4 ms·

In Norway there's laws for that, but other places do it even without them. You just retrain the person to do something else. He might take a job of a temp that

In Norway there's laws for that, but other places do it even without them. You just retrain the person to do something else. He might take a job of a temp that was hoping to get a fast contract (instead of a few weeks at a time during trial period). Other than that, it's good for the person (not losing job) but also for the company - you get a tried person with good work ethics that comes on time. It's not zero cost to find somebody like that.

fragmede 9mo ago
Yeah the bar for competent is surprising hard to hit. A human being that shows up on time and it's reliable, doesn't have a problem with drugs or alcohol, or has a sick family member and just needs an advance. Good help is hard to find!
- yamakadi 9mo ago
  I understand the rest, but an otherwise capable person with a sick family member does not clear the bar for competent? Saddening if that’s where we are as a society.
  - virtue3 9mo ago
    It’s hard for some people to understand that situation until they are in it. Unfortunately. Totally agree with you.
  - strken 9mo ago
    I think the key part of that sentence was "...and just needs an advance", implying that they're going to take the job, ask for a cash advance for a (possibly fictional) sick family member, and immediately quit.
- eloisant 9mo ago
  If you're only getting those kind of candidates, then your job offer isn't attractive enough.
  - red-iron-pine 9mo ago
    then the pendulum swings the other way and now I have ruthless mercenaries chasing $$$ who will jump at the first opportunity and not every job needs to be top-shelf. Betty in Accounts-Payable just sorta needs to be there and not screw up too often. I don't need a super-star, and if we have to move her to another part of Accounting that's fine; I'll save my money for a solid CPA or two, etc.
rincebrain 9mo ago
A lot of places in the US are not, in my experience, that intelligent about hiring people. Or, say rather, the externalities of the cost of hiring are not imposed on the people choosing to fire, directly, so they can say they "improved efficiency" by firing someone, and then the people trying to find reliable labor do not experience any improvement that might have been available by migrating the person.
- red-iron-pine 9mo ago
  agreed. the "lump of labour" fallacy is a thing -- the idea that there are always more bodies and that it's trivially easy to hire, train / get up to speed, and work them. in practice hiring and firing is expensive and often very risky. Bjorn the office worker may now be redundant and have a room temperature IQ but he's shown he'll show up on time, sober, and is liked by his coworkers enough, so throwing $5k to retrain him may be a far, far smarter investment then blowing $7k to hire a rando for another position...
_heimdall 9mo ago
Why do the laws exist if its better for (almost) everyone involved? Without the laws why would people not do it that way if its the better approach?
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- wafflemaker 9mo ago
  Norway has very strict pro-workers laws in general, it's just one facet of them. One Norwegian explained it to me like that: in the late '60 when Norwegian oil industry started developing, workers realized that they can incur great losses on the companies if they organize/unionize and strike together. They used that as a leverage to both change their contracts (to include paid sick leave and such) and also get better working conditions (Norwegian platforms have both better safety and on platform to on land ratio). And later other trades did the same. Some of the things in contracts trickled down to the law. But still some laws apply only to companies where at least a certain % (is it 50%?) are unionized. The general picture is more or less like that, but please verify the details.
- abdullahkhalids 9mo ago
  Many laws solve the problem of high initial cost dissuading globally good actions. Laws forcing everyone to buy insurance, for example. It's very easy to see that where such laws don't exist, almost no one buys insurance, making everyone worse off. This is also an example of the same kind of law.
  - _heimdall 9mo ago
    Insurance is an interesting example, I would have expected one that causes more direct harm to others like drunk driving. How are we all worse off when fewer people have insurance?
    - abdullahkhalids 9mo ago
      Think of something like home owner insurance. Your insurance rates depend on exactly how your home is built, what type of heating system it has, where it is, etc. The rates, carefully calculated by actuaries, act as a signal to you as to how dangerous your house is to yourself, but also to others. If you set your house on fire due to negligence and cause the next house to burn, you might be liable for damages there as well. Forcing everyone to buy such insurance forces everyone to fully pay for the expected cost of the danger inherent in their house. Over time, this causes houses to be constructed in a safer manner. If people are not forced to buy insurance, they don't buy it, and so this evolution over time does not happen. Also see [1]. Some financial tools are amazingly clever - whether they are morally good or bad. Bits about Money is a great blog to build insight into some of these constructions [2]. Another example for your initial question is car seats for kids. If you don't force em, nobody buys em. Then their kids die. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard [2] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

fragmede 9mo ago

Yeah the bar for competent is surprising hard to hit. A human being that shows up on time and it's reliable, doesn't have a problem with drugs or alcohol, or has a sick family member and just needs an advance. Good help is hard to find!

