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Vive La Loafing!
theodp writes "Bonjour Paresse, an anti-corporation slacker manifesto whose title translates as 'Hello Laziness,' has become a national best seller in France and made a countercultural heroine of its author, who encourages workers to adopt her strategy of calculated loafing in response to dimming prospects of success for rank-and-file employees. Could a translation find a Silicon Valley audience?"
In english: reading/posting on slashdot (e.g. I should be working on X but wonder if CowboyNeal is mentioned in the latest slashpoll)
in response to dimming prospects of success for rank-and-file employees.
Got news for you, there was a terrific article in the Detroit Free Press back in the 80's regarding the epic scale slacking which contributed to the ills of the automotive industry. Overly strong unions and workers with an "I deserve stuff" attitude resulted in many of the anecdotes of redundant jobs and slacking where the line was already overstaffed (workers taking turns going across the street for a few quarts of beer and sitting on the roof working on tans and such.) I went to school with a lot of laid-off workers who recounted many tales which often even amazed them by the audacity of the perpetrators. Slacking is by no means unique or original to people in IT.
Could a translation find a Silicon Valley audience?
Dunno, when Silicon Valley finally hires a a worker I'll ask.
Work hard. Learn new skillz. Get sacked anyway
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Can't be bothered to RTFA, I've got too much slashdotting to do here at work before lunch rolls around.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Let the weenies that hate their work slack away. When the annual review comes up the people that take pride or work hard will move ahead. Then the weenies will bitch about not being liked, etc. ANYTHING but looking in the mirror and taking responsibility for their place on the ladder.
Trolling is a art,
This mostly pertains to France, which is similar to other European countries whereby employees stay at one job, for life, and very rarely get fired.
I think US citizens should focus on different things, like getting 3 or 4 weeks of vacation per year, not just two.
Also, some professions are not equal in the USA. Medical residents, for example, are under the same employee laws as everyone else, but routinely work 100 to 120 hours per week. Only *now* are they starting to get tired of it and fight back.
Good for them, because that kind of thing is outrageous and needs to change.
Instead of focusing on "Bonjour Paresse", people should focus on working to live, not living to work. Or, how to be a good employee and not slack off, bringing down the system.
Walley. (read: Dilbert.)
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Are you aware of who you're posting to?
All we are is lazy. This post is the proof!
Who do I have to blackmail to get some representation around here!?!?!?!?
Why is coffee so popular?
We're just not physically constructed so to endure 8+ daily hours of work.
Just look at any other animal.
On the title of a very famous French book called Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness).
John.
And give businesses more excuses to outsource.
If you are so worried about the dead-end/exiting nature of the lower/middle jobs, start kissing major butt to move into managment.
Or maybe start your own business doing something you are interested in.
And if you still think loafing is the way to go, please do not procreate.
Nothing is wrong with being lazy as long as its efficient. If you'll get paid either way why ever work harder than you need to? Work just hard enough to make the money you need to spend time with the people who truely matter and pay your bills.
You gain nothing by working harder, the company just exploits you and makes you work even harder. You won't get an increase of pay and even if you do you have to weight the time and freedom loss against that increase of pay, most of the time they arent big enough increases.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
I'd have to imagine that that sounds much more attractive in the original French. Let's see what Babelfish says:
"pourquoi gangrene non écarté par le système de l'intérieur ?"
Yes, I was right. That sounds much more attractive. I'd like some, but without the butter.
Let's see, you read this, you get like 1-2 months off every year, then you piss-and-moan about Americans being more successful.
She just wants everyone else to do nothing so she comes out looking all good, teachers pet! :-/
I should move to France, I'd be a model worker!
So a French author advocates not doing the task in front of you; merely give that so-expressive French shrug with the palms upward. I guess this explains all the French military victories. Merely look like you're fighting a war, don't overdo it! Also: "Given the difficulty of firing employees, she says, frustrated superiors are more likely to move such subversive workers up than out." Let me just say right here that France has got to be quite different from America in this aspect. The firing process in America is a smooth, well-oiled and often-used machine.
While you slackers piss and moan about work being pointless, there will be more room for us who will be able to demonstrate a real committment to work and you twits will be the ones out on the street continung to whine about the job situation.
[the author] argues that France's ossified corporate cultural no longer offers rank-and-file employees the prospect of success, so, "why not spread gangrene through the system from inside?"
Interesting concept. Of course, I'd have to read the book to get the full explanation of this philosophy, but I think corporatist/capitalist countries have in fact gotten to the point where the corporate culture isn't one where one can aspire to promote themselves, but moreso just make sure that they're going to have a job come tomorrow morning. Business administration seems to have gotten to the point where employees have become so anonmyous and replaceable that, for the most part, it seems no one is encouraged to maintain or even develop a sense of loyalty. Maybe her suggestion to eat out these corporations from the inside could prove to light a fire under their asses. On the other hand, as I think anyone can attest to being displayed in the past, it will most likely just instill the people in charge to take away more and more rights and benefits from the employees as a means to counter-act the half-assed work they're getting in return for paying out salaries. Ah well, the door swings both ways it would seem. I guess it'd just be safe enough to admit that we're all pretty much fucked.
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
Seems like a self fulfilling prophecy, but French socialists are the first to complain when the little guy actually gets a piece of the action from a company instead of the State.
The fact is that in Europe tech employees don't benefit as much from options etc whether at startups or larger corporations. The typical reaction however is not to expect better rewards or demand a piece of the pie (with the corporate tax incentives that are required to encourage it) but to tax the hide off profitable corporations and wealthy individuals a.k.a. "fat cats". There are no angel investors in Europe and almost no engineer level guys who made it rich in the rank & file who are then able to comfortably start their own business.
The typical small business starts out there with one or two guys, no cash (or a bank loan taken against your house) and maybe a grant from the EU or some development commission.
...just for writing the book. I had read this BBC article a few weeks ago:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3935669.stm
...as about half the French corporate workforce is on vacation right now. Probably not the best season to try to advise them.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Say it frenchy - CHOWDA
Don't Tread on Me
Is here.
John.
Actually, that's not a bad idea. If not overused, the inflatable tank technique is quite effective. :)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This is old hat. Guy Debord's Internationale Situationniste was daubing "ne travaillez jamais" on walls back when it was formenting the Paris student riots of 1969. And they meant it, man ...
I would prefer not to.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of people slacking off! Oh, I guess that wouldn't do much, never mind.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I know it's kind of cynical, but I live in France, and this isn't vry counter-culture at all. There's a continuous struggle between those who try to take advantage of the system from the bottom (the "lazy" ones), and those who are trying to take advantage from the top (what we usually term "evil corporations"). The French are working on equitable treatment all around, and for the most part they get it. (36 hour work weeks, I get 7 weeks of paid vacation a year, great social care/ health insurace, and no, the taxes are almost exactly what I paid in the United States. They're only very sharp once you get to the 150,000 and up range.) The downside is that there are many who take advantage of this to try and bilk the system. I'm glad to be here, because they do right by me, and I try to do right by them, but the worst of the lot are really making things terrible for the companies that are trying to do the right thing, and aren't "evil".
