Then an employee got mad because they wanted the same number of vacation days that other more senior employees had, so they filed a formal challenge to the union and the employees voted and oops no more union now.
I voted pro-union, but honestly the employee filling the complaint was right: the union had given up in us. The rep was a ghost 95% of the time, they kept capitulating to the corporate demands in negotiations, I kept watching my benefits shrink, and any threat of a strike was met with deep hearty top management chuckles while they reached for the phone to call in some designated scabs from other states. Because I live in a "right to work" (*cue the symphony of blown raspberries*) state and unions have no teeth here.
Which sucks, because I do enjoy my work and am able to implement my philosophy of "if I'm in this building, it's because you're paying me to be here, and if I'm here for extra, you'll pay me more for that extra" without any pushback or even a contrary word from my immediate managers. I just wish my union had fought harder for me and my state wasn't so anti-worker.
That sounds deeply familiar. Old joke: "The unions are there to protect the boss from the ferocity of his employees". Union reps getting cash suitcases in exchange for getting everybody to bend over really sour people against unions. I have seen it over and over again. "Just vote a different union rep". Yeah, between a wall of bureaucratic bullshit and corruption, good luck with that.
I'm lucky to be in a type of semi-academic environment where the required labor is pretty specified but all the extra labor is thinking about ways to make things better for your colleagues. I do a bunch of extra work at home because I'm like the only co-worker without a family, and the fact that the stuff I do is totally outside of any performance metric is remarkably freeing. Corruption gives way to bureaucracy in establishing the materials of productivity inertia, so why not use your spare time to conquer the bureaucracy for the sake of everyone else? If there is another way that actually exists in real society and not a theoretical dreamscape always just around the corner, let me know and I'll get right on it.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Those kinds of results tend to happen in regions where social, economic, and political corruption are rife. See: Right to Work states in the formerly ardent union stronghold of the Rust Belt. I've noticed people who have that FYGM (Fuck You, Got Mine) mindset tend to be emigrants from the land of the dream America woke up from and shook off.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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Rear Admiral ChocoI wanna be an owl, Jerry!Owl York CityRegistered Userregular
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
This totally makes sense to me although I think anyone working a salaried position with no overtime clause is getting screwed over along with any fellow employees not willing to put in the work
So long as the workhorse is getting proper overtime pay - both as reward, and to disincentivize overreliance - this sounds fair enough
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Employees being too passionate can dick over other workers who don't want to expand the scope of their unpaid labor when they're already at their soft limit for duty. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: if your "passionate" additional labor increases profits but earns you no extra monetary compensation, you are being exploited.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I’m passionate about lots of things that I would totally do for free, until it comes time to pay the rent
All the industries I aspire to do well in are deeply exploitative in part because everyone in them is passionate about doing creative work, but I can’t eat “creative fulfillment”, or run my car on it, or retire on it
My work creates value and should be compensated accordingly, no matter how I personally feel about it
My workplace, very uniquely, has nurtured my passion in actually positive ways, and has been supportive of my passion project. It has tremendously improved my value as an employee while allowing me to achieve some major personal goals. They win, I win, and I go home after 40 hours unless something crazy happens. I did overwork myself on the project at one point to meet a deadline I set for myself, but now I just work on it whenever I feel like it.
This is how it should be - a company helping employees to use their passion for growth, then reaping the benefits of a happy, healthy, much more skilled employee, instead of just grinding them into the dust pretending it's helping them.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
Exploitation is never justifiable. It doesn't matter that someone finds joy in their labor - they still deserve fair compensation for that labor.
Yeah, that's why some employers would discriminate their employees based on family status. Businesses assume parents are not "passionate" just on account of their family duties.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
Yeah, that's why some employers would discriminate their employees based on family status. Businesses assume parents are not "passionate" just on account of their family duties.
It also empowers discrimination of single employees, who are often tasked with extra duties and hours because they don't have those responsibilities. People get it coming and going.
Phillishere on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
In general, it strikes me as reasonable and just that jobs which are intrinsically enjoyable to the people doing them--or which enjoy social prestige, or etc.--pay less than comparable work that lacks those features. It's another benefit of the work. It would strike me as unfair, to flip the framing, if workers who did jobs which are unpleasant and low-prestige didn't get any additional compensation to make up for those features of their work. But paying A less relative to B is analytically equivalent to paying B more relative to A.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
In general, it strikes me as reasonable and just that jobs which are intrinsically enjoyable to the people doing them--or which enjoy social prestige, or etc.--pay less than comparable work that lacks those features. It's another benefit of the work. It would strike me as unfair, to flip the framing, if workers who did jobs which are unpleasant and low-prestige didn't get any additional compensation to make up for those features of their work. But paying A less relative to B is analytically equivalent to paying B more relative to A.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
Seems like it would lead to actively fighting against efficiency improvements.
This is why I categorically refuse to work in a field that I'm passionate about, not matter how much my family tries to encourage me to pursue a career in creative writing, photography, or art. Those are interests I pursue in my spare time because I enjoy doing them. If I had to do them in order to afford rent and food, I wouldn't enjoy them anymore. My job has to be something I don't care about. As a result, I'm very happy at work!
In general, it strikes me as reasonable and just that jobs which are intrinsically enjoyable to the people doing them--or which enjoy social prestige, or etc.--pay less than comparable work that lacks those features. It's another benefit of the work. It would strike me as unfair, to flip the framing, if workers who did jobs which are unpleasant and low-prestige didn't get any additional compensation to make up for those features of their work. But paying A less relative to B is analytically equivalent to paying B more relative to A.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
The issue isn't "I'll take this less paying job over this better paying job because I like the first job more."
It's "Because I love my job, my boss expects me to work hours and conditions that noone else doing my job would/should be expected to do." I.e. it's the employer taking advantage of the "passionate" worker, not the worker finding fulfillment in a job that pays less than they could earn.
Fun little tangent; was playing Prey on Friday, and one of the PA announcements was a reminder that extra hours had to first be approved by the station's psychiatrist to make sure you aren't getting overworked, either at your insistence or your superior's. Considering the spoilerific things that are happening, I found it hilarious that a sci-fi Megacorp got the right idea on this.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
In general, it strikes me as reasonable and just that jobs which are intrinsically enjoyable to the people doing them--or which enjoy social prestige, or etc.--pay less than comparable work that lacks those features. It's another benefit of the work. It would strike me as unfair, to flip the framing, if workers who did jobs which are unpleasant and low-prestige didn't get any additional compensation to make up for those features of their work. But paying A less relative to B is analytically equivalent to paying B more relative to A.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
The issue isn't "I'll take this less paying job over this better paying job because I like the first job more."
