If you can prove that a company intentionally polluted knowing that the pollutants were harmful then by all means, have the EPA bring a lawsuit against them. But I don't believe in punishing everyone because of the possibility of misdeeds by some. I especially don't believe in it if no one realized the pollution was dangerous when the pollution was occurring, unless you could somehow prove that they intentionally didn't look into it or blocked that research.
Uh, this shit is PRECISELY what went on throughout the last century (and still continues to this day).
It has been proven countless times that companies will do blatantly illegal and harmful things, knowing full well how harmful they are as long as they believe their risk:benefit ratio is good enough. (See: Flint, Bhopal, Love Canal, Hinkley CA, etc. etc. etc.)
Oh, and as for the "if they knowingly use harmful pollutants use a lawsuit" is bullshit. The legal system is set up so that all they need to do is say they didn't know and they'll get off with a warning, or force the public into a long drawn-out civil legal battle that can take decades to decide. The point of all the EPA regulations is so that these companies can't claim that they "didn't know". These regulations are there so this shit doesn't have to turn into a decades long civil battle, with lots of "did they or didn't they know" going on.
Your argument is like saying that food safety regulations aren't needed, because restaurants will figure out if they make people sick on their own, and we can TOTALLY trust them to stop doing something that does, even if it costs them extra money, right?
Once again, someone who confuses the concepts of legality and ethics.
Just because something is not illegal does not mean that thing is ethical. People in positions of government power are expected to adhere to ethics. If need be, that includes refusing to carry out a legal order if it is ethically odious. (Just ask Nixon's AG about that.)
So you're perfectly OK with unelected personnel refusing to perform perfectly legal tasks assigned to them by the legally elected leadership of the US government?
Personally, I hope he stops their paychecks. Bureaucrats don't get to anticipatorily refuse lawful instructions from their employer because he *might * do something they disagree with later.
Sure. And let's mandate that those people start wearing yellow stars on their clothing as part of a new dress code while we're at it. Dress codes aren't illegal, either. Next, we'll have all those people moved from their offices over into other offices on the other side of town. Nothing illegal about moving someone's office either, right? Something odious and unethical doesn't have to be illegal in order for refusal to be the right option.
If you don't think this is the first step of a purge, you're a complete fucking idiot. Those in charge know exactly what this is because they aren't complete fucking idiots. And when something so obviously unethical (and illegal) is coming down the line, the only ethical thing to do is refuse to comply with all the orders that will facilitate it. Just because each step along the way is legal does not mean you should blindly do it when you know exactly what the end result will be.
That is what these agencies are supposed to do - they're not supposed to be partisan tools for the current ruing party; they're supposed to be an impartial apparatus that does a job mandated by Congress to the best of their abilities.
But they're currently partisan tools for the Obama administration. So you agree with replacing them?
Howso? When did Obama go through and hand-pick every single employee, checking if they had any beliefs that disagreed with his worldview? At various points in his Presidency different agencies said and did things that weren't in 100% support of what he wanted. But no purges ever happened.
Impartial does not mean "doesn't do what is asked of them". It means they do their job - and part of that includes doing what is asked of them by the President as long as it doesn't mean betraying their mandate. It also means not firing anyone simply for having differing opinions from the President - and especially not for conducting research that the President doesn't like when it's exactly what your department is mandated by Congress to do.
There is a world of difference between shaping legislation to lead agencies into doing what you want, and destroying the agency if it doesn't do exactly what you demand, ethics be damned.
Democrats did get more votes than Reps. However this argument is moot and irrelevant.
In response to a "going against the will of the voters" argument, it is in no way irrelevant. It is not being brought up to try claim HRC is the real president - it's being brought up to refute the claim that DT has some sort of mandate from the masses.
You can't win an election so cheat in every way possible, even if illegal, to go against the will of the voters.
Democrats got ~3 million more votes than Republicans did for President. So, who's going against "the will of the voters", again? Just because your guy won on a technicality doesn't mean you have the populous behind you.
Also, exactly how is refusing to obey unethical demands "cheat[ing] in every way possible, even if illegal"?
I applaud what the DoE management is doing but it just means that if the new administration pushes they will replace more staff than originally intended they have that authority.
