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- brad3378, on 11/05/2009, -6/+81The article advocates 4 day work weeks, but workers would still be working 40 hours a week. As the workplace becomes more efficient through the use of computers, automation, robots, etc., it starts making more and more sense to replace the 40 hour work week with something smaller like a 32 hour work week. What's the point of being a technologically superior society if we still need to spend 40 hours a week pretending to be fully busy at work?
40 hour work weeks are obsolete.
Getting rid of them would also help our unemployment numbers.
Why not hire 40 workers at 32 hours each instead of 32 workers at 40 hours each?
I for one would welcome 3 day weekends.
If you want to continue working 40 hours, maybe you should be earning overtime for anything past 32 hours while I spend my newly freed up hours at home. - duggtodeath, on 11/06/2009, -7/+56Complete *****. The guys with 6+ figures simply don't want to take a pay cut. You can easily afford all of your employess, but ***** man, I need to drive that Ferrari!
- tgc1, on 11/06/2009, -4/+36See, I don't see it that way. Not at all. In my view, you still and always will get what you pay for. Nobody should and nobody does work for free. You want people to work for you, pay them fairly or endure the consequences. If you do not pay me what I am worth or what I was worth. Then you will get inferior service. You pay a premium for premium work. That's the basics of everything in the market place. If they expect to push people harder for less pay, then they can go ***** themselves. This isn't slave labor. We are not slaves.
I look at work as a business transaction. You compensate me for my skills and time that I give you. Just because you're in a position to offer work, does not make my contribution any less valuable. And I encourage workers everywhere to adopt a similar sentiment. We are not their bitches. We do not jump high because they say so. We do what is in the job description for fair compensation. Anything less would be nonsense.
If executives (as was mentioned) continue to reap multi-million dollar bonuses and record bonuses in a time of uncertainty and recession then we have a problem. If they're trying to convince the working class (stiffs) that we are to just bend over a little more so they can stick it up our pooper a little harder. They've got another thing coming. - Vaiper, on 11/06/2009, -2/+23There are a large number of office jobs that should be done entirely from home. Mine being one of them. I would be willing to work longer hours each week if I could hope right out of bed and log into my laptop for work. The technology is there but most companies don't want to get involved. It's a shame.
- portnoy, on 11/06/2009, -2/+23Sure, three day weekends would offer more time for your second (or third) job, that you will need to survive as wages continue to erode.
- Crimeodial, on 11/06/2009, -0/+20More work for less pay, just what I always wanted.
- inactive, on 11/06/2009, -3/+22The workplace is changing forever, yes.
It's called a completely globalized world. Corporations will dominate, the middle-class will sink lower, the rich will get richer and capitalism will reign supreme.
It's good if you're smart and sought after, bad if you're average. Most jobs will be outsourced to countries whose citizens can do the exact same quality work for less. The working class citizens of the world will move towards equilibrium, which in essence means the western nations working class will go down, and the third world nations working class will go up.
The elite are the real winners here. - Vaiper, on 11/06/2009, -2/+19I work in IT. I use a laptop provided by my company. A lot of companies are going to an all laptop set up for their users. Most companies have VPN access set up already.
- magamiako, on 11/06/2009, -0/+16In addition to that chrono, 40 hour work weeks are the product of working "sunup to sundown", farmer's hours. Since computers do a large amount of work that people used to have to do by hand, it's not feasible to ask people to come in and sit around all day pretending to work.
If more jobs were set at salary pay, and companies provided a bit more flexibility in hours and scheduling, and use deadlines as a means to get projects completed--then you would see a much better workplace. If projects don't get done on time, then the company can hire employees that know how to work and not screw around.
I have somewhat flexible time at work (but because I often times work many more hours than just 8 per day) ; but it gives me more productivity. It makes me happier, enjoy my job more. I'm not beholden to come in for 12 hours, then 10 hours, then spend 8 hours on a Friday at work. I can maybe spend 5 or 6 on Friday because I worked an extra 6 hours the few days before that. - duggtodeath, on 11/06/2009, -1/+16Yes sir! I wasn't browsing digg, I had Excel open the entire time!
- dwalker, on 11/06/2009, -3/+17Then get off your ass and earn some doh. You aint going to get that Ferrari as an employee....
