andrewducker | Interesting Links for 31-07-2022

From:

3. FFS! Solidarity, people. Let's just all do our jobs for the workday and knock off on time and have a life. We're not getting the rewards of business owners, there's no reason for us to do extra. Latterly, I'll even include "own learning in own time" as a probable "no". Eyes, brain, body, nervous system can only do so much in a week long term and it's pretty much the std 40hrs.

I've done this my entire work life - until maybe now. I will / have stopped. Am seriously thinking of new job

From:

adrian_turtle

Labor organizers call it "work to rule." It's a less extreme tactic than a walkout, or even a "sick-out" (where everyone calls in sick at the same time one day.) When done with enough solidarity, it can push exploitive bosses to negotiate better conditions. If only a few people act, it's kind of useless.

From:

channelpenguin

It should not be a "tactic", it should be just how work is. I don't trust bosses on renegotiation of conditions, who have proven to ignore the provisions of the original employment contract(s).

Ok yeah, the odd bit extra work is ok - IF the compensatory time off is prompt (same week). IF it's only seldom. IF there is genuine, respectful give and take.

But chronic understaffing and bad contingency planning by management are not my problem. (Unless I AM management).

Preserving my own health and, actually, my consistent longer term work performance, are not at all useless.

From:

jducoeur

Hear, hear.

Way back around 2000, there was a new idea in software engineering called Extreme Programming. That got picked up by the management consultants and turned into Agile, with all the less management-friendly edges sanded off, but the original version was better, at least for programmers.

One of the rules of XP was that you should work a 40-hour week -- no less and no more. A hard and fast principle of XP was that routine overtime was viewed as a process break, and indicated that you were doing it wrong.

I've taken that and tried to mostly live by it ever since. There are lots of good reasons to maintain work-life balance, and I am extremely frank with employers that, if crunches happen more than rarely, that's an indication of bad management and I will not support it. I've become deeply intolerant of companies that say things like "we want everyone to be giving 150%!", as if that is a good thing.

From:

channelpenguin

Hear hear.

(I'm also older than XP. We were part of the DSDM in the early 90s ..)

From:

danieldwilliam

I don't think it is a work to rule exactly.

Work to rule is when you work exactly to the rule book - even if the rule book is a bit daft - in the hope that working exactly to the rule causes the employer lost of problems so they are forced to recognise that the workforce is providing some good will. So if the rule in a paint factory says "work stops when the factory hooter sounds" you down tools exactly when the hooter sounds and if that means a big batch of paint that was going to be properly finished in the next 5 minutes is ruined then, so be it.

What I think quiet quitting means is someone who was habitually working over and above their agreed work just deciding to do what they are contracted for. So if I'm paid 9-5 I work 9-5 and I leave at 5pm.

I think they are a bit different.

From:

bens_dad

1. Request denied.

From:

andrewducker

Huh, odd. Just tried it in a fresh browser and it worked for me.

From:

rhythmaning

It worked fine for me.

From:

bens_dad

Works ok in a different firefox profile. Must be something in my web defences: adblocker, cookie blocker, Privacy Badger etc.

The error was:

Request denied.

You do not have permission to access this page.

Find out why you may have encountered this error, or let us know if the problem persists. Include your IP address and a short description of what you were doing when you encountered the rate limit.

"No permission" and "rate limited" aren't really the same thing. I wonder whether my browser failed to identify me or tried too often ?

From:

andrewducker

Interesting! I'm curious, but I suspect they won't tell us how their defences work.

From:

danieldwilliam

Surely Orang Utans have already got more than an average amount of arms.

From:

bens_dad

I used to think it was a no-brainer that most people have more than the average number of fingers ...
then my son was born with an extra thumb and I realized that the mode was not the max.

(I am not claiming that the average person does not have more than the mean number of fingers,
just that the data may not be what you thought.)

From:

danieldwilliam

I am certainly in a quiet quitting frame of mind again the moment.

From:

andrewducker

I'm glad you're not overworking yourself.

To be clear, I don't mind working occasional extra hours when something vital needs to happen. But not if management clearly understaffed us assuming we'd work extra hard to cover things, or if they've invented deadlines out of thin air and then expect us to hit them to make them look good.

From:

danieldwilliam

The EU ban on GM crops is one of the worst bits of legislation I can think of. Up there with Prohibition.