It's "Because I love my job, my boss expects me to work hours and conditions that noone else doing my job would/should be expected to do." I.e. it's the employer taking advantage of the "passionate" worker, not the worker finding fulfillment in a job that pays less than they could earn.
Fun little tangent; was playing Prey on Friday, and one of the PA announcements was a reminder that extra hours had to first be approved by the station's psychiatrist to make sure you aren't getting overworked, either at your insistence or your superior's. Considering the spoilerific things that are happening, I found it hilarious that a sci-fi Megacorp got the right idea on this.
I think this Prey Easter egg is a jab by the programmers at Management. This is based on the history of abuse in video game workers.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
We also don't need to punish people with more energy and time by taking it away.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
We also don't need to punish people with more energy and time by taking it away.
That's correct, but some people are going to donate it on their own anyway.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
We also don't need to punish people with more energy and time by taking it away.
That's correct, but some people are going to donate it on their own anyway.
And a good manager tells them to get their ass home.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
We also don't need to punish people with more energy and time by taking it away.
That's correct, but some people are going to donate it on their own anyway.
And a good manager tells them to get their ass home.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
We also don't need to punish people with more energy and time by taking it away.
That's correct, but some people are going to donate it on their own anyway.
And a good manager tells them to get their ass home.
A great manager tells them they won't get brownie points for staying, will review their workflow and efficiency to make sure they're not using the extra time because they're struggling to keep ahead of their work, and will regularly assess the employee for evidence of burnout. If they have a pet project outside the scope of their normal work, the manager will assess whether this interferes with their existing duties and a healthy minimum standard of living, placing restrictions only if redirection and guidance don't work.
Innovation and creativity takes some working outside the box, and if there was any one system or standard of behavior guaranteed to foster this with no drawbacks, everyone would use it. For now, supervisors must use case-by-case guidance recognizing variations in individual capabilities.
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think there are different forms of passion. An artist who genuinely loves their work may he eager for extra time in the studio, it may be the thing in their life which brings them the most pleasure. The same for a mathematician or coder or scientist who truly loves what they do. Their passion may make it more legitimate to ask them to work more, because to them it's not work. It brings them joy.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
We also don't need to punish people with more energy and time by taking it away.
That's correct, but some people are going to donate it on their own anyway.
And a good manager tells them to get their ass home.
The best way a manager ever asked me to cool it was to say "This is a marathon, not a sprint. We need everybody to work at a pace that's sustainable for years. You're no good to us if you burn yourself out early."
She wasn't a very good manager in retrospect (for unrelated reasons), but that speech was effective.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
In general, it strikes me as reasonable and just that jobs which are intrinsically enjoyable to the people doing them--or which enjoy social prestige, or etc.--pay less than comparable work that lacks those features. It's another benefit of the work. It would strike me as unfair, to flip the framing, if workers who did jobs which are unpleasant and low-prestige didn't get any additional compensation to make up for those features of their work. But paying A less relative to B is analytically equivalent to paying B more relative to A.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
Well, let's imagine a nation in which the enjoyable/easier/safer jobs still got a living wage, stability, appropriate levels of autonomy, respect, and benefits... but more stressful jobs made even more money than that... thenwe might more easily stomach the inequality in that situation.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
In general, it strikes me as reasonable and just that jobs which are intrinsically enjoyable to the people doing them--or which enjoy social prestige, or etc.--pay less than comparable work that lacks those features. It's another benefit of the work. It would strike me as unfair, to flip the framing, if workers who did jobs which are unpleasant and low-prestige didn't get any additional compensation to make up for those features of their work. But paying A less relative to B is analytically equivalent to paying B more relative to A.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
Well, let's imagine a nation in which the enjoyable/easier/safer jobs still got a living wage, stability, appropriate levels of autonomy, respect, and benefits... but more stressful jobs made even more money than that... thenwe might more easily stomach the inequality in that situation.
There's also the complication that different people like different things, and saying that I deserve more money for a job that I, personally, dislike is one hell of a perverse incentive, since happy workers are generally more productive.
And telling employees that the privilege of the work itself is part of their compensation is just plain gross.
like, the phenomenon that is the topic of your thread describes the hijacking of this cultural norm by capitalism. We believe in passion as the motivator for political, religious and social action, the owner class has tried to make us think that should also be applied to all work. like we shouldn't think of it as selling our labour but as helping our admirable boss earn as much money as possible.
concluding from this that we should actually be paid for all the other stuff we do seems to me to be precisely the wrong take.
Why? Labor is labor, and a job is a job. (This, by the way, is why "do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life" is actually really shitty advice, because passion doesn't make a job stop being a job.)
Why do people look at user reviews instead of just trusting the sales person at the store?
I can't believe that I have to explain that being paid to advocate for political change is a bad thing. Especially because we're discussing the fact that a billionaire is trying to buy the election right now!
like, the phenomenon that is the topic of your thread describes the hijacking of this cultural norm by capitalism. We believe in passion as the motivator for political, religious and social action, the owner class has tried to make us think that should also be applied to all work. like we shouldn't think of it as selling our labour but as helping our admirable boss earn as much money as possible.
concluding from this that we should actually be paid for all the other stuff we do seems to me to be precisely the wrong take.
Why? Labor is labor, and a job is a job. (This, by the way, is why "do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life" is actually really shitty advice, because passion doesn't make a job stop being a job.)
Why do people look at user reviews instead of just trusting the sales person at the store?
Let's look at the implicit argument here - "user reviews are more trustworthy than a salesperson because the salesperson is paid." But in reality, none of this holds up - user reviews are just as vulnerable to bias, especially when dealing with products with strong fanbases; and conversely, just because a salesperson is paid to sell a product does not make their position intrinsically untrustworthy, as one of the best ways for a salesperson to build rapport and make sales is to honestly discuss their product. The underlying argument that being paid is somehow inherently corrupting is at the heart of how amateurism is used as class warfare.
I can't believe that I have to explain that being paid to advocate for political change is a bad thing. Especially because we're discussing the fact that a billionaire is trying to buy the election right now!
