Bill Maher Slams The Idea Of 24/7 Employment

[Initech]

[jonno99]

1. K&R nt

[Warpy]

2. This is one of his best New Rules in a very long time.

I can't believe how work has expanded 24/7/365 for some people. First, it was pagers. Now it's smartphones, tableets, laptops, and other electronic shit that shackle people to work, sometimes not even respecting their time to sleep.

Back in the good old days, I was awakened by phone calls from overseas from people who didn't realize it's round, but I learned to unplug the phone at night. Now they fire you for turning the fucking thing off.

[awoke_in_2003]

4. Agreed on all counts...

I was startled when I saw something about 5 years ago that the average American worker works more hours per year than the average Japanese worker, who were generally know as compulsive workaholics. I love my iPhone, but I know how to turn it off or leave it at home. Hopefully, in the future, I will still be allowed to without someone swiping my job.

[Stonepounder]

12. When I started at Company ABC 20 years ago,

it was a high-tech company that sold medical software to hospitals. We were expected to rotate being 'on-call', since you really can't let a hospital go down just because the software hiccuped. On-call meant you were available 24x7 for the week. We got paid an extra 8 hours pay just for being on-call, and $35.00 for each after hours call we received. The $35.00 covered the first two hours of the call. If the call exceeded 2 hours, then we received another $35.00. (And if you were up most of the night working call and you staggered in late no one said a word, since we were salaried.)

Then the company was sold to XYZ. Suddenly there was NO on-call pay and you were on-call every other week. Still expected to be available 24x7. And one week I got a call about 10:00 in the evening that basically required me to rebuild their system from backups. Took me until 6:00am. I left a message at work that I was going to grab a couple of hours sleep and would be in about noon. I got chewed out for coming in so late and told that I didn't really need to have taken that much time for sleep!

Thank God I am now retired!

[Initech]

9. We need to bring back unions.

40 years of republicans slamming organized labor is what led to this. People are amazed at the play things Google has when you work there? They should be horrified! Bill Maher is right on this one - it's basically saying they own you and you live there.

[DirkGently]

3. I had the most vivid nightmare about the "Gig Economy"

a couple of years back. Running from one job to another via some kind of Blade Runner wrist computer thing that was always buzzing and blaring; living out of roach-infested hotels. Exhausted and frantic.

Strange, because I've always been lucky to have a salaried, largely 9-5 job. But when I first started to hear of employers trying to keep people "on call" 24/7 while only paying them for the precise hours they needed, I think something clicked in my head.

A new kind of wage slavery that is exactly what a certain segment of the corporate economy would like to see be the new reality for everyone.

[Initech]

5. I have a friend of mine who works in a downtown LA hospital like that.

He's pretty much on call 24 hours a day. Last time I saw him we were going to hang out and he showed up to the party wearing his scrubs because there was a possibility he was going to be called back to the hospital while we were out. My brother is a doctor and he's pretty much on call 24 hours a day. I can imagine that would suck.

[DirkGently]

7. I get the doctor thing for the most part.

We have one in the family, and my understanding is that they have days when they are off but "on call," and must be prepared to come in at any time, but also have regular days at work and regular days that are truly "off."

What's being attempted now in some places is keeping part-time workers in a kind of limbo where they can't commit to either off-hours enjoyment or even a second job, so that miserly employers can keep them part-time and benefit-less by only paying for work they need at whatever precise moment.

People can't live their lives that way, and shouldn't have to, in my opinion.

[Initech]

8. Yeah I agree.

[CrispyQ]

20. There need to be laws against that.

[Travis_0004]

10. Its kind of necessary in that line of work

I have a friend who is a nurse, and she has days where she is on call (and gets a small amount of pay while on call, and extra pay if she is called in).

Its kind of goes with that job though. A hospital can't tell people to come back tomorrow.

[Initech]

11. Yeah true.

Some jobs I can see that in. But others make no sense.

[RandySF]

6. The most heinous are the unspoken rules.

Where I work, those you are ready to answer the 1:00 a.m. emails by 1:30 are the first to be promoted.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

13. Some people do this all by themselves

All it takes is a couple losers with no life outside of work who go the extra mile because they have absolutely nothing else to do on a Saturday in July and everyone else thinks that is the standard they have to live up to.

We have two of those and they drive me crazy.

