Working Hard? 1140
Two related stories about working hard in the U.S.: U.S. workers are granted less (and take less) vacation time than workers in other industrialized nations. And if that wasn't enough, changes to the overtime laws will eliminate overtime pay for many workers.
Learned Professionals? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it just me or does it seem like almost everything Dubya does is intended to lower the quality of life for the average American?
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know about the "typical" slashdot user - is there such a thing? - but I'd rather shovel shit than do tech support, assuming I could get paid the same either way. The only reason I would rather do technical work than brute labor, which at the very least im
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you own a petrochemical plant and need to drop a few hundred barrels of waste into a nearby river be sure to line some pockets and the regulations will relax, letting you kill everybody downstream slowly.
If you happpen to be a single mother working 2 or 3 jobs at minimum wage then you don't get tax breaks because you make too little, your federally-funded daycare gets cut back, you drink water that was just polluted upstream and can't say anything about it, then you get spied on because you could be a terrorist just because you have a friend named Abdul.
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:3, Informative)
Sir, you are mistaken. I did not make enough money to pay taxes, thus I was not eligible for the earned income tax credit. See, you have to "earn" income to get it.
You missed a point... a very big point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your existence is very probably it seems, the result of the carrying on of blind natural forces which operate without purpose and without interest in or care for what is produced.
You obviously don't have children. That is such an uneducated statement about parents I choose to not even respond to it.
If you are going to quote "forces which operate without purpose and without interest," may I suggest the poor in the USA. They don't care about their kids, and it shows. The rest of us (especially immigrants that grew up in crappy countries where you had to bribe to get government employees to approve necessity paperwork, police forces are on a for hire basis, or where flush toilets are a luxury, or where you slept at night fearing the next of an endless string of insurgency groups wanted to kill you because of your ethnicity, shall I go on?) are busting our collective asses to get it all done and get to work.
I am a news photographer in Nashville, TN. A city that has the highest per capita earnings in the USA for a city over one million. People live well out here. Still, every time I go to "the ghetto" I see people out sitting on their porches and talking all day during the week. THEY ARE NOT WORKING. I am working. This is my sixth day in a row. I have five deadlines. They are doing NOTHING. Don't give me crap about not enough jobs around in America. No one just up and deserves 45,000 and a company car.
I hate it when politicians call the ghetto "working class neighborhoods." That is predicated on the idea that they are working. They are not. They are just sucking up to lazy ass voters.
I understand the new labor laws stink. But, entitlement is not what America is about. And yes, you're right about the schools. Who is to blame for this? WE ARE. We care more about roads than schools. We care about convenience store zoning more than schools. WE ELECTED THESE BASTARDS. Now we have to lay in the filth they give us.
Do not call people "the working poor." Just because they are poor doesn't mean they are busting their ass to get a job, or want one. Some carry two jobs. I understand those are the breaks. I have carried two jobs while at a university myself. I got out, though.
Those people need to get off of their asses.
And don't tell me that they "don't know how to work," or have never been taught that work is important.
That talk is just as much an insult to me as it is to them. You're calling them too naturally stupid, and me too naturally entitled.
Re:You missed a point... a very big point. (Score:4, Informative)
Dude, I've lived in "the ghetto." A lot of people who live there work weekends and nights. Some people work jobs that call you in -- part time laborers who make a lot of money but only work a very slim amount of the time. You caught them in their relaxation time. So of course, they were relaxing.
Some of them are unemployed, but because they're in college, they're living off loans and their parents' assistance. They're studying to be doctors, lawyers, news photogrpahers, that sort of thing.
I live in the suburbs now, and occasionally take off on work days to fix things, etc. And yes, i like to sit on the stoop with the radio bumpin' and a cold coors six. I get 12 vacation days a year and hardly ever take them. Sometimes my neighbours aren't doign anything and they come over. One guy's retired at 55, worked his ass off for the state. Another's an electrician, he works 20 precise hours a week for $50 an hour and spends the rest of the time hoping somebody's wiring was done by the cutrate guys isntead of him. And there's kids on break from school, still looking for work; people who work on saturdays and get thrusdays off, all sorts of nonsense.
Working as a photographer is a pretty fun and stressful job, I've done it, but it doesn't give you the right to criticize people because of WHERE they live and WHEN they're outside. You're supposed to be discovering truth and beauty. Stop trying to make the world into some 700 club infomercial.
Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
Whoever modded the parent up got trolled hard.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if there's a correlation?
Re:Wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Flamebait)
In fact I am well aware of American productivity, which helped make us what we are today; One of the leading nations in every category. Why have we traditionally been so productive? Because our society has traditionally rewarded productivity and ingenuity. Unfortunately, bullshit like this is only going to make
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just you, but sometimes I think it might as well be. The repubs - with passive acquiescence from the dems, I'm sorry to say - have been trying to feudalize society for years. Sometimes through legislation, sometimes through more subtle changes in rules and procedures, but always to the same end. That's why they like to keep their working-class constituency (!) drunk on other things, like religion (as always), war, flag-burning (!!), xenophobia, and the petty advantages that some other working stiff is getting.
If everyone who is getting it up the butt by the Republican Party (which is legal in Texas now, by the way) were to open their eyes for just a day, it would hardly last until the next election.
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:5, Interesting)
Grok, but I'd hardly call the Dems' tactics passive acquiescence.
The Dem base is equally drunk on a religion (albeit one of social engineering - witness phrases like "diversity" and "fairness" being waved around in much the same way as 'pubs use "God" or "family"), war (class war), flag-burning (well, only to piss off Republicans ;), xenophobia (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan do a great job of keeping 15% of the population drunk on race war, who then vote Dem, even though there is no, and never will be, a Dem equivalent to Condi Rice or Colin Powell - Condi for VP in '04 and Prez in '08. Hilary vs. Condi grudge match! :), and the petty advantages that some other working stiff is getting.
Anyways, back on track, I'm just saying get used to serfdom. It's not that bad. The Lords demand tribute, we pay tribute, and for the most part, if we keep our fucking mouths shut and fill out the forms when they tell us to, they leave us alone.
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Progressive tax doesn't necessarily help anyone. If you had a flat tax with no exemptions, everyone would pay less, except the rich, who currently get out of tons of taxes via loopholes, and corporations, which also currently get out of tons of taxes via loopholes. Of course, that means that many goods and services would cost more, but there's no sense in me paying for goods and services that you use. Food and medical services would remain untaxed.
