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You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. I can't see this soon enough, I

by vfc1 6y ago

You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. I can't see this soon enough, I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. Most managers know this, and turn a blind eye as it's in their best interest to get employees to work as much as possible.

gtfoutttt 6y ago
>I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. Then the work doesn't get completed on time! That's bad management not hiring enough people, not the fault of the employee. SMH y'all IT people need a union.
- jusssi 6y ago
  It's the difference between a junior and a senior. The latter has better expectations of what one can get done in an average workday, and the confidence to push back with "sorry, looks like this thing's more work than expected, going to need another two days for it". Btw. Looks like the Great America is woke and hates you for the word 'union' you used in your comment.
  - bonestormii_ 6y ago
    The "confidence" of senior people to push back is greatly enhanced by the fact that they won't be expediently fired for doing so. And even so, plenty of senior positions suffer from this situation as well. I'm living this hell right now.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      >The "confidence" of senior people to push back is greatly enhanced by the fact that they won't be expediently fired for doing so. There's a problem with your country if you can be fired for refusing overtime.
      - colejohnson66 6y ago
        (in America) There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. Whether you work 35 or 60 hours, it’s the same pay.[a] As a result, employers don’t have to worry about overtime pay, only burnt out employees (but entry and junior levels are disposable, right? /s) [a]: This also leads to the employer expecting one to be “on call” 24/7 regardless of your position.
        Hamuko 6y ago
        >There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. If there's no concept of overtime in most salaried jobs, there's a problem with your country as well. I'm a salaried, full-time employee and I'm paid to work 37.5 hours a week, no more, no less. And the collective agreement for IT services industry (which is what concerns me as a developer) dictates that 40 hours/week is the maximum. If you want to read our collective agreement, you can find it here: https://tietoala.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/TES__englanti_2020_web.pdf https://tietoala.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/TES__englanti... Working hours are on page 19 (21 on the PDF).
        treis 6y ago
        And you probably get paid 1/3 to 1/2 of what a developer in the US can make. The reality of the world is that if you're the lead developer for some product you will have times that you need to work off hours. Like if production is down how can you say: "My 40 hours is up this week, I'll look at it on Monday". It's a balance. You shouldn't routinely be working a ton of nights and weekends. But sometimes shit hits the fan at inconvenient hours and you need to respond. If not, you have to have routine 24/7 coverage which gets really expensive really fast ultimately leading to lower salaries for developers.
    - BurningFrog 6y ago
      Then again, a competent senior engineer can easily get another job. I'm just one atypical person, but in my experience, the employer is usually more nervous about the employee breaking things off than the employee.
    - tdsamardzhiev 6y ago
      The juniors won’t be fired either, but they don’t know that and usually get abused because of it. If a company expects you to crunch, that means there’s too much work. If there’s too much work, it’s extremely unlikely that somebody doing a decent job would be fired.
    - MisterBastahrd 6y ago
      I currently work at an org where the least experienced dev has over 10 years of experience. Management is fine knowing that we will say what's on our minds if we don't think something is being handled properly.
  - strictnein 6y ago
    > Looks like the Great America is woke and hates you for the word 'union' you used in your comment. Someday maybe our betters in Europe will understand that the American experience with unions is different than that of Europeans. And that American unions are a very different animal. Until that time, though, keep thinking we're just idiots.
    - stainforth 6y ago
      The destruction of unions in America was not for righteous reasons.
      - nickff 6y ago
        Previously-unionized industries declined in America, and new industries have been slow to unionize; I am not sure unions have been 'destroyed'.
        MereInterest 6y ago
        So-called "Right to Work" laws mean that a union-negotiated contract may be made available to non-union members. At that point, the individually rational action is to leave the union, keep the dues, but benefit from the union's negotiation. As everybody does this, the union declines. "At-will employment" laws mean that the burden of proof for the cause of firing is on the employee, rather than the employer. This gives free rein to employer's to fire workers considering unionizing, so long as there is the barest pretext of another cause. As forming a union becomes economically risky, unions decline, or fail to form in new industries. Unions have been attacked in the US, through explicit policies meant to defund unions, and to prevent unions from forming.
      - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
        The level of anti-union violence in US is higher that what people might think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence
- bobthechef 6y ago
  While I sympathize with the need to push back on bad management, the situation is a bit like being between a rock (bad management) and a hard place (unions). Tyranny of the few vs. tyranny of the majority or the mob. The latter is worse. It's also kind of a mediocre bandaid for deeper social problems. An employer that can get away with asking you to do unreasonable amounts of work, work ridiculous hours, or achieve impossible feats OR ELSE probably doesn't have much market competition. Also a quote from C.S. Lewis: “Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
  - tboyd47 6y ago
    That's an amazing quote.
    - minikites 6y ago
      Really? >The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated. We wouldn't have any billionaires if this was even remotely true. If having 999 million dollars doesn't satiate you, I submit there is no amount of money that will. We look down on hoarders who fill their house with old newspapers and knickknacks but when it's money hoarding we lionize it.
      - tboyd47 6y ago
        I'm more interested in the bit about "omnipotent moral busybodies." If shutting down 100,000 businesses, pausing children's education including special education services for a whole year, forcing the entire populace to wear cloth masks, shutting down religious services protected by the Constitution, mandating where you can & can't stand in the grocery store, and demanding the right to censor the news on all digital platforms doesn't satisfy their thirst for power, I submit that no amount of power will.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Then the work doesn't get completed on time! Do you realise in some fields work not getting completed on time could in some cases cause people to die? Sometimes there is an emergency, and a professional saying 'sorry nope on vacation your fault for not having enough people to cover every eventuality' just isn't reasonable.
