The future of work

[Former Member]

In the past, we always thought that employees would work fewer hours because of increased efficiency – just as it had since the industrial revolution began. Instead, at least in the US, employees are expected to work increased hours due to an invention called the cellphone. In the past only a very tiny percentage of employees were on-call 24/7: doctors, ministers, emergency personnel, etc. But these days, most white collar workers are expected to respond to phone calls anywhere they are, whatever they are doing. Productivity is up because workers aren’t being compensated for the additional hours.

 

Manufacturing jobs have been slashed compared with the middle of the last century. In some cases, it’s because manufacturers have gone chasing after the lowest cost workers in third-world countries (as with clothing). Other jobs have been lost to robots and increased mechanization (as with the auto industry).

 

Similarly, agricultural jobs have decreased as farms, orchards, and ranches have grown to industrial sizes. Of course, there are still many manual labor jobs harvesting crops, but they are low-paying and extremely tedious, uncomfortable, and back-breaking. Few Americans are willing to suffer the conditions for the low wages offered. Historically, these jobs were filled by recent immigrants, but our immigration policy emphasizes the highly educated (and relatives of those who already reside here). Many farmers have had trouble finding sufficient legal workers and in some cases, have not been able to harvest their entire crop.

[Former Member]

In France, they are experimenting with a shorter work week. Full-time pay for working (I believe) 32 hours a week. The idea is to incentivize employers to add more employees to the payroll.

 

There are places that limit the compensation given to CEO to a maximum multiple of a company’s lowest-paid employee. While CEOs might believe they are worth scores or hundreds of thousand times as much as an entry-level employee, it’s immoral and unconscionable. Most of these CEOs also get gigantic Golden Parachutes even if they prove to be failures who run their companies into bankruptcy! Other employees do not get bonuses for failing.

 

Wall Street puts too much emphasis on short-term trends and not enough on the long-term strength and growth of companies.

[Former Member]

In the past, it was predicted that we’d all have more leisure time. But that isn’t what has happened in the US. The gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is approaching Robber Baron era levels.

 

This cannot be unrelated to the decrease in life expectancy in the US.

[Thorn Wilde]

You sure this shouldn’t be moved to The Pit? I feel like this topic can very easily become political.

 

Experiments with shorter work weeks and and fewer hours per day have in many cases shown an increase in productivity, in that workers get the same amount of work done in 6 hours as they do in 8. 

[Former Member]

1 hour ago, Thorn Wilde said:

You sure this shouldn’t be moved to The Pit? I feel like this topic can very easily become political.

I have done my best to not be political in my statements.

[Carlos Hazday]

Change is often painful. The industrial revolution created urban crowding, blight, and eventually sprawl. The technological revolution has affected our lives just as much. Who knows what will create the next upheaval, but I'll bet the changes that began when hunter-gatherer societies became agrarian ones will not end. It's the nature of humans to adapt and I suspect we will do so again, and again.

[Carlos Hazday]

2 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

You sure this shouldn’t be moved to The Pit? I feel like this topic can very easily become political.

 

Crap! Somebody's gonna have to spend a lot of time moving comments from my stories and my discussion thread to The Pit. I seem to invite a lot of political discussion with both the right and the left jumping on me. Now, if we could get a few of those jumpers to be hunky rugby players... 

[Thorn Wilde]

56 minutes ago, droughtquake said:

I have done my best to not be political in my statements.

 

Oh, I know. Just saying.  

[Thorn Wilde]

12 minutes ago, Carlos Hazday said:

Crap! Somebody's gonna have to spend a lot of time moving comments from my stories and my discussion thread to The Pit. I seem to invite a lot of political discussion with both the right and the left jumping on me. Now, if we could get a few of those jumpers to be hunky rugby players... 

 

I don't think there are any limits to what you're allowed to say in comments, or someone's discussion thread. Just in here.  

[Former Member]

1 minute ago, Thorn Wilde said:

I don't think there are any limits to what you're allowed to say in comments, or someone's discussion thread. Just in here.  

There are some vague limits to what you can say in Comments, but they aren’t quite as restrictive as in the Lounge and other non-Pit Forums. Political Comments that are seen as related to the story are acceptable. But it’s difficult to know ahead of time just where the line is.