And I'm on CMSP (Medi-Cal for people over a certain age) so it's not like I'm against all social services. But you do realize that this actually lowers the bar so that someone who went to ITT is now considered a learned professional (quite a joke if I've ever heard one) which means that they won't be getting the overtime they need to pay off their tuition loans... and I doubt the ITT loans are on terms as generous as the Subsidized Stafford Loan which I have used to pay for my expenses in community college.
The fact remains that we are punishing people for seeking additional training. Meanwhile, in California (where most of these technical people and jobs are) Davis' budget is about to cripple the Community Colleges all over, and the State Colleges and Unis are constantly raising tuition rather than expanding. They could expand and take more students, or they can simply sit around at their current size, raise tuition...
The result? Ever-greater stratification of society. A greater separation between the rich and the poor. The upper middle class becomes the lower middle class, the lower class continues to suffer, and the rich only get richer. Do you really think that the majority of people who are currently on TANF, Medi-Cal (and similar programs), Food Stamps and so on would rather collect that shit and live in poverty than have a good job and support themselves? There are always bad eggs but in general, that's not the way people think.
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is ajust a reminder that you need to learn what goes on outside of the People's Republic of California. "Most" of the technical people and jobs most definitely are NOT in California. While I could agree that there is a high density of both there, you really need to get outside of that state a bit if you think the technical world revolves around your geography.
Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
Overtime = overtime
I'm sure a little bit of overtime is less than another worker cost-wise.
But I realize you are just explaining their viewpoint so I'm trying to not slam you for saying it.
Yes, I know, "tell that to Dubya."
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:5, Informative)
You are talking out of your ass. Lets look at the real numbers [irs.gov], ok?
In 2001, the average tax burdon as a % of income for all tax returns was 16.1%. Here are some examples to see how that breaks down:
- People that made between $19k-$22k/year paid 7.6% in taxes
- People that made between $40k-$50k/year paid 10% in taxes
- People that made between $100k-$200k/year paid 17.3% in taxes
- People that made between $1.0M-$1.5M/year paid 29.2% in taxes
What do you know- the more money you make, the higher your tax burdon is. In fact, the richest 1% of taxpayers account for about 20% of all income, but they pay over 37% of all income taxes in this country (Source [ustreas.gov]).
In fact, most people who make really excessive amounts of money per year pay less taxes per dollar than those in lower tax brackets as a result.
Wrong. The highest income group (people that made over $10M in 2001) paid about 25.4%. Compare that with the 2.0% paid by the lowest income level.
The next time Daschle is on TV whining about the "tax cuts for the rich", keep these numbers in mind...
Re:Learned Professionals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm just an idiot, but I'm having a hard time making complete sense of that document.
One thing I did notice is that footnote 1 says that "The number of returns with negative adjusted gross income, i.e., returns with an adjusted gross deficit, and the corresponding amounts for adjusted gross deficit, were excluded from Table 1. By excluding deficit returns, alternative minimum tax reported on some of these returns was also excluded. For Tax Year 2000, there were 5,714 returns with no adjusted gross income that reported income tax, mostly alternative minimum tax, totaling $100.6 million." I might have a spurious comma, the text was pretty small. :P
That means that those 5,714 returns averaged (assuming my math is correct) $17,605.88 in tax each, which is an alternative minimum tax. I'm interested how much money you have to pick up before your minimum tax is almost eighteen grand. Of course, 5,714 returns is not a very large number out of the some 300 million people in the U S of A. Moving on, the IRS will tell you "New IRS Report Shows Income and Taxes Surged in 2000; Alternative Minimum Tax Jumped [irs.gov]". An interesting document High-Income Tax Returns for 2000 [irs.gov] (PDF) has this interesting paragraph within it:
Or, read backwards (assuming I'm even reading it correctly forwards), nearly 40% of taxpayers whose adjusted income is over $200,000 completely avoided taxes on some 20% of their income. Around 3.1% of them avoided paying taxes on 50% of their actual income. Paying 30% on 50% of your income, for example, means you're paying only 15% on your income, right? The same document also shows that the primary reason for reduced income tax liability is Tax-exempt interest, accounting for 52.5% of the returns counted.
Incidentally, the top 400 tax returns [irs.gov] averaged a tax rate of 22.29 percent. So I guess I really am full of shit. Carry on. However, based on figures I dredged up above, I do maintain that there's something to what I say, it just doesn't work as strongly as I thought it did. I guess I'll retire in shame, like I did on the Bose issue. :P
Uh-huhn. Now let's look at the IRS' real numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
As of 2000 [cnn.com] [it takes a while to compile data], the IRS says otherwise.
Let's try looking at things slightly differently.
Let's suppose that each of us was a slave. If each of us was a slave, then our masters would have to pay for our upkeep. So when you talk about real tax rates, you have to first take the poverty-level upkeep, and then see how much disposable income is paid by each group.
Do that, and you'll quickly see that things are just as the wealthy want it to be: the poor pay for everything, there is a significant fraction of people who are worse off than slaves and working very hard, and the wealthy have both the time and assets to buy the laws. [Rush limbough asks "how can the poor pay for everything"? They pay just as the Egyptian slaves did: with their labor. Let's remember that real wealth is things, not money, and most of that is manufactured by the poor, not the wealthy. Go to a grocery store, and it's a poor person stocking the shelves. Go to a farm, and it's poor people producing the food. Nor is the quantity of food significantly improved by the machinery. I'm writing from an area that has very limited machinery, and much greater food production efficiency than America, with correspondingly lower prices for food.]
I would contend that under this viewpoint, America is very corrupt. But I'd also contend that if your viewpoint makes Daschle look bad, my viewpoint makes him look worse.
But it also makes Bush look much worse.
Things are worse than you see, not better.
(Bible quote with one interpretation: "You say that your sins are as scarlet [like a sore or wound]? I shall make them as white as snow! [look again, that's not a sore, that's leprosy!]". Actually, that's not too far off. Zechariah 11, the people get the masters they deserve. But what you deserve is based on your own individual sins. You want to get out of this, start voluntarily living rightly by your family and neighbors. Which includs no porn, no abortion, and so on.)
headline (Score:5, Funny)
-A
Barking up the wrong tree (Score:5, Funny)
-Rylfaeth
Don't like it? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can all bitch and moan all you like about no vacation time, not enough overtime pay, etc, but the more you take, the more you'll end up paying.
The only way you'll get ahead is to start contracting for yourself. But that's scary and risky!
