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Those of us who loathe laying off good employees are busy because we are understaffed. We're understaffed because we are sure that a downturn, recession or wors

Those of us who loathe laying off good employees are busy because we are understaffed. We're understaffed because we are sure that a downturn, recession or worse is upon us (or coming soon) and that the agony, expense and distraction of layoffs (to equalize income & overhead) are a bear market squeeze not worth the bull market juice. So we get by with fewer employees, more part-time & gig workers. We work harder than we probably should, and so do our employees. The imbalance this creates in good times is offset by the job security we enjoy in bad times. How do I know this is true? Because I'm old enough to have withstood three recessions, the last one by the skin of our corporate teeth. We've had two good employees leave in good times for less work for more money. Both came back after a few years when boom business cycles that drove that dislocation reverted to the mean. What the "anti-work"/"no wagie" crowd get's right is the inequity of hard work in a commoditized job at a company that doesn't give a rat's ass about you or your work product. What they get wrong is that small businesses like mine, who do care, require hard work to smooth the volatility - providing security for the business, the employees & the owner. We do this while insurance (health & general) rockets skyward, as the government stealth taxes the crap out of us, and while foreign competition engages in currency & regulatory manipulation for unfair advantage. My advice to the "don't be so busy" folks... get busy. Do a good job and tactfully take credit for it. Work hard and make sure your name is associated with results. An economic storm is probably coming as soon as politically motivated band-aids come loose. Most likely after the US mid-term elections, but perhaps after 2024 if they can somehow postpone it that long... get ready.

agentdrtran 4y ago
did we read the same article?
627467 4y ago
"more part-time" are there more part-time positions due to recession (or fears of one)? Are there job board for part time jobs, ideally remote?
stemlord 4y ago
>We've had two good employees leave in good times for less work for more money. Both came back after a few years when boom business cycles that drove that dislocation reverted to the mean. Did they experience a pay increase between leaving and coming back?
- jll29 4y ago
  Because large organizations are slow to respond to market forces, it is typically easier to get a rise by leaving and coming back than by staying on, which is a shame. Worse, in many places, people who stay on for half a decade or more are assumed permanent fixtures ("Bob has been here forever, he doesn't want to leave, or he can't get a job elsewhere") that are unlikely to ever leave, and therefore may be ignored when salary adjustments are conducted.
xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
That's great for you, but this is rarely, if ever, logical for the employee. This is very much a "you should be happy with your stable, lower wage job because it's stable" argument that is frequently used to suppress wage increases. As an employee, the only thing that really matters is the dollars flowing out of your account into mine on a regular basis. Trust, job security, growth opportunities, work life balance... they're all just words until they're not. Unless you're willing to sign a multi-year contract guaranteeing job security, put your money where your mouth is or I'm out the door as soon as greener pastures present themselves. And in this industry, there's always greener pastures. > We've had two good employees leave in good times for less work for more money. Both came back after a few years when boom business cycles that drove that dislocation reverted to the mean. Sounds like they were properly maximizing their opportunity. Alternatively, give people job security and also pay them what they deserve. It works even better than whatever "the mean" is.
- lumost 4y ago
  To add to this, There is no guarantee that the company that makes you hustle doesn't simply lay you off in the bad times anyway. I'd much rather earn an extra 20% for 5 years and have 1 extra year's cash in the bank, then work in a "stable" environment that may or may not think I'm worth having around in 5 years.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  >Trust, job security, growth opportunities, work life balance... they're all just words Or not, if you have been at a good company where people got treated well, with good bonuses, great healthcare, tons of time off and job security during recessions and times when an unscrupulous company could have fired people. A lot of people are asserting that companies and business owners are physically and psychologically incapable of anything except slitting throats at the earliest opportunity.
  - kickout 4y ago
    I mean....what's a realistic split on this? 95/5 bad to good? If these unicorn companies exist those jobs are vanishingly rare because people wouldn't move, correct? Im 'young' and I don't know I would ever give a company the benefit of the doubt. Been screwed too many times
maxsilver 4y ago
> providing security for the business, the employees & the owner The problem is that everything you've described only provides stability for the owner, and no one else. There's zero reason for an employee to believe money in your bank account somehow provides for their security -- even if you are honest and ethical and magically choose to do it, no one else ever does -- there is no way a reasonable person can believe the owner is just going to keep them on through hard times, just out of the goodness of their heart.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  >even if you are honest and ethical and magically choose to do it, no one else ever does That's right, literally no employer ever does right by their employees in tough times except for this one HN commenter. Or to put it non sarcastic, it's entirely possible for an employer not to be a bastard, even if it is less common than the opposite.
- mythrwy 4y ago
  Not only stability for the owner. Stability for the business. Which is where the money for salaries comes from. Owning a business for a number of years was a very eye opening experience and has made me a much better employee and I'm in agreement with OP.
bananamerica 4y ago
I don't think a lot of people expect small businesses to make up for a largely unequal and unfair economic system. That should be the an atribution of government and society as a whole.
sdwr 4y ago
Thanks, I mostly see the employee perspective here, good to see the perspective of an employer responsible for other people's stability.
irrational 4y ago
Or, you know, I could stay at the same company I’ve been working for for more than 20 years that pays me a hefty six figure salary and I maybe put in 30 hours of work a week.
reillyse 4y ago
As a business owner myself this is total nonsense. I proudly pay my staff well and I don't overwork them. Anything else is a choice and it's a choice that nearly always benefits you not your employees.
- urthor 4y ago
  Yes. Sounds like an unprofitable business where the owner refuses to accept reality that the work conditions are marginal because the business is marginal.
  - howmayiannoyyou 4y ago
    Business cycles sensitivity = marginal business? Big cyclical reversion on its way that will test your theory wherever you are employed.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
strken 4y ago
I think busyness, work hours, productivity, and context switching are all conflated with each other. They're interrelated but not the same. When a lot of people talk about being busy, they're not so much saying "I had to do 50 hours of focused work this week," they're saying "I did 10 hours of focused work, because clients kept emailing me and we had a bunch of meetings, then our biggest customer's DB got corrupted for preventable reasons and we had to recover it, but we never test our restore process and so it all went wrong." This is touched on in the grey box side-note and elsewhere in the article. Writing software is not usually a factory floor job where hours worked is linearly correlated with output. Removing slack from your team (not the app, the "free time" that gets filled with urgent incoming tasks or maintenance work) has long-lasting consequences for everyone that may be counterproductive.
quickthrower2 4y ago
> My advice to the "don't be so busy" folks... get busy. Do a good job and tactfully take credit for it. Work hard and make sure your name is associated with results. If you are in a dysfunctional org this will be very hard to do. What you think is a great outcome can be overshadowed because in 500ms some higher up decided it was a shit outcome. And customer/boss is always right is the culture in general. You need to be busy on the right things. And the right thing might be brushing up the resume. Or it might be pulling an all nighter at the current job and bragging about it the next day. Or managing the manager. Or it might be giving yourself a break, by taking leave. But it is never clear, you just have to decide.
fritztastic 4y ago
People are expected to keep savings to weather through the lean times, and corporations should do the same- set up a fund to keep valued workers through lean times. From personal experience, you can do good work and still be laid off. I got laid off a couple months after the company's president gave himself a 5M bonus, fully aware a recession was ongoing and that measures would have to be taken. From my perspective many businesses are very happy to have people stick around to do the work with less pay, dur8ng good times they give the profits of this labor to the people at the top + shareholders and then when a downturn comes they trim off workers. They could have kept the people they laid off and paid everyone more if they'd (rather than giving bonuses to executives) put that money away for a rainy day. I don't see the benefit of having loyalty and working yourself to the bone when the people you're working for have lots of loyalty to the bottom line, themselves, and their investors, yet very little to the quality of life of the people who work under them. Sure, I'm willing to work crazy hours and do whatever needs to get done but I expect to be met halfway and be respected (preferrably properly compensated) for the sacrifices I'm willing to make for the work I do.
Mikeb85 4y ago
Or you maximise your income during good times, accept layoffs (vacation) during bad times, ride out the difference by being smart with money and making good investments, and in the end you've made the same money but had far more free time.

