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Wife was hired in 2014 for a position that was designed to be remote. They changed things in 2017 and tried to make her come into an office 2.5 hours away, 5 days a week. She’s legally blind and doesn’t drive, a fact they were fully aware of and had no issues with when they hired her. She tried to argue multiple times, and it just ended up going in circles with several managers getting pretty insulting to her. So, she quit, and eventually decided to contact a disability lawyer to inform the ex-employer she would be suing for discrimination, and ADA violations. Because they said some pretty stupid things in emails and voicemails. They ended up offering a nice sized settlement. She found another WFH job that paid 3x what she was making at the old place, with a higher level position and more closely fits her education. She’s much happier with how things turned out for her. The position has been on various job sites for over 3 years and doesn’t look like it’s been filled since she quit, though I can’t say that for sure.
They think we’re cattle, but cattle won’t eat the rich.
I have always told folks that I managed, that I’m nothing without them. Yea, I have a MBA as well, but man, are alot of those business folks short sighted to a fault. Like lack of empathy and foresight.
If your KPI’s are based around having a knowledge worker in a chair in a room, your business should die.
Plain and simple.
Cattle will stampede if you piss them off enough.
Cows will also chomp down on meat and little birds if given the opportunity. I grew up on a ranch herbivore doesn’t mean vegan like peeps seem to think it does. If they feel like they’re low on a nutrient and have opportunity they’ll nom on anything. No this isn’t pica either.
My boss is awesome. He realizes that his job is mostly to make sure we’re able to do our jobs effectively. It really feels like I’m working with him, not for him, which is how it should be.
Same. My manager works in another country and he told me that it doesn’t matter where I work from because from his perspective I’m a remote employee wherever I sit.
Same, my manager contacts me a handful of times throughout the year, the rest of the time he trusts I’m doing what I am tasked to do. We had a company wide meeting at head office requiring travel for everyone, the schedule was on my kid’s birthday. I conveyed that I would be missing the bday, and they shifted meeting a few days to accommodate. Not all corporations are heartless slave drivers
A manager’s job is to ensure efficient use of resources among other things, which includes filtering the amount of noise coming down on the workers so that they can focus on doing what they’re good at.
All these “nobody wants to work anymore” people are the ones that think they don’t have to take care of their employees because they can always hire someone else.
Good
You should absolutely sue when your rights are violated. It is not ok for an employer to discriminate based on disability.
I’m sure they don’t even understand that it was a discrimination, judging by the fact that they went on and left a lot of evidence of their stupidity
My sister in law is blind in one eye, but because she has one working eye she has no disability protection as far as I know. She still can’t drive because she has no depth perception and it’s very dangerous. It’s made navigating going to work difficult over the years, often working the same place my brother did so he could drive her. Luckily her current employer works with her and lets her work from home. But a decade ago no one would have dreamed of letting her work from home.
In Canada that would be labelled a legit disability without blinking an eye.
Yeah, but here in the US, if you can work even the simplest job you shouldn’t qualify for disability! That just encourages people to enjoy communism! These literally half blind mfers need to get off their ass and get to work, the lazy sons of removed! Don’t they love freedom?
This is wrong, because you’re talking about disability insurance in a comment thread about disability discrimination.
Disability is very broadly defined for the purpose of disability discrimination laws, which is the context of this comment chain.
Disability is defined specific to a person’s work skills for the purpose of long term disability insurance (like the US’s federally administered Social Security disability insurance). Depending on the program/insurance type, it might require that you can’t hold down any meaningful job, caused by a medical condition that lasts longer than a year.
For things like short term disability, the disability is defined specific to that person’s preexisting job. Someone who gets an Achilles surgery that prevents them from operating the pedals of a motor vehicle for a few weeks would be “disabled” for the purpose of short term disability insurance if they’re a truck driver, and might not even be disabled if their day job is something like being a telemarketer who sits at a desk for their job.
Just wanted to expand on this
Depending on the program/insurance type, it might require that you can’t hold down any meaningful job, caused by a medical condition that lasts longer than a year.
For SSI or SSDI, you basically have to be bed bound (“less than sedentary”), statutorially blind (corrected visual acuity 20/200 in the good eye), have a condition severe enough it meets the strict requirements in SSA’s listings of impairments, or have a mental condition that prevents you from being at all able to fulfill the demands of unskilled work. The rules get more lenient after age 50 the older you get though.