But in doing so, they will show they have integrity, and take their jobs seriously. That is what these agencies are supposed to do - they're not supposed to be partisan tools for the current ruing party; they're supposed to be an impartial apparatus that does a job mandated by Congress to the best of their abilities.
To put it differently, if you rebelled against what your boss tells you how long do you think you will be around to keep saying "no"?
There are things more important than a paycheck. And I'd consider not supporting a totalitarian regime with a flagrant disregard for reality one of those things.
translation: Oh how I would love for the gov to grind to a halt for about a month while everyone gets fired and Trump puts in his people anyway.
You are so pissed off you would burn our gov to the ground. It was fucking balls on retarded when the republicans did it a few years ago and it still is.
Trump is the one burning our government to the ground, and this exact move he tried to pull underlines that exquisitely. What possible reason would Trump, an avowed climate-change denier have for asking for the names of every individual who worked on climate change EXCEPT to initiate a purge? How is a mass-firing within an organization for explicitly greed-oriented political goals going to have any result that isn't destructive to the department in question? It also sends a blatant message of "don't do your job to the best of your ability - STFU and ignore anything that isn't in line with what we say to do." THIS is what is going to "burn our gov to the ground".
Want to know what would be 'glorious'? If you decided to work with 'the other side' instead of being a smug jerk.
If "the other side" had any intention of actually "working with us" that may be possible. But from day one, these fuckers have declared war. One look at the proposed cabinet shows that 100% - these people were not selected for expertise, they were selected because they have deep-seated antipathy and aggression towards the very government agencies they're supposed to oversee. There is no "working with" someone who has publicly declared themselves your enemy.
Oh, how I would love for EVERY department of the US Government to do this to Trump's team. Those people were hand-picked to destroy the very departments they will oversee. It would be glorious for every department of the government to simply rebel this way and refuse to acknowledge these new anti-leadership goons and just continue to do their jobs as if they don't exist.
i think most can argue even in true free markets that who cares what happens to people that like that.
The question is whether that data collection was legal, and fell with a scope that didn't amount to a fishing expedition. There are two main reasons everyone should care about this:
1) If it's not legal, then it risks these suspects going free on a technicality. 2) If it's not legal, but people decide to just let it slip by because "those people are horrible", then it sets a precedent that said methods are OK, and it gets harder for it later to be declared illegal when the government starts using it for less clear-cut or outright nefarious purposes.
The difference at this point is to hold the DNC higher-ups responsible for this shitshow of a candidate, and make sure they don't do this again. The next time we have a primary candidate drawing in more new voters than any candidate in recent history just for the primaries, and actually getting people honestly excited about voting, then maybe it's a good idea not to conspire against them and destroy their campaign.
Dear DNC and superdelegates: Thanks so much for giving us the most unpopular Democratic nominee in living memory. What should have been a landslide win has become a complete fucking nightmare. Good job.
That's the HBO model isn't it ? At least you can subscribe only to Netflix, you can't do that with HBO courtesy of the cable industry fucks.
Actually, you can. That's what their HBO Now service is for. It costs more than Netflix does, but if you like HBO's original programming and don't want to wait for DVD/BluRay, it's definitely worthwhile to look into.
Now with all the Javascript animation, it is impossible to limit or stop useless and annoying animation that is incorporated into just about every website and all over it. And I am not talking ads.
Some of us desperately want browsers to add some type of animation limitation or control.... if it is even possible.
FlashBlock and NoScript on Firefox do a pretty good job of that.
To be honest, it still sounds like a problem with you.
No, I'd say it's a problem with you making wild assumptions and assuming the worst of someone just because they're an employer instead an employee.
What's your business continuity plan look like, call up all your staff and hope someone picks up?
More or less. Nothing we do is going to be dire enough that the whole place falls apart if someone can't be reached. (Unless the whole place literally falls apart, but somehow I think that'd be more of a call to 911.) Worst case scenario we close down during normal business hours - not the end of the world. And yes, I trust whoever's in charge to make that decision.
So you expect me to never sleep, swim, surf, go diving, camping or any other phone free activity.