agentdrtran 4y ago

did we read the same article?

627467 4y ago

"more part-time" are there more part-time positions due to recession (or fears of one)? Are there job board for part time jobs, ideally remote?

stemlord 4y ago

>We've had two good employees leave in good times for less work for more money. Both came back after a few years when boom business cycles that drove that dislocation reverted to the mean. Did they experience a pay increase between leaving and coming back?

jll29 4y ago
Because large organizations are slow to respond to market forces, it is typically easier to get a rise by leaving and coming back than by staying on, which is a shame. Worse, in many places, people who stay on for half a decade or more are assumed permanent fixtures ("Bob has been here forever, he doesn't want to leave, or he can't get a job elsewhere") that are unlikely to ever leave, and therefore may be ignored when salary adjustments are conducted.

xyzzy_plugh 4y ago

That's great for you, but this is rarely, if ever, logical for the employee. This is very much a "you should be happy with your stable, lower wage job because it's stable" argument that is frequently used to suppress wage increases. As an employee, the only thing that really matters is the dollars flowing out of your account into mine on a regular basis. Trust, job security, growth opportunities, work life balance... they're all just words until they're not. Unless you're willing to sign a multi-year contract guaranteeing job security, put your money where your mouth is or I'm out the door as soon as greener pastures present themselves. And in this industry, there's always greener pastures. > We've had two good employees leave in good times for less work for more money. Both came back after a few years when boom business cycles that drove that dislocation reverted to the mean. Sounds like they were properly maximizing their opportunity. Alternatively, give people job security and also pay them what they deserve. It works even better than whatever "the mean" is.