Dudgeon and outrage aren't arguments, though. Even politicians and their staff have to live, and not making enough money to do so is one of the largest ways that they wind up being vulnerable to corporate influence,, not to mention how it excludes large swathes of society from even being able to hold such positions. Passion doesn't pay the bills in the end.
This is a discussion I have fairly frequently as a therapist. One of the first things I do when working with someone is explain the scope in which I will work with them, and what they can expect from me. This will sometimes lead to a conversation where a cynical client becomes convinced I am in it for the money, and I don't actually care about them. This is just a job for me, and I clearly don't care for reasons x, y, and z.
The catch to it all is I set these boundaries, and require payment because I do care. I would let my work consume me completely. Ask my beloved spouse about the months I spent working 120+ hour weeks at a job that did not pay overtime. This also leads to a complete fucking collapse mentally and emotionally on my part in no small part because that work load means maybe sleeping 4 hours a night.
That these boundaries are weaponized against me by society is not surprising, but it is frustrating. I need to eat just like everyone else, and I know I will always carve out time to follow my passions. Combining those two to make it possible for me to live a balanced life makes me much more credible rather than less once you break down the pieces of it all. The reason is I have shown I can temper my passion and be reasonable.
There is a famous study on this that highlights the effect. Participants are sent through a bogus experiment. Afterwards they are offered either a large or small reward to talk up the experiment to future participants. Those offered the smaller reward consistently spoke more highly, and with more passion for the experiment than the group that is paid more. Valuable perhaps in a political campaign, but clearly exploitative as well as straight harmful in other contexts. This is the reason I treat user reviews with great skepticism. The internal need to justify the loyalty to the professed view point seriously warps the expressed view.
My apologies if this is slightly off topic. I have been going through a period of just-plain-exploitation at work recently and I want to share with other internet hoo-mans, for purposes of primate bonding through shared negative experiences. All the text in spoiler tag is what I wrote my counselor back in mid-January (yes I went into counseling over this). TL;DR, remote work is often sold as a great thing but sometimes... it is not.
The job was not just a nightmare--it was an unbelievable, preposterous, and what I personally consider to be an abusive nightmare. I will try not to scream at the screen as I explain it to you. First, when I went into the office for training, I expected to meet my trainer in person. Nope! They had reserved a cold gray box of a cubicle for me to sit in all alone for 8 hours a day. My training, too, would be entirely remote. I think I met my boss, the only one in the office, in person for a total of... 3 hours... over the next 6 weeks. There was a person, currently living in Montana, who was simultaneously doing training of other "new" BSAs, who had put together hours of training videos which I had access to, who set up some training "tasks" for me through the tiny-text, difficult-to-use legacy system of to-do tasks this company still uses out of cheapness and inertia, and who reluctantly agreed to spend less than a half-hour per day talking with me through video chat for the first 2 weeks, after I begged her to do so. She was about 8.75 months pregnant and went on maternity leave on the 3rd week. All of the training tasks were so general and high-level, I would find out, that they didn't apply to anything I would be doing in my actual job (at this point, working through real production tasks for a month (!), I have yet to go through a single process demonstrated in any of the videos.) I was never granted a chance to so much as watch a colleague work through a business task in real time. I was never granted any social interaction where the person on the other end of the call (everything was remote, so it was always a call, of course) wasn't giving clear signs that they would rather not be doing this right now, or were in physical pain (her labor pains started during one of our calls). In retrospect, this was the best and most organized the training process would ever be.
Once she left on her maternity leave, I was "passed on" (told to train with him by my boss) to another guy who worked remote, but within 50 miles of this office, and apparently he came in on Fridays. I tried to schedule an in-person meeting with him for over 3 weeks before he finally, reluctantly, showed up in the office and granted me one hour of his time. Every second of our brief meeting, as I tried desperately to get some validation and guidance from him, he radiated how much he didn't want to be there from every pore. When it was done, I decided to avoid contacting him if at all possible from that point forward. Throughout December I sat in that cold gray box, all by myself, with no company but the training videos, which I discovered were not actually aligned with the training tasks. I watched them over and over, trying to connect the dots in videos where the trainer droned on and on about every possible contingency that might happen, while pushing out a process that probably took 10 minutes in real time to over 90 minutes in video form, using terms I'd never heard of specific to the company, and using programs I had never accessed and didn't know where to find. Not having anywhere to turn to get any more help, I mostly used that time to learn French, as I find learning languages soothing. I even had a dream in French once lol. Halfway through December I asked my boss when I could start working remote, as I figured I would have more human contact that way. "His response: "Oh yeah! Yeah, I guess you should be working remote now. Yeah."
Everything I learned during this 6 week period, I could have learned in 3 business days if I'd been able to sit next to a coworker.
I started working remote in my dad's room/office, but he tended to spend the mornings in his room until 2 PM or so, and was constantly going in and out. Also, there are 3 cats in the house, 1 belonging to my dad and 2 to my brother/sister-in law, and they had an in/out door built into the window of the room. They relied on being able to go in and out of the window and then the room door at will, or they would shit or vomit all over the carpet from stress. Which meant I needed to work with the door wide open, the window wide open, and with constant interruption, while I was doing my best to do deep thinking through the very badly designed training tasks, watching incredibly dense and boring and mostly irrelevant video, with no ability to ask questions of other people. I had my first breakdown in this situation - driving out to get some lunch, screaming curses at the top of my lungs while on the freeway, and texting my husband in ALL CAPS that the garage needed to be activated NOW and I needed to work in there NOW or I would lose my GODDAMN MIND. Bless him, he immediately went out and moved boxes and the desk and all the equipment and I was able to close a door, finally, and keep it closed. But I lost natural light and all human interaction as a result.
I thought it couldn't possibly get worse that sitting around and being paid to do "something" which was really nothing, while being completely alone for most of my working hours. But I was wrong.
Near the end of December my boss held a surprise meeting with me, and told me that actually, they were really swamped right now and they needed me to do production work. I leaped at the chance - finally, I could meet my coworkers! (Hilariously, I had asked my boss who our team consisted of in the first week, and he'd waved vaguely at a list of people on a meeting invite and said "These people? I guess?" I wasn't even in the meeting!) Finally, there would be a compelling reason for people to want to talk to me! One of my direct seniors - someone who actually was doing the same work I would be doing - reached out to me immediately, and started to walk me through the actual processes of my job. I was greatly relieved and happy to work with her.
