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BrokenKnucklez posted:Also- To all those people that work remotely on vacation, your just loving yourself in the end. And everyone around you. I took a 40-hour a week job because I need to earn a living, but in a typical week, I'd like the rest of those waking hours for relaxation, personal projects, volunteer work, or whatever I want that's not my boss' business. But when you're working with someone who routinely works on Sunday, calls in from vacation, and does 10 hour days, it's hard not to look lazy when you're actually pulling your weight. I expected the 110% stuff in non-profit. Not so much in corporate.
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May 5, 2010 22:00
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GreatGreen posted:You get to make your own hours (granted, they're usually more hours than somebody on the clock, but at least you get to make them). As much as I'd like to romanticize farmers, this is a loving lie if you have any livestock. Also, vacations are a huge pain in the rear end.
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May 5, 2010 22:14
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Colonel Penguin posted:blah-blah-blah Is this a European thing? I've worked in plenty of tech shops in the US and have never come across a uni-sex bathroom that wasn't one occupant at a time only. Do the stall doors run all the way to the floor so you can't see the feet of the "user"? I'm curious.
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May 5, 2010 22:22
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fosborb posted:As much as I'd like to romanticize farmers, this is a loving lie if you have any livestock. Also, vacations are a huge pain in the rear end. My father isn't a dairy farmer. These cows (Brangus) were beef cattle and didn't need milking several times a day every day, and didn't need as much maintenance as typical dairy cattle. They need open ground to graze and their feeding troughs needed to be filled on a regular basis, but it was nothing like the constant upkeep of a dairy farm. Anway, when my grandfather died, my father sold them all fairly quickly though. Daily maintenance or not, they were a pain in the rear end to manage. They were always getting into trouble, breaking stuff, etc. My grandfather loved them, but my dad hated them so when granddad died, off they went! But about the hours thing, my point was that you don't have to clock in every day while a boss uses one eye to glare at you with a cocked eyebrow, and the other eye to stare at his watch. That's not to say farmers just get to work whenever. They definitely keep a fairly tight schedule... they just don't have to in the sense that it's documented and forced upon them. That's what I was trying to say. Then again, I guess the same could be said for any business owner. edit: and vacations are fine as long as you take them in the off season!
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May 5, 2010 22:48
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BrokenKnucklez posted:I had one of our management staff ask me the other day if I wanted to be management. Told him falt out "No, I don't want to sell my soul". Plus, to be honest, I did the whole salary thing, nuts to that. I would much rather punch in and out, then go home with out dealing with work. A couple of us had issues with people expecting us to be available during vacations. I got a call once during one of the few times I've ever taken real time off, and I ignored the message. The coworker called back a couple more times before I finally answered and they were pissed that I hadn't picked up. After they told me what was wrong I said I'd look into it when I got back to the office in 3 days and hung up. Then I turned the phone off.
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May 5, 2010 22:49
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/\/\/\ My experience has been that this is far more of a problem in retail, but I guess if you're on rotating help desk schedules it's probably not all that different than retail. GreatGreen posted:But about the hours thing, my point was that you don't have to clock in every day while a boss uses one eye to glare at you with a cocked eyebrow, and the other eye to stare at his watch. That's not to say farmers just get to work whenever. They definitely keep a fairly tight schedule... they just don't have to in the sense that it's documented and forced upon them. That's what I was trying to say. Then again, I guess the same could be said for any business owner. I hear you on the hours. It's also a lot easier to drink all night, wake up at the rear end crack of dawn to do some chores, then promptly pass out until the hangover goes away. Vacation gripe stems from trying to do anything major out of town like graduations or weddings. You want the farmer to be there and also all of the help because you grew up with them, but that's really not an option. 
