In between watching consecutive episodes of King of the Hill and having lunch (a late one at that, at 4:00) I noticed something...
How many fucking ENERGY DRINK/POTION commercials there are!! SO FUCKING MANY! And they all show people excelling at their jobs, thanks to this new energy crap!
Are we so overworked, so consumed with making money (and yet making next to none at all) that we need artificial items in mass quantities to keep us going?
God forbid we change our work ethic. God forbid we take a 2 hour lunch, or perhaps three weeks vacation instead of the standard two per year (and god forbid you try to take those two weeks consecutively)
If you are in some other nation, such as Australia, England or Canada, you know... the sane nations (otherwise known as the nations with at least SOME of their shit together) Speak up.
workworkworkworkworkfuckingwork. We work, we stress ourselves out. we get sick from stress and cant afford the healthcare to take care of ourselves. We dont have time to eat, sleep anything, so we are fat and die of heart disease...
all of the name of the almighty dollar, which is worth next to shit right now.
Joined: Fri Oct 05 2007, 03:44am
Location: Somewhere....?
Posts: 23
I work for two hours, get everything done, and then I sit around for another 6 waiting for someone to call on the fricken phone to complain that I did my job too well, only to get a boss come to my office and fire my ass for not doing things in the alotted time of 8 hours. It's not my fault I know my job.
I'd respond to this in detail but I'm having my after dinner Red Bull before I go out to the workshop to stain and finish an oak door jamb I have to install tomorrow morning.
God forbid we change our work ethic. God forbid we take a 2 hour lunch, or perhaps three weeks vacation instead of the standard two per year (and god forbid you try to take those two weeks consecutively)
If you are in some other nation, such as Australia, England or Canada, you know... the sane nations (otherwise known as the nations with at least SOME of their shit together) Speak up.
We just changed Federal Government here, the new incumbants pledging to scrap the American style industrial relations legislation the previous much despised government rammed through soon after taking control of both Houses of Parliment without at least informing the population first. Lots of people lost lots of hard won conditions, simple things like penalty rates, sick leave, leave loading (we get paid an extra 17.5% when we take annual leave), etc, in many cases for less than a dollar an hour extra. Many corporates (as opposed to businesses) refused to use the legislation instead opting to stay with current enterprise bargains. Surveys said that people thought that the previous industrial relations legislation provided the necessary balance between employers and their workforces.
My conditions when I was working shift were awesome... I worked 13 days a month, 12 hours a shift (the cycle was 14 days, but to keep the hours under 160 a 4 week cycle they threw in a Rostered Day Off as well as a Rostered week off). That effectively meant I had 17 weeks off a year (13 weeks rostered off, 4 weeks Annual leave). On top of my generous salary I was paid a consolidated allowance to cover shift penalties and leave loading of $24k a year. Coming off shift, I lost the consolidated allowance and the Rostered day off, being management level with the company I work for RDO's dont apply (mind you my employer paid out the outstanding 160 hours of RDO's I didnt take, nice lump sum). I only have the 4 weeks annual leave now (working normal business hours), but I still get 17.5% leave loading when I take annual leave. When I hit 15 years with the company I became entitled to 3 months paid long service leave, and when I hit 20 years this June, I am entitled to another 2 months LSL. The good thing is I can take the whole leave as a 3 month block, sell it back to my employer, or double the length of leave at half pay (6 months off with 3 months pay paid over 6 months). My company is fairly flexible about time used for lunch, if I need to take 2 hours, I can. I took a couple of days off last week to take Danni to hospital, and look after her while she was sick, no questions asked. It didnt come off my accrued leave. My company doesnt count sick leave either, if I'm sick and I produce a doctors cert, that's good enough. If I'm sick for up to 2 days, no cert is needed. And that's right through the company, not just people at or above my level. Most companies and businesses have most of those conditions for their staff, the few that dont cant find staff to hire. Even when I worked for a small business 22 years ago, I had most of those basic conditions (4 weeks leave, LSL, Leave loading paid, unlimited sick leave).
Dont get me wrong, I still work many weird hours, but its by choice, and the money for me is good.
