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'Flexible' Working Can Keep You Stressed Out For Longer, Lead to Illness (theguardian.com)
schwit1 sends news about the effects of flexible working schedules on the people who try them. Research has found that many employees fall into a "grazing" pattern for work — constantly being interrupted while working, and continuing to keep up with work emails when not — which results in having elevated stress levels for a longer period of time. This can make such workers more susceptible to illness, and it shows distinct biological consequences to having a poor work-life balance.
Flexible working policies can also raise the risk of poor working conditions, and create resentment among colleagues ... The findings are a blow to advocates of more sophisticated measures for enabling people to achieve a work-life balance in rich economies that tend to overwork some people while underutilising millions of others. With an estimated 10m working days lost to work-related stress in the UK last year, finding a good balance between the demands of home and the job now dominates concerns about the impact of work on health.
Yeah like corporate handouts !!!!
Death to corporate handouts!!!
I had a flexi-remote working job for two years and it was the best gig I ever had. Yes I'd reply to emails at all hours of the day, but I also worked an average 6 hours a day and found it easy to maintain a life/work balance. I ended up moving to Barcelona for six months and had my dream life for a while traveling around the world and working from wherever I happened to be that day.
If you have a job that you enjoy, a good boss and co-workers then it's great. But you have to be someone who can copy with blurred lines in your life and the idea that working/non-working isn't a binary distinction.
It's the same with being on-call in an IT-support gig. Some people are happy to carry a pager and responded to it now and then, others for some reason that I don't understand get really stressed by it and feel on edge the whole time the pager is on their belt.
Then why are you still working? If being out of work is so great with everything being paid for you, what kind of masochist are you that you're still trying to keep a job?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It usually means "I want to be lazy, not do any planning, not do my job and you'll be at my beck and call to iron out my blunders".
And yes, that's going to stress you into a burn-out.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I work flexible hours, and I'm the happiest and most stress-free I've ever been. Didn't realize it until lately when I started experiencing stress again in my personal life. What a change! Don't let work dictate when your working hours are if you can help it. And especially don't *be* flexible about when work can schedule your hours if you can't set your own. The not-knowing of next week's schedule is what will cause your a constant tremor of worry, but being able to say "Oh, something came up, boss, I'll finish Wednesday's hours on Saturday" is like removing the weight of the world.
FTFA:
Working away from the office or part-time can isolate employees from social networks and career opportunities while fostering a “grazing” instinct that keeps dangerous stress hormones at persistently high levels, they said.
I don't see part-time work as a problem, as long as you are free to say that you don't work during those hours/days. On Wednesdays, I'm off. That means I don't respond to emails and of course don't come in to meetings or some such.
As for working away from the office, it's fine as long as I'm not actually working at home. Often, I'll just go to the local university library and work there for a day. Excellent wifi and absolute silence.
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The commenter is pointing out that a person on welfare programs likely also doesn't have everything they need, and very likely also has to try to find work or do something to maintain a balance. For example I've a family member that is trying to get into a new career later in life. They can't do fulltime work (for a piss poor pay rate of $9.50) which would help them get into a position they want, or they lose medical benefits that they need in case something hits the fan, which is likely.
There are many cases where people will be poorer for making more money.
In other words, welfare for individuals isn't enough to live on, and the Opportunist was attempting a rhetorical question to show a fallacy in the general assumptions made.
At your income level, the amount of money that the government takes is negligible.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Flexible tasks though really help from being burnt out on any one thing
I can spend my time just about any work day either doing some website work, teaching a workshop, exploring new stuff that is job related or could be job related, answering phone calls, doing individual support for one or two people at a time, dealing with emails and our online ticketing system, etc.
My two coworkers and I split things up as we see them as being "fair". But when one of us gets tired with doing a particular thing, or dealign with a particular person, we can swap out. "I'll deal with $asshat_needing_help if you'll go do this intro to the web workshop for me"
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The conclusions made on the article are fundamentally flawed from an English perspective, because looking at a Dutch company.
Historically harsh Calvinistic work ethics prescribe a strict work-life separation and that's one of the more blatant causes of stress, anxiety, irritation and frustration in a Dutch-only workspace. Rather than flexibility, isolation and alienation at work, so common in such environments, are the problem. People stress themselves due to lack of normal social interaction even when sitting at the office, that makes them also lose interest and systematically refuse any enthusiasm for whatever they do. Some call the lack of social interaction as "being professional", some others call it just plainly "inhuman".