[TetRefine]

My job requires a lot of work to be done in my own personal time. I get one 55 minute prep period a day, and the rest of the time I spend in the classroom with students. There is no way I can get everything done in the 55 minutes I have to myself during the work day. Most days I'm in my office by 7am trying to get a head start but it's still not enough. So, I generally spend at least another hour or so a night after I get home catching up on everything I couldn't get done during the day. The same goes for my email. My work email is linked to my personal phone, because I hate having to use Outlook on the computer. So, whether I'm at work or not, I know instantly when I get an email. Sometimes the emails start flowing in as early as 5am from people, and before I'm even fully awake I'm checking what's coming in. From about 7:30 to noon, there is generally a flood of them coming from all directions. But there is rarely time to answer them, so they sit in my inbox till the end of the day. Then other people don't have time to check them during the day either, so everyone starts responding after they leave work. I generally respond to mine when I'm at the gym after work and on the train home. 

 

The school I teach at is a highly ranked one, and this is one of the reasons why. There is very much a "work harder and do whatever we can" culture there, which is great for the students we serve. You have to be one of those people who truly believes in what you do in order to tolerate it for how much we're paid. I don't mind it because I like my job and am just used to it now, but it has definitely turned some people off over the 3 years I've worked there. 

 

Note: As I was typing this, two emails came in and it's not even 9am on a Saturday morning....

[Thorn Wilde]

1 hour ago, TetRefine said:

My job requires a lot of work to be done in my own personal time. I get one 55 minute prep period a day, and the rest of the time I spend in the classroom with students. There is no way I can get everything done in the 55 minutes I have to myself during the work day. Most days I'm in my office by 7am trying to get a head start but it's still not enough. So, I generally spend at least another hour or so a night after I get home catching up on everything I couldn't get done during the day. The same goes for my email. My work email is linked to my personal phone, because I hate having to use Outlook on the computer. So, whether I'm at work or not, I know instantly when I get an email. Sometimes the emails start flowing in as early as 5am from people, and before I'm even fully awake I'm checking what's coming in. From about 7:30 to noon, there is generally a flood of them coming from all directions. But there is rarely time to answer them, so they sit in my inbox till the end of the day. Then other people don't have time to check them during the day either, so everyone starts responding after they leave work. I generally respond to mine when I'm at the gym after work and on the train home. 

 

The school I teach at is a highly ranked one, and this is one of the reasons why. There is very much a "work harder and do whatever we can" culture there, which is great for the students we serve. You have to be one of those people who truly believes in what you do in order to tolerate it for how much we're paid. I don't mind it because I like my job and am just used to it now, but it has definitely turned some people off over the 3 years I've worked there. 

 

Note: As I was typing this, two emails came in and it's not even 9am on a Saturday morning....

 

My mum's a teacher. It's awful how much work she has to bring home with her that she doesn't even get paid for. At least she gets a good wage now, having worked in the same school for 22 years, but it was tight when I was a kid and she was a single mother trying to make sure I was fed and clothed while my dad resisted paying child support.

[Former Member]

The situation with teachers is difficult. We say in the US that children are our most important priority, but we certainly don’t fund schools or other things related to children as if that were true. Politicians seemingly intentionally pit teacher pay against students against administrators – and we know who controls the budgets, it’s not the teachers or students!

 

In California, the funding system is byzantine in its complexity. School districts who can afford to pay someone specifically to find funding sources within that system (or elsewhere) get richer and the poorer, more urban districts are left without critical resources. The system was created to supposedly distribute funding equitably across the state, but politicians have added hidden funds with special purposes over the years to benefit their own local districts. Now it’s so complex, no one knows how to dismantle the mess to fix the problem without causing even more problems. But the basic problem is that there just isn’t enough money to go around.

[Carlos Hazday]

Teachers spending countless hours on their job is nothing new and not due to budgetary issues. My mother was a first-grade teacher when I was a kid and I remember her reviewing work, preparing flash cards, and who knows what else at home. The 40-hour work week is an artificial creation which doesn't always track well with professions.

 

The Affordable Care Act created so much additional paperwork for doctors, I know a couple who've taken early retirement so they don't have to spend hours filling out forms instead of caring for patients.

 

Public defenders are so overloaded with cases, the representation they provide their clients is often worthless.

 

Throwing money at these problems is not always a solution. What's the cost/benefit comparison for increasing taxes? I don't have a solution and I can't even think of what one could be. It may just be some professions require more than the 9-6 approach.

