Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?
economist.com
economist.com
Further, the economy doing well when people see wage increases reinforces that marginal increases in income for the 99% highly benefit the national output.
Sorry for the non-contributing anecdote but I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Once you start to understand things more clearly as a system and how to work on that system you come to realize it's a lot of tacking things together any way possible.
It will be no surprise to anyone reading this that land surveying is dead now, especially two/three-man team land surveying. Nobody was trained during those "gap" periods, and meanwhile the older generation of baby-boom surveyors (of which there were many) retired. Furthermore, LiDAR, scanning, survey-grade GPS, and robotic total stations meant that some engineering firms cut corners and took a chance by sending CEs out into the field solo to do the field work. That dynamic ensures no training of new surveyors in the field is possible.
EDIT: I'm a developer now.
'Labor shortage' is always 'I can't find people at the price I originally thought I'd have to pay', modulo some time lag dependent on the exact skill set (i.e., training time).
Strange.
To be sure, bona-fide shortages can occur transiently. For example when a natural disaster happens, it will take time for the local tradesmen to work through the backlog. But at a relatively steady state, it seems silly to talk about a shortage of construction workers. Pay a bit more than the next guy, and my guess is, your shortage will quickly disappear.
Labor availability + skill + time + market awareness = it takes a helluva lot longer than months or 2-3 years to meaningfully boost a skill trade.
Labor availabity means: how many people - heavily influenced by the unemployment rate - are interested in putting in the time to go retrain themselves to do a new job. Many people will not kill themselves to do so, if they're making $45/hour and you tell them the upside is $60/hour. A deep level of comfort sets in for a large percentage of the population once you get to $30-$45 per hour.
Skill means: it takes years to train someone to an appropriate level at being a professional anything, whether we're talking roofing or plumbing.
Time means: well, it simply takes time to rotate large numbers of people into blue collar jobs. The whole process takes a lot of time, from start to finish. There's only so much that can be done to speed that process up.
Market awareness: it can take years for people to believe that blue collar work demand is going to be sustained (history say otherwise, and people know that such work is often inconsistent; and they know that the downturns are brutal). It can take years to get the word out in just a mid-size city like San Diego, that there is high demand. It requires new entrants to take risk, which most people do not like doing. To be convinced to take a life change risk if someone is even remotely comfortable, the reward has to be extreme in most cases.
That means you're not paying enough.
One could argue that, while you think you’re experiencing a shortage, reality is that you’re simply not willing to pay enough.
But I will happily bake you a loaf of bread for $10,000 each. In fact, I’d quit my day job to do that. That shortage wouldn’t last long.
Yes, exactly. The demand curve shifts right and the markets find a new equilibrium (most likely at a higher wage than the old equilibrium), but there’s no “shortage”. It’s just markets clearing at a different price level than what people are used to.
Calling it a “shortage” is like saying every time Starbucks raises their prices there is a shortage of coffee — at the old price, sure, but not in absolute terms. That’s not how equilibriums work.
A. Takes time for new workers to be adequately trained.
B. Takes even longer to get people that have been raised to look down on the trades to change their worldview and all of a sudden consider working with their hands, no matter how much money is involved.
There are real cases of shortages in the labour market. Where I live, the law defines a fixed rate for doctors. Even if I had all the money in the world, I could not legally pay more than my neighbour to employ the services of the doctor in town. Here, a shortage is a real possibility as there is no monetary way to decide who gets the appointment with the doctor. But these tend to be exceptional cases.
Without that legal requirement, I could simply offer more than my neighbour to get the appointment and the neighbour would have to choose to go without seeing the doctor. There is not a shortage in that scenario as the neighbour was not in the market to begin with. This is the same reason we don't say there is a shortage of Ferraris, even though the vast majority of people will never be able to get their hands on one, no matter how much they wish they could have one. They are simply unaffordable to most people.
It really doesn't matter how long it takes to train someone. As long as the price is able to rise, the business who really need the existing people will pay more, taking them from the businesses that cannot afford them, until everyone who still needs that service is fulfilled.
In what society?
But you've added the qualifiers 'in a store' and 'basically the same kind', and it's still not really describing fungibility, is it?
What if nobody trains to become a construction worker (for whatever reason) and then over the next 5-10 years demand goes down because people get used to making do with the buildings that already exist? Is it also not a shortage then?
But you can do this too: call up the elite contractors who you can't schedule because they're "too busy" and give them a big number upfront. "I need my carpets replaced, I figure this will be $30k, does that sound right?". They'll be there.
But you have to do the work to know what the right wages are. Employers already know this stuff, obviously.
However, there's quite a lot of friction hiring unknown software developers (so I guess that's why I don't get those offers - I'm not actively hunting for them).
I always found that there is some "market price" where people are decent and paying less gets you less quality and paying more tends to get you better quality.
Specific example: we needed security guards for an event in Las Vegas circa 2006.
* $150/day got us off duty professional guards who were fantastic
* $125/day got us college kids/retired folks who were pretty good
* <$100/day high school kids or people with questionable backgrounds who were usually terrible
Suppose that we train x+y construction workers a year, x work in the industry until retirement, y - retrain to different profession. This means that there are y*years dormant specialists that can be brought back to industry.
Not everyone should be specializing in abstract symbol manipulation.
The average maturity of a corporate bond is now 15+ years, and most bonds pay a fixed interest rate that doesn't vary due to current rates [1].
That means that any change to rates will not have much of an immediate impact on the interest expense line item. On the other hand, it will actually increase the interest income they receive on their cash balances.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/41213b02-b87e-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9...
Slightly oversimplified way to think about it: every year companies need to refi only 1/T of their debt, where T is the average maturity.
Retail shelf space is capital. If consumers empty shelves twice as fast, the return on shelf space-capital will double (assuming the markup doesn’t change). It’s not the Fed raising rates, it’s the market over-bidding the Fed.
If the Fed were able to stop these movements, our economy wouldn’t be as bubbly as it is.
It's a matter of facts. The population growth rate is too low. The rate of retirement is too high (boomers exiting). Immigration is at modest levels versus the total population base. Almost any consistent GDP growth with those factors in play, will generate an extreme labor demand squeeze. It's particularly bad for blue collar jobs; the boomer generation is loaded with blue collar skills / trade persons, and they're exiting in droves.
Major economies with low population growth like Germany are able to maintain perpetually low unemployment with very modest growth. The US routinely grows 3x to 4x faster than Germany, including presently. It's obvious what the consequences of sustained 1.5%-2% (much less higher) GDP growth must have on the US when it comes to labor shortages from this point forward, when all the labor factors are taken into account.
Please, polite answers only. I'm just a foreigner that want to understand a little more.
In service positions, I could see a rise in wages attributed to those jobs that might have previously been filled with migrants.
I might see legal immigration also being discouraged, but to be honest that includes tourism from abroad which is shrinking and potentially having a negative impact on the service sector.
The only direct _policy_ link I can see is not a policy but rather a "business friendly" climate that might lead companies to start to invest more, understanding that they probably won't be taxed or regulated more heavily in the next 3 years.
That, plus cheap credit (a big overheat risk IMO) means opportunities for growth.
In terms of actual policy, I'd say not much has happened but rather the economy is now recovering from the housing crisis and growth has picked up again across the board. This was occurring before Trump, and will continue until another systemic issue occurs and people panic I'd imagine.
That said, in my opinion, Presidents rarely have much to do with economic outcomes except to either inject risk / instability with policy initiatives or pronouncements. Some big policies have costs, but most of the day to day impacts are quite spread out. There has been no action yet on health care or taxes that would influence employer direct costs. Perhaps some regulation has not been implemented and some executive orders rolled back, but nothing that would impact markets.
In particular, in this case, the rise started before Trump assumed office, so it seems reasonable to say that no, he didn't cause it.
http://www.macrotrends.net/1358/dow-jones-industrial-average...
However, just to show that with the right zoom level, you can make data show you anything, look at 3 year graph, and it shows that up until Nov 2016, the graph was flat-lining, even with some large dips, but then it started going up and has been doing so since. I am sure Trump supporters will say "see, there's your cause!".
And maybe they are right somewhat. This is the stock market, so perceptions, and perceptions of perceptions of future income get folded into the price. So maybe a hope of a more business friendly environment was started to be factored in.
One thing I have little doubt of is that had the market done the opposite and gone down the same amount, every media outlet and Reddit's politics subs would immediately become macroeconomic experts and blame everything on Trump. The reason I say it is because there was a dip the night of the election, and I clearly remember how MSNBC hosts printed out after-hours and Japan stock market results on paper and happily were telling people how their 401k will burn, and jobs will be lost and how they, how had just had a major failure predicting the outcome of the election, had finally validated themselves regarding the stock market crash. But then the very next day the stock market shot up and has been going up since. That's why you don't really find them talking much about the economy. This was one of the surprising articles, and even that from a British company.
i say that as a fly on the wall. i feel like i am outside some bubble where everyone flips out about the smallest things, and they forget that they did it at all. try asking people about how they flipped out about the premarket trading the day after the election and people are oblivious
The growth is from the demand side - people are buying more right now.
You say that as if the jobs taken by illegals exist in some alternate universe where simple economic principles don't apply.
If an illegal immigrant's job is vacant (because he couldn't enter the country) and a would-be manufacturing worker fills that job, that obviously has a direct impact on the manufacturer's ability to hire that worker. He's no longer looking for a job because he filled a vacancy left by an illegal immigrant.
If your business model relies on wages being suppressed by those illegal workers, then maybe your business deserves to go bankrupt when the supply dries up and Americans start demanding $15/hour.
Undocumented workers take the jobs because there is no financial incentive for an owner to risk breaking the law unless they are getting cash back. The worker is basically paying their employer to break the law.
Interesting hypothesis... I was under the impression that many farmers operate on thin margins these days.
>In some industries the labour shortage seems acute. Now is not a good time for Americans to remodel their bathrooms: tile and terrazzo contractors earn 11% more per hour than a year ago (and fully one-third more than in 2014).
This is exactly the type of jobs that have been flooded by immigrants from Latin America - both illegal and legal - for decades. I speak Spanish and often talk with immigrants at bars or wherever, and they work in numerous industries.
The one thing that changed my view of the whole system was realizing that absolutely no company gives a shit about the laws. Guys who had been here a year or less, couldn't speak any English, were hired for government contracting jobs on roads and the metro paying tons of overtime at near-union wages.
Also, labor markets are fluid. If a citizen can make more in construction, he might quit his shitty manufacturing job.
But, hey, anything to continue with the absurd narrative that massive immigration hasn't been a very major part of wage destruction for both blue-collar and also white-collar jobs via H1Bs, OPT, L1, etc.
This breaks the HN guidelines outright. We ban accounts that make a habit of that, so please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't.
Most traditional manufacturing jobs require being able to read/write the native language. Also, manufacturing companies are sometimes audited by standard bodies that involve interviews with workers (mainly to see if they understand quality control).
In other words: you can fill part of your staff with interchangeable workers, but not all of it.
The whole immigrant debate is so political now, it's hard to find any trustful source, including the stats put out by USCIS , DOJ, etc.
So if you want to know how the SSN game works for illegal immigrants, find some media who wants to paint it in a positive light, even if they have to admit that millions of workers use fake SSNs: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/undocum...
When you consider that the median income in the country is $31,099[1], making more than half the population is pretty great. At the upper end of that range, you are in the top 30%.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
"Lefty loosey, righty tighty... no no your other left"https://bfgblog-a.akamaihd.net/uploads/2015/01/hololens-plum...
(it was faked, the remote guy was drawing with a tablet, but somehow it worked in 3d like tilt brush..)
Source: had to retile a bit of a floor, too small to interest a real tiler. Guess how it looks now?
That part of the business model worked well for Home Depot.
Also, most light everyday home maintenance work like laying tile, building a fence, framing a wall, installing plumbing, etc. is not rocket science. You don't have to be Bob Vila or go to trade school for years to learn how to do it.
