Skip to main content

Work in America Is Greedy. But It Doesn’t Have to Be.

#1

Over the years - yes I am a somewhat jaded older worker - the idea of being a good highly productive employee has really turned. I am still highly productive, creating quality software products for people, or leading people to positive outcomes, but I am much more aware that companies don't matter. Few corporations have a mission that is worth devoting one's energies to. They are just business entities that don't deserve our commitment.

I am much more likely to ask, how good is that employer, and how good is that employer for me. After 25 years in the financial sector, I took a role with a major cancer center, and part of the reason behind that was its high rating as an employer. Compared to finance, which is harmful to our collective welfare, my new employer devotes resources to human development and provides a better quality of life, besides having a mission one does not feel ashamed about.

Sadly, the US will never be a country concerned about human welfare - at least in the near future - where life matters more than work.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/upshot/employers-flexible-work-america.html#commentsContainer&permid=100489299

#2

Generally, businesses don't deserve our commitment. Yes, there are entities that combine business with nobler aims, e.g., environmental concerns, healthcare, human welfare, etc., but my sense is that people are fooled into the notion of work as being redemptive and uplifting. It isn't. Across the developed world, more work is associated with less human welfare outcomes and a tendency toward higher inequality. Although Americans might get a little smarter and realize that the US has a huge deficit in social welfare for our cultural tendency toward work, enforced and enshrined in laws and policies that benefit corporations, it is not likely to change significantly.

They are just business entities that don't deserve our commitment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/upshot/employers-flexible-work-america.html#commentsContainer&permid=100489203

#3

Flexibility sounds good in principle, but for many, it will only mean time devoted to work and irregular scheduling. For myself, I enjoy being able to work remotely a couple of days a week and limited management flexibility on my hours, but for many Slack-like apps on their phones, remote dial-ins and links, and remote work itself will mean more work and more work off-hours. It can reduce stress in one form, e.g., the conflict between one's personal life demands while increasing it overall or off hours. Yes, if managed correctly, it does not have to encroach on one's life and can enhance it, but in many ways, it will only be a way to extract more work from people.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/upshot/employers-flexible-work-america.html#commentsContainer&permid=100490504:100490504

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky My rating: 5 of 5 stars I finished reading this crying. It is a work of neurobiology, social science, anthropology, and history, but ultimately it is a work of great humanity, suggesting ways that humans, our groups, our systems, and our societies can be made better. View all my reviews

Don't learn to code. Learn to think.

A response to  Don't learn to code. Learn to think. : Below is is my usual response when I see an article stating that everyone should learn to code:  Rather than programming, it is more important to impart the thinking of computer science (CS) than a specific implementation. Programming can be an end point for some students, but it is likely that programming itself will be increasingly automated, so that one needs more the general concepts common in CS. Even then, programming itself is to some degree a grunt task that one progresses beyond:  The following are typical components of a CS degree: algorithms & flowcharting systems thinking logical systems and set theory object-orientation & patterns probability, statistics, mathematics All of the above can be useful in an increasingly automated and data-driven world.

A Journey — if You Dare — Into the Minds of Silicon Valley Programmers

My responses in a NY Times comment section for the book, Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World by Clive Thompson : #1 - Link Although I've been a software developer for 15 years, and for longer alternating between a project manager, team lead, or analyst, mostly in finance, and now with a cancer center, I found it funny that you blame the people doing the coding for not seeing the harm it could cause. First, most scientific advancement has dark elements, and it is usually not the science but how it is used and sold by business people that is the problem. This leads to the second problem, in that it is not coding that is in itself problematic, but specifically how technology is harnessed to sell. It is normal and desirable to track users, to log actions, to collect telemetry, so as to monitor systems, respond to errors, and to develop new features, but that normal engineering practice has been used to surveil users for the purpose of selling. Blaming