If you'd bother to read the (very short) article at all, you'd know that actually part of the reason she proposes slacking is in fact to get ahead!
It's very dependant on the French business climate, but basically she says that since you have no chance to advance through good work (becaue the system is very rigid and based on tenure or diplomas), instead slack off in ways that few people notice - since the system makes it almost impossible (or very unlikley) to fire you, a boss will more likley move you up somewhere else than try to deal with you!
Now for an American slant - could you please let us all know where you work where your review determines how much you move forward? I have had a great carreer but any movements up have been more about me forcing the issue than being moved up because of good reviews. And I've seen plenty of people move up the ladder without good reviews to back them. Reviews, and pandering to them, are possibly the most pointless waste of time ever invented by humanity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
According to the article, she works 20 hours a week for $24k a year = $25/hr? I know plenty of college grads making less than that, working twice as many hours. What a hard life she must have...
How could I practice calculated slacking and still respect myself?
-Rich
Since the early 80's a 'zine published in San Francisco called "Processed World" has dished up biting criticism and satire of the Amerikan workplace, all with an outrageous sense of humour.
One of their early mottos: "Time is money, steal some today."
http://www.processedworld.com/
What I don't understand is how this qualifies as countercultural in France...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
"...if you don't like your job, you don't quit, you just go in every day and do it really half ass, that's the American way." - Homer Simpson
If you just walk around with a bit of paper in your hand you look busy and can make sure you achieve nothing.
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Such a philosophy would never become popular in Silicon Valley. The very fear of losing one's job increases the motivation to be productive. It keeps the employees on edge.
Unfortunately, nonexistent job security and a pessimistic outlook are the future. Employee complacence is much like a disease which can quickly destroy a company's competitve edge.
IMHO when France finally gets hit by outsourcing, it will be a very painful transition.
There was a time when factories ran around the clock and would then close down for months on end until all their stock was sold. The workers had a great solution to this problem called "The Stint," an agreed upon rate of production that no worker would go over. To quote Joanne B. Ciulla:
Employers were constantly trying to make employees work faster. Most workplaces had a stint, and those who failed to maintain it by doing too much or too little were ostracized. Workers who upheld the stint despite the curses of their boss earned reputations as "good men" and trustworthy masters of the trade. The worker restriction of output symbolized "unselfish brotherhood," personal dignity, and "cultivation of the mind." One reason why the stint was important is that workers wanted control over the amount of time that they worked. Businesses at this time often ran factories around the clock and then shut down for months at a time.
Another interesting part of the workingman's moral code was having a "manly bearing" toward the boss. In the nineteenth century this popular expression was an honorific signifying dignity, respect, and egalitarianism. A person earned his honorific by refusing to work while the boss was watching. It is useful to reflect on the difference between only working when the boss is watching and not working when the boss is watching. They are both gestures of defiance, but one is about keeping one's job and the other is about keeping one's dignity. The first says, "I don't want to work, but I will, because you are watching." The second says, "I'll work because I want to, not because you are watchingThere was a time when factories ran around the clock and would then close down for months on end until all their stock was sold. The workers had a great solution to this problem called "The Stint," an agreed upon rate of production that no worker would go over. To quote Joanne B. Ciulla:
Employers were constantly trying to make employees work faster. Most workplaces had a stint, and those who failed to maintain it by doing too much or too little were ostracized. Workers who upheld the stint despite the curses of their boss earned reputations as "good men" and trustworthy masters of the trade. The worker restriction of output symbolized "unselfish brotherhood," personal dignity, and "cultivation of the mind." One reason why the stint was important is that workers wanted control over the amount of time that they worked. Businesses at this time often ran factories around the clock and then shut down for months at a time.
Another interesting part of the workingman's moral code was having a "manly bearing" toward the boss. In the nineteenth century this popular expression was an honorific signifying dignity, respect, and egalitarianism. A person earned his honorific by refusing to work while the boss was watching. It is useful to reflect on the difference between only working when the boss is watching and not working when the boss is watching. They are both gestures of defiance, but one is about keeping one's job and the other is about keeping one's dignity. The first says, "I don't want to work, but I will, because you are watching." The second says, "I'll work because I want to, not because you are watching."
...after their round of golf, sitting in the 19th hole, waiting for their expense account meal to be served. They can bemoan the "new laziness" of their overpaid, overbenefitted employees.
do {
/.
if task=1
do task;
else if task=0&lab=empty {
for x=0;x300;x++
Surf google
for x=0;x300;x++
read;
for x=0;x300;x++
Surf
}task=1;
}while in_work=true;
Then I had a temp job with the state where I worked equally as hard as everyone else. They got rid of me 'cause I was only average.
Then I had a job I loved working for private industry, that paid twice as much as the best job I ever had before, and was gratifying, and made me feel good about myself (even though I was always tired), and I liked my supervisor, and he thought I was pretty cool, too. Someone there didn't like me (still not sure why) and so *shoop* I'm not there anymore.
Guns are still legal, right? Or do I have to go to Iraq for that nowadays? Oh well, either way.
That way, I'll look like a hard working yes-man, and I can move up that corporate ladder straight into Mohogany Row.
Seriously, have these businesses considered a no loafing sign?
I am living in India's capital, New Delhi. And the condition of government departments here is stagnating. According to the official hours, you work from 10AM to 6PM. But the schedule goes something like this:
10AM - Crowd bundles up at the office
10:30 to 11:00AM - The staff arrives
11:00 to 12:30PM - Work!
12:30PM to 1:00PM - Closed for Lunch
1:00 to 1:15PM - Getting-all-the-gas-out break
Then it is followed by some work, lots of bribery, lots of chatter with friends while the common man waits for his turn and so on...
On paper, its actually 40-45 hr weeks, but in reality its much less. And thats the situation in cities. In villages its worse than anything. No work for days, and that too only thru bribery. And OTOH, the private sector employee works his ass off till night to make himself and country proud (and also to pay off those heavy bribes). Sad and sic!
Venality and slackness would kill Indian dreams.
Passive resistance can work wonders (just ask Ghandi) but if one really wishes to effect change with this technique a message would somehow have to be communicated to the powers-that-be telling them what sorts of changes were required.
Who knows? There are definitely some employees out there getting abused by their managers. Possibly this technique (used surgically) could help them get basic rights.
Used haphazardly I suspect that this technique could do a lot of harm.