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May 5, 2010 22:57
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BrokenKnucklez posted:my boss was talking poo poo about me for not being a "team player" on vacation. "Team player" is the single biggest bullshit term I've ever had thrown at me by a boss. No, I don't give a flying poo poo about the "heart" of the company, and no, I don't spend every waking moment trying to think of ways to improve productivity. I work here so I can pay the bills, not because I want to "be a part of something dynamic and bigger than myself." The only reason I stayed late was so that I could actually get my design work done after being sidetracked by having to help out IT all day. Yet I got yelled at for not showing up early like everyone else who just stood around and talked until lunch. The work I've had in the public sector or for small businesses sucked like all work, but corporate work's bullshit and politics are just something else. I always made people angry by turning my work phone off the minute I left the building for home or lunch, but after several months I just didn't care anymore. I'd actually answer my personal phone if they called it, just to tell them I'd take care of it when I get back at the same designated time they did.
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May 5, 2010 23:04
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TheFuglyStik posted:"Team player" is the single biggest bullshit term I've ever had thrown at me by a boss. My bosses have told me to be sure to turn off the cell and pager as I left for vacation. That's half the reason I keep a separate personal phone - just so I don't have to always have a little chunk of work with me.
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May 5, 2010 23:11
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Holy poo poo is there is some bullshit in this thread. 30 days vacation a year? You mean 4 weeks? Um, that's the standard here too (Australia). You don't get that in the States? Work on my holiday time? Are you joking? In fact, you'd be looked at a werid and without a life if you did that. 'Hey guys, I got a ton of work done on my week off!', 'Goddamn it, you really a loving loser'.
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May 5, 2010 23:14
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This thread is so goddamn  The US really is a third world country, just with white people.
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May 5, 2010 23:17
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Tony Montana posted:Work on my holiday time? Are you joking? In fact, you'd be looked at a werid and without a life if you did that. 'Hey guys, I got a ton of work done on my week off!', 'Goddamn it, you really a loving loser'. Varies here in Canada. I've worked in places where it was pretty much expected (though usually out of a fairly chill "our friend will help us out in a pinch if we really get hosed without them" kind of way) but in most you're likely to be permitted to drop off the planet if you want. My annoyance is with people who voluntarily and consistently do work on their own time, even when it's not a crunch, which makes the rest of us look bad by comparison. Yeah, I'll throw my weight behind the team for a big roll-out, or for a massive project (worked a 21.5 hour day at the end of a month of 10 hour days for a festival!) but for routine poo poo? 40 hour week, man.
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May 5, 2010 23:27
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Corporate IT network admin here working in a regulated industry (I could probably stop right there, the pain is so obvious) but here's something that nearly drives me to murder every time it happens: I am sitting at a users desk (Jane's in this example) working on the PC or something, and someone walks by and says "Hi Jane! You look different today!" followed by snickering as they think they've just made the funniest joke in history. I used to smile or fake a laugh. Now I look at them and say "You have no idea how many times I've heard that." with the most serious, angry look on my face I can manage. Oh, and "I'm a manager, that's why!"
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May 5, 2010 23:29
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Pixelante posted:My annoyance is with people who voluntarily and consistently do work on their own time, even when it's not a crunch, which makes the rest of us look bad by comparison. Yeah, I'll throw my weight behind the team for a big roll-out, or for a massive project (worked a 21.5 hour day at the end of a month of 10 hour days for a festival!) but for routine poo poo? 40 hour week, man. How is it that these people are able to do good work on a consistent basis if they're working all the time? And god drat, I can't remember the last time I had a 40 hour week.
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May 5, 2010 23:34
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^ My mom was a workaholic, so I kind of get it. But I really don't think their performance should become the norm. Defghanistan posted:I am sitting at a users desk (Jane's in this example) working on the PC or something, and someone walks by and says "Hi Jane! You look different today!" followed by snickering as they think they've just made the funniest joke in history. I do this ironically every time my coworkers switch desks for something. I've gotten really good at dodging projectiles. Hey, it keeps me limber.