  - CalRobert 6y ago
    It is reasonable. The buck stops somewhere. If you're on call sure but there are rules around that. Don't guilt people who happen to have lifesaving jobs for taking vacations.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > Don't guilt people who happen to have lifesaving jobs for taking vacations. In many cases taking that job means accepting you may be forced to come in and work. Often called 'unlimited liability' for example. If you can't accept that, then leave the job to someone who can. > The buck stops somewhere. In this case apparently it's fine for it to stop with a dead person.
      - notreallytrue 6y ago
        > In this case apparently it's fine for it to stop with a dead person. People that do a job where they can save lives accept the fact that saving lives is not granted. People don't die because someone is slacking. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        > People don't die because someone is slacking. Not sure where you read this argument?
        notreallytrue 6y ago
        That's a terrible apology... Free time is a right If someone dies during your free time it's not your responsibility Besides: US have the worst life expectation of the whole west. You should ask yourself why.
- ericd 6y ago
  Are you familiar with the mythical man month? Hiring more people might not get the same amount done as a few working really hard. That said, burnout can make working harder worse than working a sane amount. But that doesn’t fall on the employer as much as the employee.
  - aaaxyz 6y ago
    >Hiring more people might not get the same amount done as a few working really hard. That is highly dependent on when the new employee is added to the project. If it's done early (as a result of proper planning), it's most likely not gonna hurt.
    - ericd 6y ago
      One of the key points of the mythical man month is that communication overhead starts taking a larger and larger chunk of the total productivity as you scale the number of people involved, just to keep everyone synced up and rowing in the same direction. It's not really based on when the people are added.
      - Viliam1234 6y ago
        There is definitely such thing as too many people. But with reasonable amount of people, if you start with the full team at the beginning, you can assign different responsibilities to different people. For example, one can do database, one can do web API, one can do web design, one can do integration with other systems, one can build and maintain continuous integration; you can also divide the domain knowledge among multiple people. Each person can focus on doing their part in such way that the others do not need to understand every single detail, and only use the agreed API. However, if you add a new person late in the project... all simple things were probably already done, and all difficult things require a lot of knowledge about the existing code, that other team members already know, but if they spend their time explaining it to the new member, then their own work gets slower, so the overall speed reduces. (And yes, given enough time, the new member would learn everything and become just as productive as the old members. But the thing is, there is not enough time left at that moment.)
- centimeter 6y ago
  > SMH y'all IT people need a union. Or just some balls. Don’t work more than you want to - either your employer will deal with it or you go find a new job. Not a big deal. I work fewer hours than the median person at my company and I don’t think it has negatively impacted me much or at all. Any time someone tries to get me to do something that would require working additional hours I just say no or take extra vacation days in lieu (eg if I need to do something for a few hours on Saturday - I take an extra vacation day to make up. If it’s not worth it for the company, it doesn’t really need to get done on sat). Literally the worst case is you get fired, but probably nothing will happen.
_wldu 6y ago
I agree. Working from home (due to covid) has become "working all the time" for many of my friends and family.
- unicornfinder 6y ago
  It absolutely has for me, but at the same time I don't mind it too much because the gains from being able to work from home have been worth it for me.
tcldr 6y ago
> You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. Do you think it's a coincidence they get such a bad press?
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  At least in America, a good portion of it is a cultural difference. The EU tends to take worker protections more seriously without considering collateral damage (according to some). OTOH, America just does nothing because there’s an entire political party who’s big premise is “any and all regulation is bad regulation.”
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    There's a bipartisan consensus that working people should be screwed. Uber's c-suite is staffed by Democratic Party insiders and they just got Prop 22 passed, Democratic leaders just came out in support of a stimulus bill that indemnifies companies against COVID-related harms they place their employees in to keep making money. You can find no shortage of well-paid liberals on this site that will tell you that unions are the scourge of the earth, despite their political influence being responsible for just about everything that makes the EU a better place for workers.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      I’m not denying that there are Democrats who support business over workers. All I said was that the Republican Party (in Congress) seems to believe that any and all is bad while Democrats believe in some or more (depending on how you feel). It also doesn’t help that people want to label everyone so much to fit into just two categories. Feinstein (D-CA) is very pro-surveillance while some of the party (in congress) believes otherwise. Romney (R-UT) voted to convict Trump while every other Republican voted to acquit. I’ll admit it is a bit hypocritical of me to lump all Republicans together, so I’ll clarify with: it’s where the party (in congress) seems to be heading (or already is). Obviously not all Republicans support that idea.
deleted 6y ago
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olalonde 6y ago
> You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. That's very debatable. It will probably have unintended consequences like lowering salaries, increasing the intensity of workload during permissible hours, outsourcing or entirely eliminating some types of jobs. Ultimately, it just reduces the pool of possible arrangements between employers and employees. I know a few people who would readily give up their "right to disconnect" for a more interesting job or a higher salary for example.
- pietrovismara 6y ago