... that the book was funded by an Indian outsourcing firm. It would be in their interest to perpetrate the notion that Western workers are lazy and ineffectual.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm either going to wait for the English translation, or learn French! I hope the book will make its way to these U.S. shores, but I'm sure The Man will do whatever he can to stop it. OMG! Such subversion! What? People shouldn't work their guts out at jobs they hate for less and less money with no hope of advancement? Damn! That could bring this whole country down. Can't have that! That's a danger to homeland security!
Seriously, has anyone noticed how our corporate overlords and their government stooges have been less and less subtle about suppressing expressions of dissent in the media? I'm going to see if this is on Amazon yet...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
It seems to be less of a pro-lazyness rant than a "how to get ahead by bucking the system" rant.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Cause I was SOOOO busy working...
FYI: Not every company does the merit-based-raise. I'm 24, so in my company that amounts to 4% over two years. Also known as jack shit. Nevermind all of the old mainframe guys come to me with every stupid html/javascript question you can think of...
So even though I get more done than everyone else, I try to keep it close... by reading Slashdot all of the time.
Hey! You're getting paid for that!
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
bread was the only thing they could do anyway! [/joke type=bad]
on another note, if enough french people are lazy, then perhaps they won't get in the way of our war crazy democratically elected dictators! [/joke type=man are you even trying?]
Gee.
And then we're complaining about loosing our jobs to India and other countries.
The less code you write, the less bugs you introduce.
So a Frenchwoman, an economic adviser to the electricity industry no less, does something similar and it's:
- Jokes about the French (rather than useless management) on
/. - A disciplinary hearing.
My conclusion: We're all much the same. And my other conclusion: I hope she makes as much money as Scott Adams. It would go some way to show there is some kind of justice in the world.Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I actually knew someone like that at one job. Brilliant (in one sense) guy who did his work for the week in a few hours (smart). Then, he spent the rest of the week smoking and reading sci-fi novels on the balcony (not so smart). Enough people eventually complained that he got fired, but it took over a year.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail86.html
The French lazy and slow? No way! :)
Cyanobyte
Aw, forget it - too much work.
Have you seen Office Space?
Of the Bobs: Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
Peter: I wouldn't say I've been 'missing' it Bob.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
MintRubbing.ORG There is an organisation dedicated to promoting such an attitude among romanians since 2000 :o)
This slacking thing seems like a whole lot of work if you have to read a big ole' book to figure out how to do it...
What is slashdot?
Slacking must be principled. If you have a pointless job and are going nowhere, ok, slack. On the other hand, if you have a white collar job that allows you to sit in a padded adjustible height chair and browse the internet, you are probably already better off than the vast majority of humanity. It means that some other chump has to pick up the slack because you decide to take out your ennui about the dismal nihilism of life in your workplace instead of confining such gestures to solitary binge drinking on weekends, like the rest of us schmoes do.
And if you are going to slack, slack productively! Become an activist or a political grafitti artist or something so the rest of us slobs have something amusing to look out on through our windows.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Forgot where I heard it but it fits:
2 groups of workers are walking along a road in France and in the US. Both groups are passed by some guy in [desireable car].
Typical response of US worker is "how do I get one of those [desireable cars]!"
Typical response of the French worker is "How do I get him out of that [desireable car] and down here in the mud with us!"
Although we both had democratic revolutions against tyranies, the underlieing philosophies differed significantly, creating a very different cultures that describe themselves as Democratic. Fraternite, egalitae, libertae
Brotherhood, Equality, Liberty. Through the socialist lens this tends to mean don't get too far ahead or else. We're all equal and here's a law to keep you on the ground with us. Look at Legal maximum work weeks at 35 hours (has this changed?). Wouldn't want anyone to work too hard and make the rest of the shop look bad by showing the 'quota' is set to barely moving level. Hey, wait, France IS one big union shop, heh.
I am suspect of a manifesto about slacking written by someone in a country where it is against the law to work more than a certain number of hours a day.
Now I am not criticizing that kind of life style, just questioning the applicability of that kind of a document in the US. People are pretty much expected to work overtime and weekends these days.
100% Crunchier
We're actually very well placed to see how companies take advantage of their workforce, how big business takes advantage of the consumer, how lawyers take advantage of open software, how studios and labels take advantage of politicians, how politicians take advantage of contributors, how speculators take advantage of patents, how Microsoft takes advantage of its monopoly, how megacorps take advantage of low labour costs overseas, ... I'm sure I spot a trend here.
... perhaps the music industry and their troubles owing to MP3 downloads is the only really good example of "the people" gaining something useful by being able to shaft some other party.
Everybody is taking advantage of everyone else, and the lowly worker at the bottom of this foodchain doesn't have many good targets to take advantage of
In this very lopsided and unfair environment, slacking does actually seem pretty fair.
"who encourages workers to adopt her strategy of calculated loafing"
The Wally-ing of France/America
"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence, is indistinguishable from malice." Grey's Law
http://www.zpub.com/notes/black-work.html
I know that a lot of people here and elsewhere in the US can't see past Silicon Valley, but here, too, there are no angel investors, etc. The vast majority of smally businesses in the US start just like you said (including my business).
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
The French drink more, smoke more and do less than most Westerners. Yet they are third in the WHO rankings for life expectancy behind Japan and Australia while the United States languishes in 24th place. All I can say is that the French must be doing something right.
Americans work harder for longer hours, get paid more but die earlier. The French work less hours, get more holidays and live longer. So who is really the most successful?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Mentions 4 countries with greater productivity per hour worked than the US. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/07/art3full.pdf
I don't think the book's message is that relevant to U.S.
(...)Given the difficulty of firing employees, she says, frustrated superiors are more likely to move such subversive workers up than out.(...)
She apprently didn't watch The Apprentice.
"You're FIRED" (don't forget Trumpish arm/wrist push & pull)
The French and Germans have loads of holidays compared to North Americans, and yet their productivity per capita is actually higher than in the USA.
No. Productivity per capita is actually just 72%.
Now, productivity per hour worked IS greater than that of the USA, but this actually makes sense when you consider the extent of the welfare state in Europe. Fewer workers supporting many people MUST produce more just so they have enough left for themselves after pulling the load of everyone else.
So her point I guess is a mental strike. Instead of fixing the rotting system from the inside by working harder and going nowhere, accelerate the rotting by doing nothing. Either they will have to give up on their socio-political HR poilicies and start basing promotion, hiring and firing on applicable indicators like skill or die by their own hand.
I'm suprised, France, that's very capitialistic of you. And here I thought you didn't swing that way.
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
Not to be confused with measuring your turds.
Sorry folks, I know it's sophomoric, but it's Monday, and I'm bored, the thought popped into my head, it made me laugh, and for some reason I decided to share it with the world.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
"Quit your job for Bob!"
www.subgenius.com
This message has been preached for years but do you think the pinks are listening?
If "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and "it was beauty that killed the beast" then "please stop staring at me".
