To the workaholics out there I say stop working extra for free. Those additional hours are unsolicited gifts to an employer who would fire you if it was possible. Stop giving your labor away, seriously.
And obviously people should realise that the lack of hour restriction on salaried work can be used against them. Stick, on average, to your contracted hours; crunch time may occasionally be necessary but it should be compensated and never normalised.
Do you get paid to work 40 hours, but only work 20? Or do you get paid for only 20 hours of work?
If it's latter, then the problem is that not many salaried jobs can offer such an arrangement without major caveats. Even if you have a formal agreement with your employer for 20 hours of work, the deadlines and expectations from customers and "business" in general will not care if you are only signed up for 20 hours, when the project needs to be delivered by Monday.
Getting better at estimates go a long way. The "20 minute" task at the end of the work day that ends up taking 2 hours ... either stop doing that or start being honest that 20 minutes meant 2 hours.
Also know what "corporate time" means. Usually the monday deadlines are dependent on a bunch of other things that are rarely if ever done on that monday. Almost universally things are days if not weeks later than scheduled. Have something to go for the monday, but anticipate the reality based on the client relations ...
Also position yourself from a business perspective. The company is doing X to make a profit. You are there to help fix a problem in achieving X. Orient all your goals only to that - not in fixing any adjacent problems - your customers ultimately don't care, your boss ultimately doesn't care, and if you did that, you just worked for free.
There's something called the pace of business. I'm sure there's been slow times when business is moving fine and not much is changing.
Instead of finding work, say to the boss, "I'm not going to waste your money in something that doesn't need to be done. everything is fine, here's the semi vacation I'm doing." It may come at a pay cut, but it should work in your favor and improve your trust and relationship with your superiors because you're taking responsibility for not just the work but the amount of it.
From a business owner you're essentially saying "I achieved the tasks, things are stable. Now pay me less and I'll go do other things" Sounds like a better deal then "now I shall fill up the time with tasks I claim are important that you don't understand but must pay for." From a non tech perspective, this makes you sound like a bozo who doesn't understand business.
Knowing how to negotiate and manage your own labor, especially with respect to business risk and your added value, and if you're expensive is important. Really, it's one of the primary ways you get to be expensive in the first place.
I'm still confused. Are you formally getting paid less than a comparable full-time (40 hours) worker, or are you getting paid with the assumption that you work 40 hours a week? You said you get "full-time pay" earlier, but now it seems you're saying you actually have a special reduced pay arrangement of sorts.
Don't end negotiations during the interview. Open it up again when things change.
Engineers aren't great at business and often hand wave it off as if it's unpleasant and impure. That's nonsense. If you're an employee, the business comes first.
If you get good and are known to be good, you can ask for any kind of work arrangement.
So when the productivity gains that were promised in the 50s came in the 80s there was no labor movement to force a shorter work week, so instead there were layoffs and bigger profits on top.
We never got the promised 20 hour work week of the 50s because collectively we forgot and abandoned the multi-generational labor struggle which got us the 40 hour one. These things aren't going to just get handed out.
We are also forced to spend more in many cases; taxes are higher, EPA vehicle regs are stricter, etc. I am effectively forced to give away ~40% of my work time to federal and state governments (not including taxes on the employer side, like payroll taxes), and I don't make much as a student.
Land is a competitive good, land near commercial hubs is scarce and eventually goes to the highest earners in relative terms. If you want to cut working hours for everyone, the government has to mandate it - otherwise people will always be willing to work a smidgen more than you for the better house. The government here is part of the solution, not the problem. (Unless you are talking about municipal zoning and NIMBYism which is certainly part of the problem.)
If people add more value I have no problem with them having a bigger house / more stuff.
I have a problem with being forced to work for my landlord.
we are slaves to our uncontrolled passions that marketers have ruthlessly and easily exploited having us believe we need something we cannot afford. we allow ourselves to be convinced that our life would not be as fulfilling without the latest fad/gadget/etc.
If people paid in cash for what they want, put off such purchases for three or more days, and bought a home one income could support, there would less "slave to wages" than people think
I think GGP's point was that those are becoming hard-to-impossible to find in many places, especially places with decent-paying jobs.
I don't agree with him that this was a deliberate conspiracy by employers to keep workers oppressed; I think it has far more to do with an out-of-control financial sector and governments addicted to over-loose monetary policy. But blaming people's "uncontrolled passions" for wanting a stable home, one they might actually be able to pay off one day, is a bit silly.
