Do you leave work behind when you physically move out of your workplace? Or do the texts, messages, emails keep pulling you back, monopolizing your life beyond work hours? Do you believe that this can get to a point where an individual eventually breaks down?
These questions were answered with a new French labour reform law enforced from January 1 2017. It requires French companies with more than 50 workers to guarantee their employees a "right to disconnect" from technology after office hours. Companies need to start discussions with employees to define their rights to ignore work related messages. If a deal cannot be reached, the company must publish a charter that would state the demands on, and rights of, employees out-of-hours.
[...] Other countries too have attempted to address the issue of out-of-office work stress. In Japan, Tokyo's governor has ordered strict monitoring of those working beyond 8pm. A German law forbids managers from contacting employees on vacation. South Korea, known for its gruelling work hours, launched a work-life balance campaign last year to encourage annual leaves.
But despite these examples, most remain skeptical of such a law being passed in other countries, especially the U.S., where long workweeks and foregone vacation time are the norm. In 2015, the French worked an average of 1,482 hours a year, while Americans worked about 1,790 hours. U.S. workers not just get less vacation time than their European counterparts but also end up using only 73% of it.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:41AM (15 children)
"Do you believe that this can get to a point where an individual eventually breaks down?"
I damned near did... I was called in as a consultant to rescue a failing IT project a few years ago. Worked my buns off, was basically on-call 24/7, even on vacation, I worked at least an hour a day (plus being on call). To give you an idea what was going on: this was a live system in use 24/7; the software vendor didn't use version control; I caught them developing on the live production system. I still use snippets of their software as bad coding examples in my first-year programming courses. It was a caricature, it was so unbelievably awful. But in the end, the CIO of our customer refused to spend the money to replace the vendor and their software, so the best we could do was to steer the project to an acceptable stable state where things stopped crashing and mostly worked. I hope I never come so close to a personal meltdown as I did in that project. So that's the bad side of 24/7 availability and never disconnecting.
But there's a good side too: flexibility. Coming out of that project, I've learned to mark out times when I am not reachable. But on my own schedule. Just as an example: yesterday was good weather, so I spent all morning on a garden project at home; I then worked for my employer all evening. That's a great trade-off, and I would hate to lose that kind of flexibility to some sort of bureaucratic regulation.
Is a legislative solution possible? How do you differentiate between employee abuse and flexibility? In the end, it wasn't my employer that drove me nuts on that horrible project - it was my personal sense of responsibility, me wanting to pull a successful project from the jaws of failure. I really don't see how you can regulate this kind of thing, beyond requiring official "on-call" time to be compensated.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:54AM (11 children)
But this is the problem. Employers abuse the workers because most employees have a sense of responsibility. That is the problem here. In a perfect world, where nobody wants to take advantage of you, this would be good. However, the world is not perfect. Driving business means making profit. And profit, for many "big bosses", is the keyword, regardless any other considerations. If you go under, then there are others to replace you...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:11AM (5 children)
How about we use judgment then? My problem with using government to protect ourselves from slightly abusive employers, is who will in turn protect us from the government? If people aren't willing to protect themselves from the above common employer problems, then how willing will they be to protect themselves from a police state?
We're creating countries chock full of lambs. You can't run a democracy on that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:30AM
Why do you need government if you don't benefit from it then?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by UncleSlacky on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:33AM (3 children)
Some form of union would seem to be in order, then - unless you're against those as well, of course...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:30PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:00PM (1 child)
Methinks you need to ponder more about the origin of the word "union".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:49PM
No, I don't need to. The existence of a labor union doesn't preclude other labor unions with different interests and representing different groups.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:27AM (3 children)
This has not been my experience. In the skilled trades and tech I've found it to be true but working unskilled jobs it most assuredly was not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:40AM (2 children)
I think that fact has more to do with perceived worth by the employee. When you feel lime an unappreciated cog it can be easy to stop caring. If you feel valued, and decent pay is a necessary component of this, then often you get better employee attitudes. It is in part a cultural problem as well with claddism being a major problem. Humans evolve, physically and culturally. I feel the west is more evolved than the old (yet still around) caste system of India, but there is lots of room for improvement. The "boss" title means that person is a facilitator, not some superior being. The coders code, bosses handle project management, the foremen keep things on track and safe, etc. No need for bossman the supreme leader. In fact, bossman is often a point of morale failure when employees realize its just a dude in a suit who often provides less value than they do.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:52AM (1 child)
That's a partial answer. The complete answer also includes that those who actually care about the quality of their work and the success of their company tend to be promoted more often than those who don't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:06PM
That has not been my experience. Most often, those who actually care about the quality of their work are easily surpassed by those who dabble shiny trinkets instead -- both on the operational level and in management.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:13PM
Feudalism sucks, doesn't it? I donno how this brainwashing works, but the serfs have this weird sense of loyalty to their abuser. Like a battered wife sticking to her husband. Actually its like sports nerds going insane about some team they don't own and have no financial or managerial control over yet they ally themselves anyway as if their slavish devotion actually matters.