However, now that I had access to the reality of the job, I realized the situation very quickly. The amount of work, combined with the much smaller amount of trained people who could complete it, was absolutely overwhelming. Everyone was desperate, everyone was scrambling, and everyone was fighting as hard as they could for every scrap of time and focus. Every procedure was manual, to a detrimental degree. Systems worked off of EXACT input, and a single mis-key could easily cost the team a dozen hours of work. Most of the work was done with Excel, the program itself struggling under unwieldy macros. A significant amount of work was done partially through a remote server that did not allow copy/paste from one "window" to another, increasing the amount of hand-typing. No doubt due to multiple catastrophic errors in the past, every single procedure had no fewer than FIVE double-checks, each done by a different person - you can imagine how much that added to the workload! And there was an entire team called "workforce" whose job was to parachute in and let the workers know which task was suddenly more urgent than another, kind of like someone running down the hallway screaming "FIRE IN QUADRON 6, STOP FIGHTING FIRE IN QUADRON 8, GO TO 6!!!!" On top of that, the regular tasks system sent an email to Outlook letting everyone CC'd on the task know the progress of the team... one email per every "item" completed, of which there were about 30 per task, sent out in real time. When the person before you finished their line item it was IMPERATIVE that you IMMEDIATELY jump in and complete your task. If you didn't, workforce would come in and text you multiple times being like "is this done? You can work on this task now? Are you there??" This averaged out to something popping up in my field of vision every 90 seconds. 90% of the time, it was completely irrelevant to my life and work, but 10% of the time, it was an EMERGENCY. The email template for these notifications was visually dense, and I had to read through each one and look for my name, or sometimes just for the description of the task completed, so that I could do further research to see if it meant I had to do something right away or not. I could never afford to ignore them - when I ended up doing so by accident, while trying to focus on say a training session, within 20 minutes workforce would escalate to my boss, who would then end up texting me, "hey? are you there?".
Oh! And then there were the technical issues.
The same week I started at the company, they switched over from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. Now, I suspect that Microsoft Teams is actually a program that works fine, but that this cheapskate company underestimated how much their own employees would actually use it, and skimped on server space for "savings" (even though they had enough money to pay me to sit on my ass for 6 weeks lol). As far as I know there were no serious issues while working/training remotely through Skype Business, but Teams... well. Knowing that my senior coworker's time was precious, I immediately tried to record every call, so that I could go through the process at my leisure and not need her to repeat things. First, there was no option to record on a casual call, so we needed to make a formal meeting. She was so busy she hesitated to add to her workload by creating meetings, but after I begged her, finally agreed. Then... as we were recording our meetings together... the program crashed. Trying again, the video froze. Again, and again, it failed to record. Finally I let go, emotionally, of my desire for accurate and complete reference material (PS there was very little written reference material available, and what there was, had no screenshots) and brought out a notepad, and scribbled my notes by hand while we spoke on ad-hoc video phone calls. Later we would discover that Teams video even crashed when we were having a group chat without recording. So, no more than 2 people could ever be on a video call at the same time.
Oh, and also: just as I was thrown into production work, I found most of my resources - the remote system, the shared folders, etc - were not loading on my home desktop. I spent three days in a state of unrelenting panic, trying to troubleshoot while somehow doing the work anyway even though every screen took forever to load, while every contact I got was screaming about why it wasn't done, before finally a person I only knew because we had spoken a few times in the hallway in the first month (!) reached out to me and told me it was probably because my internet speed (terminology, new to me, of "upload speed") wasn't sufficient. Our home internet had worked fine for everything we'd ever had to use it for previously, my previous companies had handled all this shit on their own, and I had not been informed that a certain speed of internet was necessary for remote work with this company, even though I had told them multiple times that this was my first ever remote position. There was no "get ready for working from home!" information packet or anything similar provided. I had to spend my own time calling the internet company--upgrading to a speed that God willing would never cause me problems again--and I paid my father the difference. My family told me to ask my company to cover the difference, but I couldn't face the emotional stress of trying to start that negotiation with them on top of everything else. I just ate the cost.
I guess the only other thing I need to mention about the job is that, even for my "simple" admin tasks - which my boss made very sure to mention with furrowed brow, during one of our few meetings, were "not really BSA work" - at least one out of 2 ended up with some sort of troubleshooting necessary. Either because different cases handled the same process with different templates (and god forbid you use the wrong one, people would message very irate at best, or the entire process would crash and need to be redone or worse!) or because wrong information had been received earlier and the whole process had to be restarted, or because someone had done a manual error somewhere... sometimes that person was even me, as meticulous as I tried to be. Work spilled over past the 8 hour day, going into the evening, workforce outright threatening through texts that this work HAD to be done, that it was our JOB to get it done no matter what. I had to cancel evening appointments, go without dinner, and even begged off putting my baby to bed - the only time during the day I was able to spend with him - because I would be so stressed from what had happened that day that I was physically shaking, and was only barely keeping my emotional control, and I didn't want to subject him to that. My husband stepped up, bless him, every time I asked.
I don't think I need to tell you this, but it isn't possible to learn and be in fight-or-flight mode at the same time. When I tried to piece together my (very messy!) notes later on to do the tasks I had been "trained" on, I struggled to complete them in what workforce seemed to consider a "timely" manner (as judged by them texting "are you done yet? Is it done? Is it done?" constantly, like evil little birds). When I finally pushed back and tried to explain that actually, I wasn't "trained" in the way they kept assuming, they would text back "Your senior colleague says you're trained! Is it done yet? Is it done?" And finally, I unburdened myself to my boss a few weeks ago, begging him to at least - at least - do something about the video recording issue! Couldn't he go to IT and demand they fix it?? "His response: "Huh...well... I haven't been having any issues with Teams." I asked him if I could go to IT myself, then...? Sure, he said, but they would probably turn me away and tell me to write a ticket. He promised to send me a how-to on contacting IT correctly. He never bothered to do so.
Later on I noticed in the technical issues forums on Teams that actually, a large number of remote workers were experiencing similar video lag issues. It was decided that it was caused by inadequate server space, which would require the company to invest more money, which the poster chose to phrase as "would be a difficult discussion." You know, the polite way to say "This will never be fixed."
