave at 4:00pm even though you showed up before everyone else (7:00am) I used to get comments about "banker's hours" but I told them that I was at work while they were crawling out of bed.
Hopefully the article will turn on a couple of lightbulbs in peoples heads and make the world a better place because they will spend some more time with the people they love (and who love and need them in return).
Have a good weekend folks.
Hyperhyper
Damn straight! I'm $120,000 in debt right now. No way I could have that in the EU, it'd be 150,000+ pounds, or euros, or francs or some other such non-dollar amount. How the hell would I know what I'm not worth if the debt I'm drowning in is not measured in dollars?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
This statement makes it seem that we overwork so that we can have an abundance of material wealth. Sorry, wrong. Maybe I'm alone in this but I work my ass off just to make ends meet.
I don't think you're alone in it, but I don't think you're the target audience.
When we decided to have kids (or, as it turned out, "a kid" and stop there) we looked at our lives. My husband and I are both geeks (he's a Unix sysadmin, I an AS/400 sysadmin/developer, both with a side of Perl), both making pretty fair money (for flyover country, anyhow), and we didn't want our kid(s) raised by daycare.
So we sat down and looked at our budget, and figured out just how much money we were spending just to buy our time back... paying for everything from restaurant meals to lawnmowing. And we realized that if we stopped doing all that, we could cut our household income in half and it wouldn't lower our standard of living.
And so I quit. Now, it means I have to do a lot of housework and other "manual labor" instead of playing with "big iron" all day. But, you know, I still get to play with Perl and do the *fun* stuff that I want to do (and, obviously, read Slashdot in the middle of the day, just like I always did), and take on the occasional contract job to keep my resume fresh.
But I'm digressing: it's the folks that *don't* take that road that are dragging you and everybody else along into this work-and-consume cycle... there are kids in my son's playgroup who are playing soccer already. They're getting pushed into organized sports when they turn THREE. It's a nightmare trying to schedule something with parents of older kids... they're rushing from practice to game to tournament, and kids are going to out-of-town and out-of-state tournaments in freakin' ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Grabbing fast-food in the drive-through, and working overtime at two jobs to pay for the health club membership they don't have time to use, and so forth and so on.
It's nuts. Maybe we're atypical, but I think we're better off now.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
While the sentiment of the movement behind this article makes much sense, I just don't think it is practical in a free market system.
Free markets are all about competition. The pressure to remain competitive by getting more for less in all aspects of business squeezes everyone...management, employees, and the entire supply chain...to capture and sustain market share. If legislative measures attempt to "take back employees' time", businesses will have no other recourse but to continue the pursuit of a competitive edge through other means.
In a business world where unemployment has risen to moderately uncomfortable levels (especially in the tech sector), the economy is recovering only through measures that do not create additional jobs, and trends toward international outsourcing of business functions are increasing...drawing a line in the sand will only result in businesses being forced to look beyond the US workforce to carry on. As long as there is a pool of workers who will do *anything* just to have a job (and those people will always exist), things cannot, and will not change.
Let's face it, the modern era workforce is depreciable capital in the same way buildings and machinery were in the industrial age. You buy it, beat it, break it, all with the firm understanding that someday you must replace it.
I think this is what is meant by the phrase, "victims of their own success".
I love free markets and the innovation brought about by competition, but to get the good, you must willingly accept the bad. It's a trade off.
If you value free time and the opportunity to do your own things in your own way or to be with your family/friends more than having a bigger car/house this development is not good. If you like your work and just HAVE to have this huge SUV to impress your neighbours, don't mind to be stressed till you break down and think material wealth is everything, then nothing is wrong. But at least, give people a chance to choose what they want, more time for themselves or just more money.
Personally, I would choose for time.
(I live in the Netherlands (!= Holland),so i work 40 hours/week. Even that is too much sometimes, as working pressure can be very high here. This country is more productive per hour as most other countries, including the USA. The only reason our yearly productivity is lower than the USA's is the fact we work less hours, and if I believed in a god, I would thank it for that.)
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
Is it worth it? Do americans have a choice?
He believe's things are sooo bad today.