[Major Nikon]

14. Where I work, all of upper management is that way

The higher up the corporate ladder you go is inversely proportional to the amount of personal life you have. Many of them are perpetually divorced and do not date. I can only imagine what the home life is like for those who still have spouses and children at home. I have self-limited my promotion potential by how much of my soul I'm willing to sell to the company which is pretty much zero. I rarely answer work calls on my off time and I never check my work email. I don't stay late and I don't come in early. On my weekends you have a better chance of seeing a unicorn at work.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

26. There is a bit of that, but not much

We have a large operation in France which is nine hours ahead of us. Making yourself available when circumstances require is looked upon favorably of-course. But a few of the big shots here will be among the first to tell you to get a life and avail yourself of the travel opportunities that are available to you. When you take the young kids here and we're sending them to Europe, if they aren't taking some extra time while they're overseas we're going to look at them like their head is screwed on backwards.

[Efilroft Sul]

15. As I type this, my wife is desperately trying to plan a "sprint" for an 8:30 meeting.

It is now 1:30 in the morning, and this is an all-too-common occurrence in our house.

[Efilroft Sul]

17. 4:13, and she's still at it.

I still can't figure out if she answers to incompetents or assholes. I suppose they could be both.

[Skittles]

18. it sucks

I very often have to call people at 03:00 AM who I know will need to be at work in the morning

[Efilroft Sul]

28. That does suck.

So my wife not only stayed up all night and worked 13 hours, she turned around without sleep and put in nine hours at work. And, oh yes, she's sitting next to me at the dining room table doing more lousy salaried work.

For those keeping score, she's been up 37 hours and has worked more than 24 of them now.

[Behind the Aegis]

16. It is a sad state of affairs.

I have kvetched about this for years, especially recently with regards to my husband's work. They are now keeping track of their "overtime". I use quotes because it is not actually called overtime, nor are they compensated for it, but they have to keep track of it because the hope is they will be able to demonstrate to upper management the need for new personnel. The month of June, my husband logged 78 "overtime" hours! That is 8.6 extra days of work (he works nine hour days, and gets ever other Friday off). So, essentially, he worked a full 9-hour day, every day in the month of June except for two days! He worked 28 days out of 30! This weekend including his Friday "off", he worked a total of 18 hours.

A few months back, I was having a really tough time with some physical issues and I needed his attention. His phone kept going off. I flipped out and threatened to stamp it into oblivion if he answered it one more time. Wisely, he turned it off and waited for the meds to kick in and for me to pass out before turning it back on. I feel so sorry for him because he works so hard, but no raise for the past two years because the company hasn't been doing well; didn't stop upper management raises. Originally, he was on a team of eight. The company split and the team became four. One person left for a new job, then it was three. Finally, his other partner retired, and now it is just him, doing the work of 4 people.

I try to be supportive, but I really don't know what else to do.

[CrispyQ]

19. They put you on salary & give you an electronic leash.

No overtime or any compensation for giving them your private time. I left Whole Foods for this reason. I don't know about the stores, but the corporate office I worked in was a sweatshop. One night I figured out how many hours I was working & calculated what my hourly pay would be & I gave notice the next day.

[LittleGirl]

22. Good for you.

I did the same for my husband when he was constantly checking his mail or answering phone calls at all hours.

[LittleGirl]

21. This is one reason why we left the states

and moved to Europe. My husband was a stressed out mess because he could never 'shut off' work. He was so afraid of losing his job that he worked himself into health issues. We have been in Europe nearly 2 yrs and he's a new man. He never checks his email in the evenings or weekends or holidays and we are so much happier. You can't run people into the ground and expect them to perform. This is why we need unions again. I left an IT job for the same reasons. On call 24/7/365 and I had had enough. Overtime? What's that? I was salary and I said, nope. Not anymore.

The other reason we left? GUNS.

[CrispyQ]

23. Have you seen Michael Moore's movie, "Where to Invade Next?"

It's really good. He goes to Italy to discuss paid time off. He asked a young couple how much vacation time off they get & how much maternity leave they get. It was shocking! The woman said she's always wanted to come to America. She had this dreamy look on her face, like it must be such a fantastic place. Then Michael asked, "Do you know how many hours of vacation pay American companies are required to give their employees?" They shook their heads. "Zero," he said. You should have seen their faces.

Highly recommended.

And ditto on the guns. I'm so sick of our gun crazed culture. Glad you got out! If I were 30 years younger, I'd leave too.

[LittleGirl]

24. Yes!

We saw it in Zurich and it totally made me depressed for a week. I could not shake it. We're seriously considering moving to Italy in a couple of years. I'm working on my genealogy because I'm Italian and can get citizenship for it. Now that the UK voted out of the EU we have been discussing our next move. We've ruled out the UK.

[CrispyQ]

25. Europeans, the world, actually, must think we've gone off our rocker.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read: Dear World, We're not all crazy republicans. America

[LittleGirl]

27. I would so put that on my car bumper! eom

[Efilroft Sul]

29. I'd rec every post on this thread if I could.