In such workspaces, very differently than in a British, American or Spanish workspace, colleagues hardly ever socialize. They never or very rarely share interests or speak about anything else than the bad weather. They never, ever get to know each other on a personal level, neither they take initiative on their own to share drinks at the pub after a long working day, unless forced to do so or offered free beer. Socializing, in the good or bad, is an essential feature of English workplaces that a dutchman often sees as an annoying nuisance, preferring to go out in the evening with friends from their own community (or "pillar" as segregated communities where called in the past), but mostly never during the work week.
So going to office is boring and alienaing; the moment people keeps working and answering mails also from home, after the 9am-5pm working day, that alienation spreads into private life, breaks the balance and the removal mechanisms, causes stress. This in the Dutch society.
The English, and much more so the American work ethics, traditionally mix private and working life. Logically, since you have to spend 40 hours a week with the same people for the same scope, you accept to make that part of your life and you do not try to work mechanically until it's finished and then forget about the badness of it by seeing entirely different people. In a large American IT company you are on a mission together with your colleagues to make something happen. You know each other, sometimes even each other's families, and you gladly help each other A dutchman would see such strong commitment offending ("as if we can't help ourselves!"). The American way can be very stressful in terms of hard challenges, tiredness and (lack of) rest, but the kick of it, the "mission" in it may make it bearable, even when you have to connect your VPN at 2AM to help out a colleague or keep things running.
Flexibility, as opposed to bigot limitations (can you imagine? forbidding Whatsapp at the office?) in a human and especially in a social work environment is a Good Thing(TM), that may fill and shape a life. Stress can be controlled by sharing with others and knowing and respecting each own's limits. And if one knows and respects its limits, and his employer incidentally does that too, a private life can be built all around the working life, like an onion. Both working life and private life are life.
I work from home 100%.. 5x8. Problem is I'm also on call, which can add another day to my week without notice. My employer is fully supportive of me taking that time back but they've been making it more and more difficult to find replacements for myself when I do. They do not like me leaving accounts unsupported.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Or they bill hourly.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I'd actually be more stressed if I had people robbing me on the way to work because they didn't have money but to each their own.
A flexible work schedule literally cannot mean less stress if that is a goal.
It's vastly less stressful to drive outside of core rush hour times.
Work is less stressful if you have more flexibility as to when it can get done, or you can do it at home without interruption. As for being "outside of social circles", how many slashdot readers would KILL for the chance to work at least one step removed from a typically politicized company org structure? That part is amazing!
The other reason why flexible working arrangements can lead to LESS stress and sickness, is that you can not be in the office when either YOU are sick, or everyone else is. There's times when a place I've worked at sounds like a plague ward, I can just pack up and not expose myself for hours on end to sickness in a cold environment.
People who feel more stress in a flexible work arrangement probably are those who are not really very good workers, only able to do what they are told. I imagine they might be more stressed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I just had a creative gig and, for me, creativity doesn't happen only between 8am and 5pm. And it may strike for a few minutes or ten hours. Maybe I wake up at 3am with a flash of inspiration and I'm back to sleep by 3:30. Or nothing clicked until 4pm and I worked until 2am. I did the job for a flat rate with a couple check-in points to be sure I was producing what they wanted but how I managed my time was my business because I was working alone.
On the flip side, most of my career has required that I be available during regular business hours because I was working directly with other employees and clients who kept regular business hours. It's hard to work as a team if everyone floats in and out whenever they feel like it.
As for removing stress, I've found the best way to do that is have a big chunk of money in the bank and no debt. I highly recommend it.
wow talk about taking things out of context.
inflation has gone up so much that you need two incomes to compensate for it. When women started working people suddenly had extra income. which they then spent on things. businesses expanded, which hired more workers, and the situation pushed farther and farther. now you need two incomes to survive.
