Euclid But regular employees are just too pampered with empowerment to turn loose to work at home.
But regular employees are just too pampered with empowerment to turn loose to work at home.
You MUST be in mid-level to upper management.
Nice to know that's what you think of us.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70DudeYou MUST be in mid-level to upper management.
I hope he is, but I have my doubts.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmann SD70Dude You MUST be in mid-level to upper management. I hope he is, but I have my doubts.
SD70Dude You MUST be in mid-level to upper management.
Maybe he actually works for a railroad.
Suddenly everything is starting to make sense.
SD70DudeMaybe he actually works for a railroad.
I think he's just an automated bot Kalmbach installed.
I agree with Euclid. Working from home is not productive at all... I believe people will be paid piecemeal for work done .
Students are worse. It won't be like a regular Semester.. it will be spread out all over the place. There is very poor discipline with students far too much of the same work showing up multiple times, copying, or someone else ( the girlfriend/boyfriend) doing the work.
We have to do 4 Field Schools and 6 Labs all in one year now instead of 2. That will require their presence and there will be a traffic jam of time with all the other instructors facing the same. With weather considerations this is a real problem up here.
Every Sunday at midnight I get a huge in rush of emails and questions almost always things that I posted answers to the previous week.
"Must have gone to my junk folder" is the most common story.
The usual come to class model has to be thrown out.. the years will have to be spread out with individuals proceeeding at their own pace and scheduled times for Field Schools that you can jump in on whenever you want.
charlie hebdo I think you are mostly wrong. I think the need for a physical structure for offices will be much less, as in many fields the work is on computers and/or online anyway. Business travel will also be less needed. You subscribe to out-of-date notions of management.
I think you are mostly wrong. I think the need for a physical structure for offices will be much less, as in many fields the work is on computers and/or online anyway. Business travel will also be less needed. You subscribe to out-of-date notions of management.
There may not be a need for physical structure of a formal office, but what is needed is the sense that somebody is watching to make sure the company gets a day's worth of work out of employees. You don't have to believe me. I am just predicting that companies will find this out on their own and they will act accordingly. This will be because the massive amount of working at home during this pandemic will provide the eye-popping data showing the lack of efficiency.
You may think management notions are out of date, but I can assure you that management does not see a day's work for a day's pay as an outdated notion. But they don't want to take the time to micromanage this in the workplace. So they just figure if they can see your face at your work station, they are getting some productivity. I have read articles saying that companies have found that letting people work from home gives the company about one hour per day of work for 8 hours pay.
People rationalize that they are allowed to be home, they are on the clock from starting time to quitting time, and because they are allowed to be at home, they are allowed to do all the home things on the clock. These are things like cleaning the house and running errands.
I think working at home can be very effective for business. It should save money for the company. But there needs to be discipline and accountability for the performance of work. That is why I think the solution to take advantage of this efficiency is to pay people working at home as independent contractors getting paid by the task accomplished. That should not be hard to keep track of in this age of information. Then you will have accountablity and discipline.
Euclid I think working at home can be very effective for business. It should save money for the company. But there needs to be discipline and accountability for the performance of work. That is why I think the solution to take advantage of this efficiency is to pay people working at home as independent contractors getting paid by the task accomplished. That should not be hard to keep track of in this age of information. Then you will have accountablity and discipline.
This scenario would also make it a lot easier for employers to fire workers and cut benefits etc.
You want to get rid of a contractor for any reason? Simply stop giving them work.
MiningmanStudents are worse. It won't be like a regular Semester.. it will be spread out all over the place. There is very poor discipline with students far too much of the same work showing up multiple times, copying, or someone else ( the girlfriend/boyfriend) doing the work.
That will weed itself out in time. Eventually you will get a better class of students that will take it seriously, or they won't pass. And that'll be key since a lot of jobs will be work at home in the future.
It's not going to change overnight. But even at our work - it's rare for a manager to be around anymore. They manage by Iphone.
zugmann But even at our work - it's rare for a manager to be around anymore. They manage by Iphone.
I like it that way. Way harder for them to harass you if they aren't physically there.
Euclid I am not convinced that any of the lockdown or distancing measures have saved one life or prevented any transmission.
I am not convinced that any of the lockdown or distancing measures have saved one life or prevented any transmission.
There's a pretty good case that lockdowns and distancing has helped, though it would be equally correct to say that not all areas needed lockdowns. Best example of the latter is comparing Montana and Wyoming. The former had a lockdown in effect for several weeks, and the latter didn't. As of now, Wyoming has had a slightly lower per capita death rate than Montana, but a higher per capita confirmed infection rate. This would argue that lockdowns were not that much of a help in rural areas as rural people don't come in close proximity to a large number of people over the course of a normal day.