Guess what... running a business is too. That's why they get compensated so much if they're successful.
Re:Don't like it? (Score:3, Insightful)
No Overtime No Vacation (Score:5, Insightful)
Avarice, treachery, greed, lying, gluttony, cheating and petty office politics have become their own justification in the average workplace. Unless you "fit in," you will eventually be fired. In order to fit in, you must:
1) Do exactly as you are told: no more, no less.
2) Accept every lunch and meeting invitation
3) Reply enthusiastically to every e-mail, especially if it has a colorful signature.
4) Agree, even when the people you are agreeing with are wrong.
5) Never offer an opinion, or attempt to think about your job or the company.
The educations of an entire generation are being destroyed in the rush to below-average mediocrity.
Only the very few companies actually accomplish anything truly innovative. The rest simply exist, like tree moss, consuming resources and producing very little. This better get fixed, because this process is called "eating your own seedcorn."
Someday, hope will be born of something other than a business case.
Re:No Overtime No Vacation (Score:3, Insightful)
Five years ago I started working for the classic American tech firm. Started by an engineer, invented its field, remained at %50+ marketshare in the field for over fifteen years, and universally loved by the customer. We were the innovators. Then we got bought out by a competitor when the founder dec
Management doesn't get overtime anyway... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this important? Because I don't get overtime at all, and haven't for the past 10 years. Last week I worked 4 days out of 5 0800 (8am) - 2300 (11pm). Will I get a dime more on my paycheck? No. Do I have the satisfaction of knowing that I helped get a major project up and running? Yep. Will I have a job at the end of the year? Probably.
Who is getting layed off in my company? Not 'management' (at least not the techy ones); we know too much, and are willing to work until our fingers bleed...tough luck if you can't keep up or don't have useful skills.
Just a fact of life. Of course I'm probably going to die before I'm 65 to a massive aneurism...
Is it worth it? (Score:5, Insightful)
But not anymore. I grew up and got out of that rat race. Work/jobs basically are an agreement where you trade your time for money. I realized that by passing up on upgrading my machine every 12 months and buying all of the cds and movies I wanted, instead eating in more than going out, and driving an older car I could live quite well working only part time.
So what do I do with all of this free time?
I spend it with my family, I go backpacking, skiing, etc. I indulge in hobbies in everything from laser light shows to weaving. I donate time to non-profits like the local farmer's market, church groups, Habitat for Humanity, the Community Farm Aliance, and local theatres.
Living on less is far more rewarding the getting caught up in life as a consumer where the only dominant more or social value is work more to buy more.
Opt out!
Yes, It's Worth It. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the business plan is fundamentally flawed, no amount of above-and-beyond effort will save the company. Take what you can, punch out, try again.
Eventually, you'll land at a company whose business model isn't fundamentally flawed, and where you still get most, if not all, of the perks of the fuckedcompany.com bait.
> Work/jobs basically are an agreement where you trade your time for money. I realized that by passing up on upgrading my machine every 12 months and buying all of the cds and movies I wanted, instead eating in more than going out, and driving an older car I could live quite well working only part time.
Extend and escape. You'll still work part-time for the rest of your life.
I've discovered the same thing, except that as long as times are good (and after a few jumps, I've been lucky enough to land in a pretty fucking nice niche in this here economy of ours :), stick around and make hay while the sun shines.
In 10 years, my skills will be obsolete. 15 if I really push at keeping up with my industry. Then I become unemployable.
But after about 10 years of work and living "beneath my means" (like you - limited system upgrades, drive the car until it falls apart, etc), I've accumulated about 5-10 years of savings. Good investments (yes, even during the bear market, one can make money) have added about two or three more years to that.
In short, if a girder fell on my head, nuking the part of my brain that I use for work, I could pull the plug on my job today and last a good 10 years, with no change in lifestyle, on what I've accumulated.
By the time my skills are well and truly obsolete, that figure will be "the rest of my probable lifespan".
And since I'm not in the game to rack up the highest score (Bill, for all his evil, has already done that. Larry was the only guy who could have come close, but the dot-com fiasco took Oracle down to the point that the best use of his capital is buying his competitors out of the market ;), it'll be time to sit back, crack open a cold one, and figure out what to do with half a lifetime of freedom.
> Living on less is far more rewarding the getting caught up in life as a consumer where the only dominant more or social value is work more to buy more.
As you say - work is where you trade your time for money. Opting out is much easier when you trade that money back for time.
(We're doing the same thing - the only fundamental difference is that you're doing it a few hours a day, and I'm gambling that I won't get hit by a bus before I cash in a two-decade time card. To the reader - whichever option is "better" is up to you to figure out. IMO there's no right answer to this one; I'm just tossing out an alternative version of the same strategy.)
try not to share the wealth. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nice for you, I'm glad you are happy with your life. Some of us, however, want the satisfaction of seeing our children grow up and have other intersts. So while you voluteer to bust your ass, please don't think that's normal and that you should force everone else into your lifestyle. One day, when the non-technical managers decide to screw you in some kind of SCO like blaze of bullshit and stock manipulation, you might have regrets.
Slave driving is a bad sign. Some fields really are competitive like this. Most are not and an honest day's work brings an honest day's profits. Management that tries to squeze normal occumpations to frenzies like this are simply greedy. If your management is willing to screw you, the stockholders and cutomers are next and it's time to go.
And in Europe ... (Score:5, Informative)
Amazing! This is the direct opposite to the EU, where the employers power to demand you worked more than 40 hours, were stripped several years ago. I remember being asked by a former employer to sign a waver to allow me to work more than 40 hours if necessary. Naturally, guaranteed overtime was part of the deal.
Macka (UK).
Re:And in Europe ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And in Europe ... (Score:5, Informative)
An a 17% VAT, higher personal income taxes, etc.
Re:And in Europe ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hard at work, or hardly working? (Score:3, Informative)
Even with that said, America ranks up there with Japan and China (both very large countries surrounded by technology...)
Japan 10 days
China 15 days
U.S. 0 days
Besides, we go to work and read Slashdot -- the same thing generally happens during a 'vacation' day. May as well make money while you reload?
Re:Hard at work, or hardly working? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am married, and food for me AND my wife costs about 250 a month. Are you a big eater or something?
Entertainment? I read Slashdot and code, and of course download my entertainment don't you?
Vacations are overrated when you can earn money!
Yeah, the economy sucks. I DO work hard for the company that I work for, as the job sector in my area is VERY fleeting.