If you're not by your phone, you're not by your phone. WTF is wrong with you that you keep insisting on assumed unreasonableness? Do I have to make a post 15 pages long with all the reasons someone might not be able to answer their phone, or the times I'd consider calling, or what I'd call for? Or can you just go along with the spirit of what I've stated repeatedly about being reasonable?
Jesus, if you need this much babysitting to figure anything out, I'd bet you've never had a boss trust you enough to not have to spell everything out like this.
Anything below emergency I typically email and expect to be done when convenient - typically the next work day.
Then send the email to their work mail address, otherwise you're just trying to get them to burn their own time to read it and then think about the solution.
I only ever use work email addresses. I find it odd that anyone would send work-related materials to a non-work address. Is this common elsewhere?
We have business hours for a reason.
Which both actions mentioned indicate you try to get around.
Your definition of "get around" is odd. Email sent to a work address that I don't care if they see until they work next is not "getting around" anything. Calling someone to cover someone else's shift is typically a same-day affair and cannot wait. And an emergency is also, by definition, time-sensitive, and you need to know immediately who is and is not available to help.
In short, your human resources have learned to treat you as an income resource, so now it's suddenly a problem.
Nope. I get along with my employees just fine. If problems come up at work, they help deal with them. If they have problems come up (work or personal), I do what I can to fix or accommodate. I'm sorry you feel so jaded that you automatically assume the worst. I guess the difference is that I treat my employees like adults, and find that most of them act like it.
>As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.
You can either 1) Mention this in the contract, and arrange for pay with a reasonable markup.
What makes you think I didn't?
2) Go fuck yourself.
Lovely attitude.
You're the business owner, so you deal with emergencies, or plan for others (your employees) to handle them.
The plan is that if one comes up, whoever is best equipped to deal with it (often me) gets a phone call to see if they're available. If they're not, then it goes to the next person. Hence, "reasonably available".
We have a rota of people who are on call and they are paid well for the privilege. I do not take part in this rota, so am not to be called. I'm not penalised for this, other than not getting on-call money.
You've got some misunderstanding over likelihood of actually being called, here. Places with someone on call expect to have to call someone often enough that they set up for that. Places without someone on call (like my business) typically have something happen only a few times a year at most.
Why should you expect something and yet not pay for it? If you expect me to deal with an emergency, even once per year, that means I am on call.
1) The only thing I expect is that you'll answer the phone and talk to me for a minute. After that it's up to you to decide if you can/will help out with the emergency. 2) I don't know why you think I'm implying you wouldn't get paid. 3) Being "on call" is something completely different, as that means helping when called is not optional.
I don't understand the American attitude to work.
Really, the way you have to look at what I'm talking about is this: Something unexpected came up (be it some actual emergency, or something more mundane like someone calling in sick). If you get called in this situation, you're being offered the option of picking up extra paid hours to help deal with it. It's your decision whether you take advantage of the extra available work or not.
As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.
What is reasonable?
Do you pay them extra for being on alert? If not, then expecting anything is unreasonable.
I expect basic human decency from them. I guess in your mind I should be paying extra for that? You must be lovely to work with.
Well, if it's an emergency of some sort, I call or text them, depending on the immediacy. (Emergency being defined as anywhere from "someone's sick, can you cover a shift?" to "something's on fire".)
In other words, you shift the cost of preparing for emergencies from your business to your employees, thus making a higher profit at their expense.
In other words, you find asking someone if they want to pick up extra hours, and get paid for it, to deal with something unforeseen as me somehow making a higher profit off of them... somehow? How's that work, exactly?
And are apparently proud of yourself.
Proud that I have a good enough relationship with my employees that I can call them up and ask them for help occasionally without them reacting like the self-important asshole you seem to be? Sure, I'll take that.
No, he's right. By expecting them to answer in an emergency, you're still putting an availability requirement on them. In sane countries, you can't require that without pay.
You're confusing "getting a call a few times a year to see if you're available to help with something" with "being on call". There's a difference - in the first case, which is what I was talking about, it was something unexpected coming up and you being called to see if you can help deal with it. It's the type of emergency where it's last minute and as such you're free to refuse. The second case is being "on call" where emergencies come up often enough, due to the size or nature of the business, that it's expected something will happen more often than not. You're being paid to be on call because you don't have the option to refuse dealing with it.