Let the weenies that hate their work slack away
:-)
You don't get it. Slacking is a good thing for the economy. Slackers decrease productivity and force employers to hire more workers to get the job done. The problem is that employers also try to find ways to automate a lot of tasks to save money and hire fewer workers. Therefore slacking indirectly increases unemployment and productivity. This forces the slackers to slack even more -> Nasty self-feeding cycle ensues. Snowbal effect. And then one day, everybody is out of work, replaced by machines.
In conclusion, slacking is the best incentive there is to increase research in AI and automation. Which is a very good thing. So, by all means, go for it.
...in response to dimming prospects of success for rank-and-file employees.
The best way to avoid success as a rank-n-file employee is to follow the advice in this book. Don't chance failing in your failure, be proactive and guarantee it!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Work HARD = Work SMART, not Work LONG
ALERT! DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! This person has uttered a Dilbert 'Pointy haired boss'-ism, and no humor or irony has been detected. Someone notify Cowboy Neil that a PHB has gained access to Slashdot, and pull the account, quick!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Har har har - that must be why per-capita GDP in the US is 40% higher than in France and Germany.
Don't take my word for it - go look it up.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
And this is different from the normal ethos in France in what way?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Yes, I am a troll. Or am I?
This from the culture who has tried, by law, to regulate the hour of the work week. What if I want to get ahead and work more? Sorry, I guess I can't. It's the crab-bucket mentality - if any crab tries to escape, the others pull him back into the water. Or in Germany, where I was told, that its illegal to have 2 jobs, the reasoning being that you're taking one from someone else.
The smuggled premise in THAT little gem is that everyone is equally qualified - however, since that is untrue, if you take a 2nd job, you aren't taking it from someone, that person never had a chance when compared to you anyway.
Goodbye Europe, as I watch you sail off into the cultural, social and economic dustbins, I thank you for founding the U.S., but very little else.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
After I had a panic attack at work (there was a lot of stress), I decided to become more like the dude, and less like Walter. They don't pay me enough to suffer from a heart attack at age 35.
This sounds like Wally's philosophy. If you need to know who Wally is, shame on you. Follow this link to the world of Dilbert and read the last month's strips before returning, suitably chastened, to Slashdot.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Americans are forced to work more because they have no welfare state to back them up. Instead the gov't backs up the businessman, the corporation. France and almost all other western nations have strong welfare states. They force the gov't to work on their side, as opposed to the side of the wealthy, at least to a much greater degree than we see here in America. The French (and Danes, Swedes, Finns, Nords, Dutch, etc., are not as worried about their future survival if they get fired: they know the govt will support them. And they do not have to fear going without medical care--it is all paid for by taxes.
r acism/ar ticles/welfare.htm
The europeans know more of how to work together to gain an advantage over the rich and the corporations. THeir advantage is based on the fact that their electoral system is more populist, as opposed to our American system, which is oligarchical--it favors the status quo.
Read this to get some sense of what I am talking about:
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/
eat shiat and bark at the moon
A few years ago my job (programming) started to suck very very much. I started to slack, and I pushed to boundaries a little more every day. Over the coarse of a year I dropped from an 8-hour work day to 5-6, and most of those hours were spent surfing.
My manager called me into his office out of the blue, and I figured the time to answer had finally come. Instead, he gives me 1,000 stock options, a certification that said "Keep up the good work", and a 5% raise.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Alpha and Omega
http://www.subgenius.com/
" Follow your FOLLIES and COMPULSIONS and become rich like us.
Explore the "Zen" of stupidity! Channel chronic procrastination into life-saving paranoia and precise anatityl MAKE WASTE!!
Find out who your Personal Saviors may be and who are the False Prophets in your life!
YES, YOU MAY BE THE SUBGENIUS, MASTER OF THE STOOGLEY ARTS! Perform the Salute!
The most 'NO WAY' new wage religion of them all!!
Brain-trust of our species!!"
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Nice that you mention options.
Let's look at the incentive options offer: You get the opportunity to buy stock at a low price set now, but you get to buy the stock in the future when it is actually worth more than that.
Look at the major clinching point: in the future. This means that the corporation has you tied to them for the duration of the option grant. Of course, since your options are expected to to become worth Loads Of Money(tm), you are expected to take a relative pay cut now.
Of course, since you need the money, you had better shut up about the incompetent management, or you might lose your job, and your option rights.
Of course, the managers have options as well. But they get bailed out if the options end under water, or they get compensatory benefits.
Of course, these are merely options, not voting stock, so you also have no say in the running of your own workplace.
In the end, options are a sham to keep the proletarians quiet. It's a bone thrown to a faithful dog, to make him forget his food is merely the leavings of his masters table.
And for proof: look at one of the most succesful option grant programs in this regard: Microsoft. Guess who had to curtail option grants and move to restructuring the workforce, offering higher wages and actual stock to the employees to keep the best and the brightest?
Keep your options. They are merely the velvet glove hiding the iron fist of management.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
My boss and I fight so many friggin' fires here, that we should go train to be smoke-jumpers. Amazing...
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I do not know about you, but it has been proven to me on numerous occasions that it is easy to fire anyone in the USA. Now it may be that certain union workers -The Teamsters- might be able to get away with that, but I live in a right to work state, and here they are considered mostly a joke.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
On the other hand, if you have a white collar job that allows you to sit in a padded adjustible height chair and browse the internet, you are probably already better off than the vast majority of humanity....And if you are going to slack, slack productively! Become an activist or a political grafitti artist or something so the rest of us slobs have something amusing to look out on through our windows.
"Oh, yes, and sir, the VP of international business development is out spraypainting our walls with 'Terrorists must die!' again."
May we never see th
...to write a book for the George Costanzas of the world.
It would go some way to show there is some kind of justice in the world.
You clearly haven't read enough Dilbert.
May we never see th
"Oh, you hate your job?! There's a support group for that. It's called everyone; they meet at the bar."
-- Drew Carry, the Drew Carry Show.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
Bob Black's "Why Work?" as well as several other texts along those lines.
Of course, we can always use another.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This is one of the many things which explains why if France were a state in the union, it would have the same general prosperity as Arkansas. The same goes for other European nations. And the more recent your timeline for comparing Europe to the U.S., the worse Europe appears in comparison.
- Crow T. Trollbot
dmayle, save your fingers. To Americans, USA is superior to all other countries in every way and always will be. It's useless to point out to them countries where things are better, they firmly plug their ears and start singing la lala lala...
Sad, but then again, is it really that bad to let the Americans think they're the best? Let them stagnate in their hubris, the world can and will progress without them, perhaps in a much more peaceful environment.
You might find a young American lawyer that "works" 100 hours a week, but he sure as hell isn't getting 100 hours of work done a week.