Nah man, freedom.
Offsides, bud!
Off-side!
Iirc for the US government to consider you disabled due to vision, your GOOD eye has to be 20/200 or worse.
So yeah if you only have one eye and you can barely read the giant E at the top of the vision chart, sorry!
Not true. Look up the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by the EEOC. Here, I’ll do it for you. But if I am mistaken, I’d love to know where it defines the vision criteria for exclusion.
Actually, when I was looking it up, it sounds like you’re talking about being considered legally blind and qualifying for Social Security disability benefits, which is not the same as being protected under the ADA.
The latter. The government considering you disabled therefore you qualify for disability benefits.
Pun intended, I’m assuming?
Not really, it was a figure of speech, which I realized would be taken as a pun and decided to leave it. It unintentionally fit the theme.
Nice! Makes it even better.
According to the EEOC, it’s a disability:
A vision impairment does not need to “prevent, or significantly or severely restrict,” an individual’s ability to see in order to be a disability, as long as the individual’s vision is substantially limited when compared to the vision of most people in the general population.
And it sounds like her employer is doing the right thing. But if ever she feels she is not being treated fairly, she should talk to a lawyer to be sure. Don’t just let it slide because she has one good eye. Hell it might be good to talk to a lawyer anyway, so she knows what to look out for in the future if things happen to change.
Thank you, I think she believes she is not protected. I’ll look into this.
It might not qualify her for disability insurance, as in she no longer needs to work any jobs, but should absolutely entitle her to disability protections, as in job requirements should be modified to permit her to continue to work. If her employer is not making accommodations to permit her to continue to work then she might have a legal case.
How do you know the EEOC applies where she is?
You’re right. I made an assumption about where she lives. I shouldn’t have, but I did. The advice about talking to a lawyer to know her rights, though, is universal regardless of where she lives. So I still stand by my statements.
Because the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is enforced by the EEOC.
I think what they’re getting at is not every person on the Internet lives in the United States.
That’s generally a fair criticism, but the context from the rest of this particular thread is clearly US based
That’s a triple win. Love hearing these types of stories.
Yup, they started to force me to drive to an office where none of the people I work with are, now that’s the only place I do work for them.
Used to think about and work on projects after hours if I found them interesting or realized a solution I hadn’t thought of. They’ve shown me they don’t care about my comfort, so I don’t feel the need to care about their problems either. The work will be there tomorrow.
They’re so divorced from reality that they think we’d just give up extra hours of our lives for commuting and keep up the same work output. Fuckin nope, going switch to doing the bare minimum it takes to keep you signing checks.
Yup, my work pulled the same Bullshit. I can work from home and we all worked from home through COVID… But now suddenly I can’t
So, there’s been a few times where the power’s gone out or something has happened that needs us at a remote location. They send the team home. The rest of the guys willingly go. I stay back and remind them that “gee, sorry. You guys have made it abundantly clear that I can’t work from home. All those times I had to take personal time… So yeah, no. I’ll just hang out here I guess until everything comes back up 🤷♂️”
Fuck yeah!
Makes me think that with the hybrid they expect to have the best of both worlds, while in fact it will likely be the opposite.
Besides, with a mandatory fixed amount of days per quarter it gets soooo bullshit, it’s not hybrid it’s just barely glorified office work
Especially when the “hybrid” model involves more days in office than at home.
I guess execs don’t work when they’re at home and can’t handle not getting distracted, so they just assume the same for everyone.
Especially when the “hybrid” model involves more days in office than at home.
Wdym “especially”, of course it does /s but not really
My SO was told to travel to office every day of the week, only to sit in zoom meetings because all of their team is elsewhere.
Reaaaal good use of everyone’s time and our non-renewable resources.
Don’t forget that it’s also effectively a pay cut due to the added expenses and time lost in commuting. They should ask if the company is going to at least pay for the maintenance of the car if they aren’t going to pay for the time spent commuting.
Also the time spent getting ready for office appearances and prepping lunches (or the cost of buying lunches away from home).
We are required to show up one day a week, but my employer usually buy breakfast and/or lunch. It’s a decent meal, not a shitty half slice of pizza.
None of us dress up. Not the bosses, the lawyer, no one. We sit in the conference room looking like it’s finals weeks. No one cares, and we get more done.