(Disclaimer: this is a view from London, which while it might not be quite the absolute worst for housing is pretty damn close to it. YMMV.)
Now if the question is whether they try to maximize profits, once again, this is not a secret or a back room conspiracy, this is how it works.
As an employee, enter into every negotiation knowing this.
I'm not sure you who you're arguing with. What I said was
> I don't agree with him that this was a deliberate conspiracy
and branchless' GGP comment I was disagreeing with wasn't about "extracting profit from the labor of its workforce" in general, it was about "The whole point behind high land prices is to prevent most people achieving financial independence."
If we get more productive and wages rise we have more disposable income so rents / renting money from the bank (mortgage) rises.
If we cut back on consumption we have more disposable income so rent rises.
Productivity gains are captured by land prices.
But people cannot do this because we live in a world of very efficient economic rent extraction through land prices. When productivity rises land prices rise, handing over all gains to the banks. Our generation are, thanks to tech, far more efficient than the 1960s. Yet now both parents must work for the same (or worse) house.
Computing power brought us many things, it also brought banks, the ability to track vast amounts of electronic debt. At a time when we came off the gold standard allowing unconstrained fiat issuance.
I'd like to see the shoe on the other foot - employees who are not under constant financial pressure due to high rents demanding that employers pass on most of their surplus value.
edit: cannot reply to your comment as faux hacker news "you're submitting to fast about usury"
here it is:
The main cost of "housing" in urban areas is the land. Construction has improved massively since 1960s as has materials construction, yet here we are with housing at record of income multiples.
That isn't true. Houses built in the 1960s that have only had basic maintenance done to them are available and they are a lot cheaper than newer houses. It turns out most people don't want to live with a house that looks like the 1960s. People like bigger kitchens and houses when we can afford them. Once the house gets a little bigger we like to see things like brick on the front (I'm not sure if this is styles changing or a longer term pattern of people deciding the houses of 1990 are big enough and now we want pretty not more space).
The result is perfectly nice houses in old neighborhoods are available for cheap if you are willing to live in them.
Despite the above I recommend you not buy those old houses: they are not energy efficient and so either heating/cooling will eat your paycheck or you will spend a lot fo money in upgrades you won't get back.
The trade off is a very healthy job market, phenomenal weather, a great liberal culture and great food.
I do.
>Despite the above I recommend you not buy those old houses: they are not energy efficient and so either heating/cooling will eat your paycheck or you will spend a lot fo money in upgrades you won't get back.
Ah, and there's the problem: not freezing in the winter.
In large part people live in city's because they want to live in cities. I pay close to 1/3 of my take home pay in rent because I like where I live.
Right now 20-25% of the US workforce teleworkers some of the time. And up to 50% of US jobs could be worked remotely a significant portion of the time. Further, as people move out of the most in demand city's service jobs will follow.
Quoted with emphasis placed. Can, could, sure I agree 100%. The ability to do this lies with the consent of the employer, not the employee. A lot of people don't have the luxury of cherry-picking their income source, and are beholden to the rules of their employer. I realize that notion isn't really considered here: "we can all get jobs anywhere, we're smart devs!", but in reality is isn't true for large swaths of people.
That said, my office has flexible hours and a liberal WFH policy which is a huge deal to me.
This isn't quite right. Most 'office' jobs could be performed remotely is true. You can't say they can be worked remotely because most companies don't want to deal with remote workers.
I'm a dev, my company doesn't like WFH. Many don't. That is the real world. And that is dev which is perfect for WFH.
Even the wording "a significant portion of the time". Gotta live near.
My boss lived 230 miles from the office at my last job. He showed up 1-2 days a week for meetings and that's it.
This is my 2nd such job.
If it's something you want, I encourage you to shop around.
A huge swath of people simply don't like to do remote work for very long which has a lot more to do with current trends than you might think. Anyway, while there are basic requirements as it's hard to do construction remotely for example there are far more opportunity's than you might think for people with even just a high school diploma, they just don't necessarily pay as well.
If your 'situation' doesn't allow the benefits/compensation that you want, you can either change your situation or change your expectations.
For me the american dream was all about financial autonomy. The USA had to have actual slaves because they had no land enclosure. Why work as a wage slave when you can walk up the road and work empty land? Land gives labour the choice. Land enclosure is required for wage slaves.