Gonna Backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind working hard.... (Score:3, Informative)
Vacation vs burnout? (Score:5, Insightful)
When will American compaines understand that having their workers take acations is good for the company. People who take time off, do more effecent work. It like the recent studies that show once workers start putting in more hours their productivity can increase to about 10 hours a day but an office worker that is doing 12 hr days less productive than when they were doing 8 hour days since they spend so much work time doing other things.
It will be interesting to see what happens in New Zealand. Its my understanding that they used to have a European model for holiday time but have recently removed some of thouse requirements so they are more like the US model. Maybe that explains why at least 50% of their labor pool is in Australia.
I've currently have 34.5 unused vacation days. Over the next year, I'll collect 20 more. I think its time for a round the world trip.
Re:Vacation vs burnout? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Vacation vs burnout? (Score:4, Informative)
You need to consider that the US compiles its unemployment statistics very differently than these countries. For instance, they consider those who don't receive unemployment checks any more as people who have stopped looking. Even though they don't have a job and are still looking for work, they aren't counted. The US is probably at least close if not above the 10% unemployment mark but there is no way to know.
You are wrong. This is a misconception that a lot of people on here seem to have. Just because you are no longer collecting unemployment benefits doesn't mean that you aren't counted as umemployed. Here is a link from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Website that describes exact how they calculate the unemployment rate.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_faq.htm
I don't mind working longer hours, as long as (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, 1.5 times salary is a very nice, very generous, compensation for overtime. But I'd hardly say that anything less is an injustice.
I'd say that as long as you get paid at least in direct proportion to how many hours you work, it's just.
Hurry up and let the DoJ what you think. (Score:5, Informative)
Email [mailto] them while you can. Or fax them at this number (202) 693-1432.
If you work in the IT industry at all, this promises to remove any right you have to overtime pay.
Not as bad as it seems (Score:4, Insightful)
What these statistics measure is the amount of vacation people are entitled to by theirwork contracts, not the amount of vacation they actually take. Having worked both in Europe and the US, I am aware that even so Europeans get much more vacation, but the approach to it is much more regulated than in the US. Here, it's enough to ask the boss who gives his approval, in most companies I worked for or had friends working for. In Europe, you need to fill an application, and due to the amount of vacation for everyone, the management must carefully balance when to award a vacation to a particular worker. I personally prefer the US approach...
Another thing to take into account is what this hard work gets the country. Because of so much work and overtime, American workers are the most productive in the world. Cut this productivity by 20%, and you automatically increase the variable cost for a product by 20%. Legislate vacation time, and everything will become more expensive, the foreign trade deficit worsens, the dollar devaluates and everything will become even more expensive. True, we work hard, but our hard work reflects in the low product prices and high standard of living.
Research says otherwise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm, I found this [psu.edu] which states that "overtime leads to an average drop in worker productivity of about 15 percent for work weeks exceeding 40 hours." from the Penn State College of Engineering.
Increased time at work != increased output.
-> Increased time at work != cheaper output.
-> Decreased time at work != more expensive output.
~Tetravus
OK.... Is this Balanced? (Score:3, Interesting)
Their implementation is already a foregone conclusion? Isn't the purpose of the public comment period to evaluate?
But...
The good news is that the regulations would raise that cut-off amount to $425 a week -- about $22,100 per year -- actually adding about 1.3 million lower-wage workers to the ranks of people eligible for overtime, according to the Labor Department.
All right. So more super-low wage workers -- we're talking people making under $10/hr here -- will be guaranteed overtime. That's a very, very good thing.
For one thing, many workers earning a salary of more than $65,000 a year will now be excluded from overtime -- at least 1.3 million workers, according to the EPI study.
And it's really hard for me to feel too sorry for those making $65,000+. Yeah, I know, it's not easy to support a family of 6 on...
But...
n another example, "executives" ineligible for overtime, according to the old rules, were people who hired and fired workers, set wages and assigned work. The new rules broaden the definition of "executives" to include any workers who occasionally supervise other workers, even if they spend most of their time doing manual labor.
This kind of change is insane. Meanwhile, real execs are collecting bonuses and kickbacks in record amounts.
"Once employers are not required to pay for overtime work, they will schedule more of it," the study said.
Exactly. I'd like to request a few things from my government and future employers while we're at it:
Oh. What's that? You mean you can't afford to give out and unlimited amount of finite resources at a fixed cost?
Yeah. Me too.
"Salaried, Exempt" (Score:4, Funny)
Work Smart... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Work long hours initially to set up automation.
2. Let automation do the work. --- this is the working smart part
3. Browse Slashdot and react when the blinkin' lights go off.
4. Profit.
They pay me the big bucks to set up systems so that one person can do the work of 10. If they want me to 'look busy', I just pop open a perl script and point them to it, and ask, "do you know what that is? Do you know what that does?". That is usually when they leave...
Granted, I do spend periods during the year when I am working my butt off - but, once I get into an operational mode things quiet down.
US vs French vacation packages (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US, after 6 years in the company I was entitled to 18 days off. Each day you are sick is decounted on your vacation days. I only got a handfull of 'US Holidays' free vacation days (New year, Memorial day, Independance day, Thanksgiving and Christmas). That's it. And that's considered fairly generous.
In France it doesn't matter how long you've been in the company, we all get the same package:25 days of vacations plus another 12 days of RTT (you cannot cumulate those RTT with regular vacations days, and you can't take more than 5 consecutive RTTs). In addition there is a mountain of free 'French Holiday': New Year, Easter Monday, Labor Day, WWII veterans' day, Ascension, Whit Monday, Bastille day, Assumption, All Saints' Day, WWI Veteran day, Christmas. 11!
Total?
Us: A grand total of 23 days off.
France: 48 days off.
Guess where I choose to live?
Re:Oh yeah, Nic? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have the inspiration... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, anyone can do it. For about $500 in the U.S. you can get an "S Corporation". Then you are self employed and your own boss. Whatever your "deliverable" is, consulting, whatever, learn about SELLING. Learn to cold call, warm call, market, etc. Read three books on each at least, because chances are two are shit and one will be good. USE that book store. Don't just peruse Guns and Ammo and PC Mag. Now read up on accounting. Then basic tax law. Then get yourself an accountant and an attornet to handle the little bits. Initially, you need only $2000 or $3000 the first year (of course this is to keep the S Corp running, I'm not talking about savings to pay for rent).