I always tell people wanting to do a job themselves that the first time your costs are the same as hiring a pro, but the second time you own the tools and it is just time.
Of course, some things (is the screw really tight?) can't be verified by video only, but possibly one could devise smarter tools like pressure gauges and some such that can be shown over a video call.
An untrained hand takes so much longer to complete a task that a professional is used to regardless of the understanding. Do you want to slog along a journeyman in video conference for 8 hours or hire him for 2? What's your cost going to be with either?
Beyond that a lot of physical tasks can be done blind, does he "see" that you've threaded the hose properly or applied the compound properly when you're doing it by feel as your eyes can't reach behind whatever you're working at?
I like the idea but I always relate back to my own real world experiences and think about how inefficient it is to remotely task with someone. Ever try helping your parents navigate their computer over the phone? Imagine doing that with a professional @ $100/hr or whatever to replace your faucet or wire new fixtures and run cabling to a breaker panel
If the job would take a plumber 30 minutes, it'll take me an hour - so instead of paying a plumber for 30 minutes of work, I'd need to pay him for an hour of supervision; so I'd be paying more for the privilege of doing it myself.
I could see some potential in apprenticeships taking place remotely, though. At least in the latter years of one. And maybe compliance tests, journeyman tests, etc — depending on the nature of the work. And in that case, less Skype, and more AR.
Never mind commercial plumbing! Small business owners trying to sort out a commercial block backup caused by a grease-trap failure could start to turn out a few issues...
Plumbers deserve higher regard than they're given (all great plumber jokes aside).
That said if the tech could be used to improve the training of specialists in remote areas/ areas that might be short a few journeymen or master tradespersons, or aid in especially complex problems, it could be a huge boon and reduction in cost (eg - travel costs).
In my experience, there's been very few things where it makes more sense long term to just pay someone else to do it so long as you're willing to do a little bit of learning.
Unfortunately, it's the little things that usually push me to give up and hire a pro - wrong tools, don't know the tricks to get a tight screw loose, etc.
It's not dissimilar to how many non-technical PHBs watch developers typing away, and figure they can just get a random worker for half-price to copy the same code from a book or website. In reality, it's not the actual code - many times which can just be copied - that makes a good developer worthwhile, it's the years of experience to know what to do when something goes wrong.
It was more than a bit depressing the parent company pulled the plug because it really did feel like it was about take off. Maybe we could've instead integrated into a set of preferred suppliers cross country as a lead gen service. Though if you read the TrustPilot reviews it was the fact we were the whole package that customers loved.
We started by first charging for calls but in order to grow switched that to free calls with the assumption that people would then book a home visit if needs be. Nobody wanted to pay £10 on a call and find out they needed a plumber to come out. It felt like something that with Uber-style levels of investment (i.e. tons) could be pretty profitable if you owned the sector. To expand on our offerings we would do things like allow people to simply book a handyman for an hour to do whatever - put up a curtain rail, fix that loose light fitting and so on.
People were using the video aspect as a precursor to someone actually coming to do the work so the video bit was never the end of the transaction. As soon as you start needing a team of people to field customer calls, do support and manage your countrywide team of tradesmen it gets expensive.
[1] https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/dad.co?page=2
[2] http://www.eu-startups.com/2016/05/london-based-dad-secures-...
[3] https://s3.amazonaws.com/poly-screenshots.angel.co/enhanced_...
I have some exterior window blinds that need fixing, I'd love for someone to see it over a video call and get a quote before them coming.
That startup sounded great, I'm sad it failed :(
One thing we were looking to do was to offer it to companies as an employee perk - so the company would buy a certain amount of hours that could be used. Then staff could have a face to face call with the relevant tradesperson to discuss anything they like. It was too near the end though to get going :(
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/784ae4b6-e9f2-11e6-967b-c88452263...
I remember articles from one or two decades ago about the attempts to automate a very dangerous and not even low-paying job of window washing in the high rise buildings. It is a real problem, it does not require HAL-9000 grade AI that can analyse Shakespeare, it is economically viable, and neither then nor now it is completely automated. I see that in Australia, window washing jobs are paid as high as low to midrange software development.
I am not even going to mention more complex tasks like a work of a plumber, a gardener, a janitor. Is the work of a janitor the more lucrative occupation?
It takes very long to get from the first demos to a prototype working most of the time, and even longer from the prototype to a system that can be relied upon in a mission critical environment (a category that most applications of robotics fall into). The Silicon Valley prophets got it all backwards.
This is what inflation is. It's all a function of supply and demand.
Ideally, in such articles I want to see actual numbers. I want to see "the average wage for a carpenters in 2015 was X, and today is is X+10%". I'm not so sure that those numbers are changing all that much.
Service jobs on the other hand were the most humiliating experiences of my life. We were expected to take harsh abuse from customers while issuing apologies.
The question should be "why is this a surprise?"
Does our culture esteem people that work with their hands? Do parents encourage their children to aspire to learn trade skills? Does our educational system encourage students to learn trade skills and explore the trades as highly viable alternatives to going to college?
We've looked down at the trades and blue-collar work for decades. The evidence is everywhere. Of course there is a shortage, students have been listening to the adults in their lives, their peers, media outside of Mike Rowe etc and have heard the message loud and clear.
Solutions; I see two things that need to happen.
First, we need to reach and communicate to students and adults across the country that trade skills are valuable and a career in the trades is an outstanding option.
Create a more efficient, affordable and accessible resources for people to learn trade skills, no matter their location, age, income, nationality etc. We need to make it 10x easier for people to learn the skills that are in demand.
I’m working on both those solutions at Tradeskills.io Definitely a lot to figure out!
When white collar tech wages rise it is because they are creating an incredible amount of economic value and deserve all of it! It is absolutely all because of their own genius!
Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows.
Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test.
Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of showing up on time (or at all) even after that’s explained as a part of orientation.
Sub $160,000 houses (3-4 bedrooms, land, average schools, 15-30 minute commute) are now selling in 1-3 days, compared with 3-6 months five years ago. There’s definitely a boom getting started here.
Graduation rates are are higher than ever. Over 30% of people have Bachelors degrees or higher. Literacy rates are higher than they ever have been.
Our people aren't dumber, they just realize that when the business managers and owners are making millions while they don't get wage increases above inflation, they have no incentive to care.
Producing it seems, graduates unfit for basic employment according to previous posters. Quantity is clearly not quality.
But I imagine if we interviewed 20 people for a position, we would most certainly not have 18 no-shows.
Can someone who smoked a joint a couple days ago be trusted not to smoke one 30 minutes before starting work with the concrete cutters? Trusted enough to bet your company on? (Because you know that if the worker smokes a joint just before working with the concrete cutters, and someone gets injured or killed, the owner loses the company in the lawsuit.)
I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary.
> Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test.
So don't give drug tests?
> Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of showing up on time (or at all) even after that’s explained as a part of orientation.
Try paying more?
While I agree that drug tests are a scam as a white collar worker, I do think they're necessary from a liability perspective if you're in construction, manufacturing, or driving a company vehicle.
I fully support the use of recreational drugs on someone's own time, but you have to weed out (forgive the pun) those who are under the influence when loss of life or limb is a risk.
Doesn't that say something about the effectiveness of testing?
Culturally, recreational drug use isn't that big of a deal, at least to millennials. You can completely be responsible enough to enjoy some cannabis on personal time, while also doing your 40 hours productively.
The problem is one of information from the POV of the employer: they are ultimately responsible for what the worker does on the job.
Even if P(no problem | drug use) = 0.99, the amount of negligent liability they will incur if an accident does occur, the person was intoxicated, and the employer could have checked for drugs, but didn't, is probably so high that they can't take that route.
Just not weeks after consumption...
My point is that the test is testing the wrong thing. A sobriety test would be best.
As a pilot, I seriously don’t care if you show up to work high or not - unless you’re doing maintenance on the jet I’m supposed to fly.
But it's the best signal we've got. Ignore it at your peril. Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-gui...
Except that's not true. We can actually test for sobriety. And by doing drug testing instead, we're actually using a worse signal in place of a better signal!
See e.g., http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages...
> Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time.
I'm not really sure if there's more than a vague analogy connecting Diamond's hypotheses to drug testing policy. And I don't find that exceptionally vague analogy to be compelling evidence. (And I'm one of those people who doesn't even buy a lot of Diamond's work anyways; in fact, I think I'm in good company on this one among the sober, grown-up anthropologists out there...)
My weathered experience tells me to prefer hard data over vague analogies to pop science writers who are themselves known more for their well-written vague analogies than their well-researched hard science :-)
Administer sobriety tests the same way you currently administer drug tests -- upon application, and randomly. They're a lot cheaper so you can actually get more data for less $/time.
Seems really arbitrary and pointless when you take out all the drug war baggage out of it.
Its a test of self introspection and awareness and intelligence, not solely discipline.
Its not a simple binary "have you been within 10 meters of the devils weed in the past month T/F" question.
To fail a test after 30 days of normal peeing takes something like weeks of Cheech and Chong 2.0 behavior to build up the level of metabolites in the body. There's a whole spectrum of use vs time required to test clean. A buzz a couple days ago will not fail a test. Wake and bake the morning of the test is a fail. The kind of person dumb enough to wake and bake the morning of a pee test is not the kind of person I'd want on a jobsite.
There's also the question of motivation. There are supplements which basically make you pee alot to pee out the THC and there are test kits at walgreens for $10 that are fairly accurate to determine if you pass. To fail a pee test you have to be unmotivated enough to not even try.
Responsible intelligent users will not have trouble passing a test. Irresponsible or unintelligent users are doomed, but those are the kind of people that cause workplace fatalities anyway, so no real loss.
This is all aside from unemployment fraud type stuff.
I don't think that's true.
Your first use will usually stay in your system for 5-8 days
If you use cannabis 2-4 times per week and then stop, you’ll test positive for 11-18 days
If you smoke 5-6 times per week, it’ll stay in your urine for 33-48 days
For Medical cannabis patients and people in the #smokeweedeveryday club,
THC-COOH will stay in your urine for 49-63 days
Even if it was true, the fact that it is so easily passible doesn't help the argument that it's not pointless and arbitrary.
"There are supplements which basically make you pee alot to pee out the THC"
Frankly, there is level of education and willingness to study I don't expect from dude hired for simple construction or retail job and you are quite getting there. For the record, I know construction workers.
"there are test kits at walgreens for $10 that are fairly accurate to determine if you pass. To fail a pee test you have to be unmotivated enough to not even try."
I mean, why would he wasted $10 on that? Cheaper to do the test and if you fail then look for job elsewhere. Claim here is that now is a good time for blue collar workers so presumably they can try elsewhere. And maybe they will pee enough from beer they drink more then they smoke in the meantime, so they will pass without really knowing why.
"Its a test of self introspection and awareness and intelligence, not solely discipline."
Self introspection and awareness? Yep, there is no difference between that and hypothetical chocolate or sex tests.
At that point (and a lot of states are already there!), "Jeez, just don't smoke for a few days" doesn't cut it - 30 days is probably a safe guideline. When it comes to this for a lot of fine prospective employees, I would think it's time to reconsider the value of these tests as a proxy for introspection/awareness/intelligence.
If that was true it would be more efficient to design a test (assuming such a test is currently possible) to measure self-introspection, awareness, intelligence, and discipline. Oh, wait -- don't many people claim an undergraduate degree is also a signal for those things?
So a young person decides to sort themselves out, stops smoking and goes job hunting. They're ready to go! And then? What, wait around for a month with nothing to do? Eventually get bored, hang around with their mates and boom, cycle repeats.
If you have that capability you [probably] are also able to make sure it does not negatively impact you.
What point are you trying to make?
Are you implying people can not abstain from sex for a month?
Drug tests are completely arbitrary, unrelated to job performance, and employers who use those drug tests don't deserve any sympathy when it comes to labor shortage.
They do however ask about drug usage both on the application and when doing their investigation.