Also back then medical expenses where cheap yes but then so was the care. no mri, no cat scans, more people died on the table than lived. etc. medical expenses are sky rocketing because we have old people who need constant care, but can't pay for it. however if we take away that care they get pissy. try it. in the USA our budget is easily broken down into 30% for medicare, 30% for SS and 30% for military with he balance for every thing else.
not once will you hear any political talk about cutting SS down sharply to pay for the ever growing debt.
now back to inflation. yes officially the USA government puts it 2% a year more or less, however it all secondary markets (not food, gas, etc) it goes up on average 5%. with some goods like TV's or dishwashers actually going down -2%. that is why new tv's keep coming out, and why refrigerators are still $500-$1000 the same price they were 30 years ago. Car however keep going up. with base models of basic cars used to $12k in 2000, it is closer to $18k for the same model(mostly) now.
lastly before medicare. 60% of the population didn't have any health care. doctors are for the rich after all. that is your moto is it not? Currently 30% of the population doesn't have decent medical care. I can't afford visits to my primary care doctor. I can't afford the co-pay even with health care. I don't have an extra $100 per visit to spend.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
There's two types of "flexible working":
1) Employee may take time off or work extra at any time at their own discretion
2) Employer will force employee to work extra at any time with no warning
2a) The hours are theoretically at the employee's discretion, so long as they understand that anyone who doesn't drop whatever they're doing to work on "request, if you feel up to it" will be fired.
2b) The hours are theoretically at the employee's discretion, but there's an "emergency" every week that means you really ought to work extra hard this week.
The first kind is relaxing to anyone who does not require "external motivation". The second kind will destroy your life (though no doubt a few people would enjoy it).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
This has more to do with wages not keeping up with inflation rather than anything else. We're in a race to the bottom and it seems we're losing by getting there first.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Now imagine how much of a burden people who don't have anything to lose would be. Because if the choice is to starve to death or to kill you and take the 20 bucks in your wallet, your chances to reach retirement age are rather low.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My employer is fully supportive of me taking that time back but they've been making it more and more difficult to find replacements for myself when I do.
That just means that both of you are doing it the wrong way. It shouldn't be your responsibility to find somebody to cover for you; that's your boss's job.
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Go to this payroll calculator web site. Enter a monthly salary of $8333 ($100k per year). Set one federal and state exemption. Tax comes out to $2900 per month. My rent is much lower than that, and I live in a higher than average rent location.
$2900 is more than I pay for rent, fuel, and utilities combined.
Workers need a right to disconnect to give them downtime to recover.
You're misunderstanding what flex-working is. It doesn't mean you available 24/7, it means you choose what hours you work to produce what you agreed to have working by an agreed deadline.
It's about empowering yourself to structure your own day, rather than having office hour imposed on you. Not everyone is at their most productive during normal office hours. I suck at mornings and often have constructive ideas late at night.
When you work very different hours to you co-workers you need to get over the binary distinction between life and work. There are degrees of availability, it doesn't hurt to reply to an email from someone who works a different set of hours to you whilst your doing something else and then they are likely to help you out the same way later.
I did this for two years, I averaged six hours work per day, as that is all most people are productive for, but it was split up in between other things, be it day to day life, hobbies, exercise and personal projects. I'd start the day with a rough plan, but it would adapt as the day went on. If I got a meeting request when I planned on going for a bike ride, then then plan would change. If I got a call or an email whilst on the bike ride, then I'd stop at the side of the road and deal with it for a few minutes before continuing.
If something interesting came up in my life during the week, then I might focus on it then and instead work the weekend to keep the project on track.
The important thing is I was for the most part in charge of what I was doing. It enabled me to fit work around my life, rather than fitting my life around work. The liberation that created was one of the most distressing ways I ever found to live life.
I am so gonzo confused how your post got down-modded. You state a clear fact, you provide a link to double check, and somebody mods you down? The best guess I have is the person judging you badly thinks you couldn't possible make $100k/year?
In the San Francisco Bay Area, programmers and IT make around $100k/year. If you work at Google or Facebook or Netflix and are compensated for being one of the harder working programmers, it's probably closer to $150k/year. If you type $150k into the calculator you reference, your state and federal tax burden is $3,884.88 / month and that's being really really generous and not including Social Security, Medicare, or things like property tax (if you own a house) and sales tax and gas tax, alcohol and sin taxes, etc. If you really do add in all these extra tax, I really believe MANY people are spending more on taxes than on their housing.