Now sell your deliverable. DOn't spend money on adverts. CALL. USE THE PHONE. Sell. Then deliver. Sell more. After a year you might end up where I am after doing this, and where many small business people are... making a nice upper-middle class income that is comfy, and you are self employed and your own boss. Work harder... for yourself. Enjoy the great amazing tax breaks US Gov gives you for trying to start a biz. Work harder for less vacation time? Not if you are self employed.
It almost is that easy. After 5 years of GUI Java development, the last of the dot com bubble popped me out of the wall st area. Now I'm self employed and loving it. HARD WORK. You could make 0 but there is NO salary cap. Anyway, use that bookstore. Amazing what's in there. When I sit there reading a good selling book and a tax book, and I look around at all the slobs dripping coffee ofer their shitty little magazines before they have to go to sleep and be ready at their cubicle at 9:00am the next morning, I laugh. End of rant. Go sell. Good luck.
The greedy bastards just don't get it... (Score:5, Interesting)
So it's not with any personal sense of unfair treatment, that I state the following:
A minimum wage, while coincidently fair to an employee, serves it's greatest purpose in motivating employers to make good business decisions.
As an average employee works more than 40 hours a week his/her work quality steadily declines and his/her chance of having some kind of accident goes up hyperbolicly.
The accidents cost everyone. That cost is spread around in insurance premiums and workman's comp., but we all pay for it. The cost of mediocre work in a global economy is that it makes slave labor from struggling countries more appealing to use because the quality differential has decreased.
Very few business owners are so farsighted as to spend extra cash to help with these problems. The primary benefit of the overtime pay that it forces them to.
When you have four employees working 50 hour weeks, it is cheaper for the business to hire the extra employee the need than it is to pay 40 hours a week in overtime. This system makes the bean-counters make better decisions for their own workplace and for the country as well.
If I find a place for public comment I will propose a counter amendment.
In order to ignore the welfare of the worker to the same extent as the currently proposed bill, continue to withhold overtime pay from people who have earned it, but force the employer to pay it directly to a non-profit hospital, food bank, or homeless shelter, so that the business is still motivated to keep employee hours sane, and the charitable systems that will bear the brunt of the cost for this extreme lack of foresight will be better funded.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Re:The greedy bastards just don't get it... (Score:4, Interesting)
When you have four employees working 50 hour weeks, it is cheaper for the business to hire the extra employee the need than it is to pay 40 hours a week in overtime.
Not it does not. Your forgot to factor in benifits, skill levels, company size, and work availability.
Sure it costs them more per hour to pay me, but there are fixed costs. Health insureance costs so much, as does each check, and the accounting, 401k match, etc. If you make $10/hr, you only need $200 per person overhead to make it work out. That is a reasonable (a little high) number.
Then there is skill level. My boss could hire someone else to do my job, but can he find someone equal to me? There is nobody who can start tommorow who can do my job like me. (There are those who by the end of the week will know our way of doing things, which combined with their abilities will be better) Many people want to get paid but don't want to work. What is the cost of someone who shows up, but doesn't put for the effort to do any work? You still have to pay them until you get enough cause to fire them. I'm just a laborer (I'm looking for a different job or I'd have advanced further), what about the foreman who knows how to do every part of the job and has expirence. My boss has said that he loses money on the foremans when they work overtime, but he still encourages it because the rest of us can then work, and we make enough less, and do enough work, that overall he makes more money despite losing money on some people.
Depending on how big your company is, you go under different rules. If you have less than so many employees you pay taxes different, need different insurance amounts, and can be a different type of company. (Not all of these are in the same cut offs, but that is they type of thing.) If the rules you are under require less than 10 employees, and you have 9, it may not be worth changing to a different rule set just to get the next guy.
And then there is work availability. If there is a rush job it doesn't matter if they lose money nearly so much as satisfing the customer so they will pay us again. If the work comes in spurts we are better off working overtime some weeks, and no overtime when there is less work. Compare your 4 guys alternating 40 and 50 hour weeks with 5 guys working 40 hour weeks, because some weeks you need all that work, and other weeks you are giving them all extrea hours of profitless do nothing work just so they don't quit for a job that gives them enough to live on.
Let me elaberate: Last winter my boss found himself without work for a month, he gave the guys an option: work 40 hour weeks, or take a month off. Everyone decided that there are bills to pay so we had to work. Work was found, but a lot of it was make work that obviously generated no income for the company. However if that hadn't been there, some guys would have to find a different job to pay their bills, and when work started again there would be no expirenced people left.
Last of all, don't forget that some guys like the overtime. We have bills to pay, and things to do. By paying overtime there is less profit for the company, but they are still making money, and those guys who need the money are getting more. These are the people that can be counted on to help out when there is a rush that requires everyone who can work overtime. So by planning on overtime for jobs that aren't rushed the boss can keep those who want it happy for the times when it is important to get something done.
Running a buisness is complex. Money isn't always the only factor, you end up being "penny wise and pound foolish" when you don't pay attention to the other details. And so you might on paper be better off with more people, but other factors make it a bad idea.
Get rid of overtime? (Score:3, Insightful)
In all seriousness, I work harder than a gynecologist. I put in so many overtime hours that my employer is forced to give me comp time.
Yes, I'm on salary and yes I am already ineligible for overtime because of my pay scale. However, the laws that are currently in place enable me able to say, "Hey - enough is enough and this is too much." Fortunately I am in the enviable position where the company would likely fold if I were to leave.
If they were to relax the laws of overtime - there would be nothing stopping some unscrupulous employers from taking full advantage of their employees.
HEY YOU! (Score:5, Funny)
(swiped from a bumper sticker)
Re:HEY YOU! (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know there were that many corporations.
Curious... (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a company in a Boston suburb, hit three years there this June. At the beginning of this year I was finally given an explanation of my paid time off (10 days vacation, 0 days sick). In early January, my grandmother had a stroke, and asked for a few days off to go back to Maine to visit family. The CEO said I could and I wouldn't have to worry about losing vacation days. I came back the following Monday to find a message from the CEO asking to talk to me. The long and the short of it was, in the 4 days I was away, I had forfeited all my vacation days. Fine, I can deal I suppose. In April, my grandmother passed away. Again, I asked for time off to go to Maine to visit family again. It was granted, including by the person I was working under on a project at the time. I went to Maine again for 4 days, returned the following Monday. This time the CEO was furious that I didn't have the current project I'd been working on done, and suffered a 20% pay cut that week, 'to compensate for lost time.'