I remember being asked by Roland (friend of Dave's) about universal healthcare in Australia. I explained to Roland that we pay a cent and a half tax per dollar earned (on top of the marginal tax rates) and get universal basic hospital cover (so if I suddenly need my appendix removed all I have to do is show up at a hospital, show my Medicare card, and the hospital staff go to work). Subsidised prescriptions are also part of it (something the big US pharmacetical companies tried to have removed when Australia and the US struck up a free trade treaty), the most I'll pay for a script is $23, if I'm on a pension, $6 (I think). Not everything is covered (like real expensive cancer drugs), but I also am lucky enough to be in a position to be able to pay for private health cover.
Some people commented on my drivers licence not needing renewal for 10 years when I was in Fla, they were amazed that the Victorian Government would allow such a thing. They also thought it was a good idea. I dunno about the rest of America, I'm guessing there's some states that would do same.
NZ do most of the same things, but they do some thing much better, like no need to file a tax return. They simplified their tax laws to the point that the Tax Dept either send you a refund cheque or a demand for payment at the end of the tax year. Seems to work, there arent to many challenges of the assessment notice. You know what really annoyed me about the US was the pricing of goods. Why the hell dont you just include sales tax in the final price of the item, like the rest of the world manage to? Income tax rates here are probably a little higher than in the US, but we only have one flat sales tax (10%) and no state income taxes, so I think overall we have lower taxing system (but I dont have absolute proof of that).
Sorry, I kind of rambled on, but these are the kinds of differences I noticed between Australia (NZ is very similar to Oz) and the US. Mind you Australians work the longest hours of any society on the planet, on average. I get stressed from time to time, but I have worked very hard to achieve the things I have, and can afford to be a little laid back about my profession life now. A good work environment helps.
I work for Wal-Mart and you can be laid up in the hospital with a broken head and they wouldn't care. Doctor's notes don't count. You miss, for whatever reason (aside from disasters, severe weather, jury duty or military time) you have unexcused absences. You're allowed only 12 per 6 months or you're terminated.
Joined: Wed Feb 28 2007, 12:14am
Location: Under Your Mom's Meat Flaps!
Posts: 14373
You know, no soon did I post this Yahoo! news on my site changed to include this;
Employers slash the most jobs in 5 years
WASHINGTON - Employers slashed 63,000 jobs in February, the most in five years and the starkest sign yet that the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already. ADVERTISEMENT
The Labor Department's report, released Friday, also indicated that the nation's unemployment rate dipped from 4.9 percent in January to 4.8 percent last month as hundreds of thousands of people — perhaps discouraged by their prospects — left the civilian labor force.
Job losses were widespread, with hefty cuts coming from construction, manufacturing, retailing, financial services and a variety of professional and business services. Those losses swamped gains elsewhere, including education and health care, leisure and hospitality and the government.
The latest snapshot of the nation's employment climate underscored the heavy toll of the housing and credit crises on companies, jobseekers and the overall economy.
"It's clear our economy has slowed," President Bush said.
To provide relief to persistent credit problems, the Federal Reserve announced Friday that it will increase the amount of loans it plans to make available to banks this month to $100 billion.
It has already provided a total of $160 billion in short-term loans to cash-strapped banks since the auctions began in December. Another Fed step will involve making $100 billion available to a broad range of financial players through a series of separate transactions.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials were down by nearly 180 points in early afternoon trading as the Fed's actions helped to blunt worry about the eroding jobs situation.
The Labor report also showed that January's job losses were worse than the government first reported. Employers cut 22,000 jobs, versus 17,000.
It was the first monthly back-to-back job loss since May and June 2003, when the job market was still struggling to recover from the blows of the 2001 recession.
The health of the nation's job market is critical in shaping how the overall economy fares. If companies continue to reduce hiring, that will spell more trouble.
"It certainly solidifies the notion that the economy has fallen into a recession," said Ken Mayland, economist at ClearView Economics.
Friday's report was much weaker than economists were expecting. They had been predicting that employers would boost payrolls by around 25,000. However, they were also expecting the jobless rate to edge up to 5 percent. The reason why the jobless rate went down, rather than up, is because so many people stopped looking for work and left the labor force.
President Bush's top economic adviser, Edward Lazear, acknowledged Friday that it's possible the economy shrank in the current January-to-March quarter. A growing number of economists think that will be the case, but Lazear's comment was the most pessimistic assessment heard out of the White House. He would not discuss whether the White House is predicting the economy will actually fall into a recession. Some economists think it already has.