I'm not saying this is morally wrong or that it needs to change. I think most sane people see that the rich (and upper middle class) MUST pay more than the poor to keep all the infrastructure running. In this Wall Street Journal article, it says the top 20 percent of income earners pay an astounding 84% of all federal taxes while the bottom 20 percent essentially paid nothing. http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384
Wow, quite a bit of assumptions there. Lemme guess: You've never been "down there" and your information, I'll use that word loosely here, comes from various, let's say, less than unbiased reports (again, for a lack of a civil term that would describe it more aptly) in various TV shows?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh yeah, if we'd get rid of welfare people would immediately get paid better.
Care to explain the logic behind that? Why the fuck should I pay the slave more money just 'cause he can't get welfare money anymore? For all I care he can starve to death, there's plenty more where he comes from.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm doing the flexible work schedule thing myself, right now, to an extent. (Essentially, I work for a company that would ideally like me to stay in the office from 9-6PM every Monday through Friday -- but I've always pushed back against that, since so much of the I.T. support and maintenance I do can be done just as well from a computer at home over the VPN. I live 50+ miles from the office and the commute can really start to wear you down after a while.)
I have a great boss who is understanding, but other "higher ups" in the company are occasionally a little less understanding, if they feel they should get instant attention and help by just walking in and asking for it. We've started "reprogramming" people's expectations in that regard by implementing a ticket system it's pretty much mandatory to use. If you walk by and ask for help, we ask if you put in a ticket.....
As long as that's used, I get pop up alerts on my mobile devices the minute new tickets are put in and we can prioritize things pretty efficiently and get back to people from wherever we are. So I've sort of self-imposed a routine where I try to come into the office 2-3 days per week and work from home the others. The problem with these flexible schedules, though, is they require some discipline on YOUR part as the employee. People who need your help have NO idea if you're in the middle of trying to get a quick haircut, or putting gas in your car, or grabbing a late lunch, or ?? So yes, it requires some juggling if you're going to try to use your "not in the office" time to get other tasks done while taking support calls and doing your job. And doubly so if the flexible schedule includes the idea you'll work at least some of your hours as "off hours" vs. the 9-5 or 9-6 that others are in the office.
It really sounds to me like many of the people experiencing higher stress levels with all of this are unable to pull themselves away once they've put in their fair share of time? I guarantee if you work odd hours, you'll hear that phone beeping and see instant messages flying with people who just want to ask you a quick question, or need a quick password reset, or have a crisis where something crashed..... You have to remember that if you were working normal hours in the office, you'd be home and oblivious to all of that until the next morning, so pretend it's the same situation. Otherwise, it will slowly make you crazy.
Yes and when I complain and tell him to hire someone to cover for me he just laughs. He has no control over it, his boss has no control over it. The people who have control over it are bean counters somewhere who no one in my group has met. The company won't pay for 50% of a person to be idle around waiting to cover for time off. Basically their attitude is increasingly that its a waste of money if everyone isn't 100% busy with important stuff all the time.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
In that case, I can only advise you to update your resume and start quietly looking for a new job. Any company that has so little regard for their employee's health and morale isn't worth working for, but it's always best to make sure they don't know you're even looking until you turn in your notice.
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I have two choices when it comes to politics:
#1 is to cut welfare and benefits, then pay for police, soldiers and such to deal with inner city people who have absolutely nothing, wonder where their next meal is coming from, and decide to take it out on the local stores and populace. This sounds "cool" in theory, especially having police constantly raid and "keep order", selling fear about how these people are coming for you.
#2 is to have some benefits, perhaps a negative tax, or welfare and food stamps.
IMHO, #2 is FAR cheaper than #1:
1: It is a lot cheaper to even pay people a minimum income for doing nothing but watching cable TV, as opposed to having to pay for the amount of trained soldiers or police needed to keep the peace, especially with people who are actually hungry, and truly have nothing to lose.
2: When people are desperate for food, it breeds crime. Right now, it may be an occasional meth-mouth or crackhead that does something stupid, but in general, crime is low in the US. Having policies where people don't know where their next meal is coming from, with just a few miles away, the population is trying to decide between a Lexus or a Mercedes, it just means more carjackings, home invasions, and other violent crime. The US is so homogenized with neighborhoods, that people moving from an open street between the "wrong side of the tracks" and wealthier neighborhoods would be expensive, as people build their own compounds (think Iran and Saudi Arabia.) Plus, it is far more expensive as a person to build those high walls, have one's own security forces, and further segregate neighbors to an extreme... far more than to just pay for government benefits.