I'd say that, if anything, Americans already understand the philosophy of slacking better than the French. However, the French keep resource usage in check by simply not letting you buy as many goods (require others to do as much work). In the US, you are kept at your place of employment to keep you from spending that time consuming goods.
Relative pay depends more on the fact that the US has a more advanced set of marketers than the French, and thus generates more sales to foreign consumers.
May we never see th
See...they want change/success, but they don't want to do anything different about their jobs. So, they want to do the same things day in and day out and somehow the "universe" is supposed to serve them up something different. Odd how little details like cause and effect don't seem to mind to management. If business is bad AND you continue to do business in the same way, it will continue to fail. If someone wants to change things then prepare for a fight/firing.
So, when you give up and let them be stupid or play along. Then you'll get rewarded...despite how poorly the company might be doing overall.
the goal of a just, modern society is workers who work less for more. The idea that we should all be furious worker bees is crap pushed on us by staggeringly greedy bastards who have been living like kings off other people's backs for as long as human society existed.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
....where in IT have you ever seen a union shop?
Not that I like unions much, but let's face it. Organized labor in the American IT sector just isn't much of a worry. France, a socialist country in all but name, is a different situation. But the minute US workers in IT try to organize, companies will fire them wholesale or move to India. They're already doing this anyway, which goes a long way towards explaining WHY American IT workers don't organize. They might not have ANY jobs left.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I think some of them are afraid of the dissent that is bubbling on up the net. Look at this thread: 10 years ago, it would have been almost unheard of for this many people to be questioning the system at once, while in communication together.
And we what are fighting against is not a conspiracy--it is just a small segment of people who are powerful and who act in their own best interests. And sometimes they organize to better achieve their goals.
And of course there are those ordinary people who mistakenly think that they themselves are of that group, or they think that someday they will be of that group.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
because our standards of living have risen too high for our rulers' liking. Why pay some one $40,000 a year when you can pay them $5,000 and buy that nice new car, or house, or boat? People are greedy, stupid, uncaring bastards. The cold war was shielding us from this fact by keeping businesses stuck in the US. Well, that's all over, and so is America. We'll be as bad as Mexico in a generation.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So, it pisses you off that the French have fought for, and won, the right to be treated as humans, while Americans have capitulated and so you have to work inhumanly long hours for insultingly low wages.
Sure, you could be angry at the French for their success. Or you could be angry at yourself and your own countrymen for your failure to follow up on anything since the Boston Tea Party.
It's seems to me similar to people who get all angry at the unemployed for receiving welfare or unemployment benefits - "soaking up my taxes". Then they go off to their jobs to work themselves absolutely to exhaustion, doing the work of two people and earning two people's "honest day's pay" - contributing to the shortage of jobs, by helping their employer to keep their payroll rosters low, and unemployment high.
... but apparently no longer a French ethic.
Could a translation find a Silicon Valley audience?
The big difference is that if you're disgruntled and disenfranchised in Silicon Valley, you can start your own company and get meetings with F2500 companies to talk about your product, without the need for having been in the right school or club.
This is IMHO one of the main things that differentiate the US from other countries.
What Would the Fab Five Do?
I hate penndot. So much. For exactly this reason. The companies that got the contract to build the new stadiums in Pittsburgh got that shit done almost overnight.... yet penndot does nothing but sit on their ass and occasionally repave a small chunk of road. During rush hour.
Oh, and PA has some of the worst roads in the country. These guys could actually WORK a full shift and they'd never have to worry about running out of things to do.
Unemployment runs about 10% in France vs 6% in the US. In fairness, the percentage of people below the poverty line is ~12% in the US vs. 6% in France, so it seems French welfare pays good. It's just a different system. I don't wanna get all philosophical and stuff 'cuz IAAE, not a philosopher, but maybe in the US since we work so much harder, we have less sympathy for people who are less well-off ("I go to work every day and work my ass off... why can't you just do the same, ya bum?" type of attitude).
Anyhow, I'm glad you're getting to travel (of course, this year I've been to Napa, Steamboat, Vegas, Lake Michigan, Chicago, NYC, DC, MN, NJ, MD... anywhere else? I can't remember, but my wife and I have the travel bug so we get out a lot. Still hoping to get over to Southeast Asia for a few weeks this fall.) You should definitely take advantage of this opportunity. Enjoy!
P.S. Normally I don't rip on people's spelling online, but I love the irony that you misspell "restaurant", a French word, like 15 times. ;)
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Oh no! Who will flip you back over! Not I!
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
in a book entitled "The Joy of Not Working" by Ernie Zelinski.
m .php3?id=1624
From Booklist
An odd mix of amateur psychology and self-help is offered by this engineer happily and creatively unemployed for 14 years. His clear-as-a-bell message is that making the most of leisure involves knowing yourself inside and outside of work. And that, for most overworked and undersatisfied Americans, amounts to an overwhelming task. To some extent, Zelinski tames the process with a combination of humor, cartoons, quotes from the famous (and the not so), fan mail excerpts, and a host of exercises to try. Explored in depth are the nature of boredom (complaining is one sure sign), the value of work, inner passions and goals, and the potential maleficence of money. None of these thoughts are new; Abraham Maslow, for one, advocated the stages toward healthy humanity. Nor are the statistics, remarks, or observations unique. But the notion of how to enjoy free time is finally geared to a mass market. Barbara Jacobs
link: http://www.tenspeedpress.com/catalog/tenspeed/ite
I feel really bad you can't figure out a way of not having to pick up the slack, sucker.
Her solution? Rather than keep up what she sees as an exhausting charade, people who dislike what they do should, as she puts it, discreetly disengage. If done correctly -- and her book gives a few tips, such as looking busy by always carrying a stack of files -- few co-workers will notice, and those who do will be too worried about rocking the boat to complain. Given the difficulty of firing employees, she says, frustrated superiors are more likely to move such subversive workers up than out.
...pffft! "carrying a stack of files"? they're even slacking at slacking! for looking busy, nothing beats typing furiously in front of a computer. hence: slashdot.
Twitter, you're a petulant cock-gobbling sycophant to Linux Torvaldyos! Quit taking DP from ESR and RMS's feculent cocks and why don't you try to stop sucking quite so much? M$NBC OhohoHOHOOH LOLORRRSZ YOUR SO CLEVER YOU FUCK! Get out of your parents' basement and see the real world - maybe then you'll see how pathetic you sound, with your neverending stream of bullshit about how Microsoft is stalking you. Wasn't it you who said that Microsoft believes your insane ranting is actually a threat to them, so they PAY PEOPLE to reply to you on Slashdot? No sir, I don't get any money. I do it for the love. Someone has to go up against your paranoid whining. So get back in your cage and shut the fuck up already.
I'm all for trying to look busy and impress the boss, but IMO there's too much slacking going on.