  > It will probably have unintended consequences like lowering salaries, increasing the intensity of workload during permissible hours, outsourcing or entirely eliminating some types of jobs. Ultimately, it just reduces the pool of possible arrangements between employers and employees. The exact same has been said for child labor abolition, reducing the work week to 40 hours, raising women wages and for literally every other improvement in work conditions we've conquered so far.
  - olalonde 6y ago
    Arguably, the bulk of improvement in work conditions came through technological development and productivity growth, not through regulations. Some of the best work conditions today are found in the largely unregulated (partly due to its global nature) software engineering job market. Also, why not go for 20 hours work week?
    - pietrovismara 6y ago
      Innovation made improvements in work conditions possible, protests and the following regulations made them real. I'm all-in for a 20h work week.
treis 6y ago
>I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. If you ban work from home doesn't that mean those people have to stay at the office 1-2 hours longer to do their work?
op03 6y ago
It's all very courageous until you try to get projects done. The EU reminds me of how the UN unravelled into irrelevance back in the 70s-80s. Lots of good intentions, cash flowed, all kinds of progressive projects were seeded but then what happened?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- allendoerfer 6y ago
  Difference is, the member-states actually have given the EU some power in its area of competence, while the UN is just a club to keep in touch with each other (which is also very important).
- isoprophlex 6y ago
  Strange, it seems we get plenty of projects done. Everyone on the client side is happy; Everyone on the team gets paid. Doesn't sound too bad to me.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kwanbix 6y ago
My experience is just the opposite. People disappear for their holidays and they don't even live a backup most of the time.
Muromec 6y ago
Wait, what? 40 hour work week is controversial measure?
coldtea 6y ago
>otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. The workload can increase arbitrarily. It should be confined to what can be completed within working hours - the extra work over that should be an exception under special circumstances (e.g. a sudden order), not the norm.
makecheck 6y ago
Years ago I saw an executive call up a senior IT manager who was on vacation with his family and instruct him to cut it short and return immediately. Imagine how livid he and his family would have been. I get that people can be “senior” and in charge of important things, etc. but at a certain point if “leaders” do these things they are simply being terrible people and not really “handling” unexpected problems well.
- woeirua 6y ago
  And this is why it's so important to be financially independent. If you have money saved up in this situation you can politely tell your boss, that you won't be coming back from vacation period, and the only remaining question is whether you come back at all after your vacation. He might throw a hissy fit and try to make your life difficult, but you can always walk away if you have enough savings.
  - maigret 6y ago
    The mild version of that is to start looking for a new job ASAP.
  - dalys 6y ago
    Not sure why anyone that is financially independent would take an office job with a crappy manager to begin with. But surely it would be better system if your country had laws that regulates this, instead of every individual needing to save up a million bucks as ”fuck you money”.
White_Wolf 6y ago
What I do: - Unless soone is dying it's not urgent; - I turn my work smartphone and laptop off at the end of the work day and back on in the morning; - My work smartphone switches to DND during lunch break; - Out "work" VOIP is routed to a "out for lunch" message during lunch; Unless someone is dying it's not urgent. P.S We don't get overtime so no reason to do any. On extremely rare ocasions I did some extra hours with the condition I take them off next day or that week's Friday.(Ex: Our online trainig server went dead the day before a training course. And yes... after that they bought a spare one. Don't get me started with IT related budget)
duxup 6y ago
I appreciate this is a step but it's a non binding resolution that ... as far as I can tell doesn't have any exact legal language in it?
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
> You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. What eactly do you consider "controversial" in the right to disconnect?
skohan 6y ago
I spent part of my career working in the US, and now I work in Germany, and I can say the labor laws make a huge difference. Some would say this type of law hampers innovation, but at some level if there is not a basic fair playing field set for everyone, there will always be the incentive for some to over-work to get ahead.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  There is a limit to creative work. Quality will suffer if you work 12 hours a day 7 days a week. It's better to do the 7.5 hours, go home and come back rested the next day. Your subconscious will be working on the problem anyway. Most European countries seem to be over the glorification of long grueling hours. In the US and Japan it's still a badge of honor how much you work - never mind that productivity in either country isn't scaling relative to the hours used.
  - machinelabo 6y ago
    I personally know people that work very hard 12 hours a day and their output is stellar. Not only are they creative, but they build some of the most amazing systems I've ever come across in record time. They're handsomely paid with equity and monetary compensation. I work in a startup with 45 top notch engineers.
    - skohan 6y ago
      Two questions would be: 1) do they actually work 12 hours a day, or have they found a way to appear to do so? and 2) how long have they done this for? When I was at my first startup, I had periods of 16 hour days, but after a few years of this I would not go back.
      - theshrike79 6y ago
        Exactly. There's a huge difference between being at work 12 hours a day and actually doing something productive with that time. Japan is an excellent example of this, in their office culture you never leave before the boss does and try to be at the office before them. People spend 12+ hours at work and don't produce more than other people who work sensible hours. Coronavirus and remote works might be a savior for that culture.
antihero 6y ago
> The resolution comes just days after Germany's coalition government announced it is considering across-the-board tax breaks for individuals working from home. Seems to run counter to another, more terrible idea: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54876526 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54876526
mewpmewp2 6y ago
While it seems good I am afraid as an European I will start getting even smaller salary compared to US counterparts. There will be less incentive to hire someone from Europe for international companies. I know this is an unpopular opinion. I work for an international company and I already get paid around 2-3x less than US counterparts at the same level. I do work a lot, but I have accepted the fact if it means I can earn more. I can retire that much earlier this way.
- nraynaud 6y ago
  on average US citizens retire later than Europeans and die earlier afterwards.
