This is true at my wife's job. The company was once privately owned and offered a lot of nice perks and bonuses. Nothing really expensive, but things that made for a nice work enviroment: production or performance contests that gave some recognition and reward to top performers, usually one a month every department would have an extended lunch for some sort of party or social event, generous bonuses at Christmas, a few big company parties every year. The company had a very good retention rate and many long term workers.
Then they went corporate. All the little perks were gradually cut back and eliminated. Merit raises no longer exist, now you get a bare bones cost of living raise no matter how good or poor your performance is. The company has put in place more "policies" that regulate some of the stupidest and most minute details of the day. Salaried workers are expected to put more and more time in for no additional compensation.
And what's the result? The turn over rate is much higher, meaning the comany has to spend additional dollars training the new hires that are constantly replacing the ones who leave. And those new, raw employees are not nearly as efficient at getting work done as the people they are replacing. Plus many of the workers who are there now have a much lower morale and avoid doing anything extra or above and beyond because they know two things. One, they won't be rewarded in any fashion for their extra effort. Two, the company will start to expect teh extra effort and make it part of their jobs without adding compensation for the additonal responsibilities. People cut corners and do the minimum because they feel the company is the enemy. Where as before the company had a real family feel and many of the employees were very dedicated.
If you treat your employees like crap, the best you can expect is a minimal effort. Too many companies, especailly corporate ones, lose sight of this very basic fact.
The free market wouldn't pay people living wages during the 1910s on its own either. I guess we were all meant to starve and live like a 3rd world country.
People should work a Military schedule before saying they say 40 hours is too much.
Sounds tasty. Let's do lunch sometime. :mrgreen:
I think the average is like 2 weeks per YEAR, which is crazy. They want to work us to the highest efficiency possible but give us no rest and relaxation.
You need a union then.. no extra pay for overtime.. tsk!
It's called being an adult, this is what happens. 2-3 weeks is probably all you need off for vacation a year. Otherwise, get back to work.
Only they did. America was a third world country even by that day's standards. Incredibly high rates of disease. Unhygienic living conditions. High rates of infant mortality. No, no, I beg to differ. Americans were starving in the 1910s and lived like a 3rd world country. Quit revising history. Here is how the average American lived during the 1910s:
I know a believer in the cult of Free Market Libertarianism would never admit that things really weren't better 'back in the day' but history is amazing in that it can show just how horribly people lived even 100 years ago.
oh bs. that's what people are USED to, period. in the u.s. being an adult has nothing to do with how much vacation you want or need.
oh bs. that's what people are USED to, period. in the u.s. being an adult has nothing to do with how much vacation you want or need.
It's called being an adult, this is what happens. 2-3 weeks is probably all you need off for vacation a year. Otherwise, get back to work.
Spoken like someone who has never had to work hard for anything. It shows through. You've never been the struggling working class you accuse me of being. Either that or you are exactly the kind of boss I am talking about. Either way, sorry to step on your toes, your heiness.
Yes it does. When you grow up, you have real world responsibilities. You have to work for a living. Why should you get paid for not working? It's great that employeres have some amount of paid vacation, but they don't need to put it in there. You're getting paid to not work, that's a pretty damned sweet deal. But it's not something you can have all the time, else you don't get any work done. Don't be lazy and get back to work.
Jesus, I think what some of y'all need is a few years on the farm to teach you about work ethic.
real world responsbilities don't have to mean killing yourself for 50 years then retiring and dropping dead.
Nope, but working 40+ hours a week with a few weeks of vacation days every year ain't gonna do that. For Christ's sake, is this what's happening to our country? People can't even work now because "they're going to drop dead" from work. No wonder things are falling off the map. We used to sit around and do things for ourselves. We could work hard, have the time to relax and enjoy life. But now it seems like people want to demand the college student life style through out the whole of their adult lives. My grandma still managed her farm well into her twilight years, worked hard even then, she didn't drop dead of work. Hell I worked that same farm for a good hunk of my youth. It's what made me hate dairy farming. Not dead yet. I put in over 60 hours a week, not dead yet.
