If the prick wants people on-call 24 hours a day then he needs to pony up the wages to match with accompanying extended holiday for downtime.
what if you have to get a hold of them at two in the morning
People sometimes accuse me of being cynical, and yet here I was giving this guy the benefit of the doubt, thinking his objection might be that we don’t need such a rule because employees already had the right to not answer the phone by nature and tradition.
I’m available for work after hours - 1 week a month, scheduled several months in advance.
I get about 1000€ extra for it, per month. And also 42 days of paid vacation per year, plus unlimited sick days.That’s what this rule would do - force employers to make it worth your while if they need you after hours, and force them to think about whether they really need that.
Fuck, I get about a 150€ for being on call for a week. I’m getting ripped off.
You guys are getting paid for being on call?!
…me neither
I want what you have, I’m getting screwed.
My general sense of this dude from Shark Tank is he’s an asshole. After reading about him for 5 minutes, he’s definitely an asshole.
Fuck you, pay me.
He’s also ignoring the fact that if your job’s responsibilities are mission-critical, chances are you have a contract which stipulates situations in which you can be contacted after hours. It’s about Joe Schmoe IT guy being called in at 7pm while he’s having dinner with his family and being told to come to work because Greg the assistant to the Sales VP forgot his password again. Greg can fuck right off until tomorrow morning.
The server going down at 2am is mission-critical and the guy in charge of it will definitely be answering that call to fix it.
At my job we’re expected to at least try to be available if needed after hours which in my 3 years here has happened once and it took about 30 minute and I waited until my son went to bed for the night.
In return we get to leave for doctors appointments, picking up kids, errands etc without having to use PTO or make up the time. It’s a pretty sweet deal for the developers and no one abuses it to much.
At my old job they tried to get us to work after hours pretty frequently for a fraction of what our hourly rate was, we were salaried but when you broke it down you’d be getting like $20 an hour instead of $50. Ridiculous and almost no one did it.
Right, but he’s placing a subtle idea on people that wage theft isn’t a thing, overtime shouldn’t be a thing, and we shouldn’t have regulation for that. There’s a reason SREs get paid so much money, and it’s because it’s in their contract that they have to be the ones to rotate shifts and be up at 2am during an upgrade or otherwise, and he’s just mad he can’t pay everyone less and make more money
Just average capitalist things. Nothing to see here.
but that’s why we made you salary with low wages!
The only correct answer. Pay for that availability if needed around the clock.
Oh that’s employees boss. We’re the majority actually. And if you stop us from organizing or voting we’re still the majority, just angrier.
Who the fuck would call their employee after hours? In none of the places I’ve ever worked, would the boss even think about calling me to do something when I’m not at work. Nobody would expect me to answer. You don’t need a law about basic things like that.
But see this is america where workers have paltry few rights. So we do need laws about basic shit like this. In the IT field on-call and after hours work is just expected, you’re expected to answrr calls and emails etc. It’s awful. So it’d be nice if there laws against it.
See, you’re just lucky. Many folks don’t have good bosses, so a law like this is good.
So You need a law for normal, decent behavior?
Have you been living under a rock?
Hell, one of the two major political parties in the US has been pushing (successfully in many states) to roll back child labor laws. Teens have died already: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/20/republican-child-labor-law-death
No only do we need the laws, but we need to be conscientious in applying them and making sure they stay strong.
Fighting fascism is exhausting, it’s a constant battle.
I think it’s pretty clear from my comment that I don’t need that law. But some people do, because some people have bosses who will not behave normally and decently unless forced to.
First day in the human race?
This law isn’t catered to you personally, don’t you think there are bosses or work places that call their employees after hours - it’s pretty common. I don’t mind, but I get mails and messages after hours and just answer them.
It does effect me without me knowing in some ways, but I personally feel it’s more important to help someone, that also might be stressed and decide to contact me, for some help or questions.
If the person or boss isn’t an asshole I don’t mind, but not everyone has that luxury, of having a boss that cares. Often they don’t want to contact you after hours.
If it was worth stressing about, it was worth discussing with me when I was on the clock. The entire premise of a job is that I work in direct exchange for money. No money? No work. Pay me or wait until next shift.
If it was worth stressing about, it was worth discussing with me when I was on the clock.
If your users suddenly start getting errors in prod at 6 PM, that wasn’t something that anyone would’ve known 2 hours earlier when you were still at work, but it affects business nonetheless.
However, a company of any real size should have employees who get paid to be on call to deal with ongoing issues. In the example of the software industry, this would be site reliability engineers who take part of an on call rotation.
But if you’re a max 20 person startup? You bet your ass that your average software engineer can expect a phone call.
So what I’m saying is that nuance is a thing. Working for a large corporation, or just in a job where nothing you do can be super urgent? Literally ignore your boss. Working in a small company where you taking that phone call has an actual impact on the company’s near-term financial performance or reputation? Might be worth reconsidering your stance, but probably not if your boss is an asshole and you know that no matter how well you perform, you’ll never get promoted.