It's actually ok to have used drugs in the past, you just have to be honest about it and write a letter saying something about not doing so moving forward (an acquaintance of mine had to do this... not sure what the specifics were).
Once people are have a clearance, most of the tests are decidedly not random. They can be requested for erratic behavior at work (e.g., passing out), but they are especially common for people who are formally busted somehow for illegal drug and/or alcohol abuse. Get a DUI, yeah, you're going to be "randomly" chosen for a test more often than anyone else you know.
If you look at the system holistically with regards to drug testing for folks with clearances, most people would say that the implementation is fairly reasonable. The rules seem incredibly draconian on the surface, but the actual enforcement is decidedly less so.
I have also heard they mostly stopped drug testing people as they where having difficulty finding enough competent, honest, non-drug users in technical fields. Or possibly more importantly they did not want discrete drug use to be a means of blackmailing someone.
PS: I can only recommend someone either answers all questions accurately and only those specific questions asked, or discreetly declines an investigation and looks for another line of work.
So you could smoke a joint today (ok, maybe a bit more than a joint), and nothing more - and three months later they take a hair sample and find you a dirty guilty pot smoker. Yer fired! Or not hired in the first place.
Even in the best case scenario, you have to abstain for 30 days; so if you're a regular user of weed, and you want to change jobs, you'll have to plan ahead, or just be out of work for 30 days while you let it get out of your system. Doable if you have savings, I suppose.
As far as "random drug testing", I honestly think its more of a threat to instill fear, than something actually done. Drug testing isn't cheap, and a true random test would test all employees, but due to the expense, only the larger companies could conceivably do it. Smaller organizations would tend to only do testing "after the fact" or if there is credible reason to believe that a certain person is having issues (visibly impaired or something) - then a "targeted test" under the guise of a random test can be done.
Even then, such a test might only be correlative, and not indicate the true cause; someone might, for instance, cause an accident or such due to a heated argument they had just before the incident with a coworker, but they get tested and fail the test because of a party they went to a couple weeks before where they smoked some weed.
Reading a book is the longest lasting. You can also play a videogame to release endorphins if that's what you're looking for.
Pass the test, and you can clock in and get to work. Fail the test, hit the nap room (unpaid) for a while, and try again when you wake up.
It would catch people who are drunk, high, having a stroke, or just sleepy, rather than just the guy who used cannabis two weekends ago and is perfectly capable of working now.
Because they are famous for low specificity and low sensitivity.
Does such a thing exist? Is there any independent evidence that it actually works?
Is a score on a video game quantifiable enough for you? There are so many "brain training" games that do nothing but score you on your observation, working memory, reflexes, etc. Back in college, everyone had to participate in the psych experiment test pool, where many of the experiments were coded in extremely rudimentary Visual Basic, to show video clips and record the time intervals between on-screen events and keypresses.
That's more objective than a human checking your eyeballs to see if there are too many involuntary movements, or making a subjective determination that there weren't enough social displays of submission to the tester. And it scales better to have X computers set up for employees to test and clock in at the same time than to have a supervisor processing the whole line one by one.
I suppose the system could compare your current score with your baseline / sober scores. Or, mentally slow people would simply have less tolerance for being fucked up at work.
All everyone is talking about is weed which I’m sure most of us agree shouldn’t be tested for but we don’t even know what the failed tests failed for.
And no one is required to work for you at the wages you can afford to pay...
Want affordable workers? Increase supply or decrease demand. If you can't do the latter, focus on the former.
If labor is turning into a seller's market, buyers are going to have to adjust.
Hell, you could set up an old Atari with Frogger in it, and require employees to score X points before clocking in. It might not have a very strong correlation, but it sure would be cheaper and more goal-specific than drug testing.
It would more likely take the form of "watch this simulated surveillance video of the work floor, and press the space bar to stop the machinery on the entire production line". When someone steps over the warning tape on the floor around the person-shredder, you press the button. If someone gets their sleeve stuck in the dude-grinder, you press the button. If the part-spewer starts stamping out misaligned doohickeys, you press the button. If your response time is too slow, you aren't fit to clock in for today's shift. Or it could be a simulation of operating the actual machine that employee uses, attempting to predict their productivity for the day.
It has the added benefit of sneaking safety training videos into the daily workflow.
I am not even aware of any jury trial that has decided on the impact of random drug screenings. As far as I am aware, most claims relating to workplace injuries are settled long before the jury pool is even tapped, and many of the remainder are settled before the jury gets a chance to reach a decision. So I think the question you should be asking is if it is likely that any actuary would be willing to analyze the experimental data from such a program, to adjust their company's insurance premiums for anyone using similar software.
If a correlation can be shown, the premiums would be discounted. Actuaries are better with the math than juries are, after all.
A labor union or government regulator could possibly demand such a system in lieu of random drug tests, but your average company does not have enough commitment to worker safety--for its own sake, rather than for its impact on their worker compensation insurance premiums--to experiment in this fashion. They would need a reason that increases revenue or cuts costs.
Better is to use impairment testing. An impairment test is a test of cognitive function, alertness, reaction time, hand-eye coordination and similar objective things that actually correlate well with how well you can do your job now, instead of sometime in the past.
On top of that, impairment testing can catch when you are impaired for reasons OTHER than intoxication. If your aircraft mechanic is not fit to do maintenance on your jet that morning because last night he found his wife sleeping with his best friend, they argued all night, and she announced that morning she is getting a divorce, leaving him a tired, emotional wreck who will make mistakes left and right at work...an impairment test can catch it. A drug test cannot.
In addition, generally there is lag between drug testing and results. Impairment testing can be quick (a few minutes) and cheap so that you can do it to every employee, every day at the start of their shift.
Exactly this. Pot is probably the most common and it stays in your system for 30 days after use (probably the longest that is tested). Essentially the screen will fail a guy who smoked pot two weeks ago, but pass a guy who shot up heroin all last week. Like the polygraph test, they are deeply flawed, in this case, for testing for intoxication.
Also, imagine if drug tests failed an applicant for having a beer in the last 30 days. Like it or not, pot is replacing beer for a large portion of Americans, time to adapt.
https://equilibriabook.com/toc/
Here, I think it's something like, "insurers move very slowly to new systems, and until this new testing has a lot of data behind it, they won't adjust premium. to account for it being better. Furthermore, juries will continue to give punishingly big damage awards for using it, on the mistaken believe that a toker shouldn't be on the job even if he wasn't high and passed the reaction test."
I'm not sure exactly what industry the original poster was referring to, but broadly my experience has been that there are many people who are just unreliable. I worked in retail a few years ago, and it was incredible. People just don't show up, or show up so intoxicated from the night before that they're not actually capable of doing their job.
Now, as a developer, I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone has shown up too hungover to work, and I can tell you exactly (0) the number of times someone has just flat out failed to show up when they were supposed to be working.
> So don't give drug tests?
For lots of jobs that may not be an option. Operating heavy machinery puts lots of lives at risk, or it could be an insurance requirement.
> Try paying more?
Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time.
Anecdotally, I know several people who worked retail throughout college and showed up super hung-over basically every weekend, but who are now extremely responsible professionals in software, medicine, etc.
Again, I think salary and a sense of career prospects / something worthwhile to lose are far more important than individual proclivities or responsibility.
People know their retail jobs are bullshit, dead-end positions. There's nothing to lose and 10 more identical jobs waiting for them on the market.
> For lots of jobs that may not be an option. Operating heavy machinery puts lots of lives at risk, or it could be an insurance requirement.
Sounds like a policy (law) option to me.
But in terms of initial applicants, who may not be as flaky, advertising higher starting salary may bump up the non-flakiness of people showing up for an interview.
It seems to work for the highly paid developers who have had zero no-shows on your watch.
Otherwise, it appears that you're implying that developers are less flaky than other people.
That's not the objective. Offering more money for the position buys you a better chance of finding someone reliable.
Pay better, and higher quality workers will be applying for your position.
Those who are good employees are already employed, and probably at a decent compensation level. Whenever this topic comes up, I always ask, "What compelling reason are you giving for people to come work for you?" I never get a satisfactory answer, usually because the people know that they have nothing compelling over the next job.
That's both the easiest solution and the one last chosen. Complaining about how shitty the workforce is usually comes first. :)
How can one possibly ever get out of poverty if s/he can't even make it to an interview?
Your parent comment is also right that this lack of personal responsibility is cultivated or exacerbated by poverty. Personal responsibility is as much a skill as it is a trait. Therefore, if one has neither work experience nor a role model for responsibility, one tends not to have good work ethics.
IMO, the solution is thus both to praise personal work ethics and to break the trap through social programs at the same time.
My concern is that the "something else" might be counter-effective but well-intentioned policies intended to help.
The question is how much the rest of us are involuntarily having to provide for them, and more relevantly, whether or not society is even really being improved if the result is an increasing number of people so unable / unwilling to contribute to society that they can't even be bothered to show up for an interview.
It is very easy to spend other people's money supporting people perceived as downtrodden. It just might not be the solution proponents think it is.
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the outcome".
I see no moral hazard in coercing people
and that's the problem. Coercion is inherently immoral as it denies agency, which is the very essence of humanity. Agency / self-control is the fundamental difference between being a human being, and being a piece of property.
There's also the argument that the money you own isn't truly yours. It's the product of a large amount of investment on behalf of your parents (which varies for everybody) and the government in terms of education (of you and everyone else to create an economy where you're able to perform your current job) and infrastructure, with the end result of you being able to perform your job. So its taxation is not theft because you do owe that money back to the rest of society. I think preventing hunger/homelessness is in general a good way to spend that money
Living in groups--and people are very much social creatures--means there are rules you follow that you didn't necessarily decide on, or ultimately you get kicked out of the group and probably don't continue your genetic line.
Left unqualified, that's kind of a silly claim to make--it sounds good to some but doesn't really get us anywhere.
(a) Two working parents or a single parent family may result in children "being raised by wolves" to some extent. These are good parents/people but child rearing is a time intensive business.
(b) Lack of jobs for young people. In my neighborhood, a lot of lawn mowing jobs are done by services instead of the neighborhood kid. The "entry level" jobs are often taken by older people who can't afford to retire.
(c) Single child families where parents spoil their children resulting in a sort of learned helplessness. I can't think of anyone of my friends children that mows their parents lawn of shovels the driveway. The dad or mows the lawn and snow blows the driveway. My brothers kids are the exception.
(d) Lack of exposure to real world failure or responsibilities. How many parents are going to let their kids walk to school never mind use a chainsaw or go hunting by themselves?
Now I imagine explaining to my friends or wife that I hired a 13 year old to paint our house. With 0/0 stars on google, angies list, etc. It's hard for young people to "break in" to something as mundane as yard work and painting.
Nowadays, far fewer people get newspapers, and the newspaper deliver jobs are looking for someone with a car. And I assume they pay for them online.
In the vision of life that is projected for students, the trades do not find themselves anywhere in that vision. It should come as no surprise that we have a shortage right now, it should only surprise us that it's not worse. Immigrant labor has long hidden the fact that American's are raising their kids to avoid the trades, and we will all pay the price for it.
In case it's helpful, here's my story from two years ago about living with undiagnosed narcolepsy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984478
One of my memories of that job was sleeping fully-dressed for work, then leaping out of bed when my alarm goes off. I'd carefully balance on my feet and wait for the tiredness to pass.
That's not sustainable. I can't do that more than a week at a time.
So there's all this anger focused toward people who are genuinely lazy, and it's impossible to separate it from people who have a genuine medical condition. What's the solution?
One way to handle it is to be upfront with your employer. This tends not to work. Recruitment in software has heated up to the point where any small flag against the candidate is enough to pass. No one would voluntarily jump in with someone whose attitude is "Well, I couldn't sleep until 3am because of being wide awake since 10pm, so I'm gonna show up around noon if that's ok."
It makes scheduling meetings extremely difficult. Morning standups are out. How many of you have weekly standups?