Contract work is a little different. Extreme pride in my product, I know I make the best stuff possible under the known constraints. But, a fair days wage for a a fair days work. Do I care if the boss sent an email at 10pm about the new dress code for the employees (not me)? Not just no, "F no". Whereas the feudal serfs compete to see who can kiss up the most in a response email at 11pm. I'm just not involved in their sick game.
The extreme of contract work is the building trades. The licensed electrician who did the 3-phase wiring at the mini-datacenter I used to work at, really didn't care if the IT manager was an asshole or not. Frankly I didn't either. Sign my work order, you can expect a FAX/email invoice tomorrow morning, see ya.
Abusive bullies are a different problem, I've noticed over the decades that they need to pound on someone but it certainly doesn't have to be you. If you don't play along with their twisted game they'll get pissed off for a little while or maybe get rid of you, but one way or another if you stop playing the game then you're out of the game, which was what you want. Another interesting less active way to deal with bullies is passive aggressive. Its 10pm on Tuesday and he's screaming, I can let him scream all night I don't give a F, pass me another beer and some popcorn, this is fun to watch. I've noticed screamers who think they're hot stuff in the business world would be the wimpiest beta drill sergeants you can imagine, "business world intimidating" level means nothing to me, it makes me laugh. If you sound like a wimpy beta nu-male parody of "Full Metal Jacket" then at least some of your employees are laughing and probably triggering you for fun, I know I used to trigger people like that for fun. Go active, go passive, whatever you do, don't mindlessly react like they expect.
Manage your boss. Or else.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:04AM (1 child)
He spent two decades working for the same company, finally had a mental breakdown with 2x-3x the amount of vacation time he was allowed to carry according to company policy (they'd kept pushing it back because he was needed for new/failing projects.) He was a couple of years out from his next sabbatical and not nearly as young as during his last one. One day he just came home from work because he wasn't getting anything done. Took a week off. Went back in for a day or two. Then told them 'I need to use the rest of my vacation days, and by the way, I am retiring.' He went back in a few times after they begged him, but he was well and truly broken.
He hasn't done anything related to that former career path in 20 years now. His replacement career has started following a similiar decline, only now he's too old to find something else to do. He is at least financially set for a few more years, but unlike similiar opportunities for myself, hard work like that just doesn't pay very well, especially at the same company nowadays. And he was even getting underpaid for quite a few years due to lack of degrees (But guess who they kept nagging to train all the n00bs with degrees who were making the same or more than him those first 10 years...)
Anyway the only solution nowadays is to find a way to stop playing the 9-5 game, and either work for yourself, a company/group of individuals you believe in, or give up. Because working corporate isn't going to get you a retirement, even by 70, and nowadays might not even get you a house you can hold onto financially until retirement.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:09AM
That was always the solution. Being a 9-5er at a company you don't give a damn about was never going to get you ahead. Nor was it supposed to. At best it was supposed to be put you at lower-middle class and keep you there for life, assuming you saved for retirement instead of living paycheck to paycheck.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:31PM
Friends don't let friends do that kind of stuff... your peers should have said "F that place, sign a contract here with us". I mean, yeah if its 2001 and dotcom meltdown and they're sitting at home watching Oprah on daytime TV then they have an excuse, but ...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:35AM (21 children)
We really need to stop comparing ourselves to Europe. We are not socialists over here, we're crony-capitalists wishing we were just capitalists.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by UncleSlacky on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:41AM (17 children)
There are no socialist countries in Europe - social democracy != socialist.