So, I ask this question: Do you really want to go back to a time when everyone worked the farm, 4:30am-till dark, work. bed, repeat. every day for the rest of your life...which usually ended around 45 for men?
So yes, I work ~50 hrs a week which leaves 118hrs, I sleep 8hrs, leaving 62hrs to play with my son, work on personal projects, etc.
There's alot of professions in this world...maybe those that are unhappy should consider a new one.
-----
--- Just say no to negativity.
Oh please! Quit being such a free market fanboy and stop viewing "quality of life" in terms of raw GDP.
This article from the Economist which pretty much debunks the notion that Americans are so much better off than Europeans.
The simple fact is a lot of the stuff we spend money on, such as excessive prisons and gold plated highways that foster urban sprawl, raises our GDP output, but not our general welfare.
Chasing the leader
Feb 6th 2003
From The Economist print edition
Are Europeans really so much worse off than Americans?
AMERICA has been the world's economic leader for over a century. Economic theory suggests that western Europe should be catching up. Yet average GDP per head in the European Union, measured at purchasing-power parity, is only three-quarters of that in the United States. A popular explanation is that European firms are less productive because they are hampered by labour- and product-market regulation. But European productivity, measured by output per hour worked, has in fact almost caught up with America's. If Europeans are so productive, though, why are they apparently so much poorer than Americans?
America's much-trumpeted "productivity miracle" in the late 1990s created the misleading impression that Europe significantly lags America in the productivity league. It is true that, since 1995, American GDP per hour worked has risen by an annual average of 1.9%, compared with only 1.3% in the European Union. However, over any longer period, up to half a century, Europe's productivity growth has outpaced America's. Since 1990 American productivity has risen by 1.6% a year; the EU's has risen by 1.8%. Since 1950 America's productivity growth has averaged 2%, Europe's 3.3%. According to figures from the Conference Board, an American business group, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands all now boast higher output per hour than the United States. Average productivity in the EU is still 7% less, largely because of lower productivity in Britain, Spain, Greece and Portugal--but the gap has continued to close over the past decade.
The narrowing of the productivity gap has not, however, been reflected in living standards, as measured by GDP per head. The chart, taken from an analysis* by Robert Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University, shows how Europe's productivity and GDP per head fell relative to America's from the mid-19th century until around 1950. Productivity has since rebounded, almost reaching American levels. GDP per head, on the other hand, rose sharply until 1970, but then flattened off at 77% of America's.
The surge in Europe's productivity since 1950 is largely explained by reconstruction after the war and the belated exploitation of electricity and the mass production of cars--40 years after America. The puzzle is why Europe's GDP per head has lagged so far behind productivity. Germany's GDP per man-hour is 1% higher than in America, but its GDP per person is 25% lower. The main reason is that average hours worked in Europe have fallen so sharply. In part, this reflects an increase in unemployment and withdrawals from the labour force; but it also reflects a preference for shorter working weeks and longer holidays.
A broader analysis of living standards, based on economic welfare rather than crude GDP, argues Mr Gordon, would place some value on Europeans' greater leisure time. But how much of the depressing effect of shorter hours on Europe's GDP per head should be ascribed to people's free choice to take longer holidays than overworked Americans, and how much to union pressure or government policies that try to spread jobs by compulsory limits on hours of work? Mr Gordon guesses that one-third of the discrepancy between Europe's productivity and its GDP per head, relative to America's, represents freely chosen leisure. Corrected for this, Europe's income per
More than anything else, you ignoring one fact about individual insurance: the cost. You can't get good and affordable comprehensive health insurance when you buy individually; you have no negotiating leverage. That's why the working poor are, for the most part, uninsured: when you buy alone, it's cheaper to self-insure with your own savings and risk catastrophic bills than to pay a fixed premium that almost certainly won't pay off.
That fact, in turn, is why advocates for the working poor keep pushing for state insurance pools for low-income working people. Such a pool would have vast leverage with the insurance companies. (It would, however, hurt the well-established. Many of us would lose our health benefits shortly after such a poll were established.)