I still two years later have no idea what to do about this. I'm working remotely part-time, putting in full-time hours, just because I feel lucky to have any sort of job.
The point is, the next time someone posts in a company-wide Slack channel that they're feeling sleepy and will be in later, consider there might be more going on than meets the eye. Relationship problems and medical conditions both need to be concealed, and it takes a toll.
The thing is, it's not up to you to care. We have to deal with it or we're cut. And that's fine. But maybe some context will help, somehow.
It's a medical condition. Employers need to provide reasonable accommodations if you're able to fulfill the job. Are you able to do the job on a slightly shifted schedule? Chances are it's the case.
> It makes scheduling meetings extremely difficult. Morning standups are out. How many of you have weekly standups?
Could do afternoon standups. Problem solved.
How does an individual make sure that rule is enforced?
And then you're in a situation where you've raised litigation at past employers, and that will follow you around.
The point is, the worst possible situation to be in is that everyone knows you're narcoleptic and knows you're not choosy about raising legal action. No one will touch you. The best option seems to be to conceal it and part ways as amicably as possible.
One of those requirements is "reasonable accommodation," which is a term that means that employers face big lawsuits from the government if they don't reasonably accommodate employee disabilities.
This means that if an employee has a condition that allows them to do the work, but needs special stuff, such as software to allow them to write code while blind, or a wheelchair-accessible entrance, then the company has to provide it. Otherwise, the employee can ask the government to sue the company on her or his behalf.
But yeah, dude, capitalism is a disease.
And beyond that, what guarantees that the EEOC is going to act, and that they'll find in your favor?
There's no guarantee for anything in life. There is even a strong likelihood that justice won't be served. But that is a far cry from throwing up our hands and claiming a rigged system. There is a reason why so many malls, stores, and restaurants have disabled-accessible entrances, and it's not wishful thinking. It's enforcement at the state and local level.
It's also, if I understand correctly, kind of legally required that they make "reasonable" accomodations. This sounded pretty reasonable to me - they didn't even have to buy any equipment.
For those of us who are unfamiliar or ignorant about this, which parts of the Southeast are most prosperous?
Those actively gaining on rankings of 'prosperity' include Nashville, Charlotte, Charleston SC, and Raleigh-Durham [1]. Atlanta has a good amount of preexisting prosperity, though it's not ranking as high now. Greenville has seem a fair bit of growth as well.
Subjectively, you can perceive that these metropolitan areas are doing a lot better than others in the Southeast.
It would be interesting to test white collar workers.
You have two job applicants. The only thing you know about them is their resume (nicely embellished) and how they performed at their interview (nicely rehearsed). One applicant passes a drug test, one does not.
Can you really say that drug test outcomes don't change the risk assessment of each candidate?
We can have a conversation about whether employers ought to have access to that information, the same way we can say that employers ought not to have access to a candidate's medical history or prior salary figure, because society is better served when employers don't have access to these prejudicial sources of data. But that is a different question than whether the information is useful at all in hiring decisions, which of course it is.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/business/economy/drug-tes...
Remember, new hires are not guaranteed to add value - even if they worked for free, there is always a risk that some will reduce value. If a new hire's inability to show up on time holds up a production line, or a new hire's irresponsibility damages equipment, then you're better off not making the hire, even if you desire, in the abstract, to hire more people and expand your business.
Have you ever seen a lathe accident, for example?
You can't spot test for being high on marijuana or pills like you can for drunkenness, so you rely on the urine test to keep everyone on the floor safe from being crushed in a press by a stoned co-worker (or themselves.)
1) Contract language that says your workforce has to be drug free (government sourced contracts doubly so)
2) Insurance. If you have a fork lift driver run into a rack of transmissions (or drive your work truck into a building) your insurance is going to demand a urine test. If the urine test comes back unclean they will deny your claim.
Look, you got one task, one task only, it's not even hard to figure out, do not, repeat, do not, get high the week or two before your pee test. That simple. There are human bipeds burning valuable oxygen right now, who can't follow a test that elaborate and complicated. They are literally the kind of people where if you told them not to lick a circuit breaker, would turn around and an hour later electrocute themselves and probably a coworker or two by licking a circuit breaker on the jobsite. Whats the minimum IQ and discipline level necessary to pass a pee test? Not much, but there are failures out there walking around...
Its interesting that as far as I know this is the first strictly chemistry based IQ test. AFAIK there is no "pee in a bottle to determine if you can fizzbuzz" test for code monkey work. No chemical marker that can identify if you know the modulus operator... not yet...
There's also the possibility that giving up an addiction is not an intellectual activity (if you think about it a little!)
But the process of getting addicted certainly involves making some choices poorly.
Addiction is continued use in the face of adverse consequences. [1] You may have a physical dependence on coffee, but it doesn't sound like you're experiencing negative consequences in your life from its use.
[1] https://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/2216/1/Addiction-Do-Y...
In case someone is wondering, hair follicle tests are apparently problematic [1]; had to look that up because I remembered correctly that follicle tests can show use over the long-term, but didn't know some of the intrinsic challenges with that method. Come to think of it, I've never been asked to submit a hair sample when I've had to pass FBI interviews and drug tests to gain admittance to extremely-sensitive data centers at some of my clients in the past.
The "week or two" needs contextual guidance. An article on Wikipedia [2] gives a good run down of the detection periods. I would imagine detecting pot is the most common request, so that's about 100 days on the conservative side for a heavy (daily?) user, but apparently three weeks is fine for more casual users (what, once a week?).
[1] http://www.fleetowner.com/driver-management-resource-center/...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_test#Detection_periods
Though now that I think about it I have technically worked at two companies that didn't drug test: my own, and a small 3-man startup I did some work for.
It's worth mentioning that I live in a red state. I suspect blue states have cultures that are a little more lax on drug testing, though I have no real data to back that up.
What do you think, time to build and monetize a solution to solve this problem?
I think I have some ideas to help with this type of worker onboarding and retention, personally.
- got another job but forgot to tell you
- changed my mind
- just too tired or busy
- didn't think I had a real chance, so I didn't bother
- too nervous about the interview> Illegal border crossings on the southern border are down 78% and blue collar wages are rising. Of course correlation does not equal causation, but when there are fewer available workers to hire/train and demand remains constant, wages tend to rise.
was marked dead. Why? Is the illegal crossing number wrong/fake news?
Employers are supposed to have employees fill out an I-9 form that verifies employment eligibility, but the penalties for noncompliance are at most $1,100 per form -- basically slap on the wrist territory [2].
The irony here is that the anti-immigration wing of the Republican party is now in open conflict with the business wing of the party, which benefits heavily from hiring ineligible workers for low wages.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Verify#Operations
[2] https://www.thebalance.com/i-9-form-employment-eligibility-v...
If you really doubt that illegals can work in manufacturing, try googling for 'immigration bust factory', or similar stories.
Oh wait...
You're right - you do need a valid name/SSN/birthdate. It doesn't have to be yours. And if a company wants to be disreputable, all they need to do is keep running them until they hit jackpot.
Because then they can claim that the other people were, uhhh, fraudulent. And this person passed their Everify. It's not like there's any proof that the Everify was run 10 times prior, to find a good name/ssn/DoB.
With that said, I do feel like it is incredibly relevant to this post. From what I could tell, it's at least not a grossly inaccurate claim[2] and could partially explain the increase in lower class wages.
edit: to those downvoting me, can you please explain why? What did I say that was inaccurate?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[2] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/...
Given that they’re illegal, how could we ever know if the number is down or if they just found some other way to cross the border?
Also, it would be quite foolish to think there is only a single factor affecting wages. There are a multitude of factors, and a reduction in the number of illegal immigrants might be one of them, although it’s hard to be sure.
http://www.thehour.com/business/article/Wageless-U-S-recover...
Also, talk and data are different things.
There are surrogate measures that we can use.
Traffic numbers are a good one in Southern California. When there are crackdowns/bad economy, the traffic decreases markedly. Gasoline sales drop. Those are hard numbers that the state collects.
Money transfer services have to report. Those numbers are recorded.
Just because someone is illegal does not mean they have no impact. This cuts both directions: positive and negative.
Was in 2001 prior to 9/11 in south Indiana. I applied to a factory. And another one. And another one. Nothing. No bites. I then found work at a gas station Subway across the first factory. Our primary business were the factories.
9/11 happened. Within days, the factories shut down. We at subway were like "WTF happened?" Cause we were staffed like normal for rush.
Then we talked to one of the workers who stayed - there was a huge implicit threat that INS was going to make nationwide sweeps deporting all illegals. So, they left ahead of time. And "gee golly" the factories were now hiring and one said they had better wages.
Again, its correlation kind of.. Well not really. Supply and demand is a pretty hard rule. And when you have undocumented, working for less than minimum wage, and foregoing regulations on employees, is anyone surprised?
I know I understood the blue collar hatred of illegals. I've been on the receiving end of that. Not that its right, mind you- but understanding others viewpoints is the start of fixing them.
(Fixed spacing, from making comment on phone.)
Or are those jobs just a small part of "blue collar".
There's a whole class of blue collar under that. Line workers, food prep, factory pickers, non-medical health aide, framers, concrete pourers, roofers...
I know when my parents had their current house built, they had a bunch of hispanic people working on the house. When my parents went to take pictures, they beat feet to get out of any photo. My moms pretty sure they said something about INS. But who knows.
My parent's didn't care too much that likely "illegal to work peoples" were building their house. It was cheaper than the other options.
Honest question: why not? I have a lot of members of extended family who have gone through a LOT of pain to become legal immigrants in the US, and they hate the illegals exactly because illegals have broken the rules that they have payed so hard to follow.
If an agent A sacrifices it's profits to follow the rules and agent B just violates them, why shouldn't A hate B? (You can imagine A and B being the company who sacrifices profits to follow environment regulation and another company who just forges emission tests, for example).
I value human rights more than I value state or federal "rights". And in this case, there's more than enough resources to go around.
And a second derivative answer - not everyone who came here had a choice.
Oh please. You damned straight it's perverse.
How is this not perverse when a director of an agency on aging has to tell elderly clients "Sorry, there's no more money for food this week." ?
How is this not perverse when homeless try to get shelter for the night, and are turned away because there's no beds?
How is this not perverse when we train upcoming high school students to agree to crushing scholastic debt with no recourse or bankruptcy protection?
How is this not perverse that we don't have a true medical system across the USA? Instead we tie it to employment, thus continuing the "Work or Die" ideal, quite literally.
> There may be "enough" resources – but they aren't yours to go anywhere. And freedom to do whatever you please with the things you own is the most fundamental human right of all.
Sure, I'll accept that for simple possessions. Clothes, personal effects, lodging, transportation.
But whereas you're talking of personal stuff, I'm talking about the top income whose top 3 people own collectively more than the bottom 50% of the world. I guess when you can afford to amass money, game the system, buy laws/legislators and rig everything, you do end up with more money. But "it was hard earned". Yeah, uh huh. Keep telling yourself that.
Capitalism fails for many. It succeeds for a very few, with most stuck in the cycle of "Work to live, live to work". It's not much different than a slave or indentured servant class where for the necessities of life; Instead of a single owner, I must find an owner who will take me in.
And if you fall through the cracks, it's almost impossible to move back up. I'm sure you can find a Horatio Alger story or 2. They're popular in this country.
Lose your job? You're not guaranteed a job.
Business closes? Too bad.
Area stricken with poverty because industry left? Well, too bad.Can you elaborate?
> Capitalism fails for many.
Once again, if you fail, it doesn't mean that the system fails. The system's goal is not to make your life good. Why would it be?
And I refuse the very premise you're working with. We're only as strong as the weakest members. And I see those members begging on the streets, or wandering around because of untreated psychiatric issues. Or they're living in tents off in the back part of the city park.
There's always going to be someone with more, for whatever reasons. But there should be nobody homeless. There should be nobody going hungry. There should be nobody without medical treatment.
