5 ms·

Thirty years ago when you needed to install new computers in an office I remember it took us weeks to get the cable (Ethernet) installed because one contractor

Thirty years ago when you needed to install new computers in an office I remember it took us weeks to get the cable (Ethernet) installed because one contractor had to pull the cable and cut it at each workstation, another contractor had to come and put the connector on the cable and yet another had to come and plug the cable into the machine. Believe me we were tempted to sneak in one weekend and do the whole thing ourselves but were severely warned about the consequences. So what could have been done in a day by one or two guys took over a month because you couldn't even schedule the second service until the first was done. I imagine this kind of thing is everywhere when it comes to building real infrastructure.

human 5y ago
In real life it’s even worse. None of the suppliers actually show up, they ramp up the price and deliver a failing product. Then they all blame the previous guy.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> another contractor had to come and put the connector on the cable ... severely warned about the consequences This kind of job moating and threats is a union thing isn't it?
- drak0n1c 5y ago
  Yes, my partner was a conference planner and whenever they had one in NYC in the Time offices their team wasn't allowed to adjust tables by themselves, everything had to be done by formal work order tickets and only union hands could touch anything, even equipment they owned and brought in themselves. Coincidentally, this new infrastructure bill has union requirements for any EV work.
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    Unions get a bad rap. They don’t have to be bad. Everyone should have an incentive for efficiency.
    - bshipp 5y ago
      Its an interesting question. I'm not a union guy and spent my youth working in construction so I've encountered my share of plodding union tradesmen who took remarkably long to do small things that could be finished in a few minutes if you rushed. When I was young and foolish I'd often shake my head at the snails-pace they worked at. I'm older now, and arguably a smidgen wiser. I've reacted with shock at hearing about old acquaintances who have been killed on the job or now endure chronic pain and are no longer able to work. Broken backs, bum knees, busted nerves, missing fingers, the list goes on. The plodding, methodical 55 year-old union guy is looking less and less silly the older I get. In short, perhaps one reason a union might push back against performance-based bonuses is that it often ends up coming at a long-term cost to the worker that is difficult to foresee when you're an invincible 25 year-old trying to make a few extra bucks for the weekend.
      - poopypoopington 5y ago
        Say you're laying rail track. It will be used for 50+ years. Better to lay it once, relatively slowly, and well than to do a shoddy quick job and have to repair it every 5 years. Perhaps another argument for the plodding, methodical 55 year-old union guy's way of working?
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        But the union don't recommend things for engineering reasons though, do they? That's not their remit and they don't represent users of the railway or future maintainers of the railway. They represent the employees today. In fact the incentive of the union is shoddier work so they have more work to do late to replace it.
      - warble 5y ago
        Worked with unions before - some are definitely better than others and some are really great at their jobs, efficient and good quality work. Some are REALLY bad - all the slow inefficient protectionist BS you hear about, they're definitely out there and it's not because they're more careful about quality. I really don't know the ratio, but in my highly incomplete experience it was about 50/50.. This is purely conjecture, but the real problem to me SEEMS to be the union management. Unions are super useful sometimes, but like any concentration of power, they get corrupt over time.
  - jgoodhcg 5y ago
    Isn't a trade off for some efficiency worth things like living wages, safety, and quality standards at scale?