You can probably imagine how this was spilling into my personal life. I went through sort of a twisted, funhouse mirror of the stages of grief: First, I was hopeful and creative. Then, I started to find it all very ridiculous, and funny - I mean - it is funny! I still do find it hilarious on occasion. Then, I started to feel hurt - why were they doing this to me? All I wanted was to do the job they were paying me to do. Why was I being made to suffer so much, just to help them out? Then, finally, I got very very ANGRY. Rage coursed through me every single second of the day. I spat curses at the screen, I struggled to comfort myself with every coping mechanism I could think of outside of working hours (thankfully not alcohol or drugs - I think genetically I am not soothed by them, I rarely use them), and every single weekend in January, I collapsed at least once, usually in the form of sleeping odd hours during the day on the weekend. Once I had a kind of scary experience while accompanying my husband to the grocery store - I was feeling tired even though I had slept decently overnight. I was drinking cup after cup of tea, trying to perk up, but the caffeine wasn't working - in fact I felt the opposite, my blood sugar plunging super low. I closed my eyes and slumped against the car door and slurred to him to go in by himself, I needed to rest. He did so and I lay there in that exact position for about 20 minutes hovering on the edge of consciousness, only starting to recover my ability to move by the time he came back. I spent the rest of that afternoon in bed.
I ended up playing the most dangerous game last week, threatening to quit right out if, at minimum, the interruptions every 90 seconds didn't f*cking stop. This was brinkmanship because I earn our family's entire income right now and some mistakes on my husband's unemployment application just cost us half of our savings. Luckily this job is exactly as stupid as it sounds and they are critically understaffed and can't afford to lose even a partially-trained person like me, so, it worked. I have my job, I have peace and quiet to struggle through teaching myself everything with only the most occasional answers to my questions, and I bought a goddamn coworking space so that I wouldn't spend time in a building that makes Office Space look luxurious/in my garage with ants crawling over me.
I still had to sit through an incredibly tense meeting mediated by the contracting company, in which there was a lot of bullshit on "well this is a hard job!" with the underlying assumption that I should have pride in doing a hard job (and not complain). I responded with "I know that it is a hard job and I enjoy solving hard problems. I'm arguing for the conditions in which I CAN solve those hard problems." For your amusement, the contracting company agent outright told me that Teams was underperforming, it was a known issue, then asked in a really arrogant way "Do you honestly think this is going to be fixed? You need to figure out how to work around it." Not that I hadn't figured that out already, but they said that to my face like having constant crashes of the technology I needed to do the job was MY problem!
If someone had even breathed a word about how business systems analysis should be my "passion" at any point in this I would have committed murder.
I'm still in counseling, it's getting better though - I moved out of the house and lived in a hostel for a little while during the worst of it (I was quarreling with our roommates over chores--not proud of that, but it was from stress), but I've made amends, I'm back now. I will be sleeping next to my husband tonight at long last
I don't trust sales people or user reviews, because there are too many scammers out there just looking for my money. This is the reason I do trust reviews from friends and loved ones, because they have a reason to care for me.
In my line of work (IT) there is the concept of the value-added reseller, or VAR. A good example of a VAR is CDW. A VAR works a lot like NewEgg or Amazon for businesses - they have an online storefront where you can buy software and equipment.
What makes a VAR notable, though, is that they'll have expert staff who can help you select products and plan strategies. The VAR doesn't care whether your servers are Dell or HP, whether your storage is EMC or Equalogic. All the VAR cares about is that you buy it from them.
The VAR also knows that you could just as easily buy your equipment from NewEgg or Amazon, and you might even get it a little cheaper. But they want to keep your business, and they'll do it by offering more white-glove customer service than online retail stores.
I can ask my VAR to make recommendations and I will be reasonably sure that they're giving me advice to the best of their ability. The fact that they're getting paid to give me advice doesn't undermine their expertise.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
That said, the vast vast majority of salespeople are parasites, shit-slurping intestinal flukes in the colon of capitalism, and the world would be a better place if ~95% of them found a different line of work.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
In my line of work (IT) there is the concept of the value-added reseller, or VAR. A good example of a VAR is CDW. A VAR works a lot like NewEgg or Amazon for businesses - they have an online storefront where you can buy software and equipment.
What makes a VAR notable, though, is that they'll have expert staff who can help you select products and plan strategies. The VAR doesn't care whether your servers are Dell or HP, whether your storage is EMC or Equalogic. All the VAR cares about is that you buy it from them.
The VAR also knows that you could just as easily buy your equipment from NewEgg or Amazon, and you might even get it a little cheaper. But they want to keep your business, and they'll do it by offering more white-glove customer service than online retail stores.
I can ask my VAR to make recommendations and I will be reasonably sure that they're giving me advice to the best of their ability. The fact that they're getting paid to give me advice doesn't undermine their expertise.
I don't have experience with VARs in a commercial setting as you've described them, but I do have some experience with them in consumer settings. I am inherently mistrustful of them.
Do you think the VAR salesman might be getting kickbacks (ahem, have been offered incentives) from certain companies to prioritize selling their equipment? Or even just know that their profit margins are higher on certain items and therefore might want to steer you towards those?
I think this is where my inherent mistrust comes from.
That said, the vast vast majority of salespeople are parasites, shit-slurping intestinal flukes in the colon of capitalism, and the world would be a better place if ~95% of them found a different line of work.
That or just desperate people hired to do a horrible task.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
That said, the vast vast majority of salespeople are parasites, shit-slurping intestinal flukes in the colon of capitalism, and the world would be a better place if ~95% of them found a different line of work.
Well, fuck you too, I guess
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
That said, the vast vast majority of salespeople are parasites, shit-slurping intestinal flukes in the colon of capitalism, and the world would be a better place if ~95% of them found a different line of work.
Ok, Mr. Galt.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
In general, it strikes me as reasonable and just that jobs which are intrinsically enjoyable to the people doing them--or which enjoy social prestige, or etc.--pay less than comparable work that lacks those features. It's another benefit of the work. It would strike me as unfair, to flip the framing, if workers who did jobs which are unpleasant and low-prestige didn't get any additional compensation to make up for those features of their work. But paying A less relative to B is analytically equivalent to paying B more relative to A.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
as a note this calculus is not the same if enjoyment ( or ability to make use of that fundamental enjoyability due to other constraints on eg time ) of job x varies to some extent individually which is broadly what is being discussed here - how employers tend to take advantage in those differences etc
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That sounds deeply familiar. Old joke: "The unions are there to protect the boss from the ferocity of his employees". Union reps getting cash suitcases in exchange for getting everybody to bend over really sour people against unions. I have seen it over and over again. "Just vote a different union rep". Yeah, between a wall of bureaucratic bullshit and corruption, good luck with that.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Conversely there may be people who are passionate for doing their work well, but for whom their work is still tiring and stressful. Surgeons and doctors. Safety professionals and diligent accountants. They may care deeply about doing the right thing, and thus will work more if told. "You are needed" but that is still exploitation.