I work my ass off, I'm trying to get somewhere and do a good job at what I do. When you are surrounded by lazy people who do just enough work not to get fired, it makes it hard to get my stuff done when I am relying on other people to finish their portion of it, and it also makes others pissed at you for making them look bad.
The job I have now is fine, but a previous job was a nightmare. 60 hour workweeks could have been 30 if others had done the job they were paid to do. Not to mention, there are a ton of incompetent people out there that should not be in the positions that they are in.
I'm definitely not a model employee, but I want to get my work done and have a life outside of work. I make an extra effort to learn things that are useful to my job, and I expect my co-workers to do the same. Being the bad guy because you have a deeper understanding of a particular product or concept sucks.
One of my old roomie's books from college on business management said that you can't motivate employees with more money, but you can certainly demotivate them with not enough. Maybe that's the problem, I don't know. But, in any case, if I was in a position of power at a company, slackers would be scared. Slacking off not only hurts the company's bottom line (which most people could care less about), but more importantly, you are making more work for your co-workers, hurting morale, and possibly providing the company with ammo to get rid of your lazy ass.
Personally, I find it harder to stare at a cubicle wall than to actually just do my work that needs to get done. I've been at quite a few different jobs, and now that I think about it, the jobs that were very strict on hours were the ones that I saw the most slacking. If it takes one 2 hours to finish their work for the day, they should have the freedom to go home, go to training, etc. If they are making you be there 8 hours, and you are done with all of your work, it really doesn't give one an incentive to get it done. I guess if you treat your employees like children, they will act like it.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
because, quite frankly, the good sysadmins are the ones who work hard at building systems and networks that can, to some degree, look after themselves by scripting and automating as much as possible.
It is through this hard work that a good sysadmin can spend the day reading Slashdot, The Register, drill down into any number of interesting topics using Google, build Lego and assemble Kinder toys at their desk and be able to count on somewhat restful nights of sleep without fear that the dammned pager is going to go off.
Any questions?
The title plays upon Francoise Sagan's Bonjour tristesse. In case someone was interested...
You wanna know a french secret about their longevity ?
We do care extremely much about what we eat, that's as simple as that. But honestly, you cannot understand that if you never went to France for some time to experience it by yourself. I have been living in Scandinavia for more than 5 years now, and I can see that Scandinavians are healthy, no question about that. But I am daily horrified about the food they can accept to eat here.
My son, a diesel mechanic, recently went to work at a union shop. His first few weeks there, he was trying to bust his a$$ to make a good impression with his new employer. One day, the union shop steward took him aside and told him to 'slow down' because he was making the other, more experienced UNION workers look bad. He was turning out over 50% more work than the UNION guys. A few months after he started, the contract between his employer and the customer whose equipment they maintain was up for bid. There was talk of pay cuts to slash the contract amount to ensure its' renewal. (note: the contract was renewed without the pay cuts)
I guess the customer didn't feel they were getting what they paid for. No wonder, given the attitude of the UNION workers. He's a member of the union now, but doesn't yet (and hopefully never will) buy into to the "entitlement" attitude that seems to infest that shop.
Excessive drinking is fine...in moderation.
Hmmm. Just how much of the US population is in prison, again?
I bust my ass 6 days a week 8 hours a day for $32,000 a friggin year. STFU, I'm moving to FRANCE!!!!
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
That's a pretty serious case of the Mondays!
... And I insist on working only 35 hours a week with 9 weeks off each year !
I am 42, with a little girl to raise and a decent income. I actually prefer trading a bigger paycheck for more time with my kid. Like parent poster said, there's more to life than much money, big house and heavy car. Is it someway indecent to claim that, having a decent life standard, I do not care to enhance it by any means ?
One of those Europeans...
I don't agree with the "find another job" remark, since there *are* more workers than jobs, and thus even the really good people can be out of work simply because there is no work to be done, but still, this author did not intend to troll anyone.
If the troll moderation was handed down because of the socialism remark, love2hateMS was actually right. Corporations do not like what socialist policies stand for, which is achieving a balance between corporate power and the power of workers and consumers. Even the tiniest *drop* of socialism interferes with maximizing shareholder returns on investment, and that's harmful to a "business climate" in which shareholder ROI is ~God Almighty~ and thus corporations desire ALL the power they can get their hands on.
(This is not a corporate conspiracy, it's just a natural logical defense mechanism they have to ensure their own survival and prosperity.)
I must thus protest the modding of love2hateMS as a troll even though I disagree somewhat with him/her.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I'll tell you this: according to the US IRS website, the top 10% of wage earners payed 65% of federal income tax. The top 50% of wage earners paid 96% of federal income taxes in 2001. If France is more progressive than that given their 19% VAT (VAT is regressive), I'd love to see a study that shows it. Until then, I'm sure you've figured out where you can stick your "maybes".
That's what I was saying. Neither is right or wrong, just different.Anyhow, what's with the cop-out? Where do you want to go that you think you can't afford to go? You are not trapped. If you really want to go somewhere don't tell yourself you can't afford. Find a way to afford it. You can only live once, my friend. Make it count.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
If you don't want to RTF dailynews.com story just watch Office Space. Same thing.
I guess the editors were too lazy to make an Icon for a French flag.
Beware american geeks. This is not just "lazy slacking." This something much more complexe :-)
:-) And the best thing to do is to share knowledge and good ideas to build social demand for it rather than realising them and asking credit for them.
;-) (and may go again :-) And I am still learning the complexity of french social-liberalism ;-). I used to be promoting liberalism and innovation : I didn't get fired, but feel alienated and finished to feel totally worthless and quit. So now I am much more mitigated.
According to the french comments on amazon, this book is targeted only to the "cadres", the managers, in big "obsolete" "undead" corporations. The french public service for electricity (EDF) is taken as an example.
EDF, like the "education national", the railroad, and the army, are places of intense socialism. These places do not run on market economy, or money meritocracy, but on social power to raise taxes, and on an initial very strict hierarchy based on school grade. The grade you got at school determine in France your ability to get to some management level in public "services".
Slacking here is unionizing, building social recognition, vision, and is a very hard job.
To put it simply, you can go up only through a mini local mao-like cultural revolution
For example, simple digital counting technologies may allow to put ten of thousands of electrical workers out of jobs... So you first have to build a solution to change with dignity, the social role of these people, before suppressing their jobs with the technology. And the people are logically right in wanting to keep the obsolete job which allows them to be in control of the system/capital ! Better than a share or option, an essential job !
I am french, have correct diplomas, and worked in public services
My guess is that it's the same in some USA states services.
-Bertrand Russell
EDF, the author's employer sanctionned her for
"Non-observance of the obligation of honesty expressed on several occasions: to read the newspaper in meeting, to leave the meetings of group, revealing of the individual strategy clearly posted in the work Bonjour Paresse, aiming at gangrener the system of the interior."