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May 5, 2010 23:35
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Tony Montana posted:Work on my holiday time? Are you joking? In fact, you'd be looked at a werid and without a life if you did that. 'Hey guys, I got a ton of work done on my week off!', 'Goddamn it, you really a loving loser'. The only time work rang me on holidays was when I went to Hong Kong, about to fly back to Australia "Hey Rudager, we got a management meeting tomorrow, I just wanted to ask if you mind if I push for you to get moved into another position, it'd be more money and a touch more responsibility, what do ya say?" Got back into the office a few days later "Sorry Rudager, they like you in this position too much, but you should they should be coming to talk to you sometime today  " then the boss walks in a few hours later "Heeeyyy Rudager, how'd the holiday go? spend all ya money? well don't worry about that we're giving you a 20% payrise"Yeah, thats right I get payrises (nearly promotions) when I go on holidays. 
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May 5, 2010 23:36
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Tony Montana posted:Holy poo poo is there is some bullshit in this thread. 30 days vacation a year? You mean 4 weeks? Um, that's the standard here too (Australia). You don't get that in the States? No, we don't. We have fucknuckles like Wake and Bake around every corner fighting the entire IDEA of "time off" 24/7 365. Right now my current job is...ok. However time off isn't something any of my employers have ever been happy about allowing. No matter how far in advance it's requested, there's always guilt tripping and whining about the "team" or some other pulled-from-a-playbook excuse.
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May 5, 2010 23:36
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Pixelante posted:My annoyance is with people who voluntarily and consistently do work on their own time, even when it's not a crunch, which makes the rest of us look bad by comparison. Yeah, I'll throw my weight behind the team for a big roll-out, or for a massive project (worked a 21.5 hour day at the end of a month of 10 hour days for a festival!) but for routine poo poo? 40 hour week, man. I once flew 3000 miles for my grandfather's funeral, only to be called that afternoon and asked to VPN in and run some scripts. Okay, to be fair, 1) I offered to do that while I was away since this was a very sudden departure on my part; 2) No one else in the office can do this, and the only other person in the whole company (community college) who can do this has every minute of every day booked two weeks in advance; 3) If I didn't do it, half the office would literally cease to function; 4) It really only took five minutes.
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May 5, 2010 23:38
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Cthulhuite posted:gently caress Siemens. My dad used to work for Siemens. Only way to get a raise from them: go out, interview with another company, get an offer letter for a higher pay, show it to Siemens, Siemens will increase your pay to match the offer letter. Apparently he did this multiple times with no intention of accepting the competition's offer because while they weren't give him normal pay raises, they'd always match what the competition was willing to pay. Gotta love that philosophy of "we know you're worth more, but no loving way are we going to pay you what you're worth."
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May 5, 2010 23:39
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Defghanistan posted:I am sitting at a users desk (Jane's in this example) working on the PC or something, and someone walks by and says "Hi Jane! You look different today!" followed by snickering as they think they've just made the funniest joke in history. Of course, this does cause issues sometimes anyway. We acquired another similar company a couple months back. It's been a goddamn nightmare. One of the people we picked up as part of that acquisition tried joking with me yesterday when yet another one of their systems caused a major problem.  "I bet you think 'Wow, everything just went to hell when those new people showed up!' Hahahah" "Yes." "... um" "Did you need something?"
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May 6, 2010 00:39
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2 things. One in the past (non corporate) and one today (corporate). 1. When I worked Union (almost 10 years ago), we had to pay union dues. I made a whopping $7.03 an hour then had like $20 a month taken out of my check. We were offered health care out of pocket, but the way it was set up was the union steward had to choose between family plan or single plan. We couldn't have both. If we would have picked single plan, then all the single employees would have had health care for an additional $30 a month, and the people with families would have to pay full price for their spouse/children. However, they chose family plan which meant it covered you, your spouse and your children for a low low price of $150 a month. Great deal if you had a family. The catch was that only the union steward and like 2 other people had families. Everyone else, myself included, were single college students. So we went without health care. The union did nothing else for us. 2. I'm on Xanax now.