My boss knows my mobile number and my personal email address. She's welcome to email or text me if there's info I need for first thing the next working day, but unless arranged in advance, I'm not available even for emergencies.
You do understand that emergencies, by their very nature, are not "arranged in advance", right?
Basically, your entire attitude is that unless your boss pays you to be on call 24/7/365 you'll just tell her to fuck off if she calls you for anything? That's a pretty selfish attitude to have. If you had some kind of emergency, would your boss tell you to go to hell? If so, fair play, I guess.
Covering shifts is not done so much for the benefit of the business as it is done for the benefit of your co-workers.
Bullshit. Sure, things can be more hectic for an employee if people can't come in, but if the business weren't harmed by not having the specified number of people there, I'm pretty sure you'd find out that having 4 people instead of 5 there is suddenly "correct staffing levels" instead of being "short-staffed".
Untrue. Staffing levels are typically made for expected peak business requirements, and sanity levels of employees.
Let's use fast food restaurants as an example: If they decide they need 15 people for a shift, then odds are they "only really need" 12-13. But then what happens when you have a day with 15-20% higher customer levels? The customer gets worse service than expected, leading to less repeat business, leading to worse long-term sales, which is why they schedule in the extra employees. Additionally, there are various types of prep work that are scheduled in for those employees to do each day that can be put off until later in situations of peak customer turnout. There's also the employee sanity levels to account for: At that 12-13 staff level, the employees are stretched thinner, their stress levels run higher, and they're more likely to make mistakes. If those mistakes cause extra work, this quickly compounds the issue. While this may be acceptable in the short run, it's a nightmare long-term as the employees hate their jobs, the work environment turns toxic, and it starts to effect customer service.
With this built-in staffing buffer, a short-staffed business's employees can deal with it for a few days before their stress levels get high enough to really affect their work. So yes, covering for a coworker is more for the coworkers' benefits than it is for the business's, as the problems short-staffing causes are felt by the employees immediately, but not by the business unless it lasts for a long enough time.
Slashdot Mirror
If you can prove that a company intentionally polluted knowing that the pollutants were harmful then by all means, have the EPA bring a lawsuit against them. But I don't believe in punishing everyone because of the possibility of misdeeds by some. I especially don't believe in it if no one realized the pollution was dangerous when the pollution was occurring, unless you could somehow prove that they intentionally didn't look into it or blocked that research.
Uh, this shit is PRECISELY what went on throughout the last century (and still continues to this day).
It has been proven countless times that companies will do blatantly illegal and harmful things, knowing full well how harmful they are as long as they believe their risk:benefit ratio is good enough. (See: Flint, Bhopal, Love Canal, Hinkley CA, etc. etc. etc.)
Oh, and as for the "if they knowingly use harmful pollutants use a lawsuit" is bullshit. The legal system is set up so that all they need to do is say they didn't know and they'll get off with a warning, or force the public into a long drawn-out civil legal battle that can take decades to decide. The point of all the EPA regulations is so that these companies can't claim that they "didn't know". These regulations are there so this shit doesn't have to turn into a decades long civil battle, with lots of "did they or didn't they know" going on.
Your argument is like saying that food safety regulations aren't needed, because restaurants will figure out if they make people sick on their own, and we can TOTALLY trust them to stop doing something that does, even if it costs them extra money, right?
Once again, someone who confuses the concepts of legality and ethics.
Just because something is not illegal does not mean that thing is ethical. People in positions of government power are expected to adhere to ethics. If need be, that includes refusing to carry out a legal order if it is ethically odious. (Just ask Nixon's AG about that.)
Trump is the one burning our government to the ground,
He isn't even in office dumb ass.
And yet the fires have already started. I shudder to think of how much worse it will be once he gets there.
So you're perfectly OK with unelected personnel refusing to perform perfectly legal tasks assigned to them by the legally elected leadership of the US government?
Personally, I hope he stops their paychecks. Bureaucrats don't get to anticipatorily refuse lawful instructions from their employer because he *might * do something they disagree with later.
