10 ms·

With getting no overtime, no time off in lieu, and managers perpetually confusing a 'problem' with an 'emergency', I'm glad to see this happen. If it will actua

With getting no overtime, no time off in lieu, and managers perpetually confusing a 'problem' with an 'emergency', I'm glad to see this happen. If it will actually make a difference though, I'm yet to be convinced.

guidedlight 2y ago
It will be most interesting how this applies to teachers, who often have to prepare lessons and mark work outside of hours.
- Yodel0914 2y ago
  The teacher situation is strange. One the one hand, they often do seem to work outside of school hours on lesson prep and marking. On the other hand, they generally don't work during school holidays (12 weeks/yr). Also, given that most school days here are ~9am to ~3pm, I wonder how much of that "after hours" work actually falls within the standard 40hr work week.
  - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    Like most things, there's a gaping chasm of variance between teachers that are phoning it in and teachers that want to engage their students in learning. I know a teacher who leaves for work at 6:30am, gets home after 5:30pm most nights, cooks dinner for the family, and spends the rest of her evening marking work and preparing lesson plans for the next few days. Then there's preparing reports, which is like a 6-week lead-time task in addition. During holidays she's definitely more relaxed, but still spends an absolute sh*tload of time preparing lessons for next term. She's specifically on one end of the spectrum, but that's also what it takes to get a class of up to 30 students to actually pay attention and make some worthwhile progress at their schooling. She chooses it though, she loves it, she lives for it. I couldn't do it to that degree without going insane.
    - Yodel0914 2y ago
      That's amazing, but all-too rare. I think teachers have a very tough job, and many (most?) of them are not very good it at. My kids have had teachers who constantly shift assignment due dates because they're not ready, half-arse their lesson planning and tell the kids to do the rest at home, and are generally unable to manage a classroom.
      - coldpie 2y ago
        > That's amazing, but all-too rare. No, it's abusive and indicative of a failing system. We should not be celebrating overwork. If a system needs its workers to be doing double- or triple-time to function at the desired level, then the system is not working well and is on its way to failure.
        BLKNSLVR 2y ago
        I actually think it's both. She would spend that amount of time anyway, because "it's what she does". It would be possible to achieve 90% of her results with maybe 70% of the time and effort that she puts in. But even at 70% it still would run into non-trivial "enforced overtime".
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      I think it's also a lot more work for new teachers since they can't reuse lesson plans. I think it's probably quite possible after a few years to be a good teacher and also not spend all your free time marking and preparing lesson plans... but it's still hard work and underpaid. I'll stick with my overpaid and stress free programming job, thanks!
      - Der_Einzige 2y ago
        A lot of assignments can be partially machine graded, even if they think they can’t be. Teachers are usually luddites though…
        2y ago
  - sethammons 2y ago
    As a math teacher in the states some years back, I worked 6:30 am to 4pm in the building and from and a couple hours most evenings and usually 3-6 hours both days of the weekend. 70+ hours a week. Any holiday was spent catching up on grading. I often recruited my wife to help grade it was so overwhelming. And summer meant trainings and summer school otherwise the summer was unpaid and as a teacher we desperately needed the money. All in, I averaged three separate weeks (one at Christmas, and one week on either side of summer) a year of stay-cation since we could barely afford food let alone travel. When I transitioned to software, I nearly cut my hours in half and doubled my pay, nearly 4x-ing my effective hourly wage and had my first real vacation; heck, my first time on a plane even.
  - notatoad 2y ago
    a 9-3 school day for students means an 8-4 work day for teachers, minimum. that eats up the 40hr week right there, even for a teacher working the bare minimum.
- stubish 2y ago
  This isn't addressing unpaid hours, just the expectation than your boss or coworkers can communicate with you after hours. Unpaid hours is already illegal. How to enforce that in the education system without it collapsing is the open question.
girvo 2y ago
I mean the FWC can straight up fine the company, and in general our commissions & ombudsmans are pretty decently run. It'll have an effect, I'm sure.
- Prcmaker 2y ago
  I would like to see that happen, however, the current available guidance from FWC is worded very with a vast deal of of flexibility in it, and is highly open to interpretation. A manager may, in theory, decide any person responsible for any task may be contacted outside of hours. I've not seen anything truly restrictive.
seoulmetro 2y ago
Australia doesn't have a problem with people doing work outside work hours... not even close. That's why this was so easy to pass. That's not to say that there will never be exceptions against the laws.
BLKNSLVR 2y ago
> managers perpetually confusing a 'problem' with an 'emergency' I'm working on a theory around "organisational ADHD". Based on 20 years of experience in, basically, "today's problem always overrules yesterday's priority" and how this negatively affects efficiency, quality, and throughput of an organisation. And that this behaviour is generally created, encouraged, and facilitated by (bad / immature) management, who should be doing, essentially, the opposite.

guidedlight 2y ago

It will be most interesting how this applies to teachers, who often have to prepare lessons and mark work outside of hours.