- thephosphorbox, on 11/06/2009, -0/+14I see some of this happening in my company already and if/when things recover, I highly doubt they'll be hiring anyone back to replace the positions they eliminated. One thing this recession has done is prove to companies like mine that they can get the work done with less people if they cram it down our throats. What's the incentive for them to hire anyone extra if the work is getting done with a skeleton crew? None. They'll pocket the extra cash and keep busting our backs. That's the new American working sector.. might as well get used to it.
- sedawk, on 11/06/2009, -8/+21Changing the working place for ever? How old is the person who wrote this article? 15?
Recessions come and they go; about once a decade. Get use to it. - WiretapStudios, on 11/06/2009, -0/+12Use to it?
- VitriolAndAngst, on 11/06/2009, -3/+15I'm going to say something pretty radical: Capitalism cannot work for our society going into the future.
In latest past "recession" (2nd Republican Great Depression), we picked up a 9% increase in productivity in the past year.
"Productivity" is working longer, or doing more for less, or replacing a worker with a robot. The efficiency of Computers has more or less been fully dredged, and most of that is offshoring jobs to cheaper workers while the company has the same output.
Other than green technology -- the jobs are not coming back. Do you have a degree in nanotechnology? Are you good at robotics repair? We are already designing devices that can build models at home with a CAD program, some lasers controlled by printer engines, and a tank of plastic or sugar -- in ten years, you will have automated FABs that can create small items -- only limited by copyrights.
If you took away Oxley Sarbanes and obscure accounting procedures that were lobbied for by large corporations seeking to create barriers to entry -- you'd lose a million jobs at least. Jobs created to keep people busy. Without the war on drugs; 3 million. Without a War on people in the way of oil and gas pipelines in Iraq and Afghanistan -- likely another 3 million. There are jobs that do nothing for productivity, that an "efficient" society, would not have. We would be entirely better off if those people got paid and just stayed home; less carbon created, less death, more time with the family building happier kids.
I'd say half the jobs are make-work. I'm in financial services -- a field that would not exist if our government looked out for the people. We get all these products -- because we are afraid what will happen if we get sick, retire broke, die and leave family, lose a job. Most people, didn't dream of saving receipts, filling out forms correctly and standing in line. It's a very profitable venture that does not create more efficiency, better products or a happier world.
So as robotics and artificial intelligence improve -- how many low skill jobs like house painter, floor sweeper and ditch digger will be replaced? You gain one robot repairman and lose twenty labor jobs.
The future is either a dystopian nightmare of make-work bureaucracy, or we realize that we all just don't need to work, don't need to arrest pot smokers, don't need to believe that they hate us for our freedoms when we have a military base supporting a government that boils people alive if they get out of line.
The "Leisure Society" where we quit worrying about some poor schlepp is not working every hour of the day, and start looking at how the elite game the system is an alternative. We however, are trained that it's all about efficiency, and that wealth is merit. We worry about pennies to the poor when 90% of Medicaid fraud is conducted by too big to fail health conglomerates because Pfizer buys adds on CNN -- you don't know that. - Ascus, on 11/06/2009, -0/+12I think the real surprise will be for businesses, when all the "Loyal" employees leaving for places that treat them better. I expect many companies that weathered the recession by taking advantage of employees will be belly up from lack of good employees when the economy turns up and new companies are hireing. Where I work, there are many people in "Any Port In a Storm" mentality right now, and will be leaving when the economy turns.
- dwalker, on 11/06/2009, -0/+12No you didn't!
And get facebook closed too. - magamiako, on 11/06/2009, -3/+14Oh, no, there was leisure time. In fact, leisure time was mandated and is still mandated in countries that follow the bible as law. Very specifically speaking, the Sabbath day is a day of leisure--set aside for rest, and do nothing on that day. In fact, working on the Sabbath according to the bible is a sin.
- altgeeky1, on 11/06/2009, -1/+12Employers have a lot of per-employee costs, and because of this it makes sense for them to have fewer employees... even if that even means paying occasional overtime.
We're all told that employer costs get passed onto the employee and the consumer. I work for a small business (under 15 employees) providing Internet services. I get to see the books sometimes, and from that I can tell you that my health insurance is insanely expensive - about 30% of my gross pay.