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May 6, 2010 01:49
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Tony Montana posted:Work on my holiday time? Are you joking? In fact, you'd be looked at a werid and without a life if you did that. 'Hey guys, I got a ton of work done on my week off!', 'Goddamn it, you really a loving loser'. I answered an email once from my Blackberry 10 minutes after office hours, and my boss's supervisory committee's VP got me reprimanded. 10 lashes. If I had been in a bar or gloating on the internet, I would have gotten off scott free. True story.
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May 6, 2010 02:29
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Three of my previous corporate raises came from me not giving a crap and looking elsewhere for employment. It is called a 'retention bonus'. I consider myself lucky because two of the companies I had a competing offer from both went out of business. The home office in my city had one third of their work outsourced to India, one third outsourced to Guam, and the remainder was transferred to another office that was 55 miles away. Rather than lay everybody off, they kept on anyone who didn't want to severance out as a teleworker -- and I spend most of my shift at home, unshaven, wearing sweatpants and a ratty sweatshirt. When last I checked I had a full 8 weeks worth of paid vacation banked, because I never actually use more than 16 hours worth at a time. I'm tempted to put in for a schedule where I ask for Wednesdays off. Which ones? All of them.
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May 6, 2010 03:08
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EricFate posted:. I'm tempted to put in for a schedule where I ask for Wednesdays off. Which ones? All of them. Ohhh GOD that would be so sweet to just work 2 days on 2 days off for a year! At my old job I asked for 6 weeks of Mondays off. I loved it.
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May 6, 2010 03:54
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OatmealRocks posted:Ohhh GOD that would be so sweet to just work 2 days on 2 days off for a year! At my old job I asked for 6 weeks of Mondays off. I loved it. I used to work as a computer tech at the campus computer store when I was a student. All of the student workers were just campus student workers, but all of the other employees were State Employees with all those ridiculous benefits. The warehouse guy was like 25 or so, and was a machine. He apparently had lined up a full 8 weeks of vacation time by not taking days off, or doing comp time or something, it was amazing. He took 2 months of half days, it was amazing, and still had some left over.
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May 6, 2010 04:02
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GreatGreen posted:while a boss uses one eye to glare at you with a cocked eyebrow, and the other eye to stare at his watch. There needs to be a picture drawn of this, NOW. It made me laugh when I imagined it.
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May 6, 2010 08:16
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In my old job our Do-it-all IT assistant racked up 4½ months worth of overtime, took his 6 weeks of vacation in one go, and spent the next six months traveling around the world, feeding us pictures and videos from wherever he would be on that specific day. I just cashed my overtime in when I left the company and got an extra month's salary in my last pay check.
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May 6, 2010 09:10
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Working from vacation? I was asked to do work while I was at another job in the middle of BoondockFuckingNowhere USA. My boss knew I was on a fire, knew I had just gotten off a 40 hour shift (yes, 40, awake doing manual labor) and was turning in for the night. He called to ask about some insignificant item that they hadn't sold any of in years and how they could update its pricing online. At 11PM. Last week I took a day off and received no fewer than "what's the password to ____" emails (the response to which is "It's in the loving password folder") and came back to find that he had somehow hosed our payment gateway settings up and it will be three more days until we can process credit cards online. I wish I had more paid days off (or any, for that matter, I literally have 0 paid days off, and 0 sick leave hours, and 0 benefits, and a poo poo wage). As it is I'm working 7 days a week even on vacation (yay free wifi) at this job or freelancing just to get by. If I get seriously sick I'm done for.