3: It looks a lot better internationally when there are not images of people being shot or otherwise attacked, just because they are poor and hungry. This might be acceptable in Syria or a Middle Eastern shithole, and it might be acceptable to the libertarian mindset where if someone can't/won't work, they should starve to death. However, the US, especially after World War 2 was supposed to be the light on the hill. Even if sounds distasteful to have "the dole", it is a lot distasteful to have constant footage shown internationally of brutality done to a government's own people, especially by a democracy.
4: We already had #1 done here in the US. It worked well during the Gilded Age where someone mentioning the word, "union" would be killed, their family blacklisted from work... and at that time, there were no soup kitchens, and beggars were just outright shot, hanged, or ran out of town on vagrancy laws. However, this type of government nearly caused the nation to collapse back in 1929, and what got the US from depression to being on the map was FDR's "liberal" ideas.
5: Jobs are getting ever-thinner. NEVER think your job will be there tomorrow. Especially if you are in the IT industry, where your job can be offshored or an H-1B hired to replace you in a heartbeat. Notice the economic patterns of the past decade? Economic crunch, then expansion... and the jobs gained by the expansion are far fewer than what was around before the contraction. Then, another contraction. It doesn't help that unemployment statistics are fucked with to hide these results, especially people working 2+ shit jobs to pay for rent. So, those benefits that are supposedly for the "human debris" may be what keeps you fed in the future. Telling people that they need to work and they are lazy bums doesn't help when there are no jobs out there for them to work at.
A good example of this was a Wal-Mart that opened up. It had a few positions at the usual Wal-Mart pay levels. Over 2000 people were in line applying. For retail store clerks and checkers. Another store "auctioned" its jobs off to whomever worked for the least amount per hour. It took seconds before the wages went to minimum wage level. So, people -want- to work, but the manufacturing jobs are in China, the software jobs are in India, so there isn't
Show me a case of anyone being POORER for making more money!
I dare you!
You will find people who are poorer for doing MORE WORK, but not for making MORE MONEY.
Medical expenses when diagnosis to death for cancer was 3 months? Sure, it was much cheaper to let people die. DUH!
Oh b.s.. That 30% military is a bare faced lie. How much off budget is there for war?
Biowar? Dept of Ag.
Chemical warfare? Pest control.
Brainwashing? Dept of ed.
Nuclear weapons? Dept of energy
The true cost of the warfare state including the VA costs and retirement approaches 50% of the total budget.
And SS, as we ALL KNOW, is off book entirely, being a separate trust fund!
I work from home 100%.. 5x8. Problem is I'm also on call, which can add another day to my week without notice
But what if you had an appointment with a friend or somesuch?
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Socialism makes the lives of everybody (except the 1% elite, even when it's no longer called politburo) miserable.
To complain about that does not imply - not for one second - that you "envy" some street bum.
If you give non-workers a place to sleep, three meals per day but NO MONEY and NO FOOD STAMPS then nobody has to fear starvation.
And I'm sure we will see a 90% reduction in welfare dependence.
This right here. The article makes it sound like flexible times are stress, but I would define stress as having to settle mortgage documents but not being able to leave work to do it. Having to go to the bank / post office for something important but unable because I'm clocked in till 5pm. Having to go to the supermarket during the bloody peak hour of the day, and drive to work stuck in peak hour.
That last one is a real kicker for me. If I work 30min longer every day due to my flexible work hours and my boss expecting email replies somehow I still end up spending more quality time at home with the family on account of not having to sit in an endlessly and life draining queue on the highway (traffic here goes to utter shit at 7:45 so I aim to be at work an hour early and leave likewise). Need to go to the bank? Work late one night and then go to the bank the following morning on the way to work at 9am when it's open.
For me, it's the opposite of stress.
Yes, we can of course ask people who want money to perform a service in exchange. As long as you don't turn it into forced labor that is, that slippery slope is a bit too greasy for my tastes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What happened was a few food industries that don't really entertain the idea that you could cook yourself. That's their bottom line we're talking about!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ah, so you have an "elsewhere" to work where they pay better? Really? Where is that magical place?
They won't pay more. And people will STILL go there and work for them. And get a third job on top of the two they already have. Because there are 3 jobs available, 10 people want one and even getting a third of the money you need to make ends meet is more than getting NONE of the money you need.