Another funny thing, the main hotspots for infection in Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming were in areas with large ski resorts.
OTOH, the experience with the larger cities shows that lockdowns can make a substantial difference. Perhaps more importantly would a requirement that anyone traveling out of a high infection rate area be quarantined until thay can be shown to be free of infection. Note Texas has the best record of the high population states and they were requiring travelers from NYC and NOLA to quarantine prior to the Texas lockdown. Montana is now requiring anyone returning from out of state to quarantine.
The upshot is that the lockdowns could have been handled in a much more intelligent manner - focusing on restrictions that have a proven benefit. I also would not be surprised that the timing and manner of some of the lockdowns were done in part for reasons that were not essential for the protection of the public health.
I suppose the classic way of viewing it would be "so long as the employee maintains their workload" then there are little grounds for criticism?
Except the classic model isn't near as prevalent as it once was. It's far more prevalent to heap up more work on fewer employees, with the road to profit being to keep one boot up the hind end to assure that matters of family, smart phones, etc. do not become an excessive distraction
Working from home alters the paradigm of power in such relationships.
SD70Dude Euclid I think working at home can be very effective for business. It should save money for the company. But there needs to be discipline and accountability for the performance of work. That is why I think the solution to take advantage of this efficiency is to pay people working at home as independent contractors getting paid by the task accomplished. That should not be hard to keep track of in this age of information. Then you will have accountablity and discipline. This scenario would also make it a lot easier for employers to fire workers and cut benefits etc. You want to get rid of a contractor for any reason? Simply stop giving them work.
Well that is the whole point. The work contractor commits to doing the job at the price promised. They are constantly compared to other work contractors as the company always looks for the best bargain. There are no benefits and no strings attached in the form of employer obligations other than to pay the agreed price for the work done. If you perform well, they continue giving you work. I you perform poorly, they don’t give you any more work.
I have worked as an independent contractor for most of the time, and also worked as a direct employee on some jobs when I started out. Most of my contractor work was at a home office. But I do not regard that as even remotely similar to direct employees being given the privilege/favor of being allowed to work from home. The difference is night and day. As a contractor, you are expected to take it seriously and do what you committed to do in the time agreed on. As a direct employee, you are like a child under the day to day supervision of your parents.
The benefit for the contractor is that you are usually paid more for the same work being done by employees precisely because of meeting the requirements for the company. With direct employees, employers often find that their expectations are not being met by the employees.
EuclidThe difference is night and day. As a contractor, you are expected to take it seriously and do what you committed to do in the time agreed on. As a direct employee, you are like a child under the day to day supervision of your parents.
Soudns like there is something deeper going on here.
Euclid SD70Dude Euclid I think working at home can be very effective for business. It should save money for the company. But there needs to be discipline and accountability for the performance of work. That is why I think the solution to take advantage of this efficiency is to pay people working at home as independent contractors getting paid by the task accomplished. That should not be hard to keep track of in this age of information. Then you will have accountablity and discipline. This scenario would also make it a lot easier for employers to fire workers and cut benefits etc. You want to get rid of a contractor for any reason? Simply stop giving them work. Well that is the whole point. The work contractor commits to doing the job at the price promised. They are constantly compared to other work contractors as the company always looks for the best bargain. There are no benefits and no strings attached in the form of employer obligations other than to pay the agreed price for the work done. If you perform well, they continue giving you work. I you perform poorly, they don’t give you any more work. I have worked as an independent contractor for most of the time, and also worked as a direct employee on some jobs when I started out. Most of my contractor work was at a home office. But I do not regard that as even remotely similar to direct employees being given the privilege/favor of being allowed to work from home. The difference is night and day. As a contractor, you are expected to take it seriously and do what you committed to do in the time agreed on. As a direct employee, you are like a child under the day to day supervision of your parents. The benefit for the contractor is that you are usually paid more for the same work being done by employees precisely because of meeting the requirements for the company. With direct employees, employers often find that their expectations are not being met by the employees.
This is so messed up. I don't know where to start picking it apart.
I take it you also believe that employers never harass employees/contractors or fire them for not good reason.
The next time I go run a train full of dangerous goods I will remember that I am nothing but a silly irresponsible child, and that the Trainmaster who asked why boxcars have steering wheels is my parent.....
EuclidThe benefit for the contractor is that you are usually paid more for the same work being done by employees precisely because of meeting the requirements for the company. With direct employees, employers often find that their expectations are not being met by the employees.
I've seen plenty of contractors that do piss poor jobs.
And I've seen managers on both sides that were horrible. But "blame the employees" was always their excuse for their own incompetence until it became painfully obvious and they were fired.