Fun fun. If I recall (I don't have the paper at the moment) I will gain an additional 5 vacation days per year when I hit 5 years at the company, if I last that long...
No Mention of Legal Holidays (Score:3, Interesting)
A tale of two jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah, those student loans... all $60k worth of them.
"Make an investment in your future" they tell you. "You'll be worth so much more money" they tell you. I drive a 15 year old car with 200k miles on it, live in a dumpy three bedroom house in the ghetto with two other technical "professionals," and have a very hard time making ends meet on what's left of my biweekly pittance.
What I've learned from the last 10 or so years of my life is that a) a college degree isn't worth it - as it will only be used to prove that you're capable of training your replacements from India and b) get a job because you enjoy it, not because it pays well. It's amazing how much I sit in my cubicle teaching the three guys from Bangalore how to do my job, looking forward to making my seven bucks at the bike shop.
The Contrarian View (Score:4, Interesting)
Geez! I got my BSEE at Cal State University, Long Beach. It was about $500 a semester at the time (mid 1980's). Graduated in 1988. It was the largest EE program west of the Mississippi at the time, and fairly well thought of in the industry as far as I could tell. One interviewer told me that the perception was that CSULB grads had nothing to prove, and just showed up and did the work.
My employer paid for my MSEE from USC, but, honestly, I think I'd be where I am now anyway without it.
I now make $140K a year, just bought a 2003 Mustang GT for cash, and am planning retirement for about age 48... maybe 45 with a bit of luck. That is when I will build the 30" autoguiding, computerized, motorized reflecting telescope in my backyard as my ultimate geek life project (assuming I don't also start work on the directed energy weapons). The mirror alone will set me back $10K or more.
I realzed early on, thanks to some advice from an engineer I knew in high school, that, yeah, the degree isn't worth all *that* much, even from a prestigious school. He told me to learn a lot of hands on stuff, so I joined a ham radio club and built Heathkits all through college (I still use my Heathkit voltmeter at work). Once I was hired post graduation, I learned everything I could, read every application note and data sheet I could get my hands on, and continue my education into the real world stuff.
All that stuff that's so emphasized in college is so unimporant in the real job. I haven't used Kirchoff's law since college. I haven't seen an integral in years.
And, kids, go into hardware engineering. The Indians can't touch me- they're all software weenies. Oh, and take extra courses in electromagnetics. I've lost count of the pure digital guys who don't understand why I am so meticulous about trace impedance and termination stubs when I want to get 10 gigabit data into an FPGA. RF and digital are converging. I regularly deal with digital data streams at 3 GHz or higher, and I don't mean multiplied inside a chip. I mean 3 Gbps data on 20 layer PCBs distributed all over the board, and traces of a couple inches become efficient transmitting and receiving antennas.
Many Occupations Expect Performance, Not Hours (Score:3, Insightful)
However, many occupations exist where performance counts more than just putting in hours. Millions of these jobs exist in the U.S. -- in the traditional professions, in new professions, in the government and military, etc. It has been my experience that people in these jobs routinely work 50-70 weeks per week.
What's the story here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Java coders are the same way. I'm all about making it easier to write good software, garbage collection and clean syntax rules. Nothing against java or the people who use it but I'm just amazed at how many of these guys call themselves software engineers and have no idea what is actually happening in the system on with the hardware. I was working with a team working on a tomcat based JSP web application, the question came up, why does this app need 512MB of RAM and a 800Mhz Pentium-III to run slowly with only 2 clients attached? We need it to work with at least 20 clients attached. Does that strike anyone as a little heavy? (It just reads a few tables from a SQL database and formats them in to html, not even fancy shit yet... it's practically serving up static HTML) silence, has anyone done any performance work? How about memory consumption, how can we improve it? silence. Do we need to rewrite this using a different technology? Panic! "Maybe if we bump it up to a dual or quad processor machine with 2GB of RAM...
I'm not a superstar. I did well at a good university, there is a lot more that I don't know than I do, I've only got about 15 years of professional experience, but there are a shit load of people who know next to nothing, and they are trying to draw down $70k, $80k, $100K a year and the job simply doesn't get done with that kind of talent flooding the workplace.
I can count the number of top notch professionals I've worked with. I care about my craft, I'm always learning and like to keep current and know about things, there just more people who like to play video games and surf the web and somehow equate that to being a professional tech worker. 10 years ago there was a lot more talent amongst the people in this biz, I looked up to people I worked with knowing I could learn from them. Now I'm just floored by the kids we bring in, they want the money, they want the sexy work, they just can't do it and they think that they can.
So why do we work long hours? Well now the teams are twice as big if not bigger than they were in the 80's and early 90's, the expenses are higher, the costs are higher, we have to produce more. The talent is dilluted. The expectation is there but there isn't the talent to deliver on it. Result? Fewer people can actually do the work, you'll be damned if they will stand by and let you cut out after a rough 6 hours or web browsing. We're working dumber. People do shit manually. People write code that get's rewritten because they can't read their own damn perl. People do things the only ways they know how and then they get redone completely because the web based calendar system takes the biggest computer in the client's office to serve up 2 calendars at a time... I hope 4 of the 50 employees don't want to see the vacation schedule too close to the same time.
Maybe I'm getting too old for it but the people in this biz aren't as good as they were as a whole, there are just more of them and they make a lot more money. You do the math, why don't we get overtime pay?
Thomas Jefferson on Big Business (Score:3, Interesting)
Like this is something new... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am 50 years old. I have an engineering degree. About 20 years ago, an engineering student, whose assignment was to interview a working engineer, interviewed me about my career. Well, having just come off a series of 80 hour weeks, trying to meet unrealistic schedules assigned by unknowing bosses, I blasted him. The poor kid probably switched majors. The one question I remember clearly (probably assigned verbatim by the teacher who dreamed up the assignment in the first place) was "exactly what has your engineering degree meant to you in your career?".
My answer was: "My engineering degree is nothing but a license to work free overtime. Sure, I make some money but, if you divide the number of hours I work by the pay I get, I probably make less than factory workers!"
Engineers, at least in my work experience, have always been exempt from overtime pay. And that has led to nothing but abuse by the companies I have worked for. I burned out, left engineering as a career, and then returned to engineering.
I returned because there is nothing else I would rather do. I don't have he words, but let me leave with a quote from someone who does:
Engineering: it is a great profession. There is the satisfaction of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer's high privilege. The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope that the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny that he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned. [It] haunts his nights and dogs his days.