They are all capitalist economies, i.e. the workers do not control the means of production.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:53AM (16 children)
If it has the word "social" in the name, that should be a clue to you.
Also, workers never control the means of production in any socialist country. The government does. You're halfway there now. Give it another twenty to fifty years and you'll be entirely socialist. Give it another fifty and you'll be struggling to put food on your plates.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by UncleSlacky on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:04AM (12 children)
You're using the American definition of socialist, i.e. ""Socialism is when the government does stuff and more stuff it does the socialister it is".
Here's a clue, the only shared aspect of all forms of actual socialism is the worker control of the means of production. Lots of countries call themselves (or are called by Americans) socialist, it doesn't make it so. If every country were as described by its title, the DPRK would really be democratic.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:15AM (11 children)
Name a nation that mandated that workers control the means of production without, and this is important, taking that job over itself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:44AM (5 children)
Ugh go away already. Your hard line capitalist / libertarian stance is old and boring. Only slightly less spammy than the violently imposed monopoly troll.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:48AM (3 children)
Yeah, that's what I thought. Don't come at me unprepared again.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:31PM
Did you miss the part where the economies aren't socialist?
Your insights really are tired and worn-out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:33PM (1 child)
I think someone should look into the moderation on your comments. Seems like you get upmodded for the trashiest comments.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:58PM
We don't police moderations except to see that mod-bombs don't happen and Spam isn't abused. Would you like us to? Bearing in mind I'm almost always the one doing what little policing we actually do, unless it involves me. Myself, I'd rather trust our widely varied community to work it out in the end through moderations.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:22PM
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:12PM
I actually can't even do this, without that addendum. This certainly doesn't apply to European countries. Maybe Cuba, Uruguay, China or something, but not to European countries.
We're called social because of universal healthcare, safety nets for the poor, sick, unfortunate, progressive percentage based tax income, stuff like that. (Low incomes pay X%, high incomes pay Y% on their income, where X Y) Not because we would have something else than capitalism running our economy.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:56PM (3 children)
Name a nation that mandated that workers control the means of production without, and this is important, taking that job over itself.
Why?
That's like arguing the definition of "Scottish" because you can't name a Scottish guy who's been the President of the US. Being president isn't required to be Scottish.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:00PM (2 children)
The government not taking over control of means of production is, however, necessary to distinguish communism from socialism. Unless you think they're the same?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:24PM (1 child)
Oh please...
Communism [wikipedia.org] - socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.
Socialism [wikipedia.org] - characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production [..] Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective, or cooperative ownership
In pure communism, there is no such thing as "the government". And public ownership, like stock markets and all that, is perfectly compatible with socialist markets. Which one did you think was all about "government taking over control of production"?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 25 2017, @01:24AM
There's also no such thing as pure communism. Ditto pure socialism. They are unicorns unicorn. Never have and never will exist on a national scale. Let us instead speak of the communist and socialist governments that have actually existed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:16PM
Yeah, because titles always mean what they say. That's why China is a Republic and North Korea is a Democracy.
You need to be smarter than your brainwashing.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:18PM (1 child)
I'm always surprised by how rabidly opposed to anything affiliated with the word "social" (some) Americans seem to be.
Is the USA really that proud of being anti-social?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:02PM
For most of its history, yes. We've preferred individual liberty over the illusion of collective security.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:40PM (2 children)
There's also a wider range of "human biological differences" here than in 60s Europe, although recently Europe is on this self-destructive path to annihilation.
The point being we NEED more prisons because of who lives here, and this kind of costs extend thru all of society making many "traditional euro" things unaffordable here.
Once Europe fully and completely becomes "North Syria" both in religion, culture, lifestyle, race, economy, government, then its social services will resemble "South Syria" because obviously it IS syria, merely a piece broken off and geographically moved. And no one is jealous of the social programs in "South Syria". So that problem will kinda take care of itself in the long run. If 40% of the kids in europe are foreign born today, and the polticians only allow that to ratchet upward, Europe is over by mid century, conquered.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:34PM (1 child)
I find your "North Syria" comment to be somewhat over the top, but I'd like to counter it with this observation: The military intervention by the USA (and other Western nations) in attempting to democratise countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan could equally be described as turning the Middle East into "Mid-Eastern America".