Businesses won't pay more. They will always find people desperate enough to work for them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Add some whips and we're back to 1850.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem is that, with things as they are, we'll kind of need those "handouts" for quite some time to come - perhaps at an increasing rate as automation increases. If you're advocating allowing the disabled, less-fortunate, or less lucky people be allowed to starve then, by all means, just say so. However, roving hordes of disenfranchised people who are motivated by basics such as hunger doesn't sound like a good long-term plan.
It's probably cheaper to feed them than it is to hire goons to ward them off. It's probably better to educate them than it is to deal with their mistakes. It's probably better to keep them in good health than it is to deal with the plague. It's also more likely to make you wealthier in the long run but it does take some initial investment - a bit like growing food and then keep those plants in good condition to maximize the likelihood of a good harvest.
I'm a pretty staunch Libertarian but even I see the need for things like universal health care, education, and not letting people reach the point where they're disenfranchised and hungry. I dare say that many people never actually managed to read to the end of Atlas Shrugged. It is a long book, after all. If you're going to advocate letting them starve then, well, I'd submit that it would be less risky to isolate them and ensure that they're incapable of causing harm to the "productive" people. However, I'd further submit that it's unlikely to result in the utopia and freedom that you're probably envisioning.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Here's a fun one. Given the person tidbits you've shared about you and your spouse and what I know of tax rates, I can reasonably presume that I pay lower percentage in taxes than you. Add to that, I'm able to buy things that last longer so I'm putting (theoretically, realistically - I'm kind of bad at this) less back into the system with consumption. Then, I've the time and means to do things like have a giant garden and hunt/fish for a good portion of my food then I'm putting even less back into the system.
It's quite likely that I pay a greater sum in taxes than you but, added up, I may actually put less back into the system than you do - at least most years. I've been, shall we say, a bit spendy this past year and have been on the road since September. It's not unheard of for me to stay home for long period of time and not actually need to consume anything or even spend any money other than various vehicle, fuel, and property taxes. Even those can be minimized, sometimes legally avoided, and aren't really that expensive.
Oh, I understand why my tax rate works out to be (at worst) something like 23% (15 federal, 8 State - I only do long-term investing and my interest is also counted as long-term) but, let's be honest here... It's not like I'm gonna alter my lifestyle a whole lot if they raise taxes a little bit. Maybe they could start by making long-term investing mean longer than a one year period? (Short-term investment earnings are taxed not at capital gains rates but as income.) That probably wouldn't impact me so, maybe make it five years to be considered long-term? How about a 5% increase at both the State and federal levels? That's not gonna bug me - I'd probably not even notice.
Then again, as I've stated in the past, I don't really mind taxes. I mind how they're spent. For what we spend bombing little brown men, we could afford to fix our existing infrastructure and probably have enough left over to increase the effectiveness of our education systems. We might even have enough left over to do something like provide more small business loans to encourage people to go out on their own, give them a reasonable safety net to enable them to take the risks, and actually increase our productivity.
Nah, can't happen... There's terrorists in them thar hills!
And, as an aside: I had somewhere near 200 people on my lawn and it was awesome. I called Labor Ready and they're sending four people by to clean up the mess. I have not, in fact, dared to look outside this morning - and you can't make me! After that, of course, folks will be welcome back on the lawn but I'll have illegal immigrants (I assume they're really legal) meandering about for a few hours so I imagine the neighbors will be clucking silently behind their curtains even though they helped make the mess and weren't likely to assist in the cleanup.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This might come as a surprise but, and you can try this and get back to me, you might find that they steal less from you if you learn and adhere to the rules - regardless of what others are "getting away with." Seriously, I drive far more than most and have driven far more than most. They haven't ever stolen a thing from me. I agreed to abide by a certain set of rules (that's part of getting a license - an agreement) and then follow those rules. When I don't follow those rules, as I am wont to do from time to time, they may (per our earlier mentioned agreement) make me pay them some money - or even take away my right to operate a motor vehicle on public roads.
Because I've driven so many miles, oh so many miles, I've acclimated and I do not actually follow the rules but, instead, I've learned when and where I can get away with breaking those rules - to the point where I haven't had a moving violation in some 40 years or more. On top of that, I've not had a standing violation in something akin to 25 years. But, even with those infractions and the resulting financial penalties, they've never once stolen anything from me because I'd agreed to those rules when I agreed to the regulations required in order to drive on a public highway.