Herbert Hoover
The Profession of Engineering (from his memoirs)
As some who just lost his job (Score:3, Informative)
This is in Switzerland, and you'ld be surprised at how many workers here in Europe will do this in order to hold on to their jobs.
Despite this... (Score:3, Interesting)
I work at one of the few dot-com's to survive the downturn, and am overworked for sure; but I choose to do this because I want the rewards that come with hard work. I'm only 27: I've seen how fast people can progress if they are willing to work long and hard, and am happy to put off some pleasure today to reap the rewards of tomorrow, as long as I have some fun along the way.
Re:Despite this... (Score:3, Informative)
Retirement in the USA... (Score:4, Funny)
Boss: That depends. When do you expect to die?
Re:Hmmmmmm I wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
Under the current rules, any employee making more than $155 a week -- about $8,000 per year -- could be excluded from overtime...The good news is that the regulations would raise that cut-off amount to $425 a week -- about $22,100 per year -- actually adding about 1.3 million lower-wage workers to the ranks of people eligible for overtime."
The changes also make it harder for executives and those who make $65,000+ a year to claim overtime. Unfortunately, the majority of OT losses will come from "learned professionals", which could easily include computer techies.
Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism) (Score:5, Interesting)
Socialists and communists are liberals the same way that script kiddies and crackers are hackers. In other words they're not. In both cases the terms have been misused to such a great extent that the original meaning has been largely forgotten.
If you want to understand genuine liberalism, read John Locke, Adam Smith, or basically anything written by the founding fathers of the US. If you want to understand the bullshit that people call liberalism today, read the Communist Manifesto.
Be sure to keep a bucket nearby when you do to catch your vomit. Also lock up any guns you might have so that you can resist the urge to go out and start shooting the bastards.
Lee
Re:Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism) (Score:5, Insightful)
As has been said many times -- it only takes twenty years for liberal to become a conservative, even without changing a single idea. The whole *point* of liberalism is to be avant garde. Adam Smith, believe it or not, was a *radical*. Being a Smith fan today is just as silly as being an Velvet Underground fan today -- what was once outrageous is just old hat today. Heck, even the conservative economists at the University of Chicago don't totally subscribe to the idea of the free market anymore. And Marx is over 100 years out of date, btw.
Re:Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Liberalism != (Communism || Socialism) (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be like a hacker calling themselves a script kiddie.
Re:People work harder in the U.S.? (Score:4, Insightful)
Taking away overtime is just a slap in the face to every employee in that: If every worker out there puts in his/her all for their employer, and receives no benefit from it, where exactly is the motivation to continue to work hard?
Re:Democrats....Repubs (Score:3, Insightful)
If I disagree with the Dems on an issue then I disagree with them. I'm not just going to let something as retarted as "party loyalty" keep progress from progressing
Thankfully, though, we have lots of people that love doing that in D.C. right now for us
Re:Democrats....Repubs (Score:3, Funny)
Don't worry, The Holy Market wil fix it! All shall be solved through the promotion of commerce! So hath Adam Smith written, so it shall be
Re:Democrats....Repubs (Score:5, Insightful)
Adam Smith was a naive economic and political theorist who overestimated human goodness, and underestimated human greed when he wrote The Wealth of Nations, aka, the capitalist manifesto. Capitalism is an economic theory, not a religion. Those who have made it a religion, and made the 7 deadly sins virtues, are destroying society.
hardly working (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hardly working (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:hardly working (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hardly working (Score:5, Insightful)
there are 2080 hours in a work year (40/week). you mean to tell me, that for a mere $0.36 an hour that i work, i can ensure a social safety net that catches people ebfore they crash into oblivion?
damn, where do i sign up?
Re:hardly working (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 3.3 percent of Americans are dependent on welfare.
Have you seen the unemployment numbers?
About 6 percent.
And let's go back to your opening statement:
I'm willing to bet that there is a small percentage in this country "working hard" and shouldering the economy while the rest of the nation "rests and relaxes".
You'd lose that bet. You're not basing this on any actual knowledge or experience, you're just making huge assumptions because by God you have to feel superior to everyone. So your insecurity and paranoia leads you to suspect that somehow you're getting a raw deal, that you're supporting some massive army of lazy, unemployed welfare recipients, a horde that exists only in your delusions.
There are people receiving welfare who work full time, at jobs you wouldn't last a day in, doing backbreaking work that you couldn't possibly imagine.
So show a little humility. As much as you'd like to believe it, you're not some square-jawed Ayn Rand hero supporting ungrateful parasites. The vast majority of the rest of us work just hard as you do; the only difference is most of the rest of us have a little freaking compassion and empathy. We know that we're all in this together, and if the guy down the road lost his job and needs to feed his family, then hell yes I'm willing to give up some of my paycheck to keep them off the streets. If you don't like it, then you can protest with your vote. If you can't change things with your vote, then you can emigrate. You can find a nice little country with no government. But be careful, true anarchies do exist in this world, but they're not very pleasant places to live.
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
If you're reading Slashdot, how is this even a question?
Re:Working Hard? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Working Hard? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most executives I know, especially these days, work insane amounts of hours, with no overtime pay, at all. If you do the math on their hours and pay, you see they aren't making that much more than the normal working person (I'm not talking officers like CEOs, etc, just normal Director and VP level executives).
People that w
Re:Working Hard? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think that typifies the experience of the average American, you're nuts. I'm unemployed, and my neighbors on either side both work two full time shit-jobs to stay ahead of their bills. And I live in a middle class neighborhood. Don't be so hard on the minimum wage earners, since you might be one yourself pretty soon. yeah, you think you're untouchable but scores mighter than you have fallen.
Give me a break! You speak if the "low wage earners" lounge around working 4 day weeks at 15 and 32 dollars an hour? You're fucking nuts. Around here, people are waiting in line for a chance to work at Wal-Mart. Earth to NIMROD, we're having trouble translating your message.
These are bad times, fella. And if that hasn't sunken into your head by now, there is something wrong with you.
The problem is people take jobs just for the money (Score:3, Interesting)
When you work just for the money, of course you dont want to be there, you dont want to be doing what you are doing, but you do it because you get paid to.