I do something similar, I’m on a dev team of 2 and a while back we started going in once a month for a “planning day” where we spend a couple hours in person planning out our month and spend the rest of the day talking to the teams who actually use our software to get feedback and ideas. At first the owner would take me and the other dev out for lunch but we’ve turned it into a whole office thing. So usually the whole offices shuts down for about 2 hours for a nice free lunch when we come in. One day a bunch of us went out for mini golf after lunch on the bosses dime. Another month a couple of us played old Xbox games and smoked cigs in the basement while we “brainstormed”.
“Here’s the invoice for the rental!”
You know the answer, so why even ask? Just makes you look foolish. Brush off the resume and start looking. They won’t learn.
Paying for commute time for regular workers is not going to happen, for many many decades you getting to work is your own issue…thus why we find a place near highway access or near transit. asking a company to pay travel means they will just hire somebody that lives close by
Which will no longer be feasible as more and more people are priced out of city living.
It has already happened in Vancouver area, people commute in from Chilliwack to afford a home
It really saddens to me see how many managers out there treat their subordinates terribly, and then act surprised when their subordinates do the same - as though employees are meant to greatful for their terrible treatment
Does ring true dunnit?
Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.
I recently was recently reprimanded for using the term “subordinates”. I was informed that term has fallen out of favor. Direct Reports is the proper way to say it these days.
Sounds good to me, I’ve never gotten in trouble for indirectreportination.
What about indirect reports?
That’s who you are to all the people who aren’t your boss but think they can tell you what to do anyway.
Or just your direct reports’ direct reports.
Honestly calling someone a “direct report” sounds even more dehumanising. At least calling someone a “subordinate” acknowledges that you’re belittling their existence. A “direct report” sounds like a piece of paper.
Fair enough. Subordinate is the term I’ve always heard used. Direct reports just sounds like the sugar coated version to me.
Oh yeah it’s totally the sugar coated version. It’s funny because I was only using the term “subordinates” because that is what the software platform I was training on calls “direct reports”.
I work night shifts. My manager one time called me around 2pm to ask me something menial and waking me up (as I was still sleeping for my next shift at 7pm).
So naturally, I called him at 2AM when I was at work… because I had an “urgent” question about a work policy lol. He got the picture, and that shit never happened again
I refuse to install any work related software on my phone. Not only because I don’t want to be contacted after hours, but companies often “require” full read/write access on your device, so they can remotely wipe their data if you quit or get fired.
Fuck that.
No modern MDM solution allows a company to access your personal data on BYOD. That’s why containerization of work profiles exist. Anything else would be a massive privacy scandal.
Company-owned devices, though, do have that level of access when MDM enrolled.
Intune installs as a device adminstration. I’m not sure how much I’d trust that on my personal device period.
That’s a fair point. Microsoft says that they don’t… but, not that they can’t. It’s especially tricky on iOS.
They can say what they like.
VERY few companies have been sued for being as big a bunch of lying dinks as Microsoft has.
We need to learn from this shit. Ads on login screens? Privacy issues? Solarwinds sploit letting Russian hackers get to the windows source? How many more red flags are our security groups going to ignore?
You’re talking about MDM in Intune which is only used on corporate owned devices. MAM is used for personal devices and does not have device administration access. It’s in the name - Mobile Application Management.
This implies that the company has a competent IT team that rolls it out correctly, and that there won’t be some way to exploit it and dig in further than expected.
Also:
On personal devices, it’s normal and expected for users to check email, join meetings, update files, and more. Many organizations allow personal devices to access organization resources.
(From the site)
Lmao WHAT? It’s normal for users to do company shit on their personal phone? What kind of delusional Spongebob bullshit is that? Is the company gonna pay for data or subsidize the cost of my phone? Are they going to pay me to be on call if they expect me to of this shit outside of my working hours?
I’d love to honestly believe that. But I still wouldn’t risk ever doing a BYOD with a company that forced me to install anything on my personal devices.
Regardless, times I’ve tried to get access to work stuff on my phone I stopped because I had to agree to let my entire device be remotely wiped if they chose to. I had absolutely zero faith that they wouldn’t accidentally do it as a matter of procedure if/when I left the company so I didn’t do it.
Not to mention the possibility of a disgruntled IT person deleting everything they can on their way out. Sure, it would be a whole can of worms for that person and they might regret it because of the consequences, but that wouldn’t bring my data back. Same if it was done accidentally because of incompetence.