Passion for job is not passion for outcomes is not passion for quality. All of them mean you care deeply about your work, only one of them means that asking you to work is not a bad thing.
This totally makes sense to me although I think anyone working a salaried position with no overtime clause is getting screwed over along with any fellow employees not willing to put in the work
So long as the workhorse is getting proper overtime pay - both as reward, and to disincentivize overreliance - this sounds fair enough
All the industries I aspire to do well in are deeply exploitative in part because everyone in them is passionate about doing creative work, but I can’t eat “creative fulfillment”, or run my car on it, or retire on it
My work creates value and should be compensated accordingly, no matter how I personally feel about it
This is how it should be - a company helping employees to use their passion for growth, then reaping the benefits of a happy, healthy, much more skilled employee, instead of just grinding them into the dust pretending it's helping them.
Exploitation is never justifiable. It doesn't matter that someone finds joy in their labor - they still deserve fair compensation for that labor.
There's always this idea that not "going that extra mile" is replaced with people just sitting around their home doing nothing or something.
It also empowers discrimination of single employees, who are often tasked with extra duties and hours because they don't have those responsibilities. People get it coming and going.
This is also compatible with thinking (as I do) that the modern American economy and balance of power between labor and management is a complete trash fire. A and B are both getting shafted.
Seems like it would lead to actively fighting against efficiency improvements.
The issue isn't "I'll take this less paying job over this better paying job because I like the first job more."
It's "Because I love my job, my boss expects me to work hours and conditions that noone else doing my job would/should be expected to do." I.e. it's the employer taking advantage of the "passionate" worker, not the worker finding fulfillment in a job that pays less than they could earn.
Fun little tangent; was playing Prey on Friday, and one of the PA announcements was a reminder that extra hours had to first be approved by the station's psychiatrist to make sure you aren't getting overworked, either at your insistence or your superior's. Considering the spoilerific things that are happening, I found it hilarious that a sci-fi Megacorp got the right idea on this.
A coder working extra hours produces bad code; it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying themselves.
I think this Prey Easter egg is a jab by the programmers at Management. This is based on the history of abuse in video game workers.
Yeah, if they've been chronically working overtime and cutting way into their sleep on a project where the work is very defined. But some people just have life circumstances that let them work a little more than others. We don't all need the exact same amount of break time.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
We also don't need to punish people with more energy and time by taking it away.
That's correct, but some people are going to donate it on their own anyway.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
And a good manager tells them to get their ass home.
I have never met such a manager.
A great manager tells them they won't get brownie points for staying, will review their workflow and efficiency to make sure they're not using the extra time because they're struggling to keep ahead of their work, and will regularly assess the employee for evidence of burnout. If they have a pet project outside the scope of their normal work, the manager will assess whether this interferes with their existing duties and a healthy minimum standard of living, placing restrictions only if redirection and guidance don't work.
Innovation and creativity takes some working outside the box, and if there was any one system or standard of behavior guaranteed to foster this with no drawbacks, everyone would use it. For now, supervisors must use case-by-case guidance recognizing variations in individual capabilities.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I have had multiple. Good managers exist.
She wasn't a very good manager in retrospect (for unrelated reasons), but that speech was effective.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well, let's imagine a nation in which the enjoyable/easier/safer jobs still got a living wage, stability, appropriate levels of autonomy, respect, and benefits... but more stressful jobs made even more money than that... thenwe might more easily stomach the inequality in that situation.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
There's also the complication that different people like different things, and saying that I deserve more money for a job that I, personally, dislike is one hell of a perverse incentive, since happy workers are generally more productive.
And telling employees that the privilege of the work itself is part of their compensation is just plain gross.
Let's look at the implicit argument here - "user reviews are more trustworthy than a salesperson because the salesperson is paid." But in reality, none of this holds up - user reviews are just as vulnerable to bias, especially when dealing with products with strong fanbases; and conversely, just because a salesperson is paid to sell a product does not make their position intrinsically untrustworthy, as one of the best ways for a salesperson to build rapport and make sales is to honestly discuss their product. The underlying argument that being paid is somehow inherently corrupting is at the heart of how amateurism is used as class warfare.
Dudgeon and outrage aren't arguments, though. Even politicians and their staff have to live, and not making enough money to do so is one of the largest ways that they wind up being vulnerable to corporate influence,, not to mention how it excludes large swathes of society from even being able to hold such positions. Passion doesn't pay the bills in the end.
The catch to it all is I set these boundaries, and require payment because I do care. I would let my work consume me completely. Ask my beloved spouse about the months I spent working 120+ hour weeks at a job that did not pay overtime. This also leads to a complete fucking collapse mentally and emotionally on my part in no small part because that work load means maybe sleeping 4 hours a night.
That these boundaries are weaponized against me by society is not surprising, but it is frustrating. I need to eat just like everyone else, and I know I will always carve out time to follow my passions. Combining those two to make it possible for me to live a balanced life makes me much more credible rather than less once you break down the pieces of it all. The reason is I have shown I can temper my passion and be reasonable.
There is a famous study on this that highlights the effect. Participants are sent through a bogus experiment. Afterwards they are offered either a large or small reward to talk up the experiment to future participants. Those offered the smaller reward consistently spoke more highly, and with more passion for the experiment than the group that is paid more. Valuable perhaps in a political campaign, but clearly exploitative as well as straight harmful in other contexts. This is the reason I treat user reviews with great skepticism. The internal need to justify the loyalty to the professed view point seriously warps the expressed view.