I don't follow your point of "we NEED more prisons because of who lives here". (I can't recall where you're located.) More than where? And why is there such a need? Could you elaborate?
(Score: 3, Informative) by UncleSlacky on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:49PM
Ironically, North Syria is where you'll find the nearest thing we currently have to an actual socialist economy, Rojava:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @09:01AM (2 children)
Here's my advice for a happy work life. Your mileage may vary.
If you can honestly excel at something, then do so and demand excellent compensation and conditions in return for excellent performance. The conditions you set should include reasonable accommodation of your lifestyle. Because my desires were quite modest, this was easy.
I'm retired, living modestly but quite happily happily. I worked hard for 40 years in a number of jobs, and always made a point of putting myself and my family first. I changed fields several times to reflect market changes and my own interests. I always took my vacations, and with good financial planning I was always in a position to tell a bad boss or company to go to hell. This transcended many boom-bust economic cycles and technological disruptions.
Almost everyone is really good at something. It doesn't have to be cool or sexy, unless superficial status is your thing. I was just a common industrial automation engineer, but I was damned good at it and found jobs where excellence was needed and appreciated. When it seemed time to move on, I did. Because I could. Anyone can. You just need to make up your mind to it.
Don't let the economy or changes in your field drive you. Roll with it, and just do what you do best. Don't sell yourself short. It's a big world, and somewhere, someone is willing to compensate you well for doing what they need. Be selective of opportunities and wherever possible negotiate your terms. Life is too short to piss it away on being miserable. Be the Pro From Dover at whatever you're best at. You owe it to yourself. You'll be happier for it.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:14PM
You'd like to marry a cute little girl or two, but have set those desires aside and while your burning to death say "this is ok, everything is fine, being ruled by women is fine, kill paedos"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:34PM
"I was just a common industrial automation engineer..."
So you're the reason rock stars in so many fields can't find good jobs anymore! :-)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:49AM
I don't know about special laws being necessary, but being unavailable while not in the office works very well for me, thank you.
All I need is the contract of employment - the law between myself and the employer - it doesn't contain anything about being available outside office hours. If it did, I would have barred/stroke out those provisions and returned the contract as a sign it need further negotiation.
Fortunately, that wasn't necessary after the first conversation over the phone with HR (this followed after 5 interviews spanning over 2 months and a half).
Ah, well, the entire 1.5 year of stayed unemployed before this job wasn't particularly enjoyable (not for the whole duration of it), but seems it was worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:56PM
I wonder how this is going to work at global companies like Renault? They also own Nissan which has design centers in Japan (possibly China?) and the USA. Engineering and product testing goes on 24 hours a day (not sure about weekends) as CAD and other engineering data is passed around the time zones. I'm sure that questions arise at all sorts of non-working hours for the French employees.
As an aside, when this started it was a big surprise for some of the software tool companies. All of a sudden they discovered that their support desks were busy round the clock as networked software licenses were moved around the world. One license can be used nearly 24 hours a day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:26PM
I maintain a strict policy of reciprocity:
- The company treats me well? I treat it well!
- The company shows flexibility when dealing with me? I am flexible when the company asks me to!
- The company gives you 2 weeks when they fire you? I will give it two weeks when I quit!
- The company is reasonable? So am i!
But if the company doesn't, then the variables change:
- The company asks flexibility, but doesn't give it? Neither do I!
- The company tells your coworkers to pack their shit and go right now when they fire them? When I quit, I will give you 1 minute notice!
- The company is unreasonable? I mimic its behavior.
- Oh, and when this is the case, when I'm off-duty (i.e. anything more than 40hr/week, namely what you really pay me for ... and I am aware of the whole W-2 exempt thing, but let's be serious now), I do not answer the phone, I do not check company mail, I am unavailable to you.
People need to grow a bit more backbone and actually stand up for themselves instead of bending over, accepting the cactus in their asshole and asking "may I have another one, sir?"
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:09PM
Most of the time I've been a contract programmer, I never really could leave work. I ended up in the emergency room, hallucinating police everywhere.
Presently I use thunderbird and POP for my work mail, with a web browser and gmail for my work mail. By consciously deciding not to launch thunderbird except for when I am on-site at my client's, I'm mostly able to forget about work.
If it's real important they could call me. They haven't yet. There's nothing I'm working on that really demands immediate response.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]