The reality is, if you want to be self-employed or START a small business in America... well, you better be already wealthy, or married to someone who has good family insurance. When we're able to opt in to a public non-profit option, it's going to be a BOON to American small business, particularly the self-employed. Small business is supposed to be the economic engine, and with health insurance deterring folks from starting their own small business.. well that's a damn shame and huge missed potential. - thespiff, on 11/06/2009, -0/+11Stubborn executives will get what they deserve. Under-appreciating your employees is a sure way to lose your best to attrition. Give up your best workers, who are the backbone of your business, and suddenly things stop working. Soon you're out of business.
This recession is a market correction. Bailouts are not the answer. Learning to become profitable by improving our trade deficit and increasing innovation and high tech production in this country is the answer. That will open up plenty of new highly skilled jobs for our idle workers. - magamiako, on 11/06/2009, -0/+9Vaiper:
Look at it from an IT person's point of view. For every user that we allow to work from home, the potential security problems that exist on important company data. A home user's endpoint machine is potentially a security hole.
Assuming they let our phone support guys work from home, we'd save a whole row in the office. Assuming that we didn't hire extra employees, that space goes wasted--even though we're paying for it. Combine that cost with the cost of now setting up VPN software on the tech's machine in addition to the phone support equipment, and it would actually be more expensive to maintain them remotely than it would to have them come into the office. - dokon, on 11/06/2009, -1/+10Instead of working less, I'm finding that technology is allowing me to work more, but instead of being in an office, I can work from home, work anytime of day I want to, take breaks when I need to, not miss anything my kids do, and be more productive. If you're still counting hours and punching a clock, you should probably be more concerned about moving up the food chain and less about exactly how many hours you spend at work compared to everybody else.
- Iceman21, on 11/06/2009, -0/+9Only if i get paid the same for the 32 hours that i do for the 40.
- simpleid, on 11/06/2009, -0/+9Paranoia over laziness and subtle lying is the unspoken concern. Your bosses thinks you want to work from home so you can be logged in for longer hours but do less actual work. Most managers just don't understand the 'getting the project done on time' vs 'i want my x hours of work from you.' >:]
I don't know why you would* want to work from home though, doing it part time seems find, but if you're completely outside of the 'social circle' in a work environment and have no interaction with your boss, hell if they don't even know you exist other than the occasional completed project from you... it's not a hard choice to just get rid of you over someone else if push comes to shove.
Most people are only capable of thinking from their perspective, so I'm not surprised this is debated. But if you thought more objectively about the nature of social dynamics and the value of human interaction you would see it's actually a risk against you to work from home, at least when talking about an office job.
I think the choice comes down to the nature of the job or work being done, it should not be a universal choice. - yocouchdigga, on 11/06/2009, -2/+10Little too much there, guy.
- ontain, on 11/06/2009, -0/+8actually you're way under what they make. it's 500 times the average worker. not %, which would only be 5 times. in percents they would make 50,000% more.
- nycjap, on 11/06/2009, -1/+9I make six figures and I don't own a Ferrari or live in a huge mansion or wear $5000 suits and $1000 shoes, so please get that image out of your mind.
Now seven-figure earners, that's a different story... - badtiki, on 11/06/2009, -0/+7This is total *****, companies have grown used to pushing their employees to the limit for the least amount of pay as possible, and we as employees can't do anything about it for fear of not finding any other work.
- demonicume, on 11/06/2009, -0/+7Blue Cross Blue Shield is a company that pays people to work from home. For an investment of a ***** $200 refurbished desktop (locked down beyond imagination), they can save on heating and lighting an entire building. they don't have to pay water run the bathrooms or even lease a building at all. They can close the expensive cafeteria and the wasteful gym. They don't have to pay cleaning crews clean or security to stalk the parking lot.
then if they pay by the lot - which they do for claims - they get more work in the same amount of time. - portnoy, on 11/06/2009, -0/+7Companies dropping employees to bolster the bottom line is something we'll just have to learn to live with. I think they got the idea from an episode of the Addams Family, where Gomez had bought life insurance and the agent that sold him the policy was told to go back and get it nullified. When the agent got to the house he discovered Gomez had taken up skydiving. It seems Gomez had a theory that if every time he jumped he used a slightly smaller chute eventually he could ween himself off them completely and just jump without one. Amazing what one can learn from classic television.