I'm not going to budge on those issues. Higher rights exist building on TOP of the essentials. Look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Even YCombinator is doing a program/test on UBI. To pretend it's not an issue is completely absurd.
> The system's goal is not to make your life good. Why would it be?
Because, unless you're independently wealthy and can live on residuals for the rest of your life, you're only a few accidents away from destitution. We live in a world of plenty, but allow monied interests to amass it and control access. Why?
And that money can be used to buy influence and laws to further entrench themselves. That argument is "Its my money and I got it and you cant have it", regardless if it's illegal or paid-off "legal" means. This is the might-makes-right argument and principle. And it's time we re-evaluate if this makes sense. I have a feeling that most people will find it absurd, as I do.
What "we" are you talking about? These members are not my family members or friends; what you're doing is abusing other people's empathy to push your agenda through emotional means instead of rational.
> But there should be nobody homeless. There should be nobody going hungry. There should be nobody without medical treatment.
Why on Earth is that an invariant on society?
As long as the goods required to survive (food, housing etc.) don't materialize out of thin air, it makes sense to expect people to work for them.
And I agree and disagree with you. Yes, we can make you, governmentally speaking. However there is a different way out: automation and robotics.
We could live in a society that we strive to make more and more automated solutions so that all can benefit. Solar means effectively free power. Food generation allows food to be made so cheaply that the cost is inconsequential. Transportation, same thing. (Yeah, you might not "have" a car, but you can summon one whenever you need.)
If you want to rehash old failure modes of capitalism, so be it. It's a 300 year old system that's bursting at the seams with failure modes everywhere. Communism isn't exactly much better - in that system you trade one master for another.
A mix of socialism, capitalism, and a healthy amount of automation would work. And the machines that produce essentials should be owned by all of us, with the benefits from these going to all of us.
That would maintain no forced working by people, maintaining freedom, AND cover the essentials of all citizens. No?
Of course it's right to hate people who have no respect for your country's laws and have a meaningful negative impact on your quality of life. You're trying to make it into a racial issue to excuse people who make life worse for blue collar workers. It's also why they hate politicians: they aren't making decisions that benefit blue collar workers. (Starting with NAFTA.)
More than half of immigrants are on welfare: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/01/immigr...
Who knows how crazy the expense is for illegals.
People should stop abusing opioids, but we should also make sure they don't cross the border into our country.
This crosses into political ranting which is definitely not what we want here. Thoughtful discussion, please, or nothing. We've had to warn you about this before.
That doesn't mean you can't express your point of view, just that you need to try an order of magnitude or two harder to do it with respect. This means respect for the ones you're talking to, for the ones who have reason to disagree with you, and for the community at large. That takes effort and practice, but it's an effort many of us have made, and it turns out to be pretty satisfying as well as a way to make the community better instead of destroying it.
I'd imagine the direct correlation is the ratio of US wages to Mexican wages. US wages have been poor for so long, migrants see less benefit. Migration might go on the upswing as wages rise and jobs are harder to fill.
That comment was killed by software because the commenter was banned (more or less; it's a bit complicated) for having abused HN in the past.
As Bill Clinton said, "it's the economy, stupid".
It's basically: "The economy is getting better (but not thanks to Trump) and there are more jobs (still not thanks to Trump). There has been an increase in wages (you might think it's thanks to Trump, but it is not)..."
One major change in the US has been border enforcement and a promise of deportations instead of amnesty. If that's what's resulting in higher blue collar wages and employment then they have to re-think a large part of their world view.
If the tax reform blows everything up, inflates a bubble, whatever, then they'll take a major electoral hit. If they're not bloody-stupid, they'll let "Obamanomics" slide in the background, and allow the long-awaited comeback from the Great Recession to buoy their approval ratings into continued electoral dominance.
Even 2016 was seeing slight increases in wages. We may now be seeing a period in which investment capital is so cheap, but infrastructure and industries so rotted out and wages so low, that it becomes feasible to re-develop whole areas of the country nearly from scratch.
First, Trump and the Republican party are two different political factions. Trump basically ran on that claim. In history books, I would expect this presidency to be marked with an asterisk as one single party does not really control Congress and the White House.
Second, the White House vs. Congress dynamics have been pretty dysfunctional for quite some time now. When there is single party control over all of the above, it's usually fleeting. And rarely with a filibuster-proof majority in the senate. You need to go back to the Carter and Johnson years to see that.
What's the point? People are getting what they vote for. They pretty much want gridlock on issues, they want "our team" to fight "their team", otherwise we'd see consensus on some issues and bills passing and being signed. The thing that concerns me is that the consensus that does seem to be forming is that more should be done by unelected officials: judges and members of the Something Or The Other Administration.
That is, there's no real interest in making sure legislators actually legislate. The lack of separation of powers will be unhealthy in the long run. Possibly catastrophic.
Yap noticed that as well. It's as if they have to say "Trump" or "Russia" and then get on to the main topic just to get the article approved for publication. I mostly noticed that with NYT, WaPo and HuffPo for example.
Can you even imagine somebody saying that to their boss in some black-and-white movie from the 1940s? "Hey, how about instead of coming in later you hit the bricks and never come back?"
The culture has definitely changed. It's wild.
Or businesses can make demands, but in this labor market they'll have to pay for people to meet 'em.
I can promise to be in my chair at 9 am everyday, but I want to leave at 5 and if I'm tired, the business gets to pay for a less than productive day.
I think many people to fail to realize that writing software is very unlike producing widgets in a factory line. Some people hit periods of high productivity when they work quietly, alone, for an hour or two. And you might get more in that 1-2 hours than you would all day with the constant distractions in the modern office.
My father graduated college making $42k/yr. Inflation adjusted, that was about $60k/yr in today's dollars. I just graduated, have experience in the field, and am getting a salary of $35k/yr in today's dollars. Meanwhile, upper management is getting millions.
In that kind of work environment, why _should_ I care? It's not like they're going to fire me.
I don't mean this to sound challenging out all, I'm just kind of curious.
Under the broad umbrella of jobs-you-can-land-with-a-degree-containing-the-word-"computer", there are a great many that aren't making Facebook creepier, or making Gmail's interface worse, or other, similar, very high-paying jobs.
There are even, believe it or not, many that don't pay as well as not really understanding how to write code, but nonetheless somehow landing a position writing enterprise Java or DotNet at some boring bigcorp, then never leaving because you never actually get any better at programming than when you started, but these people don't seem to care and there are a few competent people here picking up your slack, so why risk going somewhere else? AKA the broad middle-tier of people working as software developers.
With the move to digital when rigor and having tech people who really know there shit Is now important they don't want to pay the rate.
> Or maybe you're just in a rural area?
It's rural compared to the big coastal cities, but is still the third biggest city in my state. IMO, it shouldn't just be giant cities that experience economic growth, it should be everyone. The fact that this hasn't been the case in my area leaves me and many in my area bitter about the state of the economy.
Relocation isn't an option. My family lives here, my wife's family lives here, she has a career started here, and we can't afford the massive amount of instability that a move to a high COL area would bring.
Feel free to ask more questions. The more that rich people hear from folks like me, the more they'll understand the current political climate.
Suppose you could find a job elsewhere for $90k+. If you can't, sure, that's a good reason why relocation isn't an option, and finding a job in a location you don't live in is by no means easy. But if you can, then you ought to consider moving, by yourself (since your wife is busy with a career), live in an apartment with one or two other roommates, and live frugally saving/investing as much as you can. Make visits back home when you can, but at $90k+/yr that shouldn't be so hard, depends on how you want to balance your triple sized income. (Higher COL areas will eat into that, but living frugally, not very much.) Do this for 3-4 years, you'll have made more than 10 years at your current location and pay, handwaving away taxes/bonuses/raises/better opportunities. Then quit and relocate back, except now you have a savings cushion and it only cost you another few years of your time.
Sounds like you want to redistribute the economic gains? Good luck with that, we know where that leads. Economic inequality is fine if people are also raised out of poverty, like over a billion people have been since 1990 while inequality has raised. Inequality can be a good sign. (http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html)
At the very least, America can't have it both ways, being an economic power house and evenly redistributing the fruits internally. You might have a shot if you require Americans roll back into a farming economy where half the population farms for each other and the other half, but you'll have to kill a lot of people and take and salt a lot of land and forbid a lot of machinery to get it done. I don't think that's why Trump got elected. The voters don't tend to want handouts, they just want certain existing handouts to other parties to go away so they can effectively compete again in certain domains. Dissatisfaction with the economy in their area is a big component, sure, and Trump actually cares about making the country's economy better, and he's already done good things to help some areas out, but neither he nor anyone else will ever make e.g. all the state capitals equally economically viable with similar growth rates. Physics is against them, math is against them, human nature is against them, morality is against them. SV and other tech hubs will pass one day, too, just like the ghost towns you can visit all over the western states albeit probably not so dramatically, but that'll just be because the economic centers have moved elsewhere, not because they've been redistributed. Exploit their opportunities while they're there.
IT support in a rural area is more or less what I was suspecting (yes, Springfield is Country). It's ironic that the tech age was supposed to bring in an era of telecommuting, when in fact it's brought in an era of greatly increased centralization. Small towns needed doctors and lawyers, they don't need software developers or high end tech support.
In theory the increase in cloud services could change that, but I don't really see the trend changing.
I do find it ironic for a commenter to be surprised at a lower-wage worker reading a thread about, per the title, blue collar wages. (And that a thread with such a title inevitably turns into a discussion of programmer wages ;-)
Those issues aside, your answer is basically my entire point: "why _should_ I care? It's not like they're going to fire me." I'm not sure why your employer won't fire you. Maybe they have trouble finding decent people to fill positions. I honestly don't know since I don't know what you do or who you work for. But regardless, your comment goes straight to the concept of work ethic.
It sounds like you are throwing work ethic to the wayside simply because you don't feel you get paid enough. That, in my opinion, is not the way to do things. Guess what, a lot of people are underpaid. I also have the viewpoint that you agreed to accepting the salary you are getting paid. They made an offer and you accepted it, presumably because it was the prevailing market rate for your skill set. If you feel that your compensation package is not appropriate then you should have a conversation about that with your manager - and leave the firm if necessary. It wasn't that long ago that I made about 45k. For the first 5 years out of school (starting in 2007) I worked for around that pay level. I did the daily grind and I tried hard to add value to the business where I could, because I wanted to not stagnate and just go through the motions because I viewed that as the worse path to take. I stayed late when necessary. Eventually another firm interviewed a bunch of people in my office, myself included, for a position that paid significantly more because they wanted to poach the right person to take onto their team. Guess who got the job. I even found out about 6 months later when speaking to the MD of my new employer that the CFO called him up and congratulated him on hiring me. I had no idea the CFO of my old company had me on his radar or was the type to make that kind of call. 3 years after that another opportunity presented itself solely because I had a strong reputation. That was another substantial bump on the pay ladder.
My point with the personal story is not to brag at all - hell, I certainly don't have some sort of prestigious job and there are plenty of people on this board alone that make more than I do. My point is that I highly recommend you change your mindset and the way you approach all of this. Ask yourself this. If I didn't work for the man, so to speak, as an underpaid entry level grunt for those 5 years, do you think I would have gotten that other job over my colleagues? That also would have not made the second job change (and pay increase) possible. Bringing it a little closer to home for you...if an employer interviewed you and your colleagues and had a job which paid a lot more, do you think you would get the offer or would someone else? Also, take a look at how someone successful in your line of work operates (a Director or MD, perhaps). Are they the kind of person that would share the same attitude as you? I imagine not. They would most likely either renegotiate their compensation or they would leave. I know that's how the higher ups would act where I am. The idea with all of this is to think and act like a successful person so that you can greatly increase your odds of success. It also has the benefit, in many cases, of also being the "right thing" to do. Contrary to popular belief, being a "company man" is usually still rewarded as long as you work for an employer which has basic common sense when it comes to employee compensation and morale.