You're confusing "standard of living" with "quality of life". A frequent mistake. "Standard of living" is how much shit you can buy, your buying power, and what causes some people to say "he who dies with the most toys, wins". "Quality of life" is how much you enjoy your life, how healthy you are, how much stress you have, and the like. Considering most americans are fatasses, the level fo stress here, the length of daily commutes, and other factors, I'd say that that American "Quality of Life" is actually quite low. That's hwat you get when your society is so materialistic, I guess.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
1) Be very agressive about defining EXACTLY what is to be accomplished by working extra hours. That enables people to meet those goals before the hours actually start. I've been able to diffuse a number of "team must work the weekend" events down to a few people coming in for a few hours. Refuse to go to useless meetings if there is a time crunch that is pressuring you to work long hours.
2) Force peoples hands by being the most "extreme" worker around. If someone wants a meeting at 6:00pm, say "I would love to, but I really have to go do some stuff - I'd be happy to meet at midnight though" (or 5am for you early types). If you are serious and willing to go through with this few will call you on this and usually back off the semi-unreasonable timeframe. A bonus benefit is that if they do decide to go for it, you only loose out on sleep, which you them make up at work to prove a point about how they shouldn't take your time.
3) Be accomidating during real crises, it gives you more leverage when they want to use your time just for the hell of it. Just one overnighter can be pointed to for a year as an example of why you are not working THIS weekend/evening.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The birth of my daughter ten days ago makes me a stay at home dad that occasionally works as a project manager with a local software development firm. My wife is the breadwinner and it made sense for me to be the caregiver.
So what are the costs of this for me and my family?
- Or newest car is almost 6 years old and a new one is no where in sight.
- There is no way we can now afford to move into a bigger house, even though it would be nice.
- I can't afford a boat, personal watercraft, RV, vactaion overseas or pretty much anywhere for that matter.
- I don't have some fancy title or job to brag about to others. My business cards would say "Dad".
I could of course go on. But what I gain is the satisfaction of raising my daughter myself, not some stranger at daycare. I can take her to the doctor when needed, we can go on walks whenever we like, read a book, etc. I don't have the play money I used to and I won't have the "stuff" that that money could buy, but my stress level is SO much lower and I get great satisfaction knowing that I am doing the right thing. I might also add that this situation also makes things much easier on my wife as I can take care of the daily family tasks. She doesn't have to worry about anyting once she gets home from work.
I've taken back my time and I love it.
I saw a program on Tv once (I know, timewasting again) where they took a couple with two kids and two jobs, and calculated how much 'extra' cash they'd gained by the wife working. Call it X.
:)
Then they worked out the costs of day care, days off to take the kids to the doctor, the extra petrol for running to & from daycare, the jobs, the other associated costs... Call it Y.
Imagine the reaction when they revealed to this stressed, harried, 'overworked' couple that X was less than Y. She could quit her job and spend all day with her kids, and be better off!
She cried, he cried, she quit - and they all lived happily ever after...
Mark
PS The only reason she quit, I recall, was that he earned more. That's a whole other thread though
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How did this get modded +4, Insightful? It's pure flamebait (my bet), or its a pretty awful misunderstanding of economics. People will always go for this shit more when the economy is down, too. Have IBT? Maybe. But I still like to argue.
I'm a little curious who this "french philosopher" is, but not really. Macroeconomic theory changed drastically in the late 19th century, which ties in to the birth of the field as an actual discipline in itself (instead of merely the province of bored clerks, philosophers, and suchlike). Suffice to say, we've come a long, long way since this argument held any water in serious discussion--it seems plausible, though, so people get away with it all the time amongst those who haven't taken any economic theory.
First problem: this theory assumes that labor (or work) is directly proportional to productivity, which is demonstrably not true. Productivity is a function of labor and CAPITAL (tools, training, materials, etc), such that the exact output is determined by "technology", loosely speaking (you could also say "technique"). Take Heinlein's great example of apple pie: a skilled chef can take raw ingredients and make a wonderfully valuable, tasty, expensive pie, while a clueless moron can turn those same ingredients (which already have some value) into a disgusting, inedible mess. Note also that the quality of the ingredients (e.g., good vs. rotten apples) or the quality of the tools (full restaurant kitchen vs. a hot plate and a paint stirrer) is a TREMENDOUS influence on the value of the pie that is the output.