It honestly doesn’t matter to me.
Even if it’s an absolute certainty that there’s no possible way they can do harm, I’m unconditionally not willing to install anything on my personal device that isn’t for my personal use.
I’m with you there. My previous employer wanted a bunch of their shit on my phone. I asked if they were supplying me with a work a phone, and they said no, you already have one. I said I do, and it’s mine, and I’m not putting anything on it for work because work and home are going to be two different things. They gave me a work phone and then wanted to know why I turned it off in the parking lot before I even got into my car. I’m done working for the day sir.
wanted to know why I turned it off in the parking lot before I even got into my car. I’m done working for the day sir.
My co-worker locked his in his desk drawer when he went home for the night.
This is absolutely correct. Heck, you’re free to deny that based on any reasoning, maybe the shoddy icon of the work app doesn’t match your phone wallpaper.
The phone is your private property, if an employer requires an app to be installed to do your job, they can provide a phone.
I would also never let corporate IT manage a device, e. g. a laptop connected to my private network at home.
I would also never let corporate IT manage a device, e. g. a laptop connected to my private network at home.
If you ever must, buy a new laptop. And use it on a guest wifi network. Use it as you would a work laptop, nothing personal on it
No, have the company buy a laptop, and if necessary, also have them buy the hardware that allows for proper network separation, if not already available.
Just another thing to be aware of.
Not all companies will do that
Surely not. But also many employees won’t even ask for it, and change will only happen if people care about it.
So first, raise awareness, and naturally, implement those things at any companies you manage or own.
I’m not saying quit your job and become homeless if your employer won’t corporate with you on the issue. Everyone should think about how this could potentially affect them and what they can do within the constraints they operate in, though.
As someone else in this thread said, a separate (VLAN, guest) network for work devices, reasonable access rules etc. can go a long way. Eventually, I would like this to become unacceptable though.
I would also never let corporate IT manage a device, e. g. a laptop connected to my private network at home.
That’s pretty standard for working from home. I’m expected to use the company provided, managed laptop with my internet connection.
I figured so long as I made sure of things like there weren’t any open file shares and things like routers and IP cameras were password protected there wasn’t a whole they could see.
If I was really paranoid I could set up a VLAN or something.
I know it is somewhat of an accepted practice, and a lot of people lack the means or the knowledge to handle it any other way, but I’d still like to raise awareness that you’re basically inviting a foreign actor into your network.
The days were people would trust corporations, including their employers, to be generally benevolent and to do the right thing are long over.
Can’t you demand a company-provided device then? It’s their fault that you need those apps.
Yeah and they want to install some profile that gives them access and puts your internet connection through their VPN. My coworkers look at me like I’m crazy because I carry a work device and a personal device. Like, why would I give my employer access to all of my web traffic on my phone? You’re crazy if you don’t carry two devices.
That’s a no for me dawg.
Yeah that’s beyond fucked. That’s a major privacy issue.
The two consessions I’ve made are Teams, and the MFA software.
I am often running around to various sites and being able to use a quick chat is better than pulling out my laptop, and I turn it off when I’m off the clock.
Yup same. It’s crazy how many people willing installed Intune and shit on their personal phone. If my company wants me to have that level of portability, then they’ll be buying a work phone for me and paying me overtime any time I’m forced to use it out of regular hours
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My guess is that some businesses get tax breaks from municipalities in exchange for filling office spaces with warm bodies. The idea is that people in office buildings support local businesses by buying lunch, and sometimes grabbing a pint after work.
I’m not trying to excuse this trend, in fact as an IT person myself I 100% agree with the sentiment, I’m just trying to share what I’ve been told.
Commercial realestste makes up a significant amount of rich people’s investment portfolios. And if people stopped needing office space the property would devalue and those rich people would lose easy money.
So they have all collectively agreed to force their workers back to the office I order to keep the real estate values up and keep their investments positive.
Also rich can afford to have a investment in busy city areas while regular folk can get a house in urban areas at best. And work from home is leading people to the urban areas where rents are less.
It’s even simpler than that: they leased the office space and have to continue to pay that lease or else pay an early termination fee. This is basically the sunk cost fallacy. But you are right that sometimes additionally they get tax breaks for certain office space, for instance the San Francisco mid-market tax break (AKA the Twitter tax break)
It’s astonishing.