yamakadi 9mo ago
I understand the rest, but an otherwise capable person with a sick family member does not clear the bar for competent? Saddening if that’s where we are as a society.
- virtue3 9mo ago
  It’s hard for some people to understand that situation until they are in it. Unfortunately. Totally agree with you.
- strken 9mo ago
  I think the key part of that sentence was "...and just needs an advance", implying that they're going to take the job, ask for a cash advance for a (possibly fictional) sick family member, and immediately quit.
eloisant 9mo ago
If you're only getting those kind of candidates, then your job offer isn't attractive enough.
- red-iron-pine 9mo ago
  then the pendulum swings the other way and now I have ruthless mercenaries chasing $$$ who will jump at the first opportunity and not every job needs to be top-shelf. Betty in Accounts-Payable just sorta needs to be there and not screw up too often. I don't need a super-star, and if we have to move her to another part of Accounting that's fine; I'll save my money for a solid CPA or two, etc.

rincebrain 9mo ago

A lot of places in the US are not, in my experience, that intelligent about hiring people. Or, say rather, the externalities of the cost of hiring are not imposed on the people choosing to fire, directly, so they can say they "improved efficiency" by firing someone, and then the people trying to find reliable labor do not experience any improvement that might have been available by migrating the person.

red-iron-pine 9mo ago
agreed. the "lump of labour" fallacy is a thing -- the idea that there are always more bodies and that it's trivially easy to hire, train / get up to speed, and work them. in practice hiring and firing is expensive and often very risky. Bjorn the office worker may now be redundant and have a room temperature IQ but he's shown he'll show up on time, sober, and is liked by his coworkers enough, so throwing $5k to retrain him may be a far, far smarter investment then blowing $7k to hire a rando for another position...

_heimdall 9mo ago

Why do the laws exist if its better for (almost) everyone involved? Without the laws why would people not do it that way if its the better approach?

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
wafflemaker 9mo ago
Norway has very strict pro-workers laws in general, it's just one facet of them. One Norwegian explained it to me like that: in the late '60 when Norwegian oil industry started developing, workers realized that they can incur great losses on the companies if they organize/unionize and strike together. They used that as a leverage to both change their contracts (to include paid sick leave and such) and also get better working conditions (Norwegian platforms have both better safety and on platform to on land ratio). And later other trades did the same. Some of the things in contracts trickled down to the law. But still some laws apply only to companies where at least a certain % (is it 50%?) are unionized. The general picture is more or less like that, but please verify the details.
abdullahkhalids 9mo ago
Many laws solve the problem of high initial cost dissuading globally good actions. Laws forcing everyone to buy insurance, for example. It's very easy to see that where such laws don't exist, almost no one buys insurance, making everyone worse off. This is also an example of the same kind of law.
- _heimdall 9mo ago
  Insurance is an interesting example, I would have expected one that causes more direct harm to others like drunk driving. How are we all worse off when fewer people have insurance?
  - abdullahkhalids 9mo ago
    Think of something like home owner insurance. Your insurance rates depend on exactly how your home is built, what type of heating system it has, where it is, etc. The rates, carefully calculated by actuaries, act as a signal to you as to how dangerous your house is to yourself, but also to others. If you set your house on fire due to negligence and cause the next house to burn, you might be liable for damages there as well. Forcing everyone to buy such insurance forces everyone to fully pay for the expected cost of the danger inherent in their house. Over time, this causes houses to be constructed in a safer manner. If people are not forced to buy insurance, they don't buy it, and so this evolution over time does not happen. Also see [1]. Some financial tools are amazingly clever - whether they are morally good or bad. Bits about Money is a great blog to build insight into some of these constructions [2]. Another example for your initial question is car seats for kids. If you don't force em, nobody buys em. Then their kids die. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard [2] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]