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Work Emails After Hours Finally Banned in France (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
A new French law establishing workers' "right to disconnect" goes into effect today. The law requires companies with more than 50 employees to establish hours when staff should not send or answer emails. The goals of the law include making sure employees are fairly paid for work, and preventing burnout by protecting private time. French legislator Benoit Hamon, speaking to the BBC, described the law as an answer to the travails of employees who "leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash -- like a dog."
The BBC reports that France already has a 35-hour work week, while Fortune adds that many European companies have already taken steps to curtail after-work emails. "In 2012, Volkswagen blocked all emails to employees' Blackberries after-hours," and "Daimler took the step of deleting all emails received by employees while on vacation."
The BBC reports that France already has a 35-hour work week, while Fortune adds that many European companies have already taken steps to curtail after-work emails. "In 2012, Volkswagen blocked all emails to employees' Blackberries after-hours," and "Daimler took the step of deleting all emails received by employees while on vacation."
along with that 35 hour work week - without a pay reduction.
I'm hourly and required to carry a work cellphone 24/7 despite not being paid to do so in any way (money/comp time/whatever).
But the demonization of unions by big corporate money has been very successful in fucking shit like this up for the US.
The problem is it becomes expected that you be working/in touch 24/7.
If your selection criterion for whom to contract with is their desperateness to get a contract no matter under what conditions, then chances are you'll contract with the worst botchers amongst their profession. Those who are competent have no need to ruin their private lives by being available for you 24/7.
Americans really have no idea how hard they let their work fuck them in the ass. I work for a multinational corporation and last year when they rolled out the new time tracking system they had a conference call on its features. That's when the Americans all found out their German colleagues were required to work only a 7.5 hour day instead of 8. The system, designed by the Germans and presented to us by them, also had a cap of 10 hours a day you could enter. The first question from the Americans was what to do when you work more than 10. There was a long awkward pause while the German presenters tried to grasp the question and eventually suggested that you enter any hours past 10 on the weekend.
In meetings with the Germans they can't understand why no American ever takes more than two weeks of vacation in a row while they routinely take the entire month of August off. They have less hours, have better pay, vastly superior vacation time, vastly superior benefits, and they have job security unlike our right to work for less/fire at will states...but look Americans! There's some dude on food stamps buying a potato with MUNNY DA GUBMINT STOLE FRUM U!
I'm hourly and required to carry a work cellphone 24/7 despite not being paid to do so in any way
Can you really not find other work? That seems unlikely for a technical worker these days. To put up with 24/7 duty with no extra pay is not something you should put up with. You should demand extra compensation, or leave.
Sorely needed in the US...along with that 35 hour work week
I disagree. When I was younger I worked 50-80 hour (or longer) weeks. But the thing is, I enjoyed it, a lot. More than that it set up a great base for a career to follow, because I had essentially got an extra year or two of experience over people who worked "regular" hours, indeed probably 2x the experience over people who worked 35 hour weeks...
It's not like i never take time for vacation, then or now (sometimes a lot). But I don't think there is any value mandating a cap on possible work, I feel like that is the best way to ruin and country and economy and frankly, a whole generation of people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't work for free because I'm not a slave.
Fixed that for you.
Work has never been popular in France.
Slave work has never been popular in France.
Companies who give a shit about their customers and their employees can have enough people not to require people to be available 24/7. Note how this only applies to companies over 50 people. If you do business with people, your comment doesn't apply. If you do business with companies, nothing prevents a larger sized company from being available 24/7 without their employees being available 24/7.
Anyhow, what the OP says is mostly true. The minimum is doing no work. The maximum is being "at work" every minute you're awake. It's amusingly naive to believe that those who make themselves available all of the time are inherently better at what they do, or are more valuable. Anybody with a decent amount of experience in life and exposure to different working environments and disciplines knows this.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I've had clients like you who felt they should be able to buttonhole my developers whenever they had a brainwave. As far as I'm concerned people like you can find yourselves another victim to work out your personal dominance issues. Hire me and I'll do a great job for you, because I know how to manage a friggin' development team. You don't.
The seldom-mentioned corrollary to "the customer is always right" is that you should be picky about who you work for, if you can manage it. I almost said "if you can afford it", but really the question is actually whether you can afford to work for an obstreperous, intrusive client who doesn't understand boundaries. Customers like that will eat up your slack then bleed you dry every... single... time.
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The problem is it becomes expected that you be working/in touch 24/7.
That happened to a friend of mine. HIs employer kept calling him out at all hours of the night so we just told him to ask to be paid to be on call. He came back and told us the answer was, 'sorry, no budget for that'. So we advised him that since his wife was giving him a hard time and he was thinking about quitting over this anyway he should just shut his work phone off when he left the office. It took about a week before there was a major emergency and the shit hit the fan. Hours upon hours of downtime, the upper management started riding lower management about what the fuck had happened. He gets called into a meeting with management and he tells them 'pas d'argent pas du Suiss' I'm not on call so I figured it's only fair to shut off the work phone. Next thing you know there is alluvasudden money in the departmental budget for keeping him on call. So come end of the month he checks his pay-slip, no pay for being on call so he goes and asks payroll what's wrong and they send him to the department head. It seems when they said that they had found money in the budget to pay him for being on call, what they meant to say, it was as of the following quarter but of course they expected him to be on call until then, sans pay. So he turns off his work phone again after work hours, shit hits the fan *again* and he finally gets his on-call money, paid retroactively. Give an employer an finger and they will devour your entire arm.
Those who give a shit about their customers and try to do their very best for them DO make themselves available 24/7. These are the people I will do business with. In my experience, the most important selection criteria for anything is the quality of the product itself, and the second close behind is the type of support you'll receive.
Of course usually you expect to pay premium price for premium service. In MY experience, the world is full of shitstains who want 24/7 availability but don't want to pay for it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You keep insulting me, the customer. I will not be doing business with you and will slander your name.
Dickhead clients will slander you anyway because they use up all your reasonableness until you have to put your foot down, usually in the middle of a big mess they've created. You will always be the villain, but keep the story small and it'll soon be replaced by lamenting their next "useless" contractors.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I actually feel sorry for clients like that -- although preferably from a safe distance. The thing is what they're up to isn't business, it's working out their intractable personal issues. What they need is not a vendor, it's a therapist.
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What these policies are accomplishing is to get the entrepreneurs to leave France for other countries.
I live in San Jose, California, and I know four French tech entrepreneurs just in my neighborhood. All of them left France with the goal of starting a company here.
Now, you might argue (as many in France do) that quality of life is more important than money.
Having plenty of leisure time is not as important to quality of life as having a job. Unemployment in France is over 10%, twice the American level, and youth employment is over 25%. They are funding their budget deficits by borrowing from the Germans, and that is not sustainable. They are demanding more and more benefits without being able to pay for those they already have.
Oh, and one other thing: California wine is better too.
Why is the number of millionaires a good measurement ?
How about quality of life, longer life and overall higher standard of living, good education, less stress, easier to get healthcare, etc. ?
New things are always on the horizon