(google's translation)
whole article here here
I think it's an excellent idea for workers in France to slack off; in fact I think those in India, particularly programmers and call center people, should do so as well.
If you can get a job there, you can stay there a while, but you do not have all the benefits of a citizen, and becoming a citizen is rather hard.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Haven't been to Michigan, but urban and near-urban PA roads are pretty bad. Rural isn't horrible- it's either DIRT or PAVED- and a couple of the major arteries (route 15 comes to mind) are in startlingly good repair.
:P
:|
But then you get stretches like Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh. I've lived here for almost ten years and this is THE FIRST TIME I've seen road crews on fifth- which in Oakland is a four lane road, three lanes inbound with the bus lane outbound.
They peeled up the asphalt prior to smacking down the new coat a couple of weeks ago. Normally this makes for a REALLY bumpy ride if you're not used to it.... but I didn't even notice.
They ARE fairly good about announcements and detours, but road work seems to take MONTHS. MONTHS. Why the hell does it take six weeks to repave a mile and a half of street?
It isn't the medical residents who're fighting back, it is people who are scared by the mistakes that they've seen residents make due to exhaustion.
A statistic that I saw a few years ago said that more than half of doctors know that they killed someone due to a mistake made from exhaustion as a resident. Think about that the next time that you or someone you care about needs to spend time in a hospital.
I can't help but notice a remarkable similarity between this book, and Ayn Rand's book/manafesto/rant, 'Atlas Shrugged'. The primary philosophy of both seems to be that the weight of the system will eventually crush itself, so why fight it? Interesting that the Author is refering to a French government agency that has very socialistic traits, and Ayn was frothing about how lassier-faire ecenomics is the only way to save the world from decay.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"I wouldn't exactly say I'm working Bob."
LOL good one. I don't offer squat, but I have made money from this, & I know others who have. I also get paid a shit load more after moving to America. You see where I come from even white collar tech workers are seriously undervalued in every respect.
I was speaking in general terms. In the USA there is a proliferation, but mainly I'm thinking of peopel who can afford to take a risk starting their own business because they made some money. This has a snowball effect that is never going to happen in europe because once you have a house you are a wage slave unless you want to gamble with everything you have.
Let the West learn to slack off even more than is already done. No problem. Asia will simply eat our lunch. That part of the world already is averaging on the order of 10x the number of engineering and science degrees.
Think about it.
Yup, I hear you, OTOH I just worked for a bunch of pricks that instituted mandatory 80+ hour weeks at their company, they paid for 40, if you worked say 80 hours come Saturday and took Sunday off, come Monday you'd get chewed out. I know *productive* guys this happened to. They finished the project recently and fired a whole bunch of guys who'd been working their asses off like this for months, some of those guys were their best IMHO. The reason given in one case I know about... "too expensive", and no he wasn't even close to expensive.
I got out earlier before it got really bad, fortunately I landed on my feet. But I have never worked for such incompetent and amoral S.O.B.s and have a lot more sympathy for labor laws after a career of viewing them with disdain. I've worked my tail off at great companies and enjoyed it, but some places are clueless and don't know what that kind of company culture is like or how to get there, they just screw people and it's employers like that we need labor laws for. AFAIK nothing they did was illegal or came close to being actionable.
...but I'm too lazy.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
We already do this at Ritz Camera. Fully two years into the massive surge in digital sales, my store still cannot produce 4x6 from digital for under $3 (yes, three dollars) per print. The local competitor has seen such a surge in digital business that he was able to cancel his advertising budget and apply the savings to stealing our city contracts representing 40% of our remaining film business. For want of a $5000 printer, we lost a $2000/mo. contract, plus incalculable and permanent losses in customer loyalty. We warned our DM and RM of exactly this scenario over 18 months ago, yet it's our fault business is down.... riiight. So we just don't give a fuck anymore. We have no customers left, so we're free to lounge around all day reading fantasy novels and surfing the Web on our laptops. Can't beat $8 an hour for that!
A 35 hour work week and they want to goof around even more!
... is to find a very common circumstance and write about it. Presentation is everything and it helps to neglect accuracy in presenting your background as witnessed here
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I've been there. I've busted my ass time and time again, working harder than my coworkers because i enjoyed what i was doing. I am definitely slacking off now if I get another job. I'm tired of bending over for a company and taking it again and again. After experiencing many many poor managers knowing i could do a million times better than them if i had the change and doing better than my lazy coworkers and making them look bad for being lazy leading to them setting me up for falls. I'm tired of working hard and getting nowhere. Fuck the system. If passive-aggressive is the way we have to fix things SO BE IT.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Hmmm... I suppose quality of life and life expectancy just aren't enough anymore, eh? That we eat more, enjoy our time off more (our current buying power is unparalleled), and live longer than any other human beings in the history of civilization is apparently not sufficient proof by your standards that the current system works.
Let's pass laws to stop the greedy bastards who are living like kings, so that we're all equal! That is a very novel and just idea (especially since we're inherently equal). Profit incentives can be replaced with state mandates! Why haven't we tried this before?
Or maybe... JUST maybe... we don't realize how good we've actually got it? Perhaps life in the idyllic past was actually more brutish and short than we can remember? And perhaps, just perhaps... the recent century's progress away from those abhorrent standards of living can be traced somewhat to the advent of industry and worldwide trade?
Nah, you're right. Life sucks, things are inevitably getting worse, and the greedy bastards are keeping us down and away from the success that we deserve because we are members of society.
That's no doubt one reason why the French are so irrationally angry at countries like the US where the spiral continues upward.
--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
That is precisely what I have done - and five years later, we are looking at our second profitable year in a row (last years profits were less than $1000, and we paid no salary).
We lost everything in the great dot com bubble burst - our 401k lost 80% of its value and stock options weren't worth the paper they were penned on. I was not laid off, but my days were certainly short - the company, Global Crossing, went down the tubes less than 6 months after I walked away from my comfy System Admin position and fat salary.
My husband and I decided to live inexpensively and search for a niche market that we could be happy working in. We fell in love with the rugged back country of South East Utah. We tried several business models - one failed - some didn't get off the drawing board - and two are actually creating jobs for more than just myself and my husband. And two other business concepts are simmering and need employees to take off - I can only do so many jobs at once.
We did it all with no financial backing from banks, govt or venture capitalists. We sacrificed all the comforts that most people could not live without.
We purchased a modest home in a remote rural town for $38,000 and we've been building our skills and dreams ever since. We've worked low skill near-minimum wage jobs to ensure the house payment gets made. We've raised chickens and gardens to supplement our food stores. I've not had a car with air conditioning for nearly 5 years now. Did I mention I live in a desert?? One of our cars was purchased for $300 the other for $100. We work seven days per week and 14+ hours per day. But no one is going to lay us off. And the fruit of our labors is just beginning to ripen.