 

Edited December 1, 2018 by Carlos Hazday

[Former Member]

12 minutes ago, Carlos Hazday said:

The Affordable Care Act created so much additional paperwork for doctors, I know a couple who've taken early retirement so they don't have to spend hours filling out forms instead of caring for patients.

The paperwork aspect of the Affordable Care Act is related to the Health Insurance Industry. In Taiwan, everyone has a Healthcare Card. When the patient sees the doctor, the first thing they do is scan the card. This not only brings up the patient's records, but also begins the billing process. This simplifies the process for doctors immensely.

 

No system is perfect, but we seem to have created its exact opposite. The most inefficient way to deliver mediocre service at the highest cost. Every other major industrialized country has managed to build a better system.

[Former Member]

13 minutes ago, Carlos Hazday said:

Teachers spending countless hours on their job is nothing new and not due to budgetary issues. My mother was a first-grade teacher when I was a kid and I remember her reviewing work, preparing flash cards, and who knows what else at home. The 40-hour work week is an artificial creation which doesn't always track well with professions.

My comments were related to the low compensation teachers earn for their long hours. Theoretically, the Summer Vacation is partial compensation for the long hours they work. Teachers aren’t even remotely adequately compensated for either the long hours or the high education level they are required to achieve and maintain.

[Carlos Hazday]

Nurses have been historically overworked and under compensated. When fewer people went into the profession and shortages appeared, wages went up.

 

Maybe we need something similar in education. I know there was a shortage in parts of Florida and school boards started offering monetary incentives when recruiting. Supply and demand is a wonderful way of eliciting desired outcomes.

[Former Member]

31 minutes ago, Carlos Hazday said:

Nurses have been historically overworked and under compensated. When fewer people went into the profession and shortages appeared, wages went up.

 

Maybe we need something similar in education. I know there was a shortage in parts of Florida and school boards started offering monetary incentives when recruiting. Supply and demand is a wonderful way of eliciting desired outcomes.

If there’s the funding to allow that to happen…

[TetRefine]

There is a significant shortage of teachers, and there is projected to be a crisis-level shortage within the next decade or so. In Pennsylvania, the amount of teaching licenses issued every year has plummeted since the Great Recession. Why would anyone with smarts want to go to school (and eventually be forced to get a masters) when the pay sucks, society generally treats you like crap, and the workload is brutal. You have to really believe in it to put up with all the BS.

 

Some states are better than others. Philadelphia actually isn't all that bad, pay and benefits-wise. It also has a strong union, which can make a huge difference in the way you're treated. If you have the balls to teach in an inner-city school, it's a good place to start. The problem is most new teachers gain a few years of experience in the rough-and-tumble city system, and then the rich suburbs poach them away with higher pay and much better conditions. The city school system is literally like a training ground and farm system for the suburban districts ringing the city. It's ridiculous. The school I work at now gives us very generous benefits packages because it's the only way they can retain quality people for long periods. The pay scale is almost laughable, but the school makes up for it in prestige, independence, and quality of culture. Our average tenure of teacher is something like 9 years, which is unheard of for an inner-city school. It's even more impressive given the fact the school has only been in existence since 2005. The first school I worked at had a turnover rate of close to 40% every year. That's the norm in your average city public school in rough neighborhoods. America values education, just not for certain groups of people.... 

Edited December 1, 2018 by TetRefine

[Cia]

Like Matt, I abhor the way society views our education system in the US. I value education and volunteered for years before my kids hit middle school and I went to work... in the education field. I saw it, over and over. Parents who came in to the school and had nothing but negative or dismissive things to say about the effort I saw teachers make because I spent hours at the school trying to help a little.  Let's talk about this damn misconception about all the "breaks" teachers have that make their job so cushy. I can't think of a single teacher I know that doesn't spend at LEAST 40 hours a week prepping, teaching, and grading. Breaks aren't time off for most teachers. Breaks are used to catch up on that work that just gets pushed aside--the "this is the new writing curriculum you have to use this year, or this is the change the state is making in state testing standards for this and that, so please structure your lesson plans to...." that requires planning and forethought because each and every lesson and each and every year the teaching is BUILDING on what they've learned before. You can't just expect things to change and for it not to create a lot of work. 