Sure. And let's mandate that those people start wearing yellow stars on their clothing as part of a new dress code while we're at it. Dress codes aren't illegal, either. Next, we'll have all those people moved from their offices over into other offices on the other side of town. Nothing illegal about moving someone's office either, right? Something odious and unethical doesn't have to be illegal in order for refusal to be the right option.
If you don't think this is the first step of a purge, you're a complete fucking idiot. Those in charge know exactly what this is because they aren't complete fucking idiots. And when something so obviously unethical (and illegal) is coming down the line, the only ethical thing to do is refuse to comply with all the orders that will facilitate it. Just because each step along the way is legal does not mean you should blindly do it when you know exactly what the end result will be.
That is what these agencies are supposed to do - they're not supposed to be partisan tools for the current ruing party; they're supposed to be an impartial apparatus that does a job mandated by Congress to the best of their abilities.
But they're currently partisan tools for the Obama administration. So you agree with replacing them?
Howso? When did Obama go through and hand-pick every single employee, checking if they had any beliefs that disagreed with his worldview? At various points in his Presidency different agencies said and did things that weren't in 100% support of what he wanted. But no purges ever happened.
Impartial does not mean "doesn't do what is asked of them". It means they do their job - and part of that includes doing what is asked of them by the President as long as it doesn't mean betraying their mandate . It also means not firing anyone simply for having differing opinions from the President - and especially not for conducting research that the President doesn't like when it's exactly what your department is mandated by Congress to do.
There is a world of difference between shaping legislation to lead agencies into doing what you want, and destroying the agency if it doesn't do exactly what you demand, ethics be damned.
Democrats did get more votes than Reps. However this argument is moot and irrelevant.
In response to a "going against the will of the voters" argument, it is in no way irrelevant. It is not being brought up to try claim HRC is the real president - it's being brought up to refute the claim that DT has some sort of mandate from the masses.
You can't win an election so cheat in every way possible, even if illegal, to go against the will of the voters.
Democrats got ~3 million more votes than Republicans did for President. So, who's going against "the will of the voters", again? Just because your guy won on a technicality doesn't mean you have the populous behind you.
Also, exactly how is refusing to obey unethical demands "cheat[ing] in every way possible, even if illegal"?
I applaud what the DoE management is doing but it just means that if the new administration pushes they will replace more staff than originally intended they have that authority.
But in doing so, they will show they have integrity, and take their jobs seriously. That is what these agencies are supposed to do - they're not supposed to be partisan tools for the current ruing party; they're supposed to be an impartial apparatus that does a job mandated by Congress to the best of their abilities.
To put it differently, if you rebelled against what your boss tells you how long do you think you will be around to keep saying "no"?
There are things more important than a paycheck. And I'd consider not supporting a totalitarian regime with a flagrant disregard for reality one of those things.
translation: Oh how I would love for the gov to grind to a halt for about a month while everyone gets fired and Trump puts in his people anyway.
You are so pissed off you would burn our gov to the ground. It was fucking balls on retarded when the republicans did it a few years ago and it still is.
Trump is the one burning our government to the ground, and this exact move he tried to pull underlines that exquisitely. What possible reason would Trump, an avowed climate-change denier have for asking for the names of every individual who worked on climate change EXCEPT to initiate a purge? How is a mass-firing within an organization for explicitly greed-oriented political goals going to have any result that isn't destructive to the department in question? It also sends a blatant message of "don't do your job to the best of your ability - STFU and ignore anything that isn't in line with what we say to do." THIS is what is going to "burn our gov to the ground".
Want to know what would be 'glorious'? If you decided to work with 'the other side' instead of being a smug jerk.
If "the other side" had any intention of actually "working with us" that may be possible. But from day one, these fuckers have declared war. One look at the proposed cabinet shows that 100% - these people were not selected for expertise, they were selected because they have deep-seated antipathy and aggression towards the very government agencies they're supposed to oversee. There is no "working with" someone who has publicly declared themselves your enemy.
Oh, how I would love for EVERY department of the US Government to do this to Trump's team. Those people were hand-picked to destroy the very departments they will oversee. It would be glorious for every department of the government to simply rebel this way and refuse to acknowledge these new anti-leadership goons and just continue to do their jobs as if they don't exist.
