[HN Gopher] Responding to work emails after hours contributes to...
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       Responding to work emails after hours contributes to burnout,
       hostility
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 6 points
       Date   : 2024-09-12 19:05 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (theconversation.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (theconversation.com)
        
       | bravetraveler wrote:
       | Reading this while forced to be on an afterhours call to finish a
       | build after being dicked around for three days
       | 
       | I hate this industry. It would be better with half of these
       | people gone. I'll be one of them, I'm losing bothers
        
       | dopylitty wrote:
       | This focuses on communications after hours but there's an even
       | more egregious thing that impacts many who work on computer
       | systems.
       | 
       | The companies decide the computer system must be up 24/7. Ok,
       | fine. In the past things that needed to be running 24/7 were run
       | by three shifts of workers. Companies could decide if the cost of
       | 3 shifts was worth whatever value the system provided.
       | 
       | However, somehow with computers it's different. If there's a
       | problem with a computer after hours the companies just call
       | whoever was working during the day and expect them to fix it. Or
       | they set up "on call" where you're explicitly expected to work
       | all day and also all night.
       | 
       | They get away with this in the US because the meager workers
       | rights laws in there (FMLA) explicitly exclude salaried computer
       | workers from getting overtime[0]. So if you're a salaried
       | computer worker and work all night because some system went down
       | you're working for free and the companies love that because they
       | don't have to do the calculation of whether having the system
       | available is worth paying someone to watch it.
       | 
       | So take the stress from receiving an after hours email and
       | multiply it by 100x because now you're not only expected to reply
       | to the email but to drop everything and fix the computer.
       | 
       | This is also why companies that depend on computers need so many
       | foreign workers living locally on temporary visas. They can be
       | abused this way but can't fight back without risking losing their
       | jobs and being deported.
       | 
       | Either IT workers need to unionize or the US needs to rewrite
       | labor law to prevent this kind of abuse.
       | 
       | 0: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-
       | co...
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-12 23:02 UTC)