I think it's high time we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, quit bitching about this and that, and get back to work. It's time to do something instead of sitting around on our fat asses demanding stuff. America had a little mid-life crisis, we got reckless with our money, shrugged off our responsibilities, and lived like there was no tomorrow trying to live it up. It was great, it was fun; it's time to get over it. Get back to work.
i'm not bitching, i am getting ready to sail the caribbean.
Well good for you. Some of us have to work an honest days work though.
Nope, but working 40+ hours a week with a few weeks of vacation days every year ain't gonna do that. For Christ's sake, is this what's happening to our country? People can't even work now because "they're going to drop dead" from work. No wonder things are falling off the map. We used to sit around and do things for ourselves. We could work hard, have the time to relax and enjoy life. But now it seems like people want to demand the college student life style through out the whole of their adult lives. My grandma still managed her farm well into her twilight years, worked hard even then, she didn't drop dead of work. Hell I worked that same farm for a good hunk of my youth. It's what made me hate dairy farming. Not dead yet. I put in over 60 hours a week, not dead yet.
I think it's high time we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, quit bitching about this and that, and get back to work. It's time to do something instead of sitting around on our fat asses demanding stuff. America had a little mid-life crisis, we got reckless with our money, shrugged off our responsibilities, and lived like there was no tomorrow trying to live it up. It was great, it was fun; it's time to get over it. Get back to work.
I see a 50% rise in real wages in just 30 years.
Take a look at this website, it's very enlightening.
A History of the Standard of Living in the United States | Economic History Services
GDP per capita was growing at a robust rate between 1870 and 1913. Average heights were increasing (which would mean that food consumption was on the rise). In 1820, the US had an average GDP per capita, trailing Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland. We were way behind the UK and the Netherlands (the leader). By 1870 that was roughly the same (probably the Mexican-American War and especially the Civil War held us back). By 1913, though, we had shot up and lead the world. There was tremendous growth from the late 1800s to the early 1900s.
So I'll wait for some real data from you, not just pictures that shock our modern sensibilities and your opinions that you really just drew out of thin air, but data that puts life back then into proper perspective (that is, comparing to living conditions around the world back then and how much better that time period was to before then, any analysis comparing living conditions then to now is just disingenuous as the same case could be made anywhere around the world, of course we're better off now, so what, you need to look at what people were coming from to see how things were improving).
This poll is mostly directed toward Americans. I was wondering what you thought about the idea of shortening the 40-hour work week. I think it would be a very positive step for our society. We already work far more hours, on average, than any other developed country in the world. I think that most people (with some exceptions) are happier when they're out doing things they enjoy than when they're working.
Furthermore, reducing the work week would be a good way to help tackle our unemployment problem. If an employer needed a certain number of labor-hours and couldn't get as many labor-hours from each worker, they would need to hire more people. This would reduce unemployment.
As I see it, the main cost of this would fall on employers. They would need to either pay more overtime (if they still wanted to have employees work 40 hours) or hire more people (and incur the associated recruiting/processing/training costs). These costs seem rather small, especially since corporate America is doing quite well. I think that this would be a much more worthwhile cost to impose than, say, a lot of the inefficient corporate taxes to which businesses are subjected.
The free market will not reduce the 40-hour work week on its own; if we think it's desirable to work less than that, it will require some government prodding. The 40-hour work week has been in place since 1950, despite the fact that the American worker of today is vastly more productive than his 1950 counterpart. Furthermore, in most industries, companies have an incentive to work employees as many hours as they can get away with, because it reduces training costs.
But what about the fact that some people already struggle to make ends meet with a 40-hour job? OK, but there are lots of other people in the even worse position of working 0 hours per week because they can't find a job. From a macroeconomic perspective, this is very harmful. It would be far better for our economy to have more people working fewer hours, than to have fewer people working more hours.
I pack my own chute, thank you.
I work for a company that won't give you 40 even after working there for 4 years with stellar praise and reports of acheivement. I feel I am entitled to some benefits considering the money I've made this company.
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