 

Teachers also have a lot of continuing education they have to do. They work after the kids are out of school and before they go back. While they are on a break, they're often learning these new lessons themselves, learning new teaching techniques, following up on technology changes, attending district trainings, and more. I don't have to do those, but because I'm a giant nerd, I attend as many trainings as I'm allowed and I have a ton of educational books, accounts for sites where we get our math, reading, writing curriculum, etc... 

 

I work as a paraeducator for special education resource students, which means I'm not a teacher. I don't even make a third of what they do here, but I'm required to know the material the teachers are teaching for each class I visit through the day (elementary, so I visit to push in assist students or take out for small groups in 9 classes with 20 students in grades K-5 for math, writing, reading, and behavior support) as well as adaptive techniques or lesson plans for those lessons. I have to know how to scaffold the learning for the students based on their individual IEP needs and allowed accommodations and how to document progress for their IEP goals. In one group, I work with eight 4th grade boys from 3 different classes for writing for 45 minutes. Usually they are all doing different versions of a "similar" assignment, but with different requirements. *pulls out hair*  I do all our filing, print/track our behavior students progress files, keep our room fully stocked, and make any copies my boss needs for packets along with my own. At the end of each day I shut down computers, wipe down our room to kill all the kid germs, and take out our garbage/recycling. 

 

That's a lot to expect of an hourly-wage employee who makes only a couple of bucks more than a person who flips burgers. 

 

Now let's talk about what I also do because I CARE, just like the teachers I work with. I usually go in to work 20-30 minutes earlier than my start time. I switch out all my morning papers for all my afternoon papers on my 15 minute break. During my lunch break my boss and I either sit and chat about our students/lessons, advice I need, etc... or I sit at my desk and eat while putting together lessons or finding worksheets online in case one of our behavior students is sent up.  Last week I stayed an extra hour two days prepping because there isn't time to get it all done by the end of the day, since I only get 15 minutes before school and 20 minutes prep time towardt the end of the day. One night I also spent an hour online gathering supports to help some of my 2nd graders learn place value. 

 

We work in the education field because we care about learning and about kids. We don't do it to get rich. But across the board, those of us in the trenches with students are underpaid, undervalued, and overworked. Which is super sad. 

[TetRefine]

☝️ This x1,000,000. 

[dughlas]

19 hours ago, Carlos Hazday said:

Nurses have been historically overworked and under compensated. When fewer people went into the profession and shortages appeared, wages went up.

 

Maybe we need something similar in education. I know there was a shortage in parts of Florida and school boards started offering monetary incentives when recruiting. Supply and demand is a wonderful way of eliciting desired outcomes.

In PA fewer university students are going into education creating the potential for a teacher shortage. There are some districts in the state that start new teachers at the state mandated minimum of $18,500.

[Former Member]

21 hours ago, Carlos Hazday said:

Nurses have been historically overworked and under compensated. When fewer people went into the profession and shortages appeared, wages went up.

 

Maybe we need something similar in education. I know there was a shortage in parts of Florida and school boards started offering monetary incentives when recruiting. Supply and demand is a wonderful way of eliciting desired outcomes.

Unlike hospitals, public schools are generally funded by taxes.

 

If all schools were private, they could raise tuition to pay teachers high enough to encourage new recruits. But then not all students would be able to attend school. This is the situation in some third world countries.

 

This is an apples and oranges comparison.

[Carlos Hazday]

@droughtquake

 

Now we're teetering on a political discussion so I'll just say, Federalism, capitalism, and mobility can be powerful forces. If a state's unable to or unwilling to raise taxes to fund education, they will sooner or later lose population to places that do, and businesses will not necessarily flock to lower taxes locations. Without getting into detail, Amazon's new headquarters locations are a perfect example;  Virginia and New York aren't exactly low tax burden locations.

[Cia]

If members mention governmental policies, political bodies, parties, organizations, etc.... they will be moderated for political commentary outside The Pit, and this topic will be moved.

 

To avoid that, let's keep the discussion more in the line to conversations about the realities of societal expectations, perceptions, and the realities faced by different fields, the wage issues being faced by those dealing with increased expectations without due compensation from changing technologies, the constant shift away from middle-management increasing responsibility on the average worker without training and/or compensation, the blue-collar worker challenges of companies down-sizing for various reasons both industrial and economical, etc....