ravenstine 6y ago
While I like the EU's effort, I have to wonder how much of this is the responsibility of the individual. > I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. We certainly all know people like this. But, at what point should employees outright refuse to be connected to work on personal time? I get that people whom have families that depend on them have limited choice in how far they can rebel at work, but perhaps we need young people to be a part of a new culture of work-life balance where interacting with work during any unpaid hours is seen as optional. Only those who have little to lose can stand up to corporate and make a difference. Personally, I wouldn't work for an employer that wants free time from me. If that means I don't make a lot of money, that's fine by me. Time has value. Having regulation around this issue can help with professions like the legal profession where the real way up the ladder is by overworking in whatever way possible. For people such as myself, an engineer, where overwork and brown-nosing don't have a 1-to-1 relation with a bigger paycheck or greater job stability, they have more leverage over what their employer can or cannot do to them.
- phone8675309 6y ago
  > For people such as myself, an engineer, where overwork and brown-nosing don't have a 1-to-1 relation with a bigger paycheck or greater job stability, they have more leverage over what their employer can or cannot do to them. Cherish your current employer because they are the vast minority of employers.
- justin_oaks 6y ago
  I agree that this should be an individual responsibility, but sadly it just won't work. If you're the only individual in your company who protects their private time, then you'll feel pressure to fall in line. Even if the boss doesn't give you any grief, your coworkers will: "I respond to emails after hours, so why doesn't he?" The bosses will likely favor those who work more than they should. And often working longer is seen more favorably than working better. This is mainly because it's more visible. I tend to think that salaried positions and unpaid overtime shouldn't exist. But I'm open to arguments in favor of them. I just have a hard time seeing how they help align incentives of the employer and the employee.
IAmNotAFix 6y ago
> it's impossible to keep up with the workload I don't know about employees keeping up with their workload, but what I can say for sure is that the workload keeps up with how much the employee is willing to take.
j1elo 6y ago
> I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. But why are they doing that? I get it, a disrespectful boss could require employees to respond email or calls, and fixing that would require a shift in their mentality. But apart from that, I think it is not healthy at all the trend of having an ultra-connected setup with notifications enabled for everything, everywhere. Even if someone's workplace has a nice and respectful work culture, having their phone pinging them with work emails on a Saturday is just too much of an subconscious temptation for a lot of people. I constantly try to convince everybody around me about the mental health improvements that brings something as simple as disabling background updates of all messaging systems we use day to day. Configuring email clients, WhatsApps, Messengers, etc. to only update when you actively open their apps. It was a game changer for me.
- matz1 6y ago
  To each their own, some people don't find it a problem, some do. You can't assume everyone work the same way.
tzs 6y ago
I check email and sometimes answer when on vacation, because often 10 minutes spent addressing a small issue while I'm away prevents several days or a week or two of dealing with a huge issue when I get back. I'm the guy who if something messes up has to go through the databases trying to figure out what data is incorrect, and goes through logs and reports to try to infer what the data should be, and then figure out a way to fix it. If I know it is starting to happen, and it isn't something I can quickly suggest how to fix or at least how to temporarily stop until I get back, I can at least usually tell someone what extra logging to add so that I'll have an easier time later on the cleanup. I'd rather lose 10 minutes during my vacation than get back and immediately be made miserable enough to need another vacation.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  That's a management issue of having no redundancy for someone performing something so crucial. If you're that crucial to operations, then you should be paid extremely lavishly, or be the owner, otherwise you're getting the short end of the stick.
  - comprev 6y ago
    The bus factor is often the last thing considered
  - mewpmewp2 6y ago
    Sometimes this type of redundancy would mean taking 2-3x the time to do some simple tasks.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Not really. If you formalise this kind of redundancy it leads to super annoying things like on-call rosters. Which are awful for a worker because it means you MUST be available immediately, can't drink or go out to the shop or whatever. I much rather just have them call me for that one critical issue that happens in a very long time, and appreciating me putting in the time after hours, than being forced to sit at home waiting for something to break which never actually happens. In practice there is always someone available who is able to make time for it so there is really no need for on-call rosters. As such the act of stepping up and helping out avoids having this heavy commitment.
lowdose 6y ago
If you deplete resources above a utility of 80% the waiting time becomes almost infinite. We can either buffer in capacity or WIP. This has been known lean at Toyota they never schedule beyond 20/24.
Tagbert 6y ago
Most managers in our org accept this at the employee’s discretion as part of a flex time policy where employees can use work time to handle personal issues even taking off large chunks of a day if needed.
- pottertheotter 6y ago
  There's a big difference between being flexible and expecting work once people are home. I've worked in both types of environments. If some company is trying to tell you they are the same, they are being disingenuous.
blibble 6y ago
it's not really the EU, it's the parliament, which can't legislate and has no way to force the parts of the EU that can to do anything journalists often report that the EU "lawmakers" are doing something when in it's really the parliament passing non-binding resolutions that don't do anything
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  Parliament can't propose new legislation (except in one or two very narrow areas provided for in the treaties), but it is a legislature. In nearly all cases (except again in narrow areas defined in the treaties) Parliament must pass the legislation first, before it goes to the Council. They then must agree any changes made by the Council. And yes, Parliament can - and almost always does - amend legislation as it goes through the legislative process.
  - blibble 6y ago
    Webster defines a legislature as a body of persons having the power to legislate the EU parliament cannot, so it's not a legislature
    - M2Ys4U 6y ago
      1) Parliament does legislate; and 2) Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.