That only applies to the US and a few other countries that are mostly civilized. I have, on the other hand, been to places where the police didn't necessarily "rob" me so much as they asked for things like "documentacion." They sometimes have checkpoints outside of smaller towns and cities. At those places, they ask for you to provide the proper "documentacion." That could be considered robbery but I guess you could not pay - it's just going to slow you do a bit, and probably get you really robbed.
However, I strongly suspect that's not the case where you are, where you have been, or where you'll ever dare to go.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
One of my employees was a wizard. Seriously. I don't know how he did what he did but he did it. He was a DB admin and I, and you might think I would, know very little about such a job and can barely join tables or even do much more than read from a database.
In all his arcane spells he seemed to have one that made him look busy - no matter who was looking. However, with careful observation you could tell that he wasn't actually doing anything - ever. I'm sure he did stuff but I don't actually know what or when.
I kept him. I'm not sure he'd have left if fired or who could have fired him. I'm not even completely positive who hired him or when he was hired. He was a strange character, I've described a bit about him in the past.
At any rate, if anyone can do that little and keep things going so well - and things went well - then keep 'em. Give them a raise. The most efficient employees are those who get the job done while doing the least. So long as they get their job done, give them room and peace - because their leaving could likely cause issues.
No, no... I kept him on. As near as I know, he's still working there. He's an older man with a shock of red hair, gay (I think), and very much an isolationist. It was rare to even see him but, when you did, it was a certainty that he'd appear to be busy. He went to lunch but I don't recall seeing him leave. He was on time, probably early, and I don't recall seeing him enter the building. I know his name but he's one of the few where we didn't know his family and hobbies. I truly don't even know who hired him nor can I place exactly when I first hired him. In fact, I know that I did not personally hire him.
He also wouldn't call or make requests for stuff often. I seem to recall he used re-purposed hardware for the most part. Sometimes, you'd get a note on your desk or my secretary would mention that he had asked for something. It didn't matter, he didn't ask for much - give it to him. He always took two weeks off to go to some event out on the West Coast - I have no idea what. I don't even know how he did what he did but before he came we had DB issues. After he came we spent a bunch of money at first and then things worked. After that, I think he just used equipment that had been depreciated or pulled from the stack and replaced.
I know he was angry with Oracle when we had them come in and attempt a roll-out and that he won that battle. I have no idea how or what he did but they gave up and tried to bill us for the "demonstration" that they spent a full 90 days on and never got to work. We mysteriously had some DB slowdowns for a week or so after they left but he got over it and things went back to normal. He has to be the strangest character we ever had work with us and I've shared some of his stories before.
Ah well... I guess the idea is - if you find someone who's automated their job away, keep 'em and don't overload 'em with new tasks. They're still working, surely. I'm pretty sure? At the very least, you hired them to do a job, they're doing it. If you want them to do more than you hired them to do then give them a new title and a raise. Not to mention, if they made it look easy - that doesn't mean it is. I wrangled with the job of a DB admin. I sucked at it. We acquired a wizard and things went swimmingly.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Seriously though. The purchasing power of wages could fall, taking the workers' standard of living with it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This has less to do with macro economic than it does Federal-level financing in a society with a negative birth rate after the baby boomer generation. Boomers simply did not have enough children to support the ponzi schemes created by social security and the welfare state. Governments haven't dismantled immigration systems to support old people (they don't care about them), but to prop up the unsustainable central banking system which depends on constant growth and perpetual positive interest rates. These systems are based on debt instead of assets, and the only way to continue debt payments is perpetual growth, which requires an ever-increasing population of tax-paying workers.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Be careful what you wish for. Many of these handouts make life as we know it possible. Streets, police force, judicial system, and administrations are often operated by handouts aka tax money. Sure, we can propel out society back to the stone age, but I doubt that is the right way to go. I do agree with reducing waste, the first proposal is to cut down the seats in all senates and houses by half. Most of these bodies are dysfunctional due to right-wing nay sayers, so might as well only waste half of the budget on paying them to sit on ass doing nothing other than shut down every proposal without having a single one of their own.
While I'd like that it will not matter to those who work flexible hours because they are typically salaried employees anyway. They are always on the clock. What will reduce stress is better management, reasonable expectations, release dates that are not detached from reality, and much better upfront planning and design (which means end the madness called "Agile").