The capitalists know full well we’re more productive working remotely, but their need for control has proven to be stronger than their insatiable greed anyway.
Just more proof that cruelty is the point. They’ve known since the 70s that they’d be richer than they are if they would pay thriving wages and eliminate poverty. They want the suffering more than the money.
They would be richer, but by “allowing” working class people to have a thriving life means the power gap between us and them wouldn’t be as big. People could organize and overthrow them, so they have to keep us fighting amongst ourselves for scraps.
The cruelty is the point.
It’s still greed. They want to justify the mobey they’ve wasted in useless office spaces.
Fair point
Board rooms have a lot of people who are heavily invested in commercial real estate.
Also a fair point.
I can’t believe people have work apps on their personal devices. Delete that shit!
No matter what app it is, if employers require one to be used on a smartphone, they are legally obligated to provide you with a work phone. If they refuse, they are legally obligated to provide reimbursement for your personal mobile plan. This can be as simple as $5 or $10 added monthly to a paycheck, or as detailed as actual usage down to the kilobyte.
Even if it’s as simple as clocking in and out. If they won’t provide a phone or reimburse, they must have some other method to complete the task. Whether it be a computer or paper. Failing that, they are not upholding the law of providing you tools necessary to complete your job. Which means if they terminate you for any of the above under “not able to do your job”, it is retaliation for you requiring them to do their job. You could potentially win a suit against them.
My employer provides us with a “tech allowance” as a bonus every month
It’s not enough to buy a barely functional work laptop, but you can “buy a laptop” through them, and then forfeit the bonus until it’s “paid off”
I’m kinda awful with money, so I pretty much need every cent I can get. That bonus goes towards keeping my head above water in the debt trap I’m in.
So my “work computer” which requires their
spywareantivirus to be installed is a virtual machine. It’s been two years and no complaints so far. Great antivirus.Wow I didn’t even know this.ty
Reimbursement for a mobile plan? If I need to use a special authenticator app to login to my work computer, and the app is fully offline (and I only need to use it at the office where I have Wi-fi anyway, if I needed it, but I don’t), then what does a mobile plan have to do with anything? I could use it on a phone without a SIM card, or a tablet that can’t have one.
My examples are the common scenarios. Apps typically use data. Even if in your case data isn’t used, your employer is still required to provide you with the tools necessary to complete your job. It’s as simple as that.
You said “No matter what app it is” which is the point of my confusion. So you actually meant “apps that use data”, that’s fair enough, thank you for the clarification.
your employer is still required to provide you with the tools necessary to complete your job
Yeah, that’s what I thought, that the employer is required to provide a work phone if they require the usage of an app. But you are saying they can refuse as long as they reimburse data, which doesn’t even help if the app doesn’t use data. How is that “refusal of a legal obligation” working?
they are legally obligated to provide you with a work phone. If they refuse
This is the part that I’m not getting. So are they legally obligated or are they allowed to refuse like you say. It can’t be both ways.
It doesn’t matter if it’s apps that use data or apps that don’t use data. If your employer requires you to install an app on your personal phone, you can refuse. It is your legal right. If you choose to exercise your legal rights, your employer must provide you with an alternative method that doesn’t involve your personal phone. Whatever they choose.
If you agree to installing a work related app on your personal phone, you must be compensated. If they refuse to compensate, you’re back to square one. They must provide you alternatives.
If your employer refuses to supply you with the tools to complete your job and/or refuse to compensate personal phone use for work related reasons, they are breaking the law. If they fire you for exercising your rights, it’s unlawful termination.
Here’s an example: My employer started requiring 2FA for the computer logins. They wanted me to install an app by Cisco. I said no. You can provide a locked down phone that can be used for the sole purpose of 2FA. They declined as that isn’t in their budget and “unnecessary”. They later came back with a little keychain that’s bound to my account. I press a button on the keychain and get the 2FA code. I can do my job and they did their job and gave me the tools to do so.
Ok, so it’s not that they can refuse to provide a device, it’s that if you voluntarily agree to use your personal device, then they have to provide compensation (for the data, etc.). Your original comment said they can refuse to provide a device, hence my confusion.
No, they can still refuse to provide a device as my original comment states. Since my employer refused to do so, they came up with an alternative without any additional input from me. They completely side stepped the app requirement by using a little key chain once they reached out to Cisco. Your employer has options. They have to find out what works best to make sure you can do the job they have hired you to do.