by vfc1 6y ago

gtfoutttt 6y ago

>I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. Then the work doesn't get completed on time! That's bad management not hiring enough people, not the fault of the employee. SMH y'all IT people need a union.

jusssi 6y ago
It's the difference between a junior and a senior. The latter has better expectations of what one can get done in an average workday, and the confidence to push back with "sorry, looks like this thing's more work than expected, going to need another two days for it". Btw. Looks like the Great America is woke and hates you for the word 'union' you used in your comment.
- bonestormii_ 6y ago
  The "confidence" of senior people to push back is greatly enhanced by the fact that they won't be expediently fired for doing so. And even so, plenty of senior positions suffer from this situation as well. I'm living this hell right now.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    >The "confidence" of senior people to push back is greatly enhanced by the fact that they won't be expediently fired for doing so. There's a problem with your country if you can be fired for refusing overtime.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      (in America) There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. Whether you work 35 or 60 hours, it’s the same pay.[a] As a result, employers don’t have to worry about overtime pay, only burnt out employees (but entry and junior levels are disposable, right? /s) [a]: This also leads to the employer expecting one to be “on call” 24/7 regardless of your position.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        >There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. If there's no concept of overtime in most salaried jobs, there's a problem with your country as well. I'm a salaried, full-time employee and I'm paid to work 37.5 hours a week, no more, no less. And the collective agreement for IT services industry (which is what concerns me as a developer) dictates that 40 hours/week is the maximum. If you want to read our collective agreement, you can find it here: https://tietoala.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/TES__englanti_2020_web.pdf https://tietoala.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/TES__englanti... Working hours are on page 19 (21 on the PDF).
        treis 6y ago
        And you probably get paid 1/3 to 1/2 of what a developer in the US can make. The reality of the world is that if you're the lead developer for some product you will have times that you need to work off hours. Like if production is down how can you say: "My 40 hours is up this week, I'll look at it on Monday". It's a balance. You shouldn't routinely be working a ton of nights and weekends. But sometimes shit hits the fan at inconvenient hours and you need to respond. If not, you have to have routine 24/7 coverage which gets really expensive really fast ultimately leading to lower salaries for developers.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Then again, a competent senior engineer can easily get another job. I'm just one atypical person, but in my experience, the employer is usually more nervous about the employee breaking things off than the employee.
  - tdsamardzhiev 6y ago
    The juniors won’t be fired either, but they don’t know that and usually get abused because of it. If a company expects you to crunch, that means there’s too much work. If there’s too much work, it’s extremely unlikely that somebody doing a decent job would be fired.
  - MisterBastahrd 6y ago
    I currently work at an org where the least experienced dev has over 10 years of experience. Management is fine knowing that we will say what's on our minds if we don't think something is being handled properly.
- strictnein 6y ago
  > Looks like the Great America is woke and hates you for the word 'union' you used in your comment. Someday maybe our betters in Europe will understand that the American experience with unions is different than that of Europeans. And that American unions are a very different animal. Until that time, though, keep thinking we're just idiots.
  - stainforth 6y ago
    The destruction of unions in America was not for righteous reasons.
    - nickff 6y ago
      Previously-unionized industries declined in America, and new industries have been slow to unionize; I am not sure unions have been 'destroyed'.
      - MereInterest 6y ago
        So-called "Right to Work" laws mean that a union-negotiated contract may be made available to non-union members. At that point, the individually rational action is to leave the union, keep the dues, but benefit from the union's negotiation. As everybody does this, the union declines. "At-will employment" laws mean that the burden of proof for the cause of firing is on the employee, rather than the employer. This gives free rein to employer's to fire workers considering unionizing, so long as there is the barest pretext of another cause. As forming a union becomes economically risky, unions decline, or fail to form in new industries. Unions have been attacked in the US, through explicit policies meant to defund unions, and to prevent unions from forming.
    - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
      The level of anti-union violence in US is higher that what people might think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence
bobthechef 6y ago
While I sympathize with the need to push back on bad management, the situation is a bit like being between a rock (bad management) and a hard place (unions). Tyranny of the few vs. tyranny of the majority or the mob. The latter is worse. It's also kind of a mediocre bandaid for deeper social problems. An employer that can get away with asking you to do unreasonable amounts of work, work ridiculous hours, or achieve impossible feats OR ELSE probably doesn't have much market competition. Also a quote from C.S. Lewis: “Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
- tboyd47 6y ago
  That's an amazing quote.
  - minikites 6y ago
    Really? >The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated. We wouldn't have any billionaires if this was even remotely true. If having 999 million dollars doesn't satiate you, I submit there is no amount of money that will. We look down on hoarders who fill their house with old newspapers and knickknacks but when it's money hoarding we lionize it.
    - tboyd47 6y ago
      I'm more interested in the bit about "omnipotent moral busybodies." If shutting down 100,000 businesses, pausing children's education including special education services for a whole year, forcing the entire populace to wear cloth masks, shutting down religious services protected by the Constitution, mandating where you can & can't stand in the grocery store, and demanding the right to censor the news on all digital platforms doesn't satisfy their thirst for power, I submit that no amount of power will.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> Then the work doesn't get completed on time! Do you realise in some fields work not getting completed on time could in some cases cause people to die? Sometimes there is an emergency, and a professional saying 'sorry nope on vacation your fault for not having enough people to cover every eventuality' just isn't reasonable.
- CalRobert 6y ago
  It is reasonable. The buck stops somewhere. If you're on call sure but there are rules around that. Don't guilt people who happen to have lifesaving jobs for taking vacations.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > Don't guilt people who happen to have lifesaving jobs for taking vacations. In many cases taking that job means accepting you may be forced to come in and work. Often called 'unlimited liability' for example. If you can't accept that, then leave the job to someone who can. > The buck stops somewhere. In this case apparently it's fine for it to stop with a dead person.
    - notreallytrue 6y ago
      > In this case apparently it's fine for it to stop with a dead person. People that do a job where they can save lives accept the fact that saving lives is not granted. People don't die because someone is slacking. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        > People don't die because someone is slacking. Not sure where you read this argument?
        notreallytrue 6y ago
        That's a terrible apology... Free time is a right If someone dies during your free time it's not your responsibility Besides: US have the worst life expectation of the whole west. You should ask yourself why.
ericd 6y ago
Are you familiar with the mythical man month? Hiring more people might not get the same amount done as a few working really hard. That said, burnout can make working harder worse than working a sane amount. But that doesn’t fall on the employer as much as the employee.
- aaaxyz 6y ago
  >Hiring more people might not get the same amount done as a few working really hard. That is highly dependent on when the new employee is added to the project. If it's done early (as a result of proper planning), it's most likely not gonna hurt.
  - ericd 6y ago
    One of the key points of the mythical man month is that communication overhead starts taking a larger and larger chunk of the total productivity as you scale the number of people involved, just to keep everyone synced up and rowing in the same direction. It's not really based on when the people are added.
    - Viliam1234 6y ago
      There is definitely such thing as too many people. But with reasonable amount of people, if you start with the full team at the beginning, you can assign different responsibilities to different people. For example, one can do database, one can do web API, one can do web design, one can do integration with other systems, one can build and maintain continuous integration; you can also divide the domain knowledge among multiple people. Each person can focus on doing their part in such way that the others do not need to understand every single detail, and only use the agreed API. However, if you add a new person late in the project... all simple things were probably already done, and all difficult things require a lot of knowledge about the existing code, that other team members already know, but if they spend their time explaining it to the new member, then their own work gets slower, so the overall speed reduces. (And yes, given enough time, the new member would learn everything and become just as productive as the old members. But the thing is, there is not enough time left at that moment.)
centimeter 6y ago
> SMH y'all IT people need a union. Or just some balls. Don’t work more than you want to - either your employer will deal with it or you go find a new job. Not a big deal. I work fewer hours than the median person at my company and I don’t think it has negatively impacted me much or at all. Any time someone tries to get me to do something that would require working additional hours I just say no or take extra vacation days in lieu (eg if I need to do something for a few hours on Saturday - I take an extra vacation day to make up. If it’s not worth it for the company, it doesn’t really need to get done on sat). Literally the worst case is you get fired, but probably nothing will happen.