In other news, 40% of Americans have bad sex lives.
i think most can argue even in true free markets that who cares what happens to people that like that.
The question is whether that data collection was legal, and fell with a scope that didn't amount to a fishing expedition. There are two main reasons everyone should care about this:
1) If it's not legal, then it risks these suspects going free on a technicality.
2) If it's not legal, but people decide to just let it slip by because "those people are horrible", then it sets a precedent that said methods are OK, and it gets harder for it later to be declared illegal when the government starts using it for less clear-cut or outright nefarious purposes.
What difference at this point does it make?
The difference at this point is to hold the DNC higher-ups responsible for this shitshow of a candidate, and make sure they don't do this again. The next time we have a primary candidate drawing in more new voters than any candidate in recent history just for the primaries, and actually getting people honestly excited about voting, then maybe it's a good idea not to conspire against them and destroy their campaign.
Dear DNC and superdelegates: Thanks so much for giving us the most unpopular Democratic nominee in living memory. What should have been a landslide win has become a complete fucking nightmare. Good job.
That's the HBO model isn't it ? At least you can subscribe only to Netflix, you can't do that with HBO courtesy of the cable industry fucks.
Actually, you can. That's what their HBO Now service is for. It costs more than Netflix does, but if you like HBO's original programming and don't want to wait for DVD/BluRay, it's definitely worthwhile to look into.
Now with all the Javascript animation, it is impossible to limit or stop useless and annoying animation that is incorporated into just about every website and all over it. And I am not talking ads.
Some of us desperately want browsers to add some type of animation limitation or control.... if it is even possible.
FlashBlock and NoScript on Firefox do a pretty good job of that.
To be honest, it still sounds like a problem with you.
No, I'd say it's a problem with you making wild assumptions and assuming the worst of someone just because they're an employer instead an employee.
What's your business continuity plan look like, call up all your staff and hope someone picks up?
More or less. Nothing we do is going to be dire enough that the whole place falls apart if someone can't be reached. (Unless the whole place literally falls apart, but somehow I think that'd be more of a call to 911.) Worst case scenario we close down during normal business hours - not the end of the world. And yes, I trust whoever's in charge to make that decision.
So you expect me to never sleep, swim, surf, go diving, camping or any other phone free activity.
If you're not by your phone, you're not by your phone. WTF is wrong with you that you keep insisting on assumed unreasonableness? Do I have to make a post 15 pages long with all the reasons someone might not be able to answer their phone, or the times I'd consider calling, or what I'd call for? Or can you just go along with the spirit of what I've stated repeatedly about being reasonable?
Jesus, if you need this much babysitting to figure anything out, I'd bet you've never had a boss trust you enough to not have to spell everything out like this.
Then send the email to their work mail address, otherwise you're just trying to get them to burn their own time to read it and then think about the solution.
I only ever use work email addresses. I find it odd that anyone would send work-related materials to a non-work address. Is this common elsewhere?
Which both actions mentioned indicate you try to get around.
Your definition of "get around" is odd. Email sent to a work address that I don't care if they see until they work next is not "getting around" anything. Calling someone to cover someone else's shift is typically a same-day affair and cannot wait. And an emergency is also, by definition, time-sensitive, and you need to know immediately who is and is not available to help.
In short, your human resources have learned to treat you as an income resource, so now it's suddenly a problem.
Nope. I get along with my employees just fine. If problems come up at work, they help deal with them. If they have problems come up (work or personal), I do what I can to fix or accommodate. I'm sorry you feel so jaded that you automatically assume the worst. I guess the difference is that I treat my employees like adults, and find that most of them act like it.
>As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.
You can either
1) Mention this in the contract, and arrange for pay with a reasonable markup.
What makes you think I didn't?
2) Go fuck yourself.
Lovely attitude.
You're the business owner, so you deal with emergencies, or plan for others (your employees) to handle them.
The plan is that if one comes up, whoever is best equipped to deal with it (often me) gets a phone call to see if they're available. If they're not, then it goes to the next person. Hence, "reasonably available".