From:

channelpenguin

I'd forgotten there was one. It's ludicrous.

It would be totally possible to legislate against predatory behaviour by agri-tech without a blanket ban.

Edited Date: 2022-07-31 03:14 pm (UTC)

From:

andrewducker

Agreed. I'm against some of Monsanto's business practices. But not GM crops in general.

From:

ninetydegrees

Hear, hear especially since there's no ban on importing any.

From:

nickys

Why so?
The trouble with GM crops isn't that they're Scary Mad Science (TM), it's that large companies hold a patent on staple foods and can deny people the right to grow food for their families.
A lot of GM crops are designed so poor farmers have to buy new seeds each year rather than re-seed from last year's crop. This is inevitably going to increase exploitation and poverty.
So the EU refusing to provide a market for them is going to mean that poorer people are not going to be forced into growing them and ending up worse off.

From:

danieldwilliam

I think there are ways of addressing the very real concerns about how capitalist organisations are behaving without restricting the EU's ability to use GM crops or to develop GM crops within the EU.

I think we (for a given value of we) are certainly reducing the amount of useful R&D in this area through these restrictions and probably handing over significant technological, commercial and ethical space to other economies.

It's a little like Prohibition, in that, the EU is sort of handing over regulation of how GM crops are developed to people who are not incentivised to obey EU regulations - by virtue of them being foreign with no commercial downside for not obeying them.

From:

snippy

3. The problem is that employers want to use the standard of someone who is both an outlier in natural energy & application and willingness to use those attributes for their job to create the default expectation for all potential employees. Frequently those outlier people don't even realize, or acknowledge, that they are outliers.

I'm disabled enough that it's hard in multiple ways to work a 40-hour job, but my employer doesn't know because all the rest of my time is spent buffing myself up to return to work. If the norm in the US were less onerous I would benefit.

From:

danieldwilliam

I like this way of framing the problem and I agree.

As an example, I'm quite personally ambitious, so I often put emotional energy in to my work. I care about the success of the organisation and behave as if it were important to me. Which I think is more than most employers have bargained for with most employees - who are after all alienated from their own labour by the capitalist system.

I expect to be handsomely rewarded for my care and the outcomes that arise from my care. I think it's perfectly reasonable that people who are not paid to care just to their job and get paid their wage.

From:

andrewducker

Agreed. And also, it comes and goes in phases. I've been more dedicated to my employers at points when I had less small children and hadn't been in the midst of being made redundant for three years (so far).

But I am also older, and more understanding of my limitations. I've worked on projects where I was in every Saturday and alternate Sundays for three months to get a project finished. I know that it completely burned me out for about three months afterwards, and I wasn't fully productive for another three after that. So I won't be doing that again unless my work is actively lifesaving. The occasional hour or two of extra time to get something fixed is within my capability, on the other hand, and so I don't mind doing that if a server falls over at the weekend, or someone breaks something and it would be a bad idea to leave it broken until the following day.

From:

danieldwilliam

The phasing thing is important to remember.

From:

andrewducker

Yup. And it's very situational. I'm definitely looking to make sure that my next job is with people who actively *want* to have a solid software development side, and believe that they're worth investing in. Working somewhere where we're seen as useful, rather than just a cost to be minimised, would do a lot for my engagement.

From:

snippy

I support your desire to be rewarded in excess of the average for your work in excess of the average. What I object to is employers either or both of (1) expecting to have all their employees at your level while only paying average market compensation; (2) judging all employees by your standard when it is not required to do the job. E.g., I am a legal secretary. There is literally nothing in my average day that requires working my hardest; only occasional days require that, and I also have some slack time most weeks. Trying to add more work to my desk so that I am working my hardest every day will result in me quitting before I burn out, not in working my hardest every day.

From:

danieldwilliam

100% agree.

From:

bens_dad

8. I would approve of giving guns to wild orangutans, except that
a) they might shoot each other, and
b) I'm sure that some people with guns would shoot the orangutans to get more guns ...

From:

andrewducker

I am mostly approving of giving them water pistols...

From:

danieldwilliam

I wonder if there are other ways we could weaponise orang utans for fun and profit.

I reckon once they got the hang of firearms they'd be pretty fierce.

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Interesting Links for 31-07-2022

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