_wldu 6y ago

I agree. Working from home (due to covid) has become "working all the time" for many of my friends and family.

unicornfinder 6y ago
It absolutely has for me, but at the same time I don't mind it too much because the gains from being able to work from home have been worth it for me.

tcldr 6y ago

> You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. Do you think it's a coincidence they get such a bad press?

colejohnson66 6y ago
At least in America, a good portion of it is a cultural difference. The EU tends to take worker protections more seriously without considering collateral damage (according to some). OTOH, America just does nothing because there’s an entire political party who’s big premise is “any and all regulation is bad regulation.”
- claudeganon 6y ago
  There's a bipartisan consensus that working people should be screwed. Uber's c-suite is staffed by Democratic Party insiders and they just got Prop 22 passed, Democratic leaders just came out in support of a stimulus bill that indemnifies companies against COVID-related harms they place their employees in to keep making money. You can find no shortage of well-paid liberals on this site that will tell you that unions are the scourge of the earth, despite their political influence being responsible for just about everything that makes the EU a better place for workers.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    I’m not denying that there are Democrats who support business over workers. All I said was that the Republican Party (in Congress) seems to believe that any and all is bad while Democrats believe in some or more (depending on how you feel). It also doesn’t help that people want to label everyone so much to fit into just two categories. Feinstein (D-CA) is very pro-surveillance while some of the party (in congress) believes otherwise. Romney (R-UT) voted to convict Trump while every other Republican voted to acquit. I’ll admit it is a bit hypocritical of me to lump all Republicans together, so I’ll clarify with: it’s where the party (in congress) seems to be heading (or already is). Obviously not all Republicans support that idea.