Yodel0914 2y ago
The teacher situation is strange. One the one hand, they often do seem to work outside of school hours on lesson prep and marking. On the other hand, they generally don't work during school holidays (12 weeks/yr). Also, given that most school days here are ~9am to ~3pm, I wonder how much of that "after hours" work actually falls within the standard 40hr work week.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  Like most things, there's a gaping chasm of variance between teachers that are phoning it in and teachers that want to engage their students in learning. I know a teacher who leaves for work at 6:30am, gets home after 5:30pm most nights, cooks dinner for the family, and spends the rest of her evening marking work and preparing lesson plans for the next few days. Then there's preparing reports, which is like a 6-week lead-time task in addition. During holidays she's definitely more relaxed, but still spends an absolute sh*tload of time preparing lessons for next term. She's specifically on one end of the spectrum, but that's also what it takes to get a class of up to 30 students to actually pay attention and make some worthwhile progress at their schooling. She chooses it though, she loves it, she lives for it. I couldn't do it to that degree without going insane.
  - Yodel0914 2y ago
    That's amazing, but all-too rare. I think teachers have a very tough job, and many (most?) of them are not very good it at. My kids have had teachers who constantly shift assignment due dates because they're not ready, half-arse their lesson planning and tell the kids to do the rest at home, and are generally unable to manage a classroom.
    - coldpie 2y ago
      > That's amazing, but all-too rare. No, it's abusive and indicative of a failing system. We should not be celebrating overwork. If a system needs its workers to be doing double- or triple-time to function at the desired level, then the system is not working well and is on its way to failure.
      - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
        I actually think it's both. She would spend that amount of time anyway, because "it's what she does". It would be possible to achieve 90% of her results with maybe 70% of the time and effort that she puts in. But even at 70% it still would run into non-trivial "enforced overtime".
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    I think it's also a lot more work for new teachers since they can't reuse lesson plans. I think it's probably quite possible after a few years to be a good teacher and also not spend all your free time marking and preparing lesson plans... but it's still hard work and underpaid. I'll stick with my overpaid and stress free programming job, thanks!
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      A lot of assignments can be partially machine graded, even if they think they can’t be. Teachers are usually luddites though…
      - 2y ago
- sethammons 2y ago
  As a math teacher in the states some years back, I worked 6:30 am to 4pm in the building and from and a couple hours most evenings and usually 3-6 hours both days of the weekend. 70+ hours a week. Any holiday was spent catching up on grading. I often recruited my wife to help grade it was so overwhelming. And summer meant trainings and summer school otherwise the summer was unpaid and as a teacher we desperately needed the money. All in, I averaged three separate weeks (one at Christmas, and one week on either side of summer) a year of stay-cation since we could barely afford food let alone travel. When I transitioned to software, I nearly cut my hours in half and doubled my pay, nearly 4x-ing my effective hourly wage and had my first real vacation; heck, my first time on a plane even.
- notatoad 2y ago
  a 9-3 school day for students means an 8-4 work day for teachers, minimum. that eats up the 40hr week right there, even for a teacher working the bare minimum.
stubish 2y ago
This isn't addressing unpaid hours, just the expectation than your boss or coworkers can communicate with you after hours. Unpaid hours is already illegal. How to enforce that in the education system without it collapsing is the open question.

girvo 2y ago

I mean the FWC can straight up fine the company, and in general our commissions & ombudsmans are pretty decently run. It'll have an effect, I'm sure.

Prcmaker 2y ago
I would like to see that happen, however, the current available guidance from FWC is worded very with a vast deal of of flexibility in it, and is highly open to interpretation. A manager may, in theory, decide any person responsible for any task may be contacted outside of hours. I've not seen anything truly restrictive.

seoulmetro 2y ago

Australia doesn't have a problem with people doing work outside work hours... not even close. That's why this was so easy to pass. That's not to say that there will never be exceptions against the laws.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago

> managers perpetually confusing a 'problem' with an 'emergency' I'm working on a theory around "organisational ADHD". Based on 20 years of experience in, basically, "today's problem always overrules yesterday's priority" and how this negatively affects efficiency, quality, and throughput of an organisation. And that this behaviour is generally created, encouraged, and facilitated by (bad / immature) management, who should be doing, essentially, the opposite.