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May 6, 2010 09:12
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Wake_N_Bake posted:I answered an email once from my Blackberry 10 minutes after office hours, and my boss's supervisory committee's VP got me reprimanded. 10 lashes. If I had been in a bar or gloating on the internet, I would have gotten off scott free. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.  Don't you realise in jobs where your employees actually use their minds that they're more effective with downtime? It's not about hours of bums on chairs, it's about getting stuff done. You can sit in a chair for an hour and do pretty much gently caress all, you can sit in the same chair for 10 minutes and get something done. What's the difference? Motivation. Where does motivation come from? The knowledge that there is some end to the shittiness and if you get your work done then you can go and do things you'd prefer to be doing. That is the idea behind not working on holidays, because really, if you can't get your work done during working hours.. what the gently caress are you doing in that time? If you've been given so much work that one person can't do it in the hours allocated, that's not fair and if it doesn't change gently caress that employer and leave. My employer (and past employers) don't WANT me working after hours. Why are you still trying to work this out? Don't you understand it properly? Have we hosed up the project time projections? Do you have some fuckwit getting in your way? What is the problem that is preventing you delivering what we ask? Now that is a manager worth his salt. By the way, none of this applies if your role is something where it really is about how many hours you sit in the chair, versus actually doing something useful. A receptionist is a good example. If that is your plight then I have nothing to offer you except that you made your own bed and now you have to sleep in it.
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May 6, 2010 09:35
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They are called deliverables. Hint; complaining that your project doesn't have enough people won't help when there's a deadline in 2 weeks.
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May 6, 2010 09:52
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Sgt. Stryker didn't die for this : ( Minimum 4 weeks vacation, My God. That's almost enough to make me cry. I'm 22 years old and I have been working since I was 18. I have never had a single day of vacation or paid time off. Actually I got paid for one day when my Grandfather died. I remember coming into work that week and being an absolute mess. My first job was with Whirlpool as a temp to hire. The hiring process took a year and a half. I didn't get vacation as a temp, instead I got 2 unpaid personal days. I asked for one of my personal days about two months in advance. A month after that, I was finally hired as a permanent employee. Permanent Employees don't get personal days, so I lost that. I was going to get a week of vacation after another year, so losing my day off didn't sting too badly. Six months later I get laid off, and six months after that I was recalled. My vacation accrual reset itself upon being recalled so I had to start the one year countdown all over again. I just ended up quitting a few months later. Three years of hard work with the company and not a single day of vacation. I wasn't exaggerating about wanting to cry. The hopelessness of never having a month of vacation time, better wages, and health insurance I can actually afford is too much. Why aren't things getting better? In my short time with Whirlpool they eliminated 401k matching, tuition reimbursement, and turned the health coverage into a joke with a $5,000 deductible. I saw a doctor twice for a throat infection and got a bill for $600. I paid about $1500 in insurance premiums that year. With a different company, I was part of management and was required to notify my management if an employee came to me regarding a Union. I never did. In fact I spread information about unions to my employees. Soon after I was forced to attend an anti union meeting with other managers in the region. This is by far the most depressing thread I have read in a while.
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May 6, 2010 10:02
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astrollinthepork posted:I wasn't exaggerating about wanting to cry. The hopelessness of never having a month of vacation time, better wages, and health insurance I can actually afford is too much. Why aren't things getting better? The powers that be want it that way and Americans are fine with it.
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May 6, 2010 10:10
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Guys I'm pretty sure that Wake n Bake is trolling the gently caress out of this thread.
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May 6, 2010 10:21
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Why? It's hardly an unusual position to take.
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May 6, 2010 11:06
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abigserve posted:They are called deliverables. Hint; complaining that your project doesn't have enough people won't help when there's a deadline in 2 weeks. Really? Not where I come from. Weatherman posted:Guys I'm pretty sure that Wake n Bake is trolling the gently caress out of this thread. It's not him telling me a culture of working outside the hours you've gotta spend in the office and how you don't get holidays. Out of 12 months of the year, it's standard pratice to not get 1 off? Yep, being tired and fed up with an enviorment is the best way to achieve tasks. astrollinthepork posted:Sgt. Stryker didn't die for this : ( Do you still think America is the GREATEST NATION IN THE WORLD? Because from this thread I sure as hell don't. How the heck can you work three years without a day's vaction. That would be criminal here, literally. I have a friend going to Berkely to do a contract with their Uni there, I was thinking of joining him and see what the great USA was all about. gently caress that, maybe I'll take a holiday there someday, although I'm pretty sure as American culture has been exported so much there isn't really anything there that I can't see here or elsewhere. I would like to see New York though, but as for working there it sounds completely ridiculous.