Once she left on her maternity leave, I was "passed on" (told to train with him by my boss) to another guy who worked remote, but within 50 miles of this office, and apparently he came in on Fridays. I tried to schedule an in-person meeting with him for over 3 weeks before he finally, reluctantly, showed up in the office and granted me one hour of his time. Every second of our brief meeting, as I tried desperately to get some validation and guidance from him, he radiated how much he didn't want to be there from every pore. When it was done, I decided to avoid contacting him if at all possible from that point forward. Throughout December I sat in that cold gray box, all by myself, with no company but the training videos, which I discovered were not actually aligned with the training tasks. I watched them over and over, trying to connect the dots in videos where the trainer droned on and on about every possible contingency that might happen, while pushing out a process that probably took 10 minutes in real time to over 90 minutes in video form, using terms I'd never heard of specific to the company, and using programs I had never accessed and didn't know where to find. Not having anywhere to turn to get any more help, I mostly used that time to learn French, as I find learning languages soothing. I even had a dream in French once lol. Halfway through December I asked my boss when I could start working remote, as I figured I would have more human contact that way. "His response: "Oh yeah! Yeah, I guess you should be working remote now. Yeah."
Everything I learned during this 6 week period, I could have learned in 3 business days if I'd been able to sit next to a coworker.
I started working remote in my dad's room/office, but he tended to spend the mornings in his room until 2 PM or so, and was constantly going in and out. Also, there are 3 cats in the house, 1 belonging to my dad and 2 to my brother/sister-in law, and they had an in/out door built into the window of the room. They relied on being able to go in and out of the window and then the room door at will, or they would shit or vomit all over the carpet from stress. Which meant I needed to work with the door wide open, the window wide open, and with constant interruption, while I was doing my best to do deep thinking through the very badly designed training tasks, watching incredibly dense and boring and mostly irrelevant video, with no ability to ask questions of other people. I had my first breakdown in this situation - driving out to get some lunch, screaming curses at the top of my lungs while on the freeway, and texting my husband in ALL CAPS that the garage needed to be activated NOW and I needed to work in there NOW or I would lose my GODDAMN MIND. Bless him, he immediately went out and moved boxes and the desk and all the equipment and I was able to close a door, finally, and keep it closed. But I lost natural light and all human interaction as a result.
I thought it couldn't possibly get worse that sitting around and being paid to do "something" which was really nothing, while being completely alone for most of my working hours. But I was wrong.
Near the end of December my boss held a surprise meeting with me, and told me that actually, they were really swamped right now and they needed me to do production work. I leaped at the chance - finally, I could meet my coworkers! (Hilariously, I had asked my boss who our team consisted of in the first week, and he'd waved vaguely at a list of people on a meeting invite and said "These people? I guess?" I wasn't even in the meeting!) Finally, there would be a compelling reason for people to want to talk to me! One of my direct seniors - someone who actually was doing the same work I would be doing - reached out to me immediately, and started to walk me through the actual processes of my job. I was greatly relieved and happy to work with her.
However, now that I had access to the reality of the job, I realized the situation very quickly. The amount of work, combined with the much smaller amount of trained people who could complete it, was absolutely overwhelming. Everyone was desperate, everyone was scrambling, and everyone was fighting as hard as they could for every scrap of time and focus. Every procedure was manual, to a detrimental degree. Systems worked off of EXACT input, and a single mis-key could easily cost the team a dozen hours of work. Most of the work was done with Excel, the program itself struggling under unwieldy macros. A significant amount of work was done partially through a remote server that did not allow copy/paste from one "window" to another, increasing the amount of hand-typing. No doubt due to multiple catastrophic errors in the past, every single procedure had no fewer than FIVE double-checks, each done by a different person - you can imagine how much that added to the workload! And there was an entire team called "workforce" whose job was to parachute in and let the workers know which task was suddenly more urgent than another, kind of like someone running down the hallway screaming "FIRE IN QUADRON 6, STOP FIGHTING FIRE IN QUADRON 8, GO TO 6!!!!" On top of that, the regular tasks system sent an email to Outlook letting everyone CC'd on the task know the progress of the team... one email per every "item" completed, of which there were about 30 per task, sent out in real time. When the person before you finished their line item it was IMPERATIVE that you IMMEDIATELY jump in and complete your task. If you didn't, workforce would come in and text you multiple times being like "is this done? You can work on this task now? Are you there??" This averaged out to something popping up in my field of vision every 90 seconds. 90% of the time, it was completely irrelevant to my life and work, but 10% of the time, it was an EMERGENCY. The email template for these notifications was visually dense, and I had to read through each one and look for my name, or sometimes just for the description of the task completed, so that I could do further research to see if it meant I had to do something right away or not. I could never afford to ignore them - when I ended up doing so by accident, while trying to focus on say a training session, within 20 minutes workforce would escalate to my boss, who would then end up texting me, "hey? are you there?".
Oh! And then there were the technical issues.
The same week I started at the company, they switched over from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. Now, I suspect that Microsoft Teams is actually a program that works fine, but that this cheapskate company underestimated how much their own employees would actually use it, and skimped on server space for "savings" (even though they had enough money to pay me to sit on my ass for 6 weeks lol). As far as I know there were no serious issues while working/training remotely through Skype Business, but Teams... well. Knowing that my senior coworker's time was precious, I immediately tried to record every call, so that I could go through the process at my leisure and not need her to repeat things. First, there was no option to record on a casual call, so we needed to make a formal meeting. She was so busy she hesitated to add to her workload by creating meetings, but after I begged her, finally agreed. Then... as we were recording our meetings together... the program crashed. Trying again, the video froze. Again, and again, it failed to record. Finally I let go, emotionally, of my desire for accurate and complete reference material (PS there was very little written reference material available, and what there was, had no screenshots) and brought out a notepad, and scribbled my notes by hand while we spoke on ad-hoc video phone calls. Later we would discover that Teams video even crashed when we were having a group chat without recording. So, no more than 2 people could ever be on a video call at the same time.
Oh, and also: just as I was thrown into production work, I found most of my resources - the remote system, the shared folders, etc - were not loading on my home desktop. I spent three days in a state of unrelenting panic, trying to troubleshoot while somehow doing the work anyway even though every screen took forever to load, while every contact I got was screaming about why it wasn't done, before finally a person I only knew because we had spoken a few times in the hallway in the first month (!) reached out to me and told me it was probably because my internet speed (terminology, new to me, of "upload speed") wasn't sufficient. Our home internet had worked fine for everything we'd ever had to use it for previously, my previous companies had handled all this shit on their own, and I had not been informed that a certain speed of internet was necessary for remote work with this company, even though I had told them multiple times that this was my first ever remote position. There was no "get ready for working from home!" information packet or anything similar provided. I had to spend my own time calling the internet company--upgrading to a speed that God willing would never cause me problems again--and I paid my father the difference. My family told me to ask my company to cover the difference, but I couldn't face the emotional stress of trying to start that negotiation with them on top of everything else. I just ate the cost.