Just look at it as wear and tear. Doesn’t matter how miniscule it may be it’s still eating up your storage and battery life in addition to battery charge. Sure you could charge at work too for battery charge but as miniscule as it is it’s still killing your battery life.
Also, don’t give corporations any leeway because they WILL take advantage of the employee given the chance. For every single rule and regulation that helps the employee someone had to spill blood to achieve it.
That’s what I think, which is why I’m asking icedterminal where did they get the info that the employer can refuse to provide a phone, it doesn’t seem right to me.
Maybe in their country? Weird one.
I have slack in it, because I don’t like walking around with two phones, but I have it configured to stop notifying after hours. Also worth noting that I do have a phone from the company, it’s just that I find it cumbersome to walk around with two phones.
This is me, too. I run a dual Sim on my phone for this reason. I’ve always been good at ignoring things after hours unless motivated by self interest.
I know somebody who does this and accidentally racked up a £3,500 phone bill while on holiday. He was accidentally using the wrong SIM for data.
Same here. O365 and ticketing app.
O365 is shut up during off-time and the ticketing system doesnt have notifications.
I would probably take a 2nd phone but the hassle of keeping track of and charging both is too inconvenient for me.
Right now I am on vacation, my work phone stays at home with an empty battery.
They still have my private number if it is an absolute disaster at work and they need my help, but untill sunday evening I won’t even charge my work phone, let alone check it for messages/calls.
Work apps stay on the work phone, the ONLY exception to that rule I will ever make is work MFA apps.
But I’d sooner get a new separate phone for that if I don’t get a company phone.
Re MFA, I’ve been using a hardware key and it’s so much better. I don’t need my phone for a single work related thing anymore, so I can just ignore it until breaks.
I have two phones. A personal one and one provided by my company. I like being able to turn off my work phone when on holiday, etc and keep my personal life separate.
I do know a lot of people who sold their personal phones when given a work phone and use it for both. Saves some money I guess but no thanks.
I also know people who have two phones but install all the work apps on their personal phones to make it easier for them. No thanks!
I’m one of the “company-provided-phone-only” folks. Thankfully, I work for a pretty decent employer who has never abused that in the nearly 10 years I’ve worked there. But I realize that’s a pretty rare privilege.
It is wild to me, even as I have one work app on my phone. It’s only there because it allows me to clock in and out, and my personal phone is significantly higher spec’d than the work provided phone.
Even so, I cannot be contacted via this app and cannot perform work with it outside of the geo-restricted area.
That goes into the work profile of my android phone and that profile of switched off after clocking out. Simple as that, I don’t have to carry two phones and get my peace after hours. And my company respects my free time which also helps s lot.
my company respects my free time
Well that doesn’t sound like a recipe for anyone becoming a billionaire from your labour
For me it is a convenience thing – I spend a lot of time working from home and sometimes it’s nice to just be able to grab my phone and join a meeting while I’m sitting on the couch or w/e without needing to go over to my home office room. My team almost never does anything outside of work hours, so it’s not like I’m getting pinged or anything. In the rare situation where I get some notifications from a chat channel outside of working hours (usually someone in a different time zone) then I can just turn off work apps in Android and it goes away.
We have to call their bluff from time to time and remind the management that without us, none of their shit works. When we down tools its not like they can pick them up and get the show back on the road.
Kinda sad this is what it comes down to that they can’t be reasoned with like humans. I’d be looking for a new place to work.
“I can grab any piece of shit off the street and replace you in 20 seconds.” Is what most of them think when it comes to meat machine labor like myself. :(
Individually? Maybe. That’s why worker solidarity is important. Let the bastard replace the whole team while you’re out front protesting shit pay and long hours.
That works for menial labor in a down job market or a city without much opportunity. It doesn’t work for most career oriented positions, or in a strong job market. It costs a company considerably more to replace someone than to compensate them better.
I’m with you brother. I actually enjoy my job and my bosses are decent, they never micromanage or get in my way. Ill still take ‘sick’ mental health days off every 2 months or so just so they’re reminded how much of a pain in the ass it is without me here. I also take all my vacation time but it’s usually in one go for extended vacations. Gotta make sure they’re reminded every couple months though.