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olalonde 6y ago

> You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. That's very debatable. It will probably have unintended consequences like lowering salaries, increasing the intensity of workload during permissible hours, outsourcing or entirely eliminating some types of jobs. Ultimately, it just reduces the pool of possible arrangements between employers and employees. I know a few people who would readily give up their "right to disconnect" for a more interesting job or a higher salary for example.

pietrovismara 6y ago
> It will probably have unintended consequences like lowering salaries, increasing the intensity of workload during permissible hours, outsourcing or entirely eliminating some types of jobs. Ultimately, it just reduces the pool of possible arrangements between employers and employees. The exact same has been said for child labor abolition, reducing the work week to 40 hours, raising women wages and for literally every other improvement in work conditions we've conquered so far.
- olalonde 6y ago
  Arguably, the bulk of improvement in work conditions came through technological development and productivity growth, not through regulations. Some of the best work conditions today are found in the largely unregulated (partly due to its global nature) software engineering job market. Also, why not go for 20 hours work week?
  - pietrovismara 6y ago
    Innovation made improvements in work conditions possible, protests and the following regulations made them real. I'm all-in for a 20h work week.

treis 6y ago

>I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. If you ban work from home doesn't that mean those people have to stay at the office 1-2 hours longer to do their work?

op03 6y ago

It's all very courageous until you try to get projects done. The EU reminds me of how the UN unravelled into irrelevance back in the 70s-80s. Lots of good intentions, cash flowed, all kinds of progressive projects were seeded but then what happened?

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allendoerfer 6y ago
Difference is, the member-states actually have given the EU some power in its area of competence, while the UN is just a club to keep in touch with each other (which is also very important).
isoprophlex 6y ago
Strange, it seems we get plenty of projects done. Everyone on the client side is happy; Everyone on the team gets paid. Doesn't sound too bad to me.
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kwanbix 6y ago

My experience is just the opposite. People disappear for their holidays and they don't even live a backup most of the time.

Muromec 6y ago

Wait, what? 40 hour work week is controversial measure?

coldtea 6y ago

>otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. The workload can increase arbitrarily. It should be confined to what can be completed within working hours - the extra work over that should be an exception under special circumstances (e.g. a sudden order), not the norm.

makecheck 6y ago

Years ago I saw an executive call up a senior IT manager who was on vacation with his family and instruct him to cut it short and return immediately. Imagine how livid he and his family would have been. I get that people can be “senior” and in charge of important things, etc. but at a certain point if “leaders” do these things they are simply being terrible people and not really “handling” unexpected problems well.

woeirua 6y ago
And this is why it's so important to be financially independent. If you have money saved up in this situation you can politely tell your boss, that you won't be coming back from vacation period, and the only remaining question is whether you come back at all after your vacation. He might throw a hissy fit and try to make your life difficult, but you can always walk away if you have enough savings.
- maigret 6y ago
  The mild version of that is to start looking for a new job ASAP.
- dalys 6y ago
  Not sure why anyone that is financially independent would take an office job with a crappy manager to begin with. But surely it would be better system if your country had laws that regulates this, instead of every individual needing to save up a million bucks as ”fuck you money”.

White_Wolf 6y ago

What I do: - Unless soone is dying it's not urgent; - I turn my work smartphone and laptop off at the end of the work day and back on in the morning; - My work smartphone switches to DND during lunch break; - Out "work" VOIP is routed to a "out for lunch" message during lunch; Unless someone is dying it's not urgent. P.S We don't get overtime so no reason to do any. On extremely rare ocasions I did some extra hours with the condition I take them off next day or that week's Friday.(Ex: Our online trainig server went dead the day before a training course. And yes... after that they bought a spare one. Don't get me started with IT related budget)

duxup 6y ago

I appreciate this is a step but it's a non binding resolution that ... as far as I can tell doesn't have any exact legal language in it?

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

> You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. What eactly do you consider "controversial" in the right to disconnect?

skohan 6y ago

I spent part of my career working in the US, and now I work in Germany, and I can say the labor laws make a huge difference. Some would say this type of law hampers innovation, but at some level if there is not a basic fair playing field set for everyone, there will always be the incentive for some to over-work to get ahead.

theshrike79 6y ago
There is a limit to creative work. Quality will suffer if you work 12 hours a day 7 days a week. It's better to do the 7.5 hours, go home and come back rested the next day. Your subconscious will be working on the problem anyway. Most European countries seem to be over the glorification of long grueling hours. In the US and Japan it's still a badge of honor how much you work - never mind that productivity in either country isn't scaling relative to the hours used.
- machinelabo 6y ago
  I personally know people that work very hard 12 hours a day and their output is stellar. Not only are they creative, but they build some of the most amazing systems I've ever come across in record time. They're handsomely paid with equity and monetary compensation. I work in a startup with 45 top notch engineers.
  - skohan 6y ago
    Two questions would be: 1) do they actually work 12 hours a day, or have they found a way to appear to do so? and 2) how long have they done this for? When I was at my first startup, I had periods of 16 hour days, but after a few years of this I would not go back.
    - theshrike79 6y ago
      Exactly. There's a huge difference between being at work 12 hours a day and actually doing something productive with that time. Japan is an excellent example of this, in their office culture you never leave before the boss does and try to be at the office before them. People spend 12+ hours at work and don't produce more than other people who work sensible hours. Coronavirus and remote works might be a savior for that culture.

antihero 6y ago

> The resolution comes just days after Germany's coalition government announced it is considering across-the-board tax breaks for individuals working from home. Seems to run counter to another, more terrible idea: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54876526 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54876526

mewpmewp2 6y ago

While it seems good I am afraid as an European I will start getting even smaller salary compared to US counterparts. There will be less incentive to hire someone from Europe for international companies. I know this is an unpopular opinion. I work for an international company and I already get paid around 2-3x less than US counterparts at the same level. I do work a lot, but I have accepted the fact if it means I can earn more. I can retire that much earlier this way.

nraynaud 6y ago
on average US citizens retire later than Europeans and die earlier afterwards.