And if all of that has not resonated with you at all, then consider this alternative argument. You can view it as that old joke about the two friends who are hiking and they come across a bear and one of them puts on running shoes. The other friend explains they can't outrun the bear and the first guy responds, "I don't need to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you". What I mean by this is that you are always viewed relative to your colleagues. So the first thing you want to ensure is that you are thought well of enough so that if the layoffs come around, you won't be on the list. That might be the case with you since you said they wouldn't fire you. The second part of that is to make it so that when an opportunity arises, you are on that list, whether for promotion, project, etc. My guess here is that you are not. So I assume that you are currently headed towards no-man's-land with your approach. They won't fire you but you will not be given the chance to shine because they see no upside in taking any risk on you. But if you really apply yourself you just might find that after a while your situation is looking very different. I sincerely hope this helps you in some way.
I work because this society threatens us with destitution if we do not. I have plenty of ideas, things to do. I have to put them aside for much of each week because I want to survive.
I work on side projects as I can. I don't quit my job because I don't know if I can survive as easily with my other ideas. It's a risky proposition. I choose less risk. You do the same, but seem upset at that concept.
No, but the extreme automation and beginning of human-like skills across all domains of knowledge are a new thing.
With automation of the essentials plus a bit more, we can finally start free ourselves from a lifetime of work. The wealthy already have, and choose what they wish to do. I only want that.
> As if not being a productive member of society leading to poverty is this evil new capitalistic creation?
No. That threat's always been there. But there wasn't a good answer how to fix it. Communism (ala USSR) certainly didn't work. They just changed the owner from a capitalist to a uncaring state. But one thing Marx failed to grasp was that computerization and automation was the way out of both old systems. That way, there's no compulsed labor.
> It's amazing to me that you choose to work for someone for an agreed upon salary, providing stability and security to you, and then have an issue with the concept of work ethic because if you don't work for them or someone else you will be poor.
Because it's not so egalitarian like you put it. You should full realize that there's a tremendous amount of asymmetry - They have the money, the legal, the govt clout. What do you have? Your labor. That's it. And you, the individual are expendable. I mean, who cares about where you sleep, what you eat, and basic necessities of life? I guess sleeping under a bridge is illegal for both the poor as it is the rich.
Unions served as a balance to that implicit, ever present threat. But they've been demonized long enough in this country, that US union membership is what, 15%? And in the tech sector, unions are non-existent. I certainly would want one myself.
Let's also not forget that the government has effectively stolen a large portion of the additional wealth/productivity generated over the past several decades via deficit spending. Mathematically, that's no different than a tax in the end. The only difference is that the tax is not felt immediately.
FWIW - I worked for a union once due to a peculiarity in one of my employer's older business units to which I was lumped purely due to legacy reasons. It was awful. And I wasn't the only one who thought so. It was one of the rare instances that people actually voted out their union. It happened only when we separated from the older business unit and were split into a separate LLC as part of a new business venture. 74% voted the union out. It was glorious.
http://www.industryweek.com/sites/industryweek.com/files/upl...
Take a close look at what you are cheerleading: Crushing student debt. Opioid abuse. Medical bankruptcy. Social immobility. Poverty.
No, really.
The internet provides the perfect counter example to this. It was (and remains) nearly entirely unregulated. And yet Google and Facebook are monsters with immense anti-competitive power.
The evidence really does not support the idea that big business is entirely the result of big government. Quite the opposite in fact. The last time we had this much concentration of economic power was the gilded age, an age of relatively small government. We had a period of lower wealth/power concentration in the 50s and 60s, but that was linked to strong anti-trust laws (administered by government) and 90% top marginal tax laws. Since then, neoliberal ideology has been used to chip away at the restraints on big business in government and now we currently have the worst of both worlds -- corrupt government beholden to vast concentration of economic power generated by big business.
Personally, I am of the opinion that the only way to avoid this is to look at the core of the systematic issue -- allowing equity financing concentrates wealth. Concentrating wealth concentrates power and naturally causes consolidation and centralization. In a world with equity financing, the only way to keep business small and competitive is with strong anti-trust laws and highly progressive taxation.
I think we could have a world of small government and small business, but only if we universally replace the Stock Corporation with the Worker Cooperative. That, of course, is a novel idea and requires a lot more support than I can put in HN post. Maybe some day I'll get to a point where I can stop developing full time to support myself and write that book...
You know any old LLC can be structured as a co-op with a bit of effort.
But I don't know that I've really seen anyone make a strong case for it (in a way digestible to the layment). Richard Wolff wrote about it in Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism but not in a way that was very digestible for the average reader. Gar Alperovitz has also written about it in What Now Must We Do? and America Beyond Capitalism, but in both cases he wasn't specifically making the argument for universally replacing the Stock Corporation with Worker Cooperatives, but more generally increasing the prevalence of cooperatives (worker, member, and multi-stakeholder) and decreasing the power of capital.
I'd really like to write a book, digestible by the average American, making the case for the universal replacement of the stock corporation with the worker cooperative and speculating about what impacts that might have on society (using evidence to support the speculation as much as possible).
[1] https://thenextsystem.org/ [2] https://democracycollaborative.org/ [3] http://neweconomics.org/
Personally, I don't think capitalism is going away any time soon, it's just a question of which version of it will be the most effective. Co-ops would need to be able to compete and win against the current shareholder model, without government intervention, which may not be possible.
Anyway, shoot me an email if you'd like to discuss more in a few months.
Another good book, more about the practical realities of creating a worker co-op in the current context, is Companies We Keep: Employee Ownership and the Business of Community and Place by John Abrams[1]. It's more a story about his experience founding and running his construction company as a worker cooperative. It would probably be a lot more relevant to pondering whether and how to form a cooperative business in the current world.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Companies-We-Keep-Ownership-Community...
> Contrary to popular belief, being a "company man" is usually still rewarded as long as you work for an employer which has basic common sense when it comes to employee compensation and morale.
It is mind-blowing that anyone could write this summary, expecting it to be generally applicable, when every study of wages shows they have stagnated since the 1970s, and at the same time every study of production through the same time shows it is through the roof.
In short, you advocate enshrining a work ethic, while pretending it's okay for ownership to totally ignore a pay ethic.
It's something akin to Stockholm Syndrome, if you ask me.
It's not mind-blowing when you consider that productivity is heavily linked to technological advances. Let's take a historical example - the barcode scanner. Prior to its creation, cashiers had to know the price of all items or check the price tags that were manually stickered onto every item by someone else in the store. Then someone came along and made it possible to have UPC's printed right onto the original packaging and then scanned instantaneously at the register, with essentially no errors ever. That both reduced the skill required by the cashiers as well as boosting (drastically) productivity. Yet no additional effort, creativity, or skill was required on the part of the cashier. If a tool comes along that makes my job easier and/or more accurate my employer will pay for it, but I'd be really surprised if they suddenly gave me a pay boost because of it.
The other half of this is that welfare programs subsidize the lower income workers. WalMart would not be able to pay <$10 an hour if welfare did not exist. If people didn't have the government as a backstop, you can guarantee they would stand up and demand a higher wage so that they could meet their basic needs.
Wages aren't stagnant by accident -- far from it. The constantly repeated, default decision by boardrooms to unlink compensation from productivity and thereby suppress wages is in fact the overwhelming, prevailing "common sense" of the really existing world. This goes hand in hand with the systematic expropriation by ownership of the surplus value created by workers.
This situation persists because persons with your perspective cheerlead it on, in part by moralizing on worker compensation while totally ignoring the moral calculus of ownership's claim to the surplus value created by workers. That's what you did here:
>Yet no additional effort, creativity, or skill was required on the part of the cashier [...] [therefore they deserve no share of their expanded productivity]
Fact: if additional effort, creativity and skill was a bona fide prerequisite for receiving expanded compensation linked to productivity, then dividend compensation for nonworking stockholders would never flow -- let alone grow to the astronomic, middle-class-savaging intensity it has today.
Where we probably disagree on the reason, though. To me, it comes down to an individual's overall slice of the monetary pie. Since money is just a representation of value, it's basically just a number inside of a larger system that we utilize. All that matters really is your portion of the whole. Let's use GDP as a gauge. The US has ~18.5T in GDP per year. Let's cut off some zeroes (6 of them) to get some more usable numbers. For a person making $10 an hour, that's about 20k a year, or 20,000/18,500,000=0.108%. If GDP increases 4% in 2 years but their wage only goes up 2.5% that would be 20,500/19,240,000=0.1065%. This means that they now have lost some purchasing power relative to everyone else because their share of GDP has decreased.
Now that's a moral argument, to be sure, because there is still supply and demand for labor that is a dominant for in the labor markets. So if someone else is going to work for $9 an hour, that's going to be a problem. There are many factors at at play.
But thanks for getting me to re-think my position on this.
I'm equally grateful you considered our conversation.
Worker ownership and worker governance of enterprises, in my view, is the general way forward. I suggest to anybody reconsidering commerce under capitalism take a look at the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation for a living example of super-productive commerce and industry that employs tens of thousands without the baked-in inequality that drives so many social ills.
Cheers!
Because it actually is the prevailing market rate for their role and they know that. Also, let's not forget that there is always a large risk when hiring someone, especially as in the OPs case where they are recently graduated. The value can't be certain, so businesses are conservative until it can be proven to be higher. This is logical and expected.
I'm sorry, but I don't buy this idea that the business, the entity with all the power in the relationship, is entitled to be conservative but no one else is.
My mind is blown at reading this sentence.
My 'ethic' cannot be measured (or compensated, or matched) with money, no matter much money is offered; I dearly hope yours' the same.
If I don't think the pay is fair, I will just quit the job. I won't bother with complaining to the employer about money=work ethics.
I will decide what my ethic is, thank you.
Edit: And I am getting down mod for saying my ethics can't be bought. Jesus.
The senior executives at my company are very responsible people, however, how could they be irresponsible? They make millions/yr, they have secretaries, and they a lot of autonomy in deciding how they should be judged. It'd be unusual for someone to be irresponsible in those conditions.
Meanwhile, worker bees balance sick kids, uncooperative coworkers, shifting priorities/deadlines, and taking the time to be price-conscious because they can't really afford to waste money. Is it any surprise that sometimes things fall through the cracks?
Sure, there are people who turn up on a tuesday and that's ill-advised. But presumably they're an at-will employee. If it's a problem, replace them with someone better. IF you can't find someone better at the same price, that's your sign that you're not paying enough for what you want. If you like the person, make the investment in their responsibility.
Previous generations had jobs for life. For a while now many companies have proved they don't care about the staff, and so it's not particularly surprising that staff don't care about the work.
"I'm feeling sleepy and will be in later" is an employee being upfront and direct that they will not be productive and do not want to be the source of waste in the office. This is an employee that should be rewarded and encouraged. An office culture where this type of message is ok should be encouraged.
What you don't want is a toxic culture where everything needs to be explained and justified to an office full of scorekeepers and clock watchers. The people that do care are the ones that shouldn't care and should probably be minding their own business.
In dionidium's scenario it is very possible that employee worked it out with their manager and the message was a courtesy message. It is very possible they are tired from putting in a late night the night before. It is very possible they are tired due to "truly unforeseen and unusual circumstances." Etc.
To me, dionidium is the problem in this scenario.
I might say the same thing for this comment :/
I guess it boils down to a matter of trust. You've hired someone to get a job done. If you don't trust them to do it, fire them and replace them with someone you do trust.
The whole "you need to be in your chair at 9am daily because it's the only way I know you'll show up to client meetings and meet project deadlines" seems bizarre and gaslighty. Why not allow people the autonomy to do their job in a way that best suits them in terms of maximizing productivity? If someone misses a client meeting or deadline, that's the signal that you have a problem.
I've observed increases in this type of behavior when things aren't going so well.
When people feel like they are shipping software that makes a difference, they want to be there. If it's only this individual, then it probably speaks more to their behavior than anything systemic. But if it is others too, I would look more broadly.
