Abolish the overtime exemption for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, and software engineers. Make it unprofitable to extract labor until someone dies. All other actions are impotent.
* Folks working more can have direct immediate compensation for it, vs handwavy promises of maybe future promotions or stock option rewards
* Creates jobs by lowering incentives to just over-work the people you already have
* Spreads out the income tax load by creating more paid labor out of thin air to get the same amount of total work done - better to have that marginal change in the average person's pocketbooks and income tax than tax-sheltered locations for corporations or the highly-wealthy
Not to mention that even if timesheets were used, they provide no guarantees. We always had to get management permission to put overtime in, but no one really knew how much time we worked - especially with a possibility of remote work.
This can only be fixed by pervasive monitoring, and IMHO this leads to a very unpleasant workspace.
Companies love timesheets because, even though you're salary, they want to know what you're doing at all times.
They want all the control of an hourly paid employee, with all the money stealing of a salary position.
Also you're already being tracked, they already know exactly how long you're online. I don't know what to tell you.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating for time sheets. I'm advocating against overtime exemption.
Even so, all other things being equal, if the tedium of timesheets is on one side of the equation and all of the exploitation of unpaid labor is on the other, I'd still rather not be exploited. Working for free, which is what unpaid overtime is, is unsupportable.
There are many examples of non-exempt professionals who deal with this without resorting to spyware or coercion. IT support specialists, paralegals, and lab technicians all have systems that work: simple start/stop time logs or weekly attestations, plus manager pre-approval for overtime. No one is tracking keystrokes and no one is forced into surveillance. It's about accountability. You attest to your hours, managers approve exceptions, and overtime gets paid. That's the balance.
Most western countries are democracies because people got fed up of being exploited by dictators (sometimes called "kings"), removed them and setup a system in which they elect who makes the decisions. This system has issues but is less bad than dictatorship.
Yet, companies kept their hierarchical power structures.
Workers should decide who makes the decisions. If they don't wanna invest time into selling their product, they hire a salesman. If they want somebody to make long term projections, plan what gets worked on and communicates with other teams, they hire an assistant. And they decide how much he gets paid according to how much value he actually brings them.
Managers should be assistants.
We tried that in my country for about 50 years, it didn’t work out.
Let's have MORE companies, not fewer.
Put in strong escalating taxes to incentivize cooperation between small companies instead of bowing to the math that encourages consolidation otherwise.
But if there's no private ownership, how would the different companies in the market get created and exist?
All that said, co-op businesses have seen slow but steady growth for decades now.
this. most countries have similar policies. been there, seen so many others going through this in UK, USA, Japan, Korea, Singapore. it really damages your life.
to everyone, check other countries (Portugal, Thailand, Japan) that give you residency for years and allow to work remotely
don't let your employer hold you and your family a hostage with your legal status
Unfortunately you can only work here up to 6 months as a digital nomad and it's not residency, it's basically just an extended tourist visa.
Portugal's digital nomad visa seems good but their immigration system is apparently extremely dysfunctional.
Currently it is used as a tool to extract maximum labour for cheap compared to hiring Americans. We don't call it slave labour because the immigrant is paid decently, but they are held hostage by multiple factors; career aspirations, family expectations and the like.. So easier to manipulate while denying opportunity for actual Americans.
Needs serious reform. A simple one is, pay H1Bs higher salaries than market rate. This would create the economic incentives for companies to use H1Bs only when really needed
They do have these policies written down: bi-annual performance reviews, stack ranking, PIPs.
We don't have enough information to support that.
Bi-annual performance reviews themselves aren't a bad thing that force overwork.
If he had a history of good performance reviews (100% or higher on average), the risk of getting a PIP would be very low.
Microsoft stopped stack ranking years ago.
I don't think we should speculate on people's behavior or how they aligned with company policies, because we might accidentally be insulting this man.
As much as they say they care about employees, honestly they don’t. It’s important to draw a line and say no. These companies would dump you tomorrow and not think twice about it. Work hard and have fun, but remember they call it “compensation” for a reason. Don’t let a company you don’t own be your life… that never works out well in the long run.
Nearly as horrifying are all of the people that bust their asses because they care and don’t want to lose their jobs, then the managers and/or companies who’ve come to expect that fire them when they burn out, after they’ve amassed health problems, and they haven’t spent any time in career-related training nor networked with others to find something else.
Upd:
I didn’t mean that this is ok, I’m for workers rights.
You are free to be poor, broke and homeless.
We really need a management class that doesn't insist on continuing the cycle of abuse on their underlings.
I’m all for workers’ rights, though.
This won't happen. Your manager puts pressure on you, they get pressure from their manager and so on until it reaches the CEO who might be getting pressure from investors/board.
Only fix is regulations from the government which seems to be a curse word by many posters on this site.
Worker cooperatives are to corporations what democracies are to dictatorships.
Why are you putting yourself in a position where you're forced to find work as fast as possible or you'll be homeless?
For all but the people on the lowest incomes or those with terrible luck this is a solvable problem
So if you can work 10% more than your peers, you get not 10% bonus but rather 30%-100% more. So it makes business sense to put the extra 10%, until everyone is working at 110% and then again, adding an extra 10% pays off, rinse release, death spiral.
The compensation model is pure evil.
Does it actually? I'd buy that it makes silly arbitrary emotion sense to bask in the nonsensical feelings about an even bigger number. The actual business case is much less clear. There is obviously an opportunity cost associated with that extra 10% and 30-100% is not necessarily the best opportunity. I suspect it is often not.
Maybe I've been farming for too long, but my brain, at least, is wired to push until completion and until things are done it will consume me. If you're going to be up all night ruminating about it, you may as well actually work on it.
Of course, in farming you get a nice long break after you've pushed yourself hard. I've never worked at Microsoft, but I suspect, given what I've seen elsewhere, that as soon as it is done it's already on to the next thing, never giving workers a chance to stop for a while.
It gets complicated really fast if you add decades of temporary visa status to it.
don't let your employer keep you and your family hostage with your legal status
"Here is a button. If you press it, you get $50.000, but someone you don't know dies. Will you press it?
Some people never press it. Some people press it once, maybe twice. The billionaires press it as fast as they can."
This time we got to know one of the victims, but definitely all those projects he was working on generated so much value for the shareholders.
Insufficient sleep is very bad for the heart. It is critically important for long-term health to to leave work on the dot at 5 pm, then get some exercise done in the evening if not in the very early morning. Also, stop relying on fast food for meals.