Then you are an idiot or a paid troll. Since I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt....I will just assume you are an idiot. There are plenty of examples of this happening. Here let me hold you hand and explain the tax code to you. You see lil Timmy there are these magical walls called 'tax brackets'. If you are making juuuust on this side of one of these walls and get even a 25 cent an hour raise you are grabbed by the scruff of your neck and stuck on the other side. The minor increase in wages does not make up for the - usually rather large - increase in taxes. The end result? You get a 'raise' but they take more money out of your pay check. Now these is the reallllly difficult part. If you lil Timmy take home less money every pay check you have less to spend. Thus your 'raise' caused you to be poorer. Welcome to the world of unfair taxes instead of a more 'flat tax' style affair to government sanctioned robbery.
Tax bracket is a bad example because the increased tax rate only applies to money past the bracket. You never make less money. A better example would be tax rebates. Made $1 over the limit? No $1,000 rebate.
So, no examples then? That figures
Nice projecting though.
And did you MAKE LESS MONEY, or did you get a smaller handout (which is what a rebate is)?
So. What I get on a tablet is the beta interface? I thought this had died long ago...
It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
I appreciate the concern and suggestion, but I don't think that's an issue where I work. Maybe someday, when we have a different group of people managing I.T. But the thing is, we *do* come in on a regular basis and take care of anything from server or network upgrades to making sure a new hire has a computer configured and ready to go for them on their desk when they come in, in the morning.
The outsourced I.T. guy who lives 5,000 miles away can't be expected to agree to pop in on a Saturday afternoon while everyone's out of the office, to upgrade some of the hardware,or to be on site when they're having an important videoconference, just in case anything goes wrong.
We're trying to strike a balance between providing personal service and providing organized, FAIR service. It's really not fair that one person can jump over 5 other people who waited longer for help, just because he or she was in a position to come in to your office and drop a laptop on your desk, demanding an immediate solution.
On slashdot, truth called troll.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
you really have no clue what you're talking about.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The best example I know is medical care for welfare recipients. Many people find that they don't dare make too much money, since they're at jobs that don't have group medical insurance available for them, and if they go over the medical assistance limit they have a risk of being hit for lots of money, or risking their child's life, or something like that.
The best way to fix that is single-payer health insurance, but that's still going to be a while coming in the US.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
A tax rebate is part of your taxes that you wind up not paying, not a handout. For example, there's a property tax rebate in my state, which I don't qualify for because we make too much (not to be construed as a complaint). It is intended as partial payment to offset property taxes. If we made a lot less, we'd be in a position where a single dollar could make a sizable difference.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
...constantly being interrupted is the real problem. I work a normal schedule and constant interruptions are my number one source of stress. It is understandable that working a flexible schedule would amplify the source of the real problem. Best solution: get rid of phones, instant messaging, email and let people work from home. If somebody needs you to do something for them, utilize a ticketing system and require all work requests to route through that. This goes beyond IT support and covers general office work as well. If people have no other way to contact you other than by ticket it would help bring clarity to issues with workflow and support levels.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Taxes pay for the countless things you are seemingly unaware of but which provide for you the life you lead, including letting you moan about taxes on Slashdot. Your life without taxes wouldn't be heaven, but quite the opposite. Hint: you are not an island.
... apart from when it doesn't, which judging by the quality of life scores around the world, is most of the time.
When do you want to give up the US military, as that's about as socialist as you can get? I mean, if you want to be consistent, there is a lot you'd have to get rid of, leaving you in a very precarious situation afterwards. It's almost as if you haven't though this through at all, and can't look past your own wallet.
Property tax being a great example of a handout, a gift to support one particular industry over others, I'd try again if I were you
And once again, MORE MONEY does not equal LESS INCOME. Doh. Do try again.
Could you clarify? What is the gift to support one particular industry, and how?
There's also the refund when I've overwithheld. It's money coming to me from the IRS, but it isn't a handout.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The request was to find people who were poorer because they made more money, not to find people with less income. There are tax credits and the like that depend on income, and they often have income ranges. If you're at the very top of the range, and make a bit more, you might well wind up with less money.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Real Estate Primary Residence Interest Tax Deduction
Commercial Fuel Tax Rebate
Need we go on?
Once again, with feeling.
Stop extrapolating your mythic tax victim and SHOW ME AN EXAMPLE of a real PERSON losing money thanks to rising income