If he were my boss I’d ignore him during work hours too, tbh.
When asked whether he ever encounters employees who silence their phones outside of work, O’Leary didn’t hesitate with his response: “The next moment is — I just fire them.”
TBH they’re better off.
Hm, unemployment collection and/or EEOC action for constructive dismissal, cool. My disability is “unable to work when off the clock”.
Canada has worker protections, too, so that would get expensive if he tried it at home.
Kevin, seriously, what actual value do you serve to the human race? What do you do that makes life better overall? I don’t mean new toys or new companies that produce more shit, what do you make for the average person that makes their life better? Nothing, is that answer. You had a chance way back, educational software could have been a human life changer… but no, you couldn’t make money on it. So go fuck your self. Vafancullo
It’s time to hold idiots like this guy accountable.
The first time you watch Shark Tank, you might think this Kevin guy is a bit of an asshole. However, if you carefully study his history, his successes, and dig deep into what the man himself is like, you discover that he is, in fact, a piece of shit.
These corporate fucks should just die. No ifs, no buts, just fucking die like the scum they are.
Too humane
Die, and then get called back on the job after hours
“Who dreams this crap up?”
Working class people who make .5% what you do and don’t want to eat, sleep, and breathe work, you fucking fascist turd goblin.
EDIT: We have been informed by our team that our numbers above were off slightly. We apologize for the error and pledge to quintuple-check our math going forward.
Kevin O’Leary’s annual income is reported at $40+ million. The average salary in the US is About $60k. The number you’re looking for is 0.15%.
JFC, as a business owner I 100% not expect my employees to be reachable after hours. Why do these idiots don’t understand the basic principle: happy employee is productive employee. Understanding life happens and work is ‘just’ work. Give and take equally, be reasonable about stuff - basic human empathy… I hold my own personal time in high regard, it would be insane not to hold other people’s personal time in high regard too.
If employees start ignoring their boss’s calls, texts, and emails outside of work hours, an after-hours emergency might have to wait until the next business day, which O’Leary finds unacceptable.
Did this fucking fascist consider hiring more staff and going 24/7? How is it the problem of salaried workers that their boss is too fucking cheap to hire enough people to get the level of support that he wants?
I made this a few years ago, about 6 months before walking out on a job I’d had for 11 years.
Fuck all these sociopaths. Right in the ear. With a rusty spoon.
There are a lot of jobs that require out of hours support, specifically those that aren’t tied to business hours. In tech at least, many of the sites and services you use are built off the backs of software engineers that are paged at 5am because latency is a little higher than normal.
I don’t raise this to say that this rule is bullshit, but to say that there are a lot of arguments that will be used to push people to work longer than their allotted hours. IMO this is absolutely required, but I would go further and say that any contact outside of working hours implies a working contract, and guarantees that the employee is paid for the disruption caused. That includes on-call too, which is often unpaid.
Labor laws in the US are, frankly, hilariously bad. You deserve unlimited sick pay, at least 25 days holiday (separate from sick leave), and the removal of at-will employment. What is described here is the bare minimum of what you should have.
There are a lot of jobs that require out of hours support, specifically those that aren’t tied to business hours. In tech at least, many of the sites and services you use are built off the backs of software engineers that are paged at 5am because latency is a little higher than normal.
There is a very easy solution to this dilemma: pay someone to stand ready at off-hours.
While true, there are some complications to this:
- Unsociable hours usually require more pay
- If you’re already working 40 hours a week, focusing on stuff out of hours is going to be hard. I know this all too well!
IMO, this is EXACTLY where outsourcing should be used. Either move someone from the US (or your home country) to where you need support, ensure you have a good triage system for issues that might come up, etc.
I worked retail for 10+ years, and never once did I receive more pay for working on weekends, nor have I ever met anyone who has.
What is complicated? You give two bullet points and a potential solution that all fall under the umbrella of “paying someone.” This solves the problem.
It’s a simple solution to what’s a more nuanced problem.
Be honest. If faced with the choice to cut hours/roles, move roles overseas, or to “pay more”, do you think many business owners will do the latter?
You need to consider the nuance here, otherwise you find a similar situation to the minimum wage rises, where businesses complain about the operations not being viable because they need to start treating workers like humans.
Yes, I agree. We definitely need to consider the “nuance” of a situation where business is asked to treat their workers like human beings.
You can be as obtuse as you want. You know I’m right, and it’s exactly why legislation is needed to ensure these things are done correctly to stop businesses from exploiting the rules.
Those of us who admin critical systems know when we’re responsible and know which folks call us regarding those systems. I’m not answering a call from a random manager but If the engineering chain calls, they don’t abuse the privilege.
Hey guess what, some people have to work on weekends too. Seems like we were able to figure that one out no problem.