lumost 4y ago
To add to this, There is no guarantee that the company that makes you hustle doesn't simply lay you off in the bad times anyway. I'd much rather earn an extra 20% for 5 years and have 1 extra year's cash in the bank, then work in a "stable" environment that may or may not think I'm worth having around in 5 years.
unethical_ban 4y ago
>Trust, job security, growth opportunities, work life balance... they're all just words Or not, if you have been at a good company where people got treated well, with good bonuses, great healthcare, tons of time off and job security during recessions and times when an unscrupulous company could have fired people. A lot of people are asserting that companies and business owners are physically and psychologically incapable of anything except slitting throats at the earliest opportunity.
- kickout 4y ago
  I mean....what's a realistic split on this? 95/5 bad to good? If these unicorn companies exist those jobs are vanishingly rare because people wouldn't move, correct? Im 'young' and I don't know I would ever give a company the benefit of the doubt. Been screwed too many times

maxsilver 4y ago

> providing security for the business, the employees & the owner The problem is that everything you've described only provides stability for the owner, and no one else. There's zero reason for an employee to believe money in your bank account somehow provides for their security -- even if you are honest and ethical and magically choose to do it, no one else ever does -- there is no way a reasonable person can believe the owner is just going to keep them on through hard times, just out of the goodness of their heart.

unethical_ban 4y ago
>even if you are honest and ethical and magically choose to do it, no one else ever does That's right, literally no employer ever does right by their employees in tough times except for this one HN commenter. Or to put it non sarcastic, it's entirely possible for an employer not to be a bastard, even if it is less common than the opposite.
mythrwy 4y ago
Not only stability for the owner. Stability for the business. Which is where the money for salaries comes from. Owning a business for a number of years was a very eye opening experience and has made me a much better employee and I'm in agreement with OP.

bananamerica 4y ago

I don't think a lot of people expect small businesses to make up for a largely unequal and unfair economic system. That should be the an atribution of government and society as a whole.

sdwr 4y ago

Thanks, I mostly see the employee perspective here, good to see the perspective of an employer responsible for other people's stability.

irrational 4y ago

Or, you know, I could stay at the same company I’ve been working for for more than 20 years that pays me a hefty six figure salary and I maybe put in 30 hours of work a week.

reillyse 4y ago

As a business owner myself this is total nonsense. I proudly pay my staff well and I don't overwork them. Anything else is a choice and it's a choice that nearly always benefits you not your employees.

urthor 4y ago
Yes. Sounds like an unprofitable business where the owner refuses to accept reality that the work conditions are marginal because the business is marginal.
- howmayiannoyyou 4y ago
  Business cycles sensitivity = marginal business? Big cyclical reversion on its way that will test your theory wherever you are employed.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

strken 4y ago

I think busyness, work hours, productivity, and context switching are all conflated with each other. They're interrelated but not the same. When a lot of people talk about being busy, they're not so much saying "I had to do 50 hours of focused work this week," they're saying "I did 10 hours of focused work, because clients kept emailing me and we had a bunch of meetings, then our biggest customer's DB got corrupted for preventable reasons and we had to recover it, but we never test our restore process and so it all went wrong." This is touched on in the grey box side-note and elsewhere in the article. Writing software is not usually a factory floor job where hours worked is linearly correlated with output. Removing slack from your team (not the app, the "free time" that gets filled with urgent incoming tasks or maintenance work) has long-lasting consequences for everyone that may be counterproductive.

quickthrower2 4y ago

> My advice to the "don't be so busy" folks... get busy. Do a good job and tactfully take credit for it. Work hard and make sure your name is associated with results. If you are in a dysfunctional org this will be very hard to do. What you think is a great outcome can be overshadowed because in 500ms some higher up decided it was a shit outcome. And customer/boss is always right is the culture in general. You need to be busy on the right things. And the right thing might be brushing up the resume. Or it might be pulling an all nighter at the current job and bragging about it the next day. Or managing the manager. Or it might be giving yourself a break, by taking leave. But it is never clear, you just have to decide.

fritztastic 4y ago

People are expected to keep savings to weather through the lean times, and corporations should do the same- set up a fund to keep valued workers through lean times. From personal experience, you can do good work and still be laid off. I got laid off a couple months after the company's president gave himself a 5M bonus, fully aware a recession was ongoing and that measures would have to be taken. From my perspective many businesses are very happy to have people stick around to do the work with less pay, dur8ng good times they give the profits of this labor to the people at the top + shareholders and then when a downturn comes they trim off workers. They could have kept the people they laid off and paid everyone more if they'd (rather than giving bonuses to executives) put that money away for a rainy day. I don't see the benefit of having loyalty and working yourself to the bone when the people you're working for have lots of loyalty to the bottom line, themselves, and their investors, yet very little to the quality of life of the people who work under them. Sure, I'm willing to work crazy hours and do whatever needs to get done but I expect to be met halfway and be respected (preferrably properly compensated) for the sacrifices I'm willing to make for the work I do.

Mikeb85 4y ago

Or you maximise your income during good times, accept layoffs (vacation) during bad times, ride out the difference by being smart with money and making good investments, and in the end you've made the same money but had far more free time.