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At a certain point, this is about exercising all but the power of life and death over your employees. There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors

At a certain point, this is about exercising all but the power of life and death over your employees. There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors into non-competes, the only reason is to have power over your employees for the sake of power. I maintain that our system is trending in a neofeufal direction, with corporations replacing the lords of old. A noncompete which effectively leaves you unemployed should you quit is not quite serfdom, but it’s getting pretty close.

jvagner 8y ago
I'm a consultant, and recently terminated my services for an inventor-type. Already has made his money.. he's spinning up various new endeavors and trying to hit the brass bell again. While working on company #1, he wanted to bring me in on company #2. He told me the idea, which didn't interest me a whole lot, but there was a key issue with it, culturally speaking. I told him I wasn't sure how he would be able to scale up staff given that people may not want to spend their 40-45 hours/week working on "X". (I"m being purposefully ambiguous...) His response? "For a paycheck, they will..." Anyway, that defined his general management philosophy. It's pretty prevalent out there. This is a guy who can't keep talent for more than a few months at a time... hasn't slowed him down. I think that's what has impressed me most recently, in my consulting endeavors. The number of moneyed company owners who persist on a destructive chain of behavior in spite of how it hurts their own ambitions. And yet, in cases like this, if you can succeed just enough, there's nothing stopping you from clamping down because you want to.
- true_religion 8y ago
  I am not seeing the problem with his philosphy. We go to work for money, not because we are in love with the companies goals. That sort of thing can come afterwards, but loyalty has to be earned.
  - jvagner 8y ago
    i've worked for a lot of different kinds of bosses/owners, and the "check-writer" philosophy, stated so unapologetically, has often been most closely aligned with the worst bosses, with the unhappiest employees. so yes, he can, and no, it's not, IMO, on the more effective end of the scale. saying that, in and of itself, is often a barometer of a shitty boss. the good bosses might have a bit of that in them, but they have other values ahead of that statement that lead them to be better bosses, and IME, more successful in their given organizations.
- jackhack 8y ago
  that's the attitude of the videogame industry. "there's a long line of suckers on the sidewalk just waiting for you to burn out and quit..." I've heard the same thing in construction jobs, and retail, too. It's everywhere.
monksy 8y ago
For the business it is. At the moment, what we're being told, is that unemployment is extremely low and it's harder to find people. Thus businesses doing what comes normal to them are going to try to leverage themselves as much as possible. (People either are convinced they have no other choice, have no idea what these mean, or lack the leverage to fight these provisions)
peeters 8y ago
> There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors into non-competes I would argue there's a rational economic reason (reducing competition for the labour pool so you can pay them less) but not a morally acceptable nor even free-market-compatible reason. It's major abuse, and it makes me furious that we're using Cushman & Wakefield for our property management. We need to make employment contracts non-severable so that employers can't get away with this shit. Oh, you want to put in a probably non-enforceable or illegal clause into your contract? Well then the entire thing goes down the toilet when it's found to be invalid. Otherwise employers will keep putting blanket stuff in that they know will probably fail in court to chill their employees.
Balgair 8y ago
> our system is trending in a neofeufal direction I agree, the direction seems that way in our new gilded age. However, I'm not bullish on it being able to survive/thrive. There is just too much change happening. Feudal systems thrive in static environments, not frothy ones. With the rise of Africa in the later half of this century, climate change really starting to swing, the maturation/stagnation of the digital/surveillance economy, and the coming pandora's box of CRISPR-CAS9, the social/economic environment that is giving rise to this Neo-gilded age of corporate feudalism cannot stand for much longer. Life is going to be too 'fun' for the stodgy lords/CEOs.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"power over your employees for the sake of power" Totally true. When I read about stuff like this, increasing surveillance of employees or all the stuff the TSA is planning with face recognition it looks like there is trend that the regular citizen will be under tight control while the ruling class will live behind walls in gated communities where they will be exempt from that control.

jvagner 8y ago

I'm a consultant, and recently terminated my services for an inventor-type. Already has made his money.. he's spinning up various new endeavors and trying to hit the brass bell again. While working on company #1, he wanted to bring me in on company #2. He told me the idea, which didn't interest me a whole lot, but there was a key issue with it, culturally speaking. I told him I wasn't sure how he would be able to scale up staff given that people may not want to spend their 40-45 hours/week working on "X". (I"m being purposefully ambiguous...) His response? "For a paycheck, they will..." Anyway, that defined his general management philosophy. It's pretty prevalent out there. This is a guy who can't keep talent for more than a few months at a time... hasn't slowed him down. I think that's what has impressed me most recently, in my consulting endeavors. The number of moneyed company owners who persist on a destructive chain of behavior in spite of how it hurts their own ambitions. And yet, in cases like this, if you can succeed just enough, there's nothing stopping you from clamping down because you want to.

true_religion 8y ago
I am not seeing the problem with his philosphy. We go to work for money, not because we are in love with the companies goals. That sort of thing can come afterwards, but loyalty has to be earned.
- jvagner 8y ago
  i've worked for a lot of different kinds of bosses/owners, and the "check-writer" philosophy, stated so unapologetically, has often been most closely aligned with the worst bosses, with the unhappiest employees. so yes, he can, and no, it's not, IMO, on the more effective end of the scale. saying that, in and of itself, is often a barometer of a shitty boss. the good bosses might have a bit of that in them, but they have other values ahead of that statement that lead them to be better bosses, and IME, more successful in their given organizations.
jackhack 8y ago
that's the attitude of the videogame industry. "there's a long line of suckers on the sidewalk just waiting for you to burn out and quit..." I've heard the same thing in construction jobs, and retail, too. It's everywhere.

monksy 8y ago

For the business it is. At the moment, what we're being told, is that unemployment is extremely low and it's harder to find people. Thus businesses doing what comes normal to them are going to try to leverage themselves as much as possible. (People either are convinced they have no other choice, have no idea what these mean, or lack the leverage to fight these provisions)

peeters 8y ago

> There’s no rational economic reason to force your janitors into non-competes I would argue there's a rational economic reason (reducing competition for the labour pool so you can pay them less) but not a morally acceptable nor even free-market-compatible reason. It's major abuse, and it makes me furious that we're using Cushman & Wakefield for our property management. We need to make employment contracts non-severable so that employers can't get away with this shit. Oh, you want to put in a probably non-enforceable or illegal clause into your contract? Well then the entire thing goes down the toilet when it's found to be invalid. Otherwise employers will keep putting blanket stuff in that they know will probably fail in court to chill their employees.

Balgair 8y ago

> our system is trending in a neofeufal direction I agree, the direction seems that way in our new gilded age. However, I'm not bullish on it being able to survive/thrive. There is just too much change happening. Feudal systems thrive in static environments, not frothy ones. With the rise of Africa in the later half of this century, climate change really starting to swing, the maturation/stagnation of the digital/surveillance economy, and the coming pandora's box of CRISPR-CAS9, the social/economic environment that is giving rise to this Neo-gilded age of corporate feudalism cannot stand for much longer. Life is going to be too 'fun' for the stodgy lords/CEOs.

maxxxxx 8y ago

"power over your employees for the sake of power" Totally true. When I read about stuff like this, increasing surveillance of employees or all the stuff the TSA is planning with face recognition it looks like there is trend that the regular citizen will be under tight control while the ruling class will live behind walls in gated communities where they will be exempt from that control.