    - derekjdanserl 5y ago
      Especially since no amount of technology has lessened the amount that most of us (especially those doing these jobs being complained about) still have to work to earn a living.
  - SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
    Non American here, can someone explain to me what is unique about USA society that creates this situations? I mean, most of the world has unions, most countries to a much greater extant than USA, and yet we don't see those horror stories of loss of work efficiency from anywhere else. What is unique about USA unions that drive those?
    - MattGaiser 5y ago
      Maybe it is just normal in those countries? Each country has things which seem absurd in other countries but are so normal in others as to rarely be discussed.
    - jfengel 5y ago
      Unions in the US have to be more defensive, because they're constantly under attack. Unions and management are pitted against each other as enemies, and the only way for the union to protect its members is to make and enforce rules. Each of those rules is in place to protect against some past abuse, and in that hostile environment, they know that flexibility on the rules invites a return of that abuse. Not that everything in Europe is sweetness and light with unions, but they are more widely accepted. That leaves more room for amicable rule-making and flexibility. The anti-union forces in the US, of course, put all of the blame for that on the unions -- which is exactly the kind of hostility that makes it difficult for the unions to negotiate flexible, reasonable contracts.
    - xenadu02 5y ago
      Not all unions are like that but some definitely are. Some unions seem to be connected to organized crime or powerful political players and protect their turf very strongly. eg Longshoremen in New York. The union is used as a make-work organization (hire my cousin for a high rate where he barely shows up and I'll fix $X problem for you). A portion of dues goes to political lobbying which gives them political power - eg in California the PG&E Lineman's union is one of the reasons PG&E hasn't been nuked from orbit given how badly they maintain infrastructure and how high their cost for electricity is - Silicon Valley Power charges $0.129c/kWh where a mile down the road PG&E charges $0.28c/kWh-$0.33c/kWh. If they were actually subject to a free market they'd have been liquidated long ago, but the union fights to protect them. Others are more like European unions thus are more reasonable. In the limited times I've worked with IEW union electricians in the bay area they were reasonable people who did good work without any slacking, fake make-work, or outrageous prices.
- bregma 5y ago
  It's more likely an elite capitalist thing. Some boss somewhere plays golf at an exclusive club with a regular foursome. He has some work to be done, and each of his three buddies get a slice. They have some friends that could also get a cut. The end result is the golden shower that trickles down. The shops might be unionized, but the contracts are signed at the clubhouse while a boy brings the single malt and cubans.
- 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
  It's a trust/cartel thing. Unions sometimes set up such schemes for the same basic reasons that companies sometimes do.
- legulere 5y ago
  Maybe a US union thing. The reason why US unions (and also other workers) are so protectionist is that there are high risks connected with job loss. If you provide a good security net as a country, where people don't loose everything when they loose their job and can get back on their feet, people also don't go as far with shenanigans to keep their jobs. You rarely hear about this kind of things from unions in Europe.
slowhand09 5y ago
30 years ago, I asked to see how the cable was made. In a hour I was making cable drops and running the cable. Using 25 conductor cable, configuring pins 2,3,7 it was nothing to cable 4 PCs in each of 2 offices in a day. Nevermind the cable ran across florescent lighting, etc. Later that week I learned to check the runs were less than a certain length from the computer room. But primarily I wrote software.