- Zaxcomp, on 11/06/2009, -0/+7Ayn Rand is dead.
- Killingintexas, on 11/06/2009, -0/+6Being loyal to a comp is so 1980's evrybody should be looking out for there on good and ***** the company you work for when it comes to more money stick to them anyway you can ,
- acknotSW, on 11/06/2009, -0/+6Managers need to get over their lazy worker paranoia. Just about everyone I know could accomplish 50% or more of their jobs remotely at whatever hours were convenient for them.
That's the kind of set up I have at work. I work 4:30 am to 10 am remotely from home because I just naturally wake up that early. If I need to, I go into the office for a few hours in the afternoon. If nothing is going on that requires me to be there in person, I'll log back on for a few more hours in the afternoon. I work about 50 hours per week, but feel like I have more free time than I did when I was stuck working part time for almost a year. - smemily, on 11/06/2009, -0/+6Earn some... doh!
- protodon, on 11/06/2009, -1/+7The amount of hours someone works is not equal to the amount they do. Most people "work" 40 hours but really waste most of their time drinking/making coffee, talking and generally being inefficient. Some of those "get in get out" people like myself can do the same work in much less time and should be paid equally for less hours but since no one knows people like this exist, the 40 hour week remains as is.
- seltaeb4, on 11/06/2009, -2/+8You will never be paid as much your labor is worth to your employer. That's one of capitalism's dirty little secrets.
If you ever cost an employer more than you generate for them, you will be fired. Exploiting your labor is as much a part of earning a profit for them as are sales of goods and services.
It's just a basic truth.
Trading your life and labor for a subsistence wage is a fool's game. Break free of it. - altgeeky1, on 11/06/2009, -1/+7When America had strong unions, we also had strong trade schools and colleges and these things were affordable. Ask anyone under 30 what a "trade school" was, and they will look at you funny.
Since Reagan, we've been memorized by the illusion of a "service based economy", which is a lie. You can not base an entire economy on selling intangible intellectual property that is EASILY outsourced and easily copied by other nations. As a result, unions (and the industries they work in) have been artificially shut out of the US economy. Unions are the ENEMY of the conservative, elite political class and to "defeat" the unions, they had to also defeat US manufacturing. Sad, but true.
This is a naked fact and to cope, US and western patent and copyright systems get crazier with each new treaty... instead of leveraging what lead we have left and returning to the national investments of the 1920's through the 1950's, which were responsible for much of the US economic dominance of the 20th century. We've been coasting and it is like the emperor wears no clothes now. - Elranzer, on 11/06/2009, -1/+6Just what your employers and shareholders always wanted.
- Elranzer, on 11/06/2009, -0/+5Corporations will become the new lords and we will enter an era of global fiefdom.
The middle class will lose all of their jobs until they agree to work for the peanut wages that third-world nations agree to work for, and with no benefits (effectively killing the middle class). There will only be a few rich people living comfortably and the rest of the world becomes the third-world.
Someone's gotta put a stop to this some how. - Deadity, on 11/06/2009, -7/+12We need stronger unions. With some hyperbole I can say that the well being of the world rests on us getting more and more salary as the number of jobs become scarcer due to automation.
- Elranzer, on 11/06/2009, -0/+5Honestly, the only way to fix the job market is to STOP shipping jobs overseas and to scale back the ridiculous salaries of upper executives.
- phogasmic, on 11/06/2009, -1/+6getting the same productivity in less hours is not laziness its efficient. It is you thinking that is lazy.
- kuzotz, on 11/06/2009, -0/+5I own a logistics company. With a warehouse, and I am thinking about starting an import/export company based in hongkong soon :D :P
- sb66, on 11/06/2009, -2/+7unions are parasites, at least the public sector ones where I live.
- VitriolAndAngst, on 11/06/2009, -1/+6I was going to dig you up until I realized you were a Nazi.
A Pandemic -- not only is cruel -- and it doesn't weed out people who think they can choose who is "useful" to live -- but like war, it does NOT reduce population.
You know the best way to lower the population? Women's rights. In every country with women in charge of their own reproduction, and good access to medical care -- the population rate is very low to negative. Japan has negative growth rate. Most major city centers in the world that have Democracy have a negative growth rate if not for the influx of people looking for work.