I presume you’re from the US but at first I was surprised you can even not take all vacation days. Cause in my country it is actually illegal to not use all vacation days and the employer pays a fine for that. Which leads to a bunch of people having days or even weeks free in February/March as they’re using their vacation days (the law necessitates them to be used by Q1 or so of following year).
Yea from the US. I phrased it that way because I can actually bank vacation days and use them next year, up until a certain cap at least. Actually used it to take a long vacation in japan last year.
in my country you’re not obligated to answer to anything work related after your work hours unless you’re manager or superior or it is exliciptly said in work contract that you be on call.
In my country you are on call and not paid for it, thats the workaround there.
well that sucks
Yup, on call pay was rolled in pay which was then cut back to where it was previously. Fuck Irish unions.
I get comp time when I’m on call.
My previous workplace was like this. It didn’t get to this point, I left before it got to the point of being told you’re not allowed to wfh under any circumstances, but I was very confused why I needed to go to the office, to do my IT job, helping people with their computers remotely. I go to the office, to work remotely. Which doesn’t make any sense at all.
What is special about the office that allows me to work better/faster/more effectively/whatever? Nobody could give me an answer. I can easily run the tools at home and work fine from there, but I’m not allowed.
My specialty is in network operations, if they want my work to 100% go through their equipment and firewalls and stuff, I can make that happen. With little effort, I can setup a system on a VLAN, and VPN that VLAN to work, blocking it from all other traffic apart from the VPN. It would be the only system on that VLAN (apart from the firewall/VPN device), ensuring no possibility of cross contamination between my equipment and theirs. They even had an openVPN host already configured, which they would only need to generate a connection file for, in order for me to get it working. I can then proxy 100% of my traffic through an office system and it would be identical to being present in the office, apart from me being physically there.
At home I have a dedicated room for my computer activities, where I can close the door and lock it if required, so I can remain undisturbed.
I made sure they understood all of this but they still wanted me in the office at least 4 days a week. I’m still not sure why.
I left that job, and my new job doesn’t even have a physical office, so I’m permanently working from home.
They probably wanted to get rid of you. So instead of firing you, they imposed stupid rules to makes you leave on your own.
Oh probably. From everything I saw it was impossible for me to meet their demands.
Partway through my employment I moved to a new home, after a few months my SO got a job. She doesn’t have a license but needed to travel about 15 minutes to work (30m round trip). I was basically the only person who could, or would, help her get to work. I worked 9-5, her shift was 2:30 to 10:30.
For a while, my brother would drive her to work and I would drive her home, even that was stressful, because I’d wake up at 6:30 to shower and get ready to leave by 8AM so I can be at work for 9, then I had to stay up to bring her home, which she wasn’t out at 10:30 promptly every day, so I’d frequently get home after 11:30. Going to bed at, or after midnight, to wake up by 6:30 AM, five days a week isn’t fun, even at four days in the office per week, it was not great.
Thought-out this time I was asking for more wfh, since then I can at least sleep from midnight to 8 AM or so. They wouldn’t budge.
My brother ended up having a medical issue that caused him to be unable to drive her to work, so I told my employer I had to work from home, since I have to take care of getting her both to, and from work, and that, at most, the situation would last around 10-12 months (she was working on her driver’s license, and that’s the minimum waiting/learning time for new drivers, before they can drive without a chaperone); I also informed them that I could attend the office once per week, since she had one weekday off per week as part of her shift rotation. They “compromised” by basically telling me to follow their schedule or be laid off. Their schedule was: in office every day from 9-1. Travel home between 1 and 2pm, and do what’s needed to get my SO to work. Once I’m done that, I can work from home when I return from dropping her off (usually 2:30 or 3 PM to 5 PM or so… Whatever our quitting time was), with one day (her day off) fully in office, and one day fully from home. So 3 of 5 days was this insane in-office then drive home and finish at home thing, one day was fully remote, and one day was fully in office.
Needless to say, I burned out fast. Got a note from my doctor saying I was disabled (he didn’t specify why, but if push came to shove it would be something mental health related, he never needed to AFAIK), and I wasn’t able to work right now, and currently the recovery time needed was unknown. So I went on disability.