The notion that this is a valid excuse for telling your boss, "hey, pops, I'm not feeling engaged this morning, gonna be in later" is a new one.
Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe not. But it's definitely a different thing.
But you get in and spend a lot of your time fixing bugs and working on old, monolithic codebases.
People want to make a difference, employers sell the vision, and then there's this mis-match and you have the disengaged worker.
I think the problem is the reality that most software jobs need skilled workers, but skilled workers are often seeking enough intellectual stimulation from their jobs to make a difference, and a lot of this work isn't the the type of life-changing envisioned.
It's not just skill, it's also a level of creativity that one needs to do things like programming. And that creativity is often absent when the work is too boring.
I assure you it can be done at 9AM when you're a little tired.
Whether or not you should have to be at work at 9AM is another matter, but this idea that you can't possibly get anything useful done unless you're in the zone has been oversold.
Before that, it was possible to take a job after graduation and stay with the same company until retirement. A worker's loyalty to the company was rewarded in kind, with the company's loyalty to the worker. People got raises and promotions. They grew roots.
Now, there is zero corporate loyalty. If you can't predict a profit for this quarter for your specific individual contribution, regardless of how hard you can work, you're fired. But you will come crawling back when we need you again, won't you?
The workers have responded. If the company stops making the work worthwhile, the worker will slack off or jump ship. If the company force-feeds its Flavor-Ade, the employees will just puke it up as soon as it's safe to do so. If the company tells baldfaced lies about itself, the employees smile and nod, while thinking about the rude gestures they would like to be making.
The "lack of engagement" is because the employees know that management cares about them not at all, but the forms must still be honored in order to receive the paycheck. In short, your company is bullshit and the workers hate it; they are just using it to get what they need and will ditch it the instant that a better deal comes along. We are all mercenaries now.
We will disobey whenever it's more convenient for us, and we think we can get away with it. Because the company executives are just our bosses, not our friends or our leaders or our prophets. If they fire us, we move on to the next bosses just like them. We're not going to bust our ass to earn them another dollar. Maybe if we are freshly fallen off the back of the turnip truck, we will go the extra mile, but it doesn't take long for those folks to learn. So the disengaged worker is the default. We learned from our elders, who were forcibly disengaged by their employers.
And since my fortunes are not tied to those of my employer in any meaningful way, I will not stick around to help bail out a sinking ship. If you're going down, I'm not even going to plug the leak and call for help. I'll just grab a lifeboat and be on my way, thanks. It will probably even be an even smoother ride, as I won't have to worry about any rising tides raising my boat.
The problem is that a programmer described above would not be hired by your company and simultaneously wont recognize your company as a good place for him from job posting. Even admitting that you dont mind fixing bugs is other peoples code might make you sound as lesser programmer in current culture.
Otherwise said, there is mismatch between what companies need and what they reward.
[1] Perversely, I miss burning wood; as a kid I cursed the woodpile, but its good exercise and you can get a lot of thinking done while you do it.
I've worked in jobs I wasn't engaged by, was able to finish university (not fun), and am starting to get bored at my current job, but I can't leave just yet due to external circumstances. I believe character is a big part of it, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm posting to hacker news during work hours.
This is one of my favorite points of tension in business -
1) Businesses want people performing at their highest level
2) Businesses want people to work collaboratively without much latency
3) Businesses want to pay people as little as possible
In these high-concentration jobs, it's not unusual for people to be most productive at night. However, many people don't want to work at night so there's a cost to working with people during the best time for them. And businesses don't want to put up the money for people to justify a radical lifestyle alteration.
So everyone gives and takes and things work suboptimally but well-enough that no one terminates the relationship.
I imagine both sorts of earlybirds exist, and I'd be interested in seeing how common each is.
I once spent a couple weeks living only by candlelight after 8:30 or so, no screens. It's hard not to get enough sleep that way. You can still read, play board games/cards, write, study, play or listen to music, prep/cook food, talk(!), and tons of other stuff, but go figure, those things don't tend to keep one from going to sleep at a reasonable hour (you may be surprised at what's a "reasonable hour" for you when literally far more total entertainment than was enjoyed over any entire given year in the Imperial capital of Rome isn't available at your fingertips).
Netflix, cable tv that's on 24/7 (not my thing, but lots of people use their TV that way), video games, news feeds, mindless browsing, "who was that one guy in that one thing? Hold on, I'll look it up", what's Trump up to now? (better check!), a few thousand lumens of artificial lighting after the sun goes down, and so on... you'll put off sleep for those, maybe without realizing it ("it's not like I even feel tired yet", sure, but you would if you hadn't been playing Playstation or watching Netflix or scrolling through Facebook in a bright room for 2 hours straight, and if you didn't have the option of doing the same or similar for another two hours)
Having a window to all the world, a vast library both greater and with a worse SNR than any that's ever existed, more high-quality, unique audio-visual entertainment options than existed in entire major cities a mere couple of decades ago (let alone 50 years ago), hundreds of immersive video games tuned for "engagement" at best and outright addiction at worst (remember when games would eventually get frustrating/boring enough, or you'd get stuck and have no immediate way of finding a solution, so after an hour or two you'd be sick of playing and just want to ride bikes or something? Those were the days.), a direct line to answer any stupid low-value question that pops in your head, near-instant communication with everyone you know, and so on (mixed in with tons of manipulative advertising and such), all in your house, all of the time, is maybe not healthy for most people.
It is my will being perpetually sated.
Pretend we are writing a fable in which a sorcerer always gets what he wants.
Consider what happens to a soul which always gets what it wants.
- Emily Bludworth de Barios
(excerpt, whole thing at http://www.forkliftohio.com/index.php?page=freight-31)
I generally come into the office around 10:30am, though sometimes it'll be 8am. I wouldn't mind coming in around 2pm and working into the evening, but I frequently need to work with other employees who have a more normal schedule, and I have an 11am standup so I have to be awake by then anyway. When I know I need to go to sleep, I pop a melatonin tablet and put on a sleep mask to block out light. When I first started, I forced myself to bed before 11 each night and made sure to be at the office before 9 each morning, until I observed that people didn't care about strict schedules.
There's an understanding that as long as I make the meetings I agree to (some are in person and require travel) and management is happy with my output, my schedule can be quite flexible. Some weeks will be less than 40 hours, some weeks will be > 50 because of some deep bug I just want to get over with. Some days I'll spend a bit too much time on HN or taking breaks to the snack kitchen, other days I'll sit down when I arrive in the morning and not stand again until late at night due to focus. It all tends to balance out. In any case when the lines aren't drawn clearly it's important to find out at what point the fuzzy boundary becomes solid. This "cultural shift" that OP was complaining about is just the new generation of employees finding out where the hard borders actually are, and discovering that at many firms they're a lot further back than they used to be and they can be pushed even further with a bit of pressure. I'm waiting to see someone show up to work in a fursuit, and wish there were an old-timer suited IBM employee there to witness it too. Many firms have realized that to a large extent, for many jobs what you wear simply doesn't matter.
At a previous job, I also had a pretty flexible schedule, but we tried to keep it "between 10 and 11" yet I kept coming in closer and closer to 11 all the time until a few times I was in after 11 and more than once I overslept and came in past noon. We changed it to "be here by 10 or we might have to cut ties". No further problems.
Most clients don't want to deal with that kind of behavior.
"It's been 3 hours, why is the site still down?"
"The developer isn't in yet to fix it."
Being reliable and showing up to work on time is a job skill as much as good communication, being a hard worker, etc
I realize that you should be flexible with workers' hours but people also need to realize coverage is needed.
If you have regular hours long outages that require specific developer to come in and fix the code asap, you have huge mismanagement problem. The developers coming not in the morning is your least problem. Insufficient testing, apparently badly set up servers+application and most likely general mismanagement are primary problem.
Also, if you are in this situation, then it is reasonable to assume that your developers had to deal with similar outages in the middle of the night or during weekends.
I'm all-in for the kids these days sheesh comments, but if you think 'back in the day' workers had the constant availability expectation that we have in the modern era with cell phones, that's just factually incorrect. It wasn't only employees that reliably adhered to the schedule, it was also management. If that changes, both sides should accept the trade offs, otherwise you are expecting the employee to treat the schedule as sacred, while the employer treats the schedule as something which is changed on a whim.
Lazy unreliable people certainly exist, but they don't usually last that long in any role. Poisonous management practices that set people up for failure have a much longer shelf life and do more damage.
For better or for worse, it's not expected to receive service after hours.
But first thing in morning...
Things are very different. My first meeting is at 9am, and nobody has any reason to care if I work 4am - noon or 9am-5pm, or more likely 8am-5pm with a one hour lunch break.
That is primary advantage of flexible working time, which is something everyone up to now praised as huge improvement. I dont do that because I have family, but dont see a problem assuming a.) they work full time when you cont worked time and b.) I can come sooner as norm + leave sooner and not be punished for it by management assuming everyone gotta stay late.
> Can you even imagine somebody saying that to their boss in some black-and-white movie from the 1940s?
Movies are not representation of society as it exists. It is not true now and it was not true back then, especially because censorship back then was heavier and because 1940 was second world war time.
Notably, films could only present "correct standards of life" (for the times) unless the plot called for something else. Alcohol consumption, could not be shown unless the plot called for it. The law had to be respected and upheld.
I remember old movies from later eras where both white collar and blue collar dudes drunk on the job and were various grades irresponsible.
Quite frankly, they are right. Those that complain are in the wrong.
Don't kid yourself. Those new hires are at other jobs making more money. I am booked for a roofer in feb 2018 (fingers crossed - friend of a friend). Blue skills are in extremely high demand. And those guys are working extremely hard making really high incomes (400k+). These guys are highly paid and are not messing around -- most saw 2008. They drive nice trucks, own their company, have rude secretaries and wont look at your email until feb 18 (fingers crossed). Look at a blue collar guys' current circumstance: no competition (know anyone learning HVAC?), a HUGE housing boom in cali, pass through low tax income, 2k homes burned (wtf), no outsourcing (try outsourcing a plumber) -- as my mentor said: "Harvest time".
I'm not a top-shelf engineer, but I'm perfectly capable of working on a team and producing good work. Finding jobs is an extremely difficult process.
http://thestartupconference.com/2017/03/25/the-350k-google-s...
The total comp is in practice also generally a bit lower because most of those companies backload the vesting
Many of these people might have some quasi-managerial duties (interacting with other parts of the organization, helping with recruiting, ...), get roped into more meetings than they would like, or make high-level technical decisions and delegate work to a handful of more junior engineers, but most of them are sitting at their desks writing code a significant part of the day (or perhaps rewriting the schlocky code that the junior engineers just handed in).
Also keep in mind I said "usually" in my original comment. Blue collar labor and software engineering are not directly analogous because yes, there are software developers at the high end that are making a lot of money compared to some of the best blue collar workers. But it's still only a small percentage of them making that much, and I wouldn't mention those figures to someone looking to go into software for that reason
The place I am now starts fresh grads as Engineer I, then Engineer II, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, Architect and then Staff Engineer. Each promotion takes about 4-5 years so you aren't reaching Staff until about 20 years. A Staff Engineer is basically fully autonomous and is an IC that reports directly to the executives. They work on what they want and with who they want.
I understand this is different at Google and I guess Staff is the equivalent to a Google Fellow.
That's why you said:
"when it's usually 10-20+ year tenured engineering managers at a few specific companies"
right?
I highly doubt that blue collar workers get anywhere near that much. If they did, everyone would try to work in that industry because the barrier to entry is comparatively very low.
If you read my comment, I'm not really talking about blue collar workers, but more people who used to be bluecollar workers but eventually became small business owners of companies employ blue collar labor. My cousins who used to be electricians can easily make $250k/year by employing a team of <10 electricians to do the manual work. $400k/year doesn't seem out of reach at all, and they might get that just by moving business to a higher CoL area than the suburban South
It's also what top surgeons get paid.