So not only are you crass, you are wrong. - mpsnerdley, on 11/06/2009, -0/+4Hear! Hear! The 6-figure income is the new medium.
- dwalker, on 11/06/2009, -1/+5Here in the UK there are too many offices over staffed particularly in the public sector.
As people are too greedy its likely they will not opt to cut their hours/days so it will end with more redundancies. - bdbr, on 11/06/2009, -0/+4Most people I know end up working MORE hours when working at home. Its a lot harder to just say "its 5pm so I'm stopping".
- VitriolAndAngst, on 11/06/2009, -0/+4We need to have a Socialist/Democracy like the Dutch.
We can have direct representation and have mass voting on most bills. I'd get rid of the Senate however, before I'd get rid of the Congress.
Our standing armies and secret service are a parasite on our country, and the greatest threat to Democracy -- almost as much as our banks. They work for outside interests and not the people.
Most people are motivated by doing something worth doing and community. You look at the Star Trek universe, and money is just for "extra trivialities" and people spend most of their lives studying. We really cannot have a supply and demand / resource war mentality going forward -- the planet cannot survive the 10% year over year business model growth -- this has only been achieved in the USA by progressively stealing from larger and larger groups in the third world. At a time when cheap slave labor is about to become pointless when computers can do a better/faster/cheaper job with robotic equipment -- that's when we will really see the boot come down on the "useless eaters."
There are really only two paths: A security society, that uses more and more pointless bureaucracy to create make-work, and that success is more and more dependent upon loyalty to an economic elite cabal, and that threats are manufactured or real by a majority of people who have no voice or control over their lives. More and more things will be illegal and more and more justice will be unevenly applied.
Or we have a society kind of like the Ancient Greeks, were we spend most of our time, learning, thinking and pondering, and we have an automated machine system (instead of slavery) to do the chores. Money will have to be more communally applied.
I could easily solve the "copyright" and patent problem to reward innovation. Instead of growing the money supply through banks (which should be part of the government function like they used to be) -- we could stop taxing anyone, stop charging fees for downloading music and such, and just track how much all copyrights/patents are used -- and those INDIVIDUALS connected with the writing/music/idea get that portion of the money supply. It's a bit more complicated than that -- because WHO uses your idea influences the amount as much as how many times it is used. But innovators create real growth, and so growth of money should just go to them.
Whatever the government needs to pay for LOCALLY, should be with money they make up. Really -- it's exactly like banks. If any state were to make a Bank, they could put the asset like a bridge on their balance sheet, and then factor out ten times the value of the asset as loans and payroll to build the bridge. But the Banksters do not want state Governors to realize that all their pet projects could become liquidity and they don't ever have to go into debt as long as they build infrastructure. This works as long as you have governors producing useful things.
However to get here, you'd have to have instant run-off proportional voting and pay for it through the government -- outlaw ANY donations to politicians.
The solutions to big problems are actually kind of simple -- it's just that a lot of money goes to keeping us confused.
In fact, Obama's administration is setting $750 Billion aside for spying on the American public. That isn't something he invented -- it's just part of the Fascist system he inherited. Corporations run this country right now -- and as long as they can keep the bread and circuses going -- we aren't going to realize it. - altgeeky1, on 11/06/2009, -1/+5>This recession is a market correction. Bailouts are not the answer. Learning to become profitable by improving our trade deficit and increasing innovation and high tech production in this country is the answer. That will open up plenty of new highly skilled jobs for our idle workers.
I would agree that pumping "bailout level" money into education would go a long way towards making the US competitive again. Part of the high cost of business in the US is due to the public school system which laughably ends at 18... if you want an education that will actually let you hold a job during recession, you better be prepared to soak up $50k - $200k in debt, OR come from a rich family.
A lot of American engineers and doctors actually got their education overseas, subsidized by their government. Since US pay rates are higher (again, in part due to needing to pay off student loans) coming to the USA with such a background is like winning the lottery.
Other countries consider it their patriotic duty to plow resources into education and compete for jobs, while in the US the elite and political classes lobby AGAINST universal education costs... in part because they don't want to pay higher taxes, but also because they view college (and the jobs that go with it) as some kind of class-based inheritance. After all, if the universities produce too many skilled engineers, doctors, and accountants then there's a lot more folks competing for those jobs and everything becomes a lot more merit-based, and therefore more competitive. -
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