Working sick, companies that are penny wise and pound foolish, telecommuting and other work topics:

[ddeclue]

As long as my employers refuse to pay me for sick days - if I'm sick you'll bet I'll be there if I can reasonably safely make it to / from work!

I took an actual day off due to illnes (perhaps H1N1 - I never went to the doc) earlier this fall and was sick with flu like symptoms for the better part of three weeks over all. I only took that day off because I was not safe to drive to work because I was so sick. Of course I got dinged for a a days pay - about $400 - never mind that over all in that two week period I worked 80 hours, that was their policy.

Of course the management at the same time was very much paranoid (sanitizer everywhere, memos about coughing..blah blah) about getting sick and other workers getting sick yet their pay policy really left me no other choice and clearly other people were coming down with similar illnesses - I didn't actually start it though, it was my supervisor who apparently brought the bug back from a convention in Atlanta.

Being a contract engineer, I had no medical coverage and even if I was direct, the deductible is so high that it isn't worth it to go to the doctor unless limbs are severed and arteries are spurting.

Hopefully my new job will work out better in that regard.

Really we need to start thinking about incentivizing telecommuting in this country. It has SO many advantages for individuals, businesses and government. It would really solve or mitigate a great many problems:

1) Having to constantly relocate to find good work - it would increase efficiency in placing workers with companies and offer more choice to both employers and employees in terms of workers and workplaces.

2) It would allow people to have roots and for areas to develop a real sense of community instead of merely being corporate, sterile, generic places without any sense of history due to massive turnover.

3) It would allow depressed areas like rural America, inner city areas, towns that have lost brick and mortar employers to find jobs for workers.

4) It would reduce the rate of spread of pandemic diseases like H5N1 or H1N1 or even the common cold.

5) It would eliminate commute time and give workers more free time in their lives.

6) It would eliminate the associated pollution (global warming) and energy expenditure required to commute to and from work thereby reducing our dependence on foreign oil and our need to fight oil wars.

7) It would reduce wear and tear on both roads and vehicles and reduce transportation costs for individuals, businesses and governments.

8) It would reduce transportation related accidents, deaths, and injuries thereby reducing medical costs for individuals, businesses, insurers in particular and governments.

9) It would reduce the need for child day care for workers and increase parent's time with their children.

10) It would reduce psychological stress on workers resulting from the daily commute - traffic jams, accidents, being on time, catching the lights, lack of free time due to commute, etc.

11) It would reduce business' need for physical office space, equipment and facilities. This would reduce energy and real estate costs for businesses.

12) It would incentivize home buying because you would not have to worry about whether you would have to sell your home at a loss later to take a new job in a different city.

13) It would reduce the requirements on law enforcement and first responders to deal with "rush hour" traffic accidents and speeding/reckless motorists on their way to/from work.

14) It would reduce the tax bills associated with transportation, law enforcement, first responders, public transport, etc. that could be spent on better education, etc. instead.


I don't know how we talk business into telecommuting - perhaps with tax incentives - perhaps by legal mandate - but we ought to find a way to do it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. How does one telecommute healthcare, plumbing, construction,

maufacturing and all other jobs of this type?

[Fumesucker]

2. No one but "knowledge workers" counts..

:eyes:

[ddeclue]

4. I can't help it that some jobs require a physical presence at the job site

but would you rather be stuck behind those "knowledge workers" in a traffic jam on the way to your brick and mortar job or would you rather have them off the highway?

[Fumesucker]

10. The thing is that almost everyone is a "knowledge worker"..

A pair of hands with no knowledge associated with them is useful as food, fertilizer or decoration and not much else.

[ddeclue]

11. Does not refute my point however.

I was NOT the one who initiated the use of this term, you were.

I am merely pointing out the advantages of maximizing telecommuting. It appears some here want to use it as an excuse to bash so called "knowledge workers".

[Fumesucker]

13. No, just pointing out that not everyone can telecommute..

And if you make $400 per day and can't afford to take a few days off with the flu then you have clearly been less than entirely financially prudent in your life.

[ddeclue]

15. Oh brother... I've already taken 4 MONTHS off this year due to unemployment thanks for judging

without any facts. Last year I was unemployed for 3 months. Kind of hard to save when you are unemployed about 30% of the time.

And I never said that everyone COULD telecommute.

[Fumesucker]

19. I've had a lifelong illness that has kept me out of work for as much as a couple of months a year..

Most years it has been at least a month.

This of course has made it extremely difficult to have anything approaching a "career".

So perhaps you can understand that I'm not particularly sympathetic to your plight.

[ddeclue]

25. No I really can't understand..

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. so, I see....

May his roof leak and his toilets over flow and when he needs healthcare, may he find a robot...

[ddeclue]

3. Obviously not every job can be telecommuting but certainly many can:

engineering
information technology
business administration
sales
accounting
law
education (to some extent)
recruiting
journalism


are all amenable to telecommuting to various degrees.

[WyLoochka]

5. Bookmarked and will share with my boss

Who just left today, after a couple of days visit, to my remote location . . .

[HipChick]

7. I have telecommuted for last 5yrs..

it does require a lot of discipline, can be very isolating but benefits outweigh negatives..

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. if you can telecommute so can Samir Nagheenanajar

I personally telecommuted for a while and I hated it, too much of an intrusion on my personal time and space.

[ddeclue]

12. If you can work in a factory so can Samir Nagheenanajar...

the only jobs that are safe from offshoring are in the military, law enforcement and medicine and they are working on outsourcing the military through the use of mercenaries and so-called "medical vacations" to have your surgery done overseas in some third world country.

[Fumesucker]

14. We are a looong way from having robots that can do construction..

The conditions are simply not amenable to robotics at their current level of development and certainly for the near to mid term future as well.

[ddeclue]

16. Didn't say we were... what's your point?

[Fumesucker]

17. Eh, you said...

the only jobs that are safe from offshoring are in the military, law enforcement and medicine

Construction is none of those so you were incorrect.

[ddeclue]

18. Oh brother you are just a nit picker and are just wanting to be a pain in the ass.

Sorry but construction jobs aren't "outsourced" they get "insourced" by using undocumented aliens who get paid a fraction of what American construction workers get - so NO construction isn't "safe" either.

[Fumesucker]

20. No, you just make flat statments that are incorrect..

And then get huffy when someone points out your error.

I thought engineers were more careful than that.

[ddeclue]

26. You are just doing your best to be a troll about points that are irrelevant to the OP.

That makes you a nit picker.

Thanks for playing.

[Edweird]

22. The guys that are willing to work for a fraction of what you need to survive make house calls.

I watched $30/hr+full benefit+ a company truck(in some cases) jobs turn into $10-$15/hr no benefits and a-1099-at-the-end-of-the-year jobs. This was at the peak of the boom with houses selling for the highest prices they've ever sold for.

[Fumesucker]

24. It's still better than nothing..

I know this because there's nothing right now..

Something is better than nothing.

And ddeclue was talking about *outsourcing*, not illegal immigration.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. so why make yourself the proof of concept?

[ellie]

9. I telecommute

and have been doing it for six years. I recommend it.

[amborin]

21. #1 reason why we MUST provide free health care to 'illegals'

in this day and age of pandemic viruses, etc.....just narrow self-interest, alone, dicates we MUST not only cover them, but give them paid sick leave

scary to think of people working in our restaurant kitchens, nursing homes, hospitals, etc.....who come to work SICK, with communicable diseases!