Clerk Jobs, and many of these other meaningless jobs, of course no ones going to be motivated to work long and hard doing that, how the hell can you motivate yourself to go to your mc donalds job everyday? Whats your motivation? To be the best burger flipper who ever lived? No thats not it, to help people by making them fat? Maybe thats not it either, yo
Re:The problem is people take jobs just for the mo (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with everything you replied too? Your assuming that people in lower wage jobs don't like thier job. Actually, my brother-in-law likes his job very much and is very good at it (he's a grocery manager). He has pretty good hours too, he's up at 3am and back home by noon ot have the rest of the day to do the things he enjoyes in life (golf, woodworking etc.). He makes about $60-75K a year and has a great house and three kids. A very typical American if you ask me.
Your assumption that people in blue-collar jobs are miserable. You forget, people actually like to do these jobs and enjoy it.
Not everything is high-tech, and not everything is geek related. When you buy a gallon of milk, remember how that milk got to the store and got priced. Someone had to do it, last time I checked the 2.4.20 kernel couldn't actually move mile from a dairy to a store (yet).
Re:The problem is people take jobs just for the mo (Score:3, Insightful)
If your brother likes his job whys he complain?
and he makes good money
Well i guess some people do enjoy flipping burgers and selling shoes.
Re:The problem is people take jobs just for the mo (Score:3, Insightful)
So 60-75k is not "good money"?
--Joey
Re:Not working hard enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Vacations are good though, but you have to think of it this way, you should have a job you actually WANT to do, and you wont have a problem working 12 hours a day. Of course if you work at Mc Donalds you'll hate working 12 hours a day.
BZZZT. Wrong answer.
I have a job for one reason: to pay the bills. If I'm looking for something I want to do, I'll spend time at home (or maybe at Lake Powell) with my wife and kids. 12 hours a day seriously detracts from that. Therefore, 12 hours a day is out of the question.
Re:Jobs dont have to be enjoyable. (Score:5, Insightful)
I appreciate your idealism, but very few people in the world, including the hard-working Japanese, take their jobs that seriously. It's just human nature. Many people are motivated by the fear of being unemployed.
What you experience in America also does not hold for the rest of the world. When I lived in Germany, it was common to see or hear about worker strikes on TV, both in and outside of Germany. Firemen, sanitation workers, you name it. And the public supported them (Cologne went for two weeks without a trash pickup. It was nasty.)
Not everybody views work as their life. For some people, it's family. For others, it's about experiencing the world. What you get paid for is not necessarily your life's work; sometimes, you find your life's work in a hobby, even though nobody pays you for it.
There just isn't enough room in the limelight for everyone to be remembered for the profound contributions they made to society - and it's also unlikely that a grocery clerk's contributions were that profound. If you want to have a profound sense of satisfaction for your time wasted on earth as a grocery clerk, then more power to you.
Life is about the little moments. A sunset enjoyed with loved ones while camping out at the local lake can be a far more profound and beautiful experience in a couple of hours than you'll ever find in stocking the peas on aisle four for the next twenty years.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, just the opposite. Not only do Americans work more hours than all other industrialized nations (IIRC, only two other countries overall beat us), but we also tend to be more productive. For example, one of the big problems Ottawa has with NAFTA is that American workers are overall more productive hour-per-hour than Canadian workers, giving American businesses a competitive advantage over Canadian businesses.
"I doubt you could sit at a desk for 8 hours and really only be coding for 5"
What you're talking about happened during the so-called internet bubble. Welcome to 2003. And even if that were still true, how many US workers are coders?
Ummm...... (Score:3, Insightful)
I spend a lot of time in Italy and they don't work that hard, probably less productive than us lazy Americans. Now the thing is, jobs are hard as hell to find over there, and those with them got them through connections most likely and not performance. So what motivation do they have to actually bust their butt? (And let's not even get started on the government jobs there. oh boy....)
Now Italians, however, put more focus in their life on enjoying and liv
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason Americans have to work more than the rest of the world is because they are less productive. If you were in Japan, I doubt you could sit at a desk for 8 hours and really only be coding for 5. In North America most companies let you get away with that, and then try and make up for the lack of productivity by forcing people to work longer hours... So 8 hours in the US = about 5 hours in the rest of the world.
I much rather work for 12 hours a day, than work hard for 8. You guys just don't know when to quit complaining!
I know you just should be flamed, but I'll bite...
As far as I know the americans work just as efficient as people in the rest of the world. Where you base your numbers on Japanese, I'll base my ideas on the Dutch. Most of my friends in Holland do not work nearly as long OR efficient as the people I am around here in America. Then again, they get rewarded pretty much for that effort (no where near as much as I am). Overtime isn't big in Holland either, but is rewarded. Here overtime isn't rewarded directly, but check the difference in pay between the top-hard working engineers vs the bottom of the pile at the same company. I know that at my company there is as much as a 2x difference in salaries between the hard-workers and the slackers. I'll admit that this isn't always very well balanced.
As far as slacking for 12 hours vs working efficient for 8, well...I'll take the hard work any time. Getting bored and wasting your time is one of the worst things that you can do to yourself. This is where the real issue lies, how come the americans all work so hard, yet don't have the imagination to take time of and do fun things with their hard earned money? Really, here is where we can learn from the Dutch and the rest of the world.
Re:3.3% of the data is good enough for me! (Score:3, Informative)
Except you want to divide 78 by 257, which is 30%.
I never thought I would make one of those typical anal retentive slashdot posts correcting grammar, or some such, but it's actually a rather large point. 30% is a pretty large statistical sampling.
Re:3.3% of the data is good enough for me! (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, you didn't even do it quickly in your head before you posted? It didn't even occur to you that 78 is kinda close to 80 and that 257 is kinda close to 240 and that 80 out of 240 is 33% and that its WAAAAY different than 3.3%?
Where do you work?
Re:Yeah! (Score:3, Funny)
You unamerican blasphemer! Don't you know that saving money hurts the economy? Now get out there and spend that cash! If you don't have any cash, get a loan, that helps the economy even more.
The fate of capitalism depends on you buying all the useless crap you can find (and don't need)! 3-blade razors and bottled water await you!
Re:Get over it!! (Score:3, Insightful)
"wondersparrow", you crack me up. So, your motto is: like your job, or pretend to like it, no matter what it is or how much you are paid? I should like to see the tight smile on your face if you ever worked for $5.50 an hour.
Mr, the highest expression of unique human qualities is not happily slaving away in the service industry 80 hours a week for $5.00 an hour and slapping yourself on the back for your "work ethic".
The point is: Virtually everyone wants time to do something of what makes us HUMAN, quite