SD70Dude Euclid SD70Dude Euclid I think working at home can be very effective for business. It should save money for the company. But there needs to be discipline and accountability for the performance of work. That is why I think the solution to take advantage of this efficiency is to pay people working at home as independent contractors getting paid by the task accomplished. That should not be hard to keep track of in this age of information. Then you will have accountablity and discipline. This scenario would also make it a lot easier for employers to fire workers and cut benefits etc. You want to get rid of a contractor for any reason? Simply stop giving them work. Well that is the whole point. The work contractor commits to doing the job at the price promised. They are constantly compared to other work contractors as the company always looks for the best bargain. There are no benefits and no strings attached in the form of employer obligations other than to pay the agreed price for the work done. If you perform well, they continue giving you work. I you perform poorly, they don’t give you any more work. I have worked as an independent contractor for most of the time, and also worked as a direct employee on some jobs when I started out. Most of my contractor work was at a home office. But I do not regard that as even remotely similar to direct employees being given the privilege/favor of being allowed to work from home. The difference is night and day. As a contractor, you are expected to take it seriously and do what you committed to do in the time agreed on. As a direct employee, you are like a child under the day to day supervision of your parents. The benefit for the contractor is that you are usually paid more for the same work being done by employees precisely because of meeting the requirements for the company. With direct employees, employers often find that their expectations are not being met by the employees. This is so messed up. I don't know where to start picking it apart. I take it you also believe that employers never harass employees/contractors or fire them for not good reason. The next time I go run a train full of dangerous goods I will remember that I am nothing but a silly irresponsible child, and that the Trainmaster who asked why boxcars have steering wheels is my parent.....
Don't take it personally. I don't regard train service or any railroad labor job as having much relationship to what I am talking about. Certainly with railroad train serivice there is typically an aversarial relationship between labor and management. And managment certainly does not regard labor as its children. Railroad managment is extremely demanding of labor.
However, that is not the case with most non-unionized office envrionments. And they are the ones who will be letting empolyees work from home.
And sure there are bad contractors and bad customers. Many of the customers are impossible to work for, mainly because they don't see your face in their office every day. They don't see you actually doing the work, and everybody under estimates the task. So they are liable to think you charged them too much. They have unreasonable expectations. Independent contracting is also fraught with problems getting paid. There are also bad contractors who do lousy work. There many of them that take advantage of customers such as home owners.
My only point is that this pandemic has brought the issue of working at home into sharp focus for the first time. There is a movement behind this, and they have been trying to get a foot hold. There is also a growing sense that the work can be done remotely because it is just data that can be piped back and forth. The movement would like to use this pandemic to really move the ball in their favor. But this will also be the biggest demonstration of the work at home concept, and it remains to be seen whether management will see value in it or not.
There's a nice pile of tax law regarding being deemed an employee or an independent contractor.
Gramp There's a nice pile of tax law regarding being deemed an employee or an independent contractor.
The only way around this problem will be to make the home work station as immediately accountable (or more accountable) for work progress as is the company office work station. This would include tracking all tasks and the time they required. The same technology that makes working at home possible can also be used to track that work and the time it takes.
EuclidBut the biggest obstacle will be that regular employees will not want to become contractors.
Very few 'employees' wouldn't want to become nominal independent contractors -- the tax advantages alone would be compelling; the freedom from mandatory attendance policies (not necessarily 'regular suggested hours') significant.
The "biggest obstacle" has been, and will almost certainly continue to be, the IRS busily closing loopholes and discouraging use of 'independent contractors' in an increasing range of potential employment. If you are not familiar with the current 'tests' for employee status (they change a little every year; we used to run a subsidized seminar every year to review the changes) you really ought to do so. Much of what you've been asserting would be different, and much better informed, afterward.
Much of 'working at home' involves some form of networked access to 'distributed' resources and inter/intranets. These can be tracked with more or less exactly the same scheduling, change-management, and supervisory tools used for similar activities in an office setting. Likewise a range of collaborative apps -- recently something of a 'growth sector' on investor radar -- can handle many of the task-allocation and review functions handled both through 'management by walking around' or periodic status meetings and review sessions. More to the point, many historical 'salary-making' careers can be adapted to 'distance learning' tools and techniques ... by firms that have some idea what they expect from people they pay.
Note that one of the critical 'employee tests' is almost always broken quickly in any organization that values team-building as part of its employment. As soon as you dictate in any way that an employee needs to be somewhere or do something at a particular time -- they are no longer scheduled by a client's convenience; they are scheduled by an employer. So unless you have a pure 'bazaar' development model, where everybody works on what interests them, and only the priorities and feedback are matters of communication (not that something gets done on a particular day or by a particular week) as soon as you have a need for scheduled meetings with required attendance you're in employer territory -- expect to pay the taxes, file the forms, withhold out the wazoo, all that jazz.