human 5y ago

In real life it’s even worse. None of the suppliers actually show up, they ramp up the price and deliver a failing product. Then they all blame the previous guy.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> another contractor had to come and put the connector on the cable ... severely warned about the consequences This kind of job moating and threats is a union thing isn't it?

drak0n1c 5y ago
Yes, my partner was a conference planner and whenever they had one in NYC in the Time offices their team wasn't allowed to adjust tables by themselves, everything had to be done by formal work order tickets and only union hands could touch anything, even equipment they owned and brought in themselves. Coincidentally, this new infrastructure bill has union requirements for any EV work.
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  Unions get a bad rap. They don’t have to be bad. Everyone should have an incentive for efficiency.
  - bshipp 5y ago
    Its an interesting question. I'm not a union guy and spent my youth working in construction so I've encountered my share of plodding union tradesmen who took remarkably long to do small things that could be finished in a few minutes if you rushed. When I was young and foolish I'd often shake my head at the snails-pace they worked at. I'm older now, and arguably a smidgen wiser. I've reacted with shock at hearing about old acquaintances who have been killed on the job or now endure chronic pain and are no longer able to work. Broken backs, bum knees, busted nerves, missing fingers, the list goes on. The plodding, methodical 55 year-old union guy is looking less and less silly the older I get. In short, perhaps one reason a union might push back against performance-based bonuses is that it often ends up coming at a long-term cost to the worker that is difficult to foresee when you're an invincible 25 year-old trying to make a few extra bucks for the weekend.
    - poopypoopington 5y ago
      Say you're laying rail track. It will be used for 50+ years. Better to lay it once, relatively slowly, and well than to do a shoddy quick job and have to repair it every 5 years. Perhaps another argument for the plodding, methodical 55 year-old union guy's way of working?
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        But the union don't recommend things for engineering reasons though, do they? That's not their remit and they don't represent users of the railway or future maintainers of the railway. They represent the employees today. In fact the incentive of the union is shoddier work so they have more work to do late to replace it.
    - warble 5y ago
      Worked with unions before - some are definitely better than others and some are really great at their jobs, efficient and good quality work. Some are REALLY bad - all the slow inefficient protectionist BS you hear about, they're definitely out there and it's not because they're more careful about quality. I really don't know the ratio, but in my highly incomplete experience it was about 50/50.. This is purely conjecture, but the real problem to me SEEMS to be the union management. Unions are super useful sometimes, but like any concentration of power, they get corrupt over time.
- jgoodhcg 5y ago
  Isn't a trade off for some efficiency worth things like living wages, safety, and quality standards at scale?
  - derekjdanserl 5y ago
    Especially since no amount of technology has lessened the amount that most of us (especially those doing these jobs being complained about) still have to work to earn a living.
- SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
  Non American here, can someone explain to me what is unique about USA society that creates this situations? I mean, most of the world has unions, most countries to a much greater extant than USA, and yet we don't see those horror stories of loss of work efficiency from anywhere else. What is unique about USA unions that drive those?
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Maybe it is just normal in those countries? Each country has things which seem absurd in other countries but are so normal in others as to rarely be discussed.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    Unions in the US have to be more defensive, because they're constantly under attack. Unions and management are pitted against each other as enemies, and the only way for the union to protect its members is to make and enforce rules. Each of those rules is in place to protect against some past abuse, and in that hostile environment, they know that flexibility on the rules invites a return of that abuse. Not that everything in Europe is sweetness and light with unions, but they are more widely accepted. That leaves more room for amicable rule-making and flexibility. The anti-union forces in the US, of course, put all of the blame for that on the unions -- which is exactly the kind of hostility that makes it difficult for the unions to negotiate flexible, reasonable contracts.
  - xenadu02 5y ago
    Not all unions are like that but some definitely are. Some unions seem to be connected to organized crime or powerful political players and protect their turf very strongly. eg Longshoremen in New York. The union is used as a make-work organization (hire my cousin for a high rate where he barely shows up and I'll fix $X problem for you). A portion of dues goes to political lobbying which gives them political power - eg in California the PG&E Lineman's union is one of the reasons PG&E hasn't been nuked from orbit given how badly they maintain infrastructure and how high their cost for electricity is - Silicon Valley Power charges $0.129c/kWh where a mile down the road PG&E charges $0.28c/kWh-$0.33c/kWh. If they were actually subject to a free market they'd have been liquidated long ago, but the union fights to protect them. Others are more like European unions thus are more reasonable. In the limited times I've worked with IEW union electricians in the bay area they were reasonable people who did good work without any slacking, fake make-work, or outrageous prices.
bregma 5y ago
It's more likely an elite capitalist thing. Some boss somewhere plays golf at an exclusive club with a regular foursome. He has some work to be done, and each of his three buddies get a slice. They have some friends that could also get a cut. The end result is the golden shower that trickles down. The shops might be unionized, but the contracts are signed at the clubhouse while a boy brings the single malt and cubans.
0xcde4c3db 5y ago
It's a trust/cartel thing. Unions sometimes set up such schemes for the same basic reasons that companies sometimes do.
legulere 5y ago
Maybe a US union thing. The reason why US unions (and also other workers) are so protectionist is that there are high risks connected with job loss. If you provide a good security net as a country, where people don't loose everything when they loose their job and can get back on their feet, people also don't go as far with shenanigans to keep their jobs. You rarely hear about this kind of things from unions in Europe.

slowhand09 5y ago

30 years ago, I asked to see how the cable was made. In a hour I was making cable drops and running the cable. Using 25 conductor cable, configuring pins 2,3,7 it was nothing to cable 4 PCs in each of 2 offices in a day. Nevermind the cable ran across florescent lighting, etc. Later that week I learned to check the runs were less than a certain length from the computer room. But primarily I wrote software.