I guess the only other thing I need to mention about the job is that, even for my "simple" admin tasks - which my boss made very sure to mention with furrowed brow, during one of our few meetings, were "not really BSA work" - at least one out of 2 ended up with some sort of troubleshooting necessary. Either because different cases handled the same process with different templates (and god forbid you use the wrong one, people would message very irate at best, or the entire process would crash and need to be redone or worse!) or because wrong information had been received earlier and the whole process had to be restarted, or because someone had done a manual error somewhere... sometimes that person was even me, as meticulous as I tried to be. Work spilled over past the 8 hour day, going into the evening, workforce outright threatening through texts that this work HAD to be done, that it was our JOB to get it done no matter what. I had to cancel evening appointments, go without dinner, and even begged off putting my baby to bed - the only time during the day I was able to spend with him - because I would be so stressed from what had happened that day that I was physically shaking, and was only barely keeping my emotional control, and I didn't want to subject him to that. My husband stepped up, bless him, every time I asked.
I don't think I need to tell you this, but it isn't possible to learn and be in fight-or-flight mode at the same time. When I tried to piece together my (very messy!) notes later on to do the tasks I had been "trained" on, I struggled to complete them in what workforce seemed to consider a "timely" manner (as judged by them texting "are you done yet? Is it done? Is it done?" constantly, like evil little birds). When I finally pushed back and tried to explain that actually, I wasn't "trained" in the way they kept assuming, they would text back "Your senior colleague says you're trained! Is it done yet? Is it done?" And finally, I unburdened myself to my boss a few weeks ago, begging him to at least - at least - do something about the video recording issue! Couldn't he go to IT and demand they fix it?? "His response: "Huh...well... I haven't been having any issues with Teams." I asked him if I could go to IT myself, then...? Sure, he said, but they would probably turn me away and tell me to write a ticket. He promised to send me a how-to on contacting IT correctly. He never bothered to do so.
Later on I noticed in the technical issues forums on Teams that actually, a large number of remote workers were experiencing similar video lag issues. It was decided that it was caused by inadequate server space, which would require the company to invest more money, which the poster chose to phrase as "would be a difficult discussion." You know, the polite way to say "This will never be fixed."
You can probably imagine how this was spilling into my personal life. I went through sort of a twisted, funhouse mirror of the stages of grief: First, I was hopeful and creative. Then, I started to find it all very ridiculous, and funny - I mean - it is funny! I still do find it hilarious on occasion. Then, I started to feel hurt - why were they doing this to me? All I wanted was to do the job they were paying me to do. Why was I being made to suffer so much, just to help them out? Then, finally, I got very very ANGRY. Rage coursed through me every single second of the day. I spat curses at the screen, I struggled to comfort myself with every coping mechanism I could think of outside of working hours (thankfully not alcohol or drugs - I think genetically I am not soothed by them, I rarely use them), and every single weekend in January, I collapsed at least once, usually in the form of sleeping odd hours during the day on the weekend. Once I had a kind of scary experience while accompanying my husband to the grocery store - I was feeling tired even though I had slept decently overnight. I was drinking cup after cup of tea, trying to perk up, but the caffeine wasn't working - in fact I felt the opposite, my blood sugar plunging super low. I closed my eyes and slumped against the car door and slurred to him to go in by himself, I needed to rest. He did so and I lay there in that exact position for about 20 minutes hovering on the edge of consciousness, only starting to recover my ability to move by the time he came back. I spent the rest of that afternoon in bed.
I ended up playing the most dangerous game last week, threatening to quit right out if, at minimum, the interruptions every 90 seconds didn't f*cking stop. This was brinkmanship because I earn our family's entire income right now and some mistakes on my husband's unemployment application just cost us half of our savings. Luckily this job is exactly as stupid as it sounds and they are critically understaffed and can't afford to lose even a partially-trained person like me, so, it worked. I have my job, I have peace and quiet to struggle through teaching myself everything with only the most occasional answers to my questions, and I bought a goddamn coworking space so that I wouldn't spend time in a building that makes Office Space look luxurious/in my garage with ants crawling over me.
I still had to sit through an incredibly tense meeting mediated by the contracting company, in which there was a lot of bullshit on "well this is a hard job!" with the underlying assumption that I should have pride in doing a hard job (and not complain). I responded with "I know that it is a hard job and I enjoy solving hard problems. I'm arguing for the conditions in which I CAN solve those hard problems." For your amusement, the contracting company agent outright told me that Teams was underperforming, it was a known issue, then asked in a really arrogant way "Do you honestly think this is going to be fixed? You need to figure out how to work around it." Not that I hadn't figured that out already, but they said that to my face like having constant crashes of the technology I needed to do the job was MY problem!
If someone had even breathed a word about how business systems analysis should be my "passion" at any point in this I would have committed murder.
I'm still in counseling, it's getting better though - I moved out of the house and lived in a hostel for a little while during the worst of it (I was quarreling with our roommates over chores--not proud of that, but it was from stress), but I've made amends, I'm back now. I will be sleeping next to my husband tonight at long last
What makes a VAR notable, though, is that they'll have expert staff who can help you select products and plan strategies. The VAR doesn't care whether your servers are Dell or HP, whether your storage is EMC or Equalogic. All the VAR cares about is that you buy it from them.
The VAR also knows that you could just as easily buy your equipment from NewEgg or Amazon, and you might even get it a little cheaper. But they want to keep your business, and they'll do it by offering more white-glove customer service than online retail stores.
I can ask my VAR to make recommendations and I will be reasonably sure that they're giving me advice to the best of their ability. The fact that they're getting paid to give me advice doesn't undermine their expertise.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I don't have experience with VARs in a commercial setting as you've described them, but I do have some experience with them in consumer settings. I am inherently mistrustful of them.
Do you think the VAR salesman might be getting kickbacks (ahem, have been offered incentives) from certain companies to prioritize selling their equipment? Or even just know that their profit margins are higher on certain items and therefore might want to steer you towards those?
I think this is where my inherent mistrust comes from.
That or just desperate people hired to do a horrible task.
Well, fuck you too, I guess
Ok, Mr. Galt.
as a note this calculus is not the same if enjoyment ( or ability to make use of that fundamental enjoyability due to other constraints on eg time ) of job x varies to some extent individually which is broadly what is being discussed here - how employers tend to take advantage in those differences etc