An American costs a hell of a lot more to feed, clothe, and put in an SUV, it's true. But it's also true that the American produces a hell of a lot more wealth per hour of labor (generally, but not true for every case) than a Third-world counterpart. By the time we start working for a living, we mostly have better education and job skills than they do. Also, we tend to have longer working lives, because we live longer and stay healthier. It IS true that you will have a higher standard of living if you produce more value, so it's not surprising that we're materially better off.
Consider, also, the fact that capital (not just money, but all real property and knowledge) tends to accumulate over the years, given mostly stable circumstances. Millions of people every year cross the Brooklyn bridge, work in the Empire State Building, and drive on our interstate highway system. If you don't get how, consider that a trucker might make twice as many trips between customers per day on a nice superhighway than he would on a narrow cobblestone road, because he can go faster.
These valuable things, when injected into the American labor/capital function, enhance the amount that we can produce with a given amount of labor. All the cars, trucks, houses, offices, and roads all over the country are a part of this production function, enabling a much higher level of output. We have invested a hell of a lot over the years in building this capital stock, and it pays us back every day.
I'm not going to say that sweatshops are fair or unfair. "Exploitation", as it were, does exist in capitalist market economies, and it happens all the time, but it's not the reason why the modern First world is rich. I will pay an employee as much per hour as will maximize my profits. If the labor market is supply-heavy, I can get away with lower salaries because the workers have less choices, but it's true just as often that a worker can pick and choose, driving salaries up. The amount of power a worker has depends on how unique and productive he/she can be, meaning that you tend to make more money as a worker if you're educated and skilled.
In countries with masses of unskilled potential laborers, factory-type employers can usually pay a wage that's barely enough to make a worker better than they'd be without the factory jobs--some people call these sweatshops. Nobody has the power to bargain for a better wage because there's probably anoth
You mean you do things other than working? That isn't obvious from reading /.
Higher quality of life: I prefer walking in forests that aren't dying because of acid rain. As for the air you breath...
I have moved from a 60 hour week to a 28 hour week. My health (physical and mental) are much better. I go to the swimming pool twice a week and walk everywhere I can rather than drive. I cook all our food. It saves us about 15-20% compared with prepared food (frozen, canned, delicatesen). It tastes better and is healthier too.
On the financial side I earn less but I also pay less social security and tax. The interesting part is that I have more time to spend the part that is left over after the taxman has passed!
My other half has 45 days paid holiday (9 weeks) and works full time now. For the last 10 years she had been working from home while raising the kids. We just swapped roles at the end of last year. Now our sons are old enough to need dad around to help with homework etc.
They are very different from some of the other childern we know - the ones who only see their parents on the weekend...
That is what I call quality of life (reminds me of the scene from a Monty Python movie...)
realkiwi
when you buy alone, it's cheaper to self-insure with your own savings and risk catastrophic bills than to pay a fixed premium that almost certainly won't pay off
Bullshit. Health insurance is more affordable than going to the hospital. It's that simple. You can just keep your savings and hope to God that you never get a serious disease/injury, but a lady I work with would've made about $30K if she'd had disability insurance (which is a form of health insurance) when she had surgery recently. It's not that the insurance company is price-gouging you anyway. It's the medical community that charges outrageous rates. It's very rare that I lose money on my health insurance for a year (due to dental, etc).
You can't get good and affordable comprehensive health insurance when you buy individually;
You can get good and comprehensive coverage that is more affordable than the doctors you'll have to see. Obviously insurance companies expect to make more than they pay in claims, but many individuals are saved economically because of health insurance, and many others are fucked over royally by the doctors who claim to be trying to help them because they can't afford treatment.
That's why the working poor are, for the most part, uninsured
No, it's not. The reason they're uninsured is because medical care is so insanely expensive that companies can't afford to insure them at a rate they can afford. That's not because of "negotiating leverage". It's because of simple addition. If you spend more than you make, you don't get a profit!