ravenstine 6y ago

While I like the EU's effort, I have to wonder how much of this is the responsibility of the individual. > I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. We certainly all know people like this. But, at what point should employees outright refuse to be connected to work on personal time? I get that people whom have families that depend on them have limited choice in how far they can rebel at work, but perhaps we need young people to be a part of a new culture of work-life balance where interacting with work during any unpaid hours is seen as optional. Only those who have little to lose can stand up to corporate and make a difference. Personally, I wouldn't work for an employer that wants free time from me. If that means I don't make a lot of money, that's fine by me. Time has value. Having regulation around this issue can help with professions like the legal profession where the real way up the ladder is by overworking in whatever way possible. For people such as myself, an engineer, where overwork and brown-nosing don't have a 1-to-1 relation with a bigger paycheck or greater job stability, they have more leverage over what their employer can or cannot do to them.

phone8675309 6y ago
> For people such as myself, an engineer, where overwork and brown-nosing don't have a 1-to-1 relation with a bigger paycheck or greater job stability, they have more leverage over what their employer can or cannot do to them. Cherish your current employer because they are the vast minority of employers.
justin_oaks 6y ago
I agree that this should be an individual responsibility, but sadly it just won't work. If you're the only individual in your company who protects their private time, then you'll feel pressure to fall in line. Even if the boss doesn't give you any grief, your coworkers will: "I respond to emails after hours, so why doesn't he?" The bosses will likely favor those who work more than they should. And often working longer is seen more favorably than working better. This is mainly because it's more visible. I tend to think that salaried positions and unpaid overtime shouldn't exist. But I'm open to arguments in favor of them. I just have a hard time seeing how they help align incentives of the employer and the employee.

IAmNotAFix 6y ago

> it's impossible to keep up with the workload I don't know about employees keeping up with their workload, but what I can say for sure is that the workload keeps up with how much the employee is willing to take.

j1elo 6y ago

> I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. But why are they doing that? I get it, a disrespectful boss could require employees to respond email or calls, and fixing that would require a shift in their mentality. But apart from that, I think it is not healthy at all the trend of having an ultra-connected setup with notifications enabled for everything, everywhere. Even if someone's workplace has a nice and respectful work culture, having their phone pinging them with work emails on a Saturday is just too much of an subconscious temptation for a lot of people. I constantly try to convince everybody around me about the mental health improvements that brings something as simple as disabling background updates of all messaging systems we use day to day. Configuring email clients, WhatsApps, Messengers, etc. to only update when you actively open their apps. It was a game changer for me.

matz1 6y ago
To each their own, some people don't find it a problem, some do. You can't assume everyone work the same way.

tzs 6y ago

I check email and sometimes answer when on vacation, because often 10 minutes spent addressing a small issue while I'm away prevents several days or a week or two of dealing with a huge issue when I get back. I'm the guy who if something messes up has to go through the databases trying to figure out what data is incorrect, and goes through logs and reports to try to infer what the data should be, and then figure out a way to fix it. If I know it is starting to happen, and it isn't something I can quickly suggest how to fix or at least how to temporarily stop until I get back, I can at least usually tell someone what extra logging to add so that I'll have an easier time later on the cleanup. I'd rather lose 10 minutes during my vacation than get back and immediately be made miserable enough to need another vacation.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
That's a management issue of having no redundancy for someone performing something so crucial. If you're that crucial to operations, then you should be paid extremely lavishly, or be the owner, otherwise you're getting the short end of the stick.
- comprev 6y ago
  The bus factor is often the last thing considered
- mewpmewp2 6y ago
  Sometimes this type of redundancy would mean taking 2-3x the time to do some simple tasks.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Not really. If you formalise this kind of redundancy it leads to super annoying things like on-call rosters. Which are awful for a worker because it means you MUST be available immediately, can't drink or go out to the shop or whatever. I much rather just have them call me for that one critical issue that happens in a very long time, and appreciating me putting in the time after hours, than being forced to sit at home waiting for something to break which never actually happens. In practice there is always someone available who is able to make time for it so there is really no need for on-call rosters. As such the act of stepping up and helping out avoids having this heavy commitment.

lowdose 6y ago

If you deplete resources above a utility of 80% the waiting time becomes almost infinite. We can either buffer in capacity or WIP. This has been known lean at Toyota they never schedule beyond 20/24.

Tagbert 6y ago

Most managers in our org accept this at the employee’s discretion as part of a flex time policy where employees can use work time to handle personal issues even taking off large chunks of a day if needed.

pottertheotter 6y ago
There's a big difference between being flexible and expecting work once people are home. I've worked in both types of environments. If some company is trying to tell you they are the same, they are being disingenuous.

blibble 6y ago

it's not really the EU, it's the parliament, which can't legislate and has no way to force the parts of the EU that can to do anything journalists often report that the EU "lawmakers" are doing something when in it's really the parliament passing non-binding resolutions that don't do anything

M2Ys4U 6y ago
Parliament can't propose new legislation (except in one or two very narrow areas provided for in the treaties), but it is a legislature. In nearly all cases (except again in narrow areas defined in the treaties) Parliament must pass the legislation first, before it goes to the Council. They then must agree any changes made by the Council. And yes, Parliament can - and almost always does - amend legislation as it goes through the legislative process.
- blibble 6y ago
  Webster defines a legislature as a body of persons having the power to legislate the EU parliament cannot, so it's not a legislature
  - M2Ys4U 6y ago
    1) Parliament does legislate; and 2) Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.