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Work-Life Balance: Cryptographer Fired By BAE Systems For Taking Care of Dying Wife (bostonglobe.com)
mdecerbo writes: A new lawsuit by cryptographer Don Davis against multinational defense giant BAE Systems highlights the fact that companies are free to have their boasts about "work-life balance" amount to nothing but idle talk. The Boston Globe reports that on his first day on the job, Davis explained that his wife had late-stage cancer. He would work his full work day in the office, but if he was needed nights or weekends, he'd want to work from home. His supervisor was fine with it, but the human resources department fired him on the spot after four hours of employment. The lawsuit raises interesting questions, such as whether employment law requires corporations to have the sort of common decency we expect from individuals. But what I want to know is, if BAE Systems loses this lawsuit, will they prevent future ones by making their "work-life balance" policy say simply: We own you, body and soul? Don Davis' lawyer, Rebecca Pontikes, contends he was discriminated against because the company "requires its male employees to be the stereotypical male breadwinner and to leave family responsibilities to women." BAE issued a statement to The Boston Globe saying, "we do not tolerate discrimination of any kind and work hard to provide our employees with flexible working options that enable them to have a meaningful work/life balance." The company declined to discuss specifics, citing pending litigation.
I had such a job for 2 years. My conditions were that regardless of what time I was called into the office I would receive double my hourly rate and I would be paid a minimum of 3 hours even if it only took me 10 mins to resolve. Generally this worked out to be almost a days pay for what usually was at most a 30 min fix, in 2 years I think only twice did I need to actually work more than 3 hours in these callins.
Due to this page http://www.baesystems.com/en/c... they are pretty much screwed any where in the world, when that page hits the court. False advertising, contractual misrepresentation and employment under false conditions. Why they chose this path, in this incident, is likely indicated of poor hiring practices, specifically the human resources twit, who will likely be looking for a new job (one rush of ego and power trip and millions of dollars of recruiting advertising pissed against the wall). That BAE have to self promote extensively to hire people into Death industries, is pretty indicative of unpopular working for them has become, if affect making their employees death eaters (oddly apt for them, http://scifi.stackexchange.com... and they sick desire to fully control the deaths of others). It really is a crap industry, surviving on the death and misery on others but they like to tell themselves they provide for the defence of their country. Nah, just greedy and a lack of self conscious though to guide them past the immorality of their employment.
Puts me in two minds about the victim, when employees or ex-employees of death industries want us to be sorry for them when they show not the slightest bit of sympathy or empathy for the people their efforts mangle, main and kill, men, women and children and even their pets. Like all things a choice but not empathy for others in your employment choice but you demand empathy. Might be a bit harsh but when those death industries actively and corruptly promote war, and lobby for more conflict with complete disregard for all those they kill, you have to start looking at their employees in a different way, even when you are related.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
It's also fucking unlikely that a cryptographer is needed outside of normal work hours. What do people imagine, that BAE would be handed a secret message that had to be decoded by a human sitting in a locked, secure room, with no time to waste?
I had such a job for 2 years.
I did it for 4 years. My conditions were that they would provide me with a room to sleep in, and a shower. There was a kitchen in the break room, so I was all set. I saved a fortune by not renting an apartment in the SF Bay Area ($2000 / month for a studio).
If a server crashed at 3am, I could get dressed and be in the machine room in 2 minutes (maybe 3 minutes if I needed to pee).
mind that average HR person is a woman, are you ready to put hands on a woman?
IMO, most countries have hours of work laws that mean an employer isn't in a position to ask employees to work 24x7 in the first place.
They are not asking him to stay at his desk for 24 hours everyday. They are saying he should be available to work 24/7. I have had plenty of jobs with that requirement. I typically received a middle-of-the-night call once every month or two, but when they came, I was expected to deal with the issue. And, yes, I was paid well.
employers need to treat workers as humans, likewise workers need to treat emplooyers with at least some basic respect, for such a situation to only be revealed to the employer on the day he starts screams that he hid the fact to ensure they would not suspect he had issues performing his duties. respect is a 2 way street and in this situation it seems the same respect was shown for him as he had shown for them.
This is clickbait BS most likely. BAE is a government contractor. They don't give a shit about little stuff like this. They just bill the government. Since the article fails to name the people involved I take this with a grain of salt. Chances are there is a lot more to this story.
No, we are not suposed to reveal such things pre-employment, and it is against the law for companies to ask such things. Just because some idiot makes an asinine comment doesn't mean that you should base your opinion of our employment system on it. There are plenty of bad things about it to base your opinion on.
And I'll bet there's *tons* of aspects of the job that can be done from home, without violating any contractual obligations.
Do the sensitive stuff 8-5 and do the rest at home.
As someone who's been penalized for trying to use their (former) company's work-life balance programs I am going to assume the little guy's side on this until evidence to the contrary is provided.
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