5 ms·

So, how do you handle this in a country, in which you're legally obliged to provide vacation to your employees? Just flout the law?

fulafel 11y ago
It's less of an issue where people take their vacations at the same time (eg 4 weeks summer, 1 week christmas, etc). Then you just need a skeleton crew, no PMs and your CTO & other founders can be on-call for ops emergencies. As your company grows so that you no longer have technically competent management you start having 2 PMs and 2 DBAs too :)
yummyfajitas 11y ago
I'd just avoid hiring in such countries. India and the US have lots of great developers. I don't see a reason why I'd ever hire devs in Europe.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- rpwilcox 11y ago
  ... so you just hire developers in the United States then? (India has a mandatory vacation policy, or so appears to say Wikipedia...)
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Employment laws in India more or less apply only to either larger companies or friends of connected people. I would have no concerns hiring someone and telling them "hey, I'm paying you well because I need you available all the time, just in case." They will almost certainly lack the ability to use the legal system to screw me over.
- wfo 11y ago
  You're right, we should just move our businesses to whichever countries currently allow the most exploitation and abuse of workers and race to the bottom. Why not just cut to the chase and implement slavery already? It's the most economically efficient method of production after all.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Slavery is not economically efficient at all. The fact that economists pointed this unpleasant fact out is what got economics tagged with the phrase "the dismal science". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science
    - wfo 11y ago
      I think you misunderstand the article, the term comes from Carlyle rejecting the free market as a philosophical principle, not some efficiency analysis. And in fact his essay was a defense of plantation owners whose businesses were failing because they had just lost access to extremely efficient slave labor thanks to inconvenient regulations. If the economy were a little more global back then, those plantation owners should have moved their businesses to different, more slavery/business-friendly countries rather than adapt to the new human rights the workers had been given, no?
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        Yes, the "philosophical principle" Carlyle was rejecting is economic efficiency. Slavery is not efficient because the world might contain a more productive employment opportunity for a slave, which the slave would freely choose if given the opportunity. I have absolutely no idea why you wish to portray slavery as economically efficient. Is it truly your belief that welfare is maximized with some people enslaved? (I suppose this is not a particularly uncommon left wing view, but it's very rarely stated so explicitly.)
        wfo 11y ago

fulafel 11y ago

It's less of an issue where people take their vacations at the same time (eg 4 weeks summer, 1 week christmas, etc). Then you just need a skeleton crew, no PMs and your CTO & other founders can be on-call for ops emergencies. As your company grows so that you no longer have technically competent management you start having 2 PMs and 2 DBAs too :)

yummyfajitas 11y ago

I'd just avoid hiring in such countries. India and the US have lots of great developers. I don't see a reason why I'd ever hire devs in Europe.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rpwilcox 11y ago
... so you just hire developers in the United States then? (India has a mandatory vacation policy, or so appears to say Wikipedia...)
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Employment laws in India more or less apply only to either larger companies or friends of connected people. I would have no concerns hiring someone and telling them "hey, I'm paying you well because I need you available all the time, just in case." They will almost certainly lack the ability to use the legal system to screw me over.
wfo 11y ago
You're right, we should just move our businesses to whichever countries currently allow the most exploitation and abuse of workers and race to the bottom. Why not just cut to the chase and implement slavery already? It's the most economically efficient method of production after all.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Slavery is not economically efficient at all. The fact that economists pointed this unpleasant fact out is what got economics tagged with the phrase "the dismal science". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science
  - wfo 11y ago
    I think you misunderstand the article, the term comes from Carlyle rejecting the free market as a philosophical principle, not some efficiency analysis. And in fact his essay was a defense of plantation owners whose businesses were failing because they had just lost access to extremely efficient slave labor thanks to inconvenient regulations. If the economy were a little more global back then, those plantation owners should have moved their businesses to different, more slavery/business-friendly countries rather than adapt to the new human rights the workers had been given, no?
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      Yes, the "philosophical principle" Carlyle was rejecting is economic efficiency. Slavery is not efficient because the world might contain a more productive employment opportunity for a slave, which the slave would freely choose if given the opportunity. I have absolutely no idea why you wish to portray slavery as economically efficient. Is it truly your belief that welfare is maximized with some people enslaved? (I suppose this is not a particularly uncommon left wing view, but it's very rarely stated so explicitly.)
      - wfo 11y ago