That's an old joke:
Surgeon to plumber: "You are charging higher prices than I get for performing surgery!"
Plumber: "Yeah, I make more money now than when I was a surgeon, too."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/04/why-shoul...
Yes, these are blue collar workers.
“”” The salary figures fall short of numbers reported by other survey groups: a Medical Group Management Association report using 2010 data, found that the average compensation for radiologists was $471,253 and for pediatricians it was $192,148, Kaiser Health News reports. “””
http://time.com/4408807/surgeon-salary-how-much-doctors-make...
Here's some math:
- median age of retirement: 63.
- median UPS salary over lifetime: $70k.
- UPS driver lifetime earnings = 70k * (63-18) = $3.15m
- Median doctor salary: They usually earn around 150k total during their residency, and the median is around 180k beyond that (typically age 30+)
- MD lifetime earnings = 150k + 180k*33 = 6.09m.
- MD education debt is typically around 500k, adjusting earnings to 5.59m. Accounting for hours worked, MD equivalent lifetime earnings are 3.72m.
I mean no disrespect to the work ethic of any blue collar job, but do you really believe the guy who cured you of cancer isn't worth the extra 600k over their lifetime compared to the guy who dropped off your replacement phone charger?
In the United States, the richest 1 percent have seen their share of national income roughly double since 1980, to 20 percent in 2014 from 11 percent. ...
No other nation in the 35-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is as unequal among those with comparable tax data, and none have experienced such a sharp rise in inequality.
...
Almost all of the growth in top American earners has come from just three economic sectors: professional services, finance and insurance, and health care, groups that tend to benefit from regulatory barriers that shelter them from competition.
The groups that have contributed the most people to the 1 percent since 1980 are: physicians ...
The United States also stands out in terms of how much money its elite professionals earn relative to the median worker. Workers at the 90th percentile of the income distribution for professionals make 3.5 times the earnings of the typical (median) worker in all occupations in the United States. Only Mexico and Israel, which have very high inequality, compensate professionals so disproportionately.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/upshot/income-inequality-...
My father is a doctor and he finished paying off his education at 48. I make half what he made and finished paying mine off at 28. I'm drastically more wealthy now, and will be wealthier when I retire. This seems strange given the significant difference in income.
1980 is a very peculiar data point to mention. That year is pretty much exactly when minimum wage and tuition suddenly diverged. Between 1965 and 1980, A full time summer job at minimum wage could consistently pay for ~45% of your tuition. In the next 15 years, it dropped to around 20-25%. Running the numbers for 2017-2018, in-state tuition is 20%, out of state is 11%, and private is 8.6%.
The groups that have contributed the most people to the 1 percent since 1980 are: physicians ...
With all that in mind, this statement doesn't seem unreasonable to me. If education prices have skyrocketed, shouldn't the career that spends the most in education (both time and cost) be compensated accordingly?
Point being, income is only half of the equation to wealth. That article doesn't bother mentioning debt at all.
Relevant assumptions/data:
Summer job: 14 weeks @ 40hrs per week
Tuition costs 2017: https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tabl...
Older tuition costs: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76
Minimum wage: https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm
Do you really think you should pay twice as much in the US compared to other countries with equal quality?
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/10/25/doctors-sal...
(Also on HN today)
To get in, yes there is no barrier to entry, just find a trade school or union to accept you for training.
However, the program and training is no joke. You have to have the aptitude and dexterity to do the job and complete the training.
400k is seen quite often e.g. here: http://www.gaswork.com/search/Anesthesiologist/Job/All
So it would seem one just needs to choose the right niche, and doesn't even need to be the top.
The barrier to entry is not low though, it's incredibly hard to become a crane operator due to the unions.
It sounds like you have to network hard and get very lucky to get that 500k per year salary and it probably doesn't last forever.
I've heard several stories from older people who said that they were earning ridiculous amounts at some point in their lives but it only lasted a couple of years and then their salaries dropped back to average ranges once their contract ran out and started working for normal companies again.
Salaries don't necessarily keep going up based on experience.
DIY subreddit is also a good place to search and ask questions.
I wouldn't want my home improvement projects to look half-assed just because I wasn't experienced or knew the "best practices" for the given home improvement task.
I can do most home maintenance stuff - electrical, most plumbing, fixtures, appliance repair, etc. I pay someone to do drywall work or painting - because I'm pretty picky and I can always see where my work falls short.
I think you'll find for finishing work practice makes perfect and is where professionals shine. You can certainly do professional quality work, but expect a learning curve and to be re-doing sections of projects that don't turn out too well. I know several homeowners who have re-done bathrooms themselves, and only one would I say turned out professional looking in quality. That guy is simply a perfectionist who spent an inordinate amount of time on the project.
I kind of would want to be a bit further up the learning curve, but if you only have 1 or 2 bedrooms, you don't have much by way to learn, so it seems like having a professional is probably worth the premium vs. your own labor (if you're like me and highly value the aesthetic end result).
I can buy good paint, brushes, and tape. I can take my time, I can let paint dry over multiple days, do touchups, keep properly mixed cans (mixing two cans of the same color into one).
There are two aspects to being a "professional" tradesman.
1) Do it _better_ than others
2) Do it profitably
#1 is something you as an individual can overcome with practice, #2 is generally a hard constraint which sometimes compromises the goals of #1.
Painting is especially easy, if you screw up some spot, you can always return and repaint (worst case you'll have to do that couple times :)) Painting equipment is (relatively) cheep, you can cover floors with plastic covers/blue tape and don't worry about screwing floors/doors while you learn :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNagIA8sKY0 watch these videos and you'd be ready to start. Cutting wall/ceiling line by hand is not that hard (the video has a trick), there're also "helper tools" for cutting lines in home depot/lowes. One trick is that if you go with light color on walls, perfect line with white ceiling doesn't even matter, you won't notice small deviations anyway.
If have doubts in your own skills (I did), try starting with closets and bedrooms. Only then move to living rooms/kitchens. If you screw up closet or your bedroom - it's not that of big deal. Though if watch above video series, it's really hard to screw up too much.
The second is, find people you know that do blue collar work, whatever it happens to be (whatever you're wanting to learn). For example, I know a few guys that work as unlicensed handymen, most of them are quite skilled at what they do, they just frequently work under the table. Pay them for their time to speed up your learning process on specific tasks.
I tend to focus on the types of tasks that I'll have occasion to do many times, such as painting and/or things that may just not look as good as if I hired someone to do them but won't cause any real problems if they're not quite right. I agree that it's mostly just putting the time and effort in--and, of course, there are only so many different things most of us can put our own effort into.
Never do anything structural/load-bearing. Avoid touching window-headers/columns, door-headers/columns, that random beam in the middle of your living room, that random pillar that you wish you know what was for, and that really inconvenient wall between your kitchen and your dining room (those are likely "important" points).
Other than that, paint... sheetrock... siding... sheds... trim... cosmetics... run wires... drill (some) holes... attach things to things... it's your house!
I learned the most by watching Income Property and Holmes on Homes.
Now some dickwad comes and tells me "man, that is illegal". k
> I know it's meant to stop idiots from doing work that could endanger them and others
Yes, and it's a lot bigger problem than you might think. You know what you are doing, but 99% of people don't, and they will happily murder the next owner / next occupant through their own malpractice, without even thinking once about it. I've seen professional home builders screw this up and fail inspections, multiple times. It's a real and common risk.
That is _not_ the person I want working on a gas line (which is "plubming") on a house I'm going to buy in the future.
I'm sure you're a special little snowflake that's good at everything, but if you don't feel comfortable getting a permit for permit / license-required work, then... um... maybe you shouldn't be doing it? That's the context for the advice I gave to the parent poster.
First step is to read What Your Contractor Won't Tell You [WYCWTY] https://www.amazon.com/What-Your-Contractor-Cant-Tell/dp/097... I wish I had this book before I started. Practical advice from a person who has remodeled 100s of houses. With checklists of things I didn't even know to ask about. I now buy this book for everyone I know thinking of having some work done.
By analogy, WYCWTY is like the Rapid Development and Code Complete type books. It covers that middle gray area between code construction and project & product management. Practical methodology, if you will.
Next, buy every book, watch every video. The best construction books (for me) come from Journal of Light Construction. Their field guides are spendy, so I snagged them thru camelcamelcamel. Also buy some fairly recent code books. Just keep reading, watching, experimenting until understanding.
Next, find local tradesmen who are willing to do side work. There are a lot of very qualified people who are happy to do spot work for cash. For the people I hire, I'm their gopher, cleaner, extra pair of hands. They're taking time away from their families, so I try to make it as painless as possible for them to help me.
Yes, the videos are great. But I've learned more from watching and helping. Two recent examples. #1 I had my guy rehang a new door. OMG. When I tried it myself, I had done everything wrong. This pro rehung the door faster and more true than I would have ever figured out on my own. I have 3 more doors to hang and now I know I'll get it right. #2 I also had a pro come in and hang then mud drywall. OMG. I had done everything wrong. This guy had some many tricks of the trade. Despite reading the books and watching the videos, I had never seen drywall hung before. I totally made a hash of it.
Lastly, buy all the tools, same ones contractors use. For example, I had lot of framing to do, so I bought a Hitachi nailer, the recommended compressor, etc. Now when a tradesmen shows up, I have the proper tools (makes everything easier). Plus, when I finish my remodel, I know I can get most of my money back. Overall, cheaper than renting or buying non-pro gear.
You'll waste a lot of time and money doing things yourself. But if you've got the stomach for it, I think you'll come out ahead. Teach a man to fish and all that.
Just to make sure I understand you correctly, you mean by selling the equipment you bought, right?
There are millions of immigrants in the U.S. who are legal; why would you think these people are not? I guess my point is, it's not a good assumption and has bad consequences: People having their legality questioned based on no evidence.
On one hand, I understand that people don't want to be challenged or to write dissertations for casual conversation. On the other, we know that misinformation spreading through 'internet forums' in the form of 'guesses' is a problem, that HN isn't a typical internet forum, and that 'guesses' are often challenged here.
I can't say how many crews are run like his was, but I also don't think it's fair to assume that all those guys are making next to nothing. The roofing season is so short and the money good enough that I'd bet that having someone you trust to move fast while maintaining quality would be worth a significant amount over minimum wage. Having worked with him on my summer breaks in high school, it took me a full season to get to the point where I was even close to keeping up with his regulars. I'd also bet the money being pretty good, not bad, is why you see groups of the same ethnicity working together since they probably recruit and train each other whenever there's a vacancy.
I'm not sure if I understood correctly, that your dad's crew was mostly immigrants, why do you think it was like that? If pay was good and semi-skilled (easy to train), why mostly immigrants?
Professionalism, negotiation skills and quality service encourage referrals in places where friends / neighbors know one-another. That is, towns where customers having fewer friends or acquaintances (like neighbors or social media connections) tend not to scale via referral network effects. Also, a lifestyle business can scale somewhat by adding good employees carefully and encouraging a decency culture with accountability.
TL;DR - better companies need better cultures; keep superconnector customers insanely happy
Could it be possible that AI will instead free people to work on new jobs in new industries? Amazing! It’s almost like this time is not any different from any other time.
Unemployment lags behind productivity increases.
Productivity increases lag behind tech adoption.
Tech adoption lags behind innovation.
innovation lags behind technology maturation.
technology maturation lags behind science.
A lot of the transformation automation is in the "science/maturation" or the "innovation" phases.
Gig jobs are fine if people can provide their own emergency fund and pay out of pocket for their own benefits. That is, the difference between "gig job" and a "successful sole proprietorship" is how much money one makes.
AI will accelerate this massively, much faster than automation can take jobs away.
Long term it will lead to a crash in the highest paying jobs, as the market is flooded with workers who have management and tactical experience. Rather than a big spread between $10k-$1m, we’ll see a huge cluster of workers around $100k.