I formed a business incubator to help my business through low cost office space ($10/year). We've recently moved out of the incubator and into our own office. Business this month is 200x better than it was one year ago.
As for employees, I am just starting to search for the right people to help expand our business endeavors. I get to learn all about employee taxes and insurance. Now, my biggest obstacle is finding talented and intelligent people out in the styx ( the gene pool is a wee bit shallow out here), or luring compentent people out from the various silicon valleys - people who are sick of working for something that has no lasting value. Guess how many I've get beating down my door to take a huge paycut - so far, zero. I plan to post an internship on Craigslist this fall, I hope to find someone smart enough and worthwhile of my time and investment to further grow our business.
Until now, we haven't been able to expand or offer jobs that are guaranteed to pay the bills. I asked a couple dozen different friends to come out and put a stake in what we are building. No one came. But we have made this happen without all those things that are generally listed as needed to build a business. It CAN be done. Not by just anyone, but by those that are willing to make huge sacrifice and a long term commitment to making it happen.
God, I wish I had mod points left! I wish I could mod it up to 6!
for management offshore outsourcing.
... before
It is the logical conclusion to worker
outsourcing, and will prove to be even
more beneficial to the corporate bottom
line -- if only all those now unemployed
shareholders insist on change
they have to cash out in order to survive.
So I guess you're (d) new to business.
In fact I had one person who worked under me, and myself and another person agreed he was not ready for promotion. Then he got moved to a different group, and against our protests was promoted ahead of a number of people.
This was not even a case of nepotism or favoritism. I happen to know that he was just constantly badgering every manager he was under about when he would be promoted, and managed to find one where it annoyed them less to promote him than listen to him whine.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Her whol point is that in France, it really is the case where you can slack off all you like and it's just about impossible to get fired. It's all about the heirarchy and looking good, and firing underlings does not make YOU look good. It raises questions, and the last thing anyone at a company wants is to have people asking them questions or to have people under them generating questions. That's pretty much about the size of things.
Heck, in the US at any medium to large sized company it's just about as hard to really be fired! I have seen people who had to WORK at it for months when it was a goal! No kidding.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
of people so pathetic they need thier jobs to give them a sense of purpose. I think those people are just being intellectually lazy. They don't want to spend the time and effort of do things they like, so they bury themselves in work instead. It makes them feel big and important without having to actually do anything big and important. There's nothing wrong with going through your life accomplishing basically nothing, as long as you're OK with that. I want people who can be OK with that when it turns out they lack the rare genious and true drive needed to do things truely worth doing. Really, stop and think about how dumb it is to work hard for the sake of hard work. If you're still in doubt, go dig a few holes on your day off and fill them in.
If I sound mad it's because I am. Idiots who want to spend their whole lives working drag the rest of us along for the ride. Those content to spend their lives quitly enjoying their hobbies get caught up in a society of 40+ hour work weeks when automation should have done away with that a decade ago.
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because our system's about to come crashing down. The signs are all there if you care to look. Every reputable scientist agrees we're gonna run out of oil soon ('soon' in the historical sense, i.e. in time for it to be a disaster). There's not enough metals for China and India to industrialize, and when their economies start bumping up against the limitation there's going to be a _really_ nasty war ala WWII until the same damn stupid thing happens that did in the 40s (enough people die that the survivors can live pretty well).
And ask any one of those rich fucks that's sending jobs overseas: you've never got it so good that you couldn't have it better. And besides, most of the rest of the world still has those abhorrent standards of living. You see what's going on the the Congo lately? How about any part of Africa? And wait till the oil runs out in the Middle East and they're suddenly worthless lumps of dirt again.
Life doesn't suck, but it's going to. Dear God, is it going to. Maybe not for you and me, but for our children certainly. The worst thing is, anyone with half a brain and an internet connection can see it comming, but _nobody's_ doing a damn thing about it.
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Life's a game. Sure, play hard enough to keep yourself fed and a roof over your head - but if you're going beyond that, make damn sure it's because you're doing something you really want to.
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Your sig at time of posting:
> "Are you into dragons?" - asked of me by a stranger in a sleazy bar
Well, this might not be so strange if you dress like Terry Pratchett.
(Nice post about labour stuff, by the way.)
the machines that allow 1% of our populace to grow enough food to feed the other 99% run on oil. Moreover, the trucks that cart food to cities and keep parts of our countries from starving to death run on oil. Oh, and willing to pay and able to pay are too very different animals. John Kerry and George Bush's kids will be both willing and abled, I'm not so sure about mine.
Do a google for the phrase 'peak oil'. What's happened is the oil age has enabled our population to expand far beyond its normal limits. When the oil supply shrinks, the population needs to shrink with it. The sensible thing to do is sterilize people, but God be damned if we're gonna do that. So there'll be yet another round of war/famine/plague until nature corrects itself. I'm just sick of Mankind, an intelligent animal, following Nature's lead.
And I don't remember predicting the demise of Capitalism. Quiet the opposite really. I see Capitalism perfecting itself into a hideous self-perpetuating system of poor who live worse than pack animals and rich who's slightest whim is carried out to the extant human ability allows. I remember once reading a magazine article where some rich fuck lamented that modern Opera houses couldn't compare to old ones, because in this day and age you couldn't get society to dedicate that much of it's resources to an Opera house while people starved. I don't expect this situation to last much longer.
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Production left the country to avoid production surplus, which would improve the way of life and make people start thinking. That'd lead to the destitution of the ruling class. (Paraphrasis of "The theory and practice of oligarchical collectivism")
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
The typical small business starts out there with one or two guys, no cash (or a bank loan taken against your house) and maybe a grant from the EU or some development commission.
You're deluding yourself if you think it's somehow magically different in America. The fact is most startups here don't have any "angel" investors, and if you look at what those investors typically want in return for their help you'll quickly find that they are more predator than angel.
Most American companies start out as one or two guys with no cash, or maybe a loan against their house. Apple, HP, and even Microsoft started out that way.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
While the pay may not be as much, it looks like you've found the best kind of happiness - productive achievement and someone you love (your husband) to share in it. Good luck out there.
The unions did cause a lot of the problem. They forced the car companies to charge a lot more for bad cars!
Unions have way too much power in the United States. This is determined by the fact that most union members are forced to join and have no choice. The problem would be easily remedied if workers were protected from being forced to join political organizations that had nothing to do with doing the job. Union membership would likely stabilize about around 7% of the workers: those who actually want to be in the unions: let each worker decide..
This would also get rid of the common problem of union workers being forced to contributed to political candidates that act against their interests. After we had reforms to protect worker's rights, workers who did not like the political actions of the unions would be able to quit the unions and keep on working.
"Christ, you are way to the right of Reverend Moon, Dude."
Did you know that one of Moon's newsletters, the Washington Times, has a rather large circulation? Some actually think it is actual newspaper!!!!