We have a rota of people who are on call and they are paid well for the privilege. I do not take part in this rota, so am not to be called. I'm not penalised for this, other than not getting on-call money.
You've got some misunderstanding over likelihood of actually being called, here. Places with someone on call expect to have to call someone often enough that they set up for that. Places without someone on call (like my business) typically have something happen only a few times a year at most.
Why should you expect something and yet not pay for it? If you expect me to deal with an emergency, even once per year, that means I am on call.
1) The only thing I expect is that you'll answer the phone and talk to me for a minute. After that it's up to you to decide if you can/will help out with the emergency. 2) I don't know why you think I'm implying you wouldn't get paid. 3) Being "on call" is something completely different, as that means helping when called is not optional.
I don't understand the American attitude to work.
Really, the way you have to look at what I'm talking about is this: Something unexpected came up (be it some actual emergency, or something more mundane like someone calling in sick). If you get called in this situation, you're being offered the option of picking up extra paid hours to help deal with it. It's your decision whether you take advantage of the extra available work or not.
Do you pay them extra for being on alert? If not, then expecting anything is unreasonable.
I expect basic human decency from them. I guess in your mind I should be paying extra for that? You must be lovely to work with.
In other words, you shift the cost of preparing for emergencies from your business to your employees, thus making a higher profit at their expense.
In other words, you find asking someone if they want to pick up extra hours, and get paid for it, to deal with something unforeseen as me somehow making a higher profit off of them ... somehow? How's that work, exactly?
And are apparently proud of yourself.
Proud that I have a good enough relationship with my employees that I can call them up and ask them for help occasionally without them reacting like the self-important asshole you seem to be? Sure, I'll take that.
No, he's right. By expecting them to answer in an emergency, you're still putting an availability requirement on them. In sane countries, you can't require that without pay.
You're confusing "getting a call a few times a year to see if you're available to help with something" with "being on call". There's a difference - in the first case, which is what I was talking about, it was something unexpected coming up and you being called to see if you can help deal with it. It's the type of emergency where it's last minute and as such you're free to refuse. The second case is being "on call" where emergencies come up often enough, due to the size or nature of the business, that it's expected something will happen more often than not. You're being paid to be on call because you don't have the option to refuse dealing with it.
My boss knows my mobile number and my personal email address. She's welcome to email or text me if there's info I need for first thing the next working day, but unless arranged in advance, I'm not available even for emergencies.
You do understand that emergencies, by their very nature, are not "arranged in advance", right?
Basically, your entire attitude is that unless your boss pays you to be on call 24/7/365 you'll just tell her to fuck off if she calls you for anything? That's a pretty selfish attitude to have. If you had some kind of emergency, would your boss tell you to go to hell? If so, fair play, I guess.
Covering shifts is not done so much for the benefit of the business as it is done for the benefit of your co-workers.
Bullshit. Sure, things can be more hectic for an employee if people can't come in, but if the business weren't harmed by not having the specified number of people there, I'm pretty sure you'd find out that having 4 people instead of 5 there is suddenly "correct staffing levels" instead of being "short-staffed".
Untrue. Staffing levels are typically made for expected peak business requirements, and sanity levels of employees.
Let's use fast food restaurants as an example: If they decide they need 15 people for a shift, then odds are they "only really need" 12-13. But then what happens when you have a day with 15-20% higher customer levels? The customer gets worse service than expected, leading to less repeat business, leading to worse long-term sales, which is why they schedule in the extra employees. Additionally, there are various types of prep work that are scheduled in for those employees to do each day that can be put off until later in situations of peak customer turnout. There's also the employee sanity levels to account for: At that 12-13 staff level, the employees are stretched thinner, their stress levels run higher, and they're more likely to make mistakes. If those mistakes cause extra work, this quickly compounds the issue. While this may be acceptable in the short run, it's a nightmare long-term as the employees hate their jobs, the work environment turns toxic, and it starts to effect customer service.
With this built-in staffing buffer, a short-staffed business's employees can deal with it for a few days before their stress levels get high enough to really affect their work. So yes, covering for a coworker is more for the coworkers' benefits than it is for the business's, as the problems short-staffing causes are felt by the employees immediately, but not by the business unless it lasts for a long enough time.