I also want to mention that through all the half day nonsense, they expected me to log 6.5 hours in their time tracking software, which is something I struggle with at the best of times. When I’m stressed, the first thing that suffers is my ability to correctly log and account for my time in any system. So I had 4 hours in the morning to work from the office on my “split days” (as I called them), plus, maybe 2.5 hours at most during my work from home time. Totalling 6.5 hours. I couldn’t so much as take a shit or I would fall behind on my time tracking. Normally over an 8 hour shift, the 1.5 hours of missing time in the day would be for breaks/lunch. It’s hard to take lunch when I’m barely able to make it home in an hour, and barely able to get to/from her work in 30 minutes. I usually work through lunch because I tend to have time where I have no idea what I was doing, so I can’t really account for it in the time tracker. With the 1.5 hour block of driving in the middle of my day, plus all the distractions and unaccounted time I know I’ll accrue from co-workers pulling me away from my work to ask asinine questions about things that don’t have a presence in the time tracking system (all ticket based, and they would ask me about prospective projects that wouldn’t have a ticket for months), I knew that what they were asking as an impossible task.
After I felt up to the task of returning to that insanity, instead of keeping my seat warm for me, they laid me off before I was set to return to work. I only felt up to it because it would have only been a matter of a few months before my SO was able to take her driver’s test to be able to drive solo, and after 6 months of being off I wasn’t suicidal from the stress anymore, but the bills were starting to pile up.
I was able to determine that they hired a new person in the same role I had, who was on probation at the time when I wanted to return.
I’ll let you conclude what you want from that. I’ll legally bound not to speak poorly of the company, or what happened after my layoff. Everything I’ve said here is simply the facts of the matter.
In any case, after some thought, I’m glad I don’t work with people who would force me into that kind of position for a paycheque. I have a new job now and I’m slowly paying off any accumulated bills from my time disabled and/or laid off. The new company, as I believe I’ve mentioned, is entirely wfh, and I’m certain if I ended up in a similar spot, they would be vastly more empathetic to my plight. I’m even earning a small amount more per year, not enough to write home about, but it’s still a bigger number than I was given at the last place. I’m happy where I am, and I’m largely not stressed, apart from the normal stresses of my job. I no longer need to pay for gas to get to the office, nor parking, since the previous job was located in a nearby city in the downtown area, with no free parking for employees, so I had to get paid public parking out of my own pocket. I estimate the change will save me around $6000/yr or more. On top of my small bump in pay, I should have a bit less than $10k/yr more money to myself. Right now all of that is sunk into repayments, but long term, its basically free money.
If you work in the US, NDAs tied to severance are generally illegal.
Even so, I gave my last employer the benefit of silence for the amount of time my severance would have covered in regular salary. That time is now past.
Not in the USA, I’m not sure that we have a similar law. Any agreement that may or may not have resulted from the above story, which I cannot confirm nor deny, would have been examined by a legal professional whom is familiar with local laws and if such an error were to have been included in such a document, they would have surely pointed it out.
I’m not saying that’s what happened, but if it did, I certainly would have had any such agreement looked at by a professional who is familiar with the laws to the point of knowing if such a thing were not enforceable.
I wish I could say more specifically what happened, including my opinions, or name and shame the company involved but I am compelled to not disclose any such information. I also cannot elaborate on why or how I am limited on what I can disclose.
I feel like I’m walking a tightrope. The chances that someone is going to even care enough to trace my username to my identity, then do something about it, is pretty slim, even if I were to disclose everything, and name and shame as I would love to do… But I’m more honorable than most I suppose.
Or a “constructive dismissal”.
I’ve worked for numerous enterprises since the 90’s.
None of them have been this idiotic. All of them implemented secure channels. Remember SecurID cards for dial up connections?
Sorry no. I was not a part of the workforce when working remotely involved dial up connections.
I was in highschool when DSL and cable internet became the norm. From then on out, it was all VPN.
This is such an odd restriction for IT staff. Normally HR gives you a form to sign agreeing to working remotely sometimes and having company data on your phone because you know, servers are meant to stay on all the time? It must be nice living in a world where nothing bad happens after hours.
On the other extreme, 24/7 operations have redundancy.
A friend of mine explained that being an Emergency Medicine physician is a great job for work life balance, despite the fact that he often has to work ridiculous shifts, because he never has to take any work home with him. An Emergency Room is a 24/7 operation, so whenever he’s at home, some other doctor is responsible for whatever happens. So he gets to relax and never think about work when he’s not at work and not on call.
In a sane world, they give you a company phone when you are on reserve duty and they agree to pay compensation for being on reserve. Why would you agree to work for free?
Malicious Compliance! The only way to go.