"We are disappointed any time you see a number showing lost jobs," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told The Associated Press. "This is consistent with a slowdown," he said. Still, he was hopeful that the recently enacted economic stimulus package forged by the White House and Congress will help bolster the economy in the second half of this year. Bush urged people to spend their rebates to help the economy grow.
Workers with jobs, however, saw modest wage gains.
Average hourly earnings for jobholders rose to $17.80 in February, a 0.3 percent increase from the previous month. That was on target with economists' forecasts. Over the last 12 months, wages were up 3.7 percent. With high energy and food prices, though, workers may feel squeezed and feel like their paychecks aren't stretching that far.
With the economy losing momentum, fears have grown that the country in on the brink of its first recession since 2001.
Economic growth slowed to a near standstill of just a 0.6 percent pace in the final quarter of last year. Many economists predict growth in the January-to-March quarter will be worse — around a 0.4 percent pace. Some believe the economy is shrinking now.
Spreading fallout from the housing and credit debacles are the main factors behind the economic slowdown. People and businesses alike are feeling the strains and have turned cautious. Adding to the stresses on pocketbooks, budgets and the economy: skyrocketing energy prices. Oil prices have set a string of record highs in recent days. Gasoline prices have marched higher, too.
To help shore up the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled last week that the central bank is prepared to lower interest rates again. Economists predict another cut on March 18, the Fed's next meeting. The Fed, which has been slicing the rate since September, recently turned more forceful. It slashed the rate by 1.25 percentage points in the course of just eight days in January — the biggest one-month reduction in a quarter century.
The White House and Congress, meanwhile, speedily enacted an economic relief package, including tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses. That — along with the Fed's rate cuts — should help give a lift to the economy in the second half of this year, says Bernanke.
Still, unemployment is expected to move higher this year. The Federal Reserve predict the jobless rate will rise to as high as 5.3 percent in 2008. Last year, the unemployment rate averaged 4.6 percent.
All the economy's troubles are putting people in a gloomy mood.
According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence sank to a mark of 33.1 in early March, the worst reading since the index began in 2002.
I work for Wal-Mart and you can be laid up in the hospital with a broken head and they wouldn't care. Doctor's notes don't count. You miss, for whatever reason (aside from disasters, severe weather, jury duty or military time) you have unexcused absences. You're allowed only 12 per 6 months or you're terminated.
Do you still get paid for the unexcused absence (I should have said above that sick leave in Oz is paid Sick leave when a cert is produced, no cert no salary after a certain number of sick days are used)? Australian businesses cannot terminate employees due to illness, but they can do things to after a while to move the employee of their books. There's a colleague of mine who had a heart operation a couple of years ago, and has barely returned to work in that time, but my employer has kept paying him his normal salary the whole time. He is now awaiting a heart transplant, and when that happens he'll probably resign.
and this thread is why I appreciate England, for all I think it's current leaders (and those of the recent past) bshould be shot as filthy liars and war criminals
I still intends to leave though, the place is going to the dogs
You only get paid if you have built up enough sick time or vacation time or personal time. Like at WM, you don't get any vacation until after your first year (if full-time) or after your second year (if part-time). You get 2 personal days per year after your first year, as well as sick time. That's alloted so much time per number of hours worked and you don't get any of that until after you've worked your first 1000 hours. And your first day out is NEVER sick pay. Sick pay only starts after your second day, and if you're our more than three days, they want you to fill out a Leave of Absence form because of the FMLA (family medical leave act). It sucks. *L*
I have what Ian has plus one thing extra - my skill set is rare so there's virtually no threat to my job. If you're not in the position to dictate terms of your contract then I'd encourage you to get there as soon as possible.
I work for a French company in Japan, it's a little weird. There's the Japanese side which says to stay in the company for 20 years and work until 11pm each night, whereas the French take long vacations, have a lot of meetings and generally do fuck all that's any use. Ergo, I work short hours, take long vacations, am very well paid but but spend a lot of time bowing.
Lehman Brothers approached me last week and we're talking about a possible position, and increase in pay, stress and working hours I'd believe. Normally I'd say no but I'm sick of those fucking frogs.
Edited Sat Mar 08 2008, 03:03am