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May 6, 2010 11:54
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As a British goon now living and working in Australia, I've never been more glad not to work in the USA. I'd always heard comments about Americans going on holiday and not having a job when they came back, but such a scenario was so far-fetched to me that I took it for a joke. My company was talking about opening an office in the US before the financial crisis, and I expressed an interest in going. Now the only way I would do that is if I was guaranteed the same working conditions as I get here, as well as health insurance up the wazoo that meant I would never see a bill. Because otherwise, gently caress that noise. I really wish more Americans knew how bad they have it compared to the rest of the world. If only the average Joe knew how badly they were being shafted, the streets would be filled with burning Porsches and corporate-funded government would be a thing of the past. Since I started working at 16, I've had things like four weeks paid holiday a year (even when I was part-time), strong protection against unfair dismissal, ex-employers having no say in what benefits I could get after being fired, mandatory breaks for working certain hours, limits on the number of hours I could work a week (48max), and a whole raft of other benefits and protections that are taken for granted. I really feel for you lot. Poor yanks with your lying uber-patriot overlords. CONTENT: Recently a colleague of mine was threatened with disciplinary action if he didn't improve on a few KPIs. The only problem is that we don't actually have a written disciplinary policy or any guidelines at all. Whoops.
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May 6, 2010 12:11
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Tony Montana posted:Do you still think America is the GREATEST NATION IN THE WORLD? Because from this thread I sure as hell don't. How the heck can you work three years without a day's vaction. That would be criminal here, literally. I haven't thought the US was the greatest country in the world since I was 13. I've been wanting to emigrate to Europe for years. My German is fairly good, so why not? It's drat near impossible that's why. Do you have a sister that will be a part of a sham marriage? I'm stuck in this miserable hellhole until I die. I hate this country. I worked three years without a vacation because I had no choice. If I didn't like it, well I could find another job. The problem is that every place is like this. You just have to accept it and hope the place burns down. Again, not exaggerating. The politicians are too deep into the corporate pockets and your fellow employees are brainwashed. Hearing somebody in my shoes tell me that they don't want a union blows my mind. The bullshit the hr manager spouted at the anti union meeting was unbelievable. Then you look around and see everybody nodding their head. By the way, I've worked two jobs since I've left Whirlpool and I still haven't had a vacation or the prospect of one. I guess you can call the 6 months of unemployment living on $100 a week a "vacation". I liked not eating so I can keep my phone for job prospects, that was awesome.
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May 6, 2010 12:32
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astrollinthepork posted:I haven't thought the US was the greatest country in the world since I was 13. I've been wanting to emigrate to Europe for years. My German is fairly good, so why not? It's drat near impossible that's why. Do you have a sister that will be a part of a sham marriage? I'm stuck in this miserable hellhole until I die. I hate this country. Why not come to Australia? ohhhhh 
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May 6, 2010 13:39
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Handy chart on mandated time off for some countries: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_vac_min_vac_tim_aro_the_wor_leg_req-time-around-world-legally-required
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May 6, 2010 13:50
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Australia is still mostly people like this though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVrksu0XW0w Some bogan that needs his head bashed in posted:Police warn locals 'any retaliation attack over the attacks over those lifesavers wouldn't be tolerated.'" Mostly as in the anglo-aussie fuckwits that have been here since the beginning.
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May 6, 2010 13:57
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astrollinthepork posted:Why aren't things getting better? The average Joe is brainwashed into thinking this is how it should be, and besides, if they work really hard, they'll eventually be the one at the top! The politicians don't care because it doesn't affect them, and besides, if they even suggested something that might upset the profitability of huge corporations, said huge corporations would stop donating huge sums of money, thus hurting their future career.
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May 6, 2010 14:17
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