Overmod Euclid But the biggest obstacle will be that regular employees will not want to become contractors. Very few 'employees' wouldn't want to become nominal independent contractors -- the tax advantages alone would be compelling; the freedom from mandatory attendance policies (not necessarily 'regular suggested hours') significant.
Euclid But the biggest obstacle will be that regular employees will not want to become contractors.
Let the bankruptcies begin.
Employees want to work, get paid, get their W-2's, file their taxes and get their refunds.
As contractors they would have to estimate and pay taxes quarterly, find their own medical insurance and pay for it, get their 1099's and hope they estimated their tax liability so as to not have to pay large sums when Tax Day comes. A whole lot more work on the 'contractors' side of employment than on the employee side of employment. Besides companies will want to pay 'contractors' less than they paid employees.
Contractors is the sucker play.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Overmod Euclid But the biggest obstacle will be that regular employees will not want to become contractors. Very few 'employees' wouldn't want to become nominal independent contractors --
Very few 'employees' wouldn't want to become nominal independent contractors --
Sure they would prefer to be independent contractors if it looked like regular employment with a stream of work coming at them every day and nobody holding their feet to the fire to price it low and get it done yesterday. I am talking about real contract work with reviewing and bidding every job against several competitors and with go guarantee of getting the job.
Dude, did a Trainmaster actually ask you or someone you know why boxcars have steering wheels? If so, I trust that the Trainmaster was told, gently, in words of one syllable if possible, why that wheel is on the cars.
Johnny
Deggesty Dude, did a Trainmaster actually ask you or someone you know why boxcars have steering wheels? If so, I trust that the Trainmaster was told, gently, in words of one syllable if possible, why that wheel is on the cars.
The Trainmaster, having been recently hired with no previous railroad experience, asked a co-worker of mine, who I consider to be a reliable source.
And yes, the actual purpose of the wheels was explained.
SD70Dude Deggesty Dude, did a Trainmaster actually ask you or someone you know why boxcars have steering wheels? If so, I trust that the Trainmaster was told, gently, in words of one syllable if possible, why that wheel is on the cars. The Trainmaster, having been recently hired with no previous railroad experience, asked a co-worker of mine, who I consider to be a reliable source. And yes, the actual purpose of the wheels was explained.
https://youtu.be/BqpayZ2JqlU?t=947
As a retired worker with health insurance and a good pension, I feel very fortunate, but I have hired contractors, consultants*, and I have been a consultant. One has to determine what amount of take home pay they need, add on 16% for social security, determine how much they want to put aside for their retirement, how much their medical insurance will cost and how many holidays and vacation days they expect. Put that all together to determine what you will bill for your proposal for the job you bid on. And the big employer will try to find someone to do it for less. What do you give up to get the job? The GIG workplace is a cruel place in my estimation.
When I was doing taxes for AARP for retired and low income people, one of my clients was paid as an independent contractor. She was doing interviews over an area that required her to drive up to 100 miles to do an interview. When she got her 1099 Misc, she had to pay the SS taxes, she could take her driving expenses as a deduction, she still had to pay taxes. But she got NO benefits. It turned out she was making a lot less than minimum wage when it was all done. I really felt she was being taken advantage of by the "EMPLOYER".
*One consultant I had presented a result that just was not doable and I had to negotiate a termination of the contract. And I have had many excellent consultants that performed exceeding well. When I say I hired them, I was providing the company's purchasing department with the specifications and evaluating the proposal's. And all this with my supervisors concurrence.
There are some good features to being a so-called independent contractor, but mostly for the *employer* in my experience.
Electroliner 1935When I was doing taxes for AARP for retired and low income people, one of my clients was paid as an independent contractor. She was doing interviews over an area that required her to drive up to 100 miles to do an interview. When she got her 1099 Misc, she had to pay the SS taxes, she could take her driving expenses as a deduction, she still had to pay taxes. But she got NO benefits. It turned out she was making a lot less than minimum wage when it was all done. I really felt she was being taken advantage of by the "EMPLOYER".
How could she have been taken advantage of ? Contractors name their price. The customer can either take it or leave it. It is up to the contractor to price their services adequately. If they don't, it is nobody else's fault.
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SD70DudeThe Trainmaster, having been recently hired with no previous railroad experience,
He or she is qualified to be an Amtrak supervisor.
243129He or she is qualified to be an Amtrak supervisor.
Isn't it interesting that, semantically, "qualifies" may have nothing whatsoever to do with actually being 'qualified'?
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