'Flexible' Working Can Keep You Stressed Out For Longer, Lead to Illness (theguardian.com) 151
schwit1 sends news about the effects of flexible working schedules on the people who try them. Research has found that many employees fall into a "grazing" pattern for work — constantly being interrupted while working, and continuing to keep up with work emails when not — which results in having elevated stress levels for a longer period of time. This can make such workers more susceptible to illness, and it shows distinct biological consequences to having a poor work-life balance.
Flexible working policies can also raise the risk of poor working conditions, and create resentment among colleagues ... The findings are a blow to advocates of more sophisticated measures for enabling people to achieve a work-life balance in rich economies that tend to overwork some people while underutilising millions of others. With an estimated 10m working days lost to work-related stress in the UK last year, finding a good balance between the demands of home and the job now dominates concerns about the impact of work on health.
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It's not supposed to be flexible both ways! That will lead to death panels and compulsory gay marriage to Mexican rapists.
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There's two types of "flexible working":
1) Employee may take time off or work extra at any time at their own discretion
2) Employer will force employee to work extra at any time with no warning
2a) The hours are theoretically at the employee's discretion, so long as they understand that anyone who doesn't drop whatever they're doing to work on "request, if you feel up to it" will be fired.
2b) The hours are theoretically at the employee's discretion, but there's an "emergency" every week that means you really
Just like being on-call (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a flexi-remote working job for two years and it was the best gig I ever had. Yes I'd reply to emails at all hours of the day, but I also worked an average 6 hours a day and found it easy to maintain a life/work balance. I ended up moving to Barcelona for six months and had my dream life for a while traveling around the world and working from wherever I happened to be that day.
If you have a job that you enjoy, a good boss and co-workers then it's great. But you have to be someone who can copy with blurred lines in your life and the idea that working/non-working isn't a binary distinction.
It's the same with being on-call in an IT-support gig. Some people are happy to carry a pager and responded to it now and then, others for some reason that I don't understand get really stressed by it and feel on edge the whole time the pager is on their belt.
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It's the same with being on-call in an IT-support gig. Some people are happy to carry a pager and responded to it now and then, others for some reason that I don't understand get really stressed by it and feel on edge the whole time the pager is on their belt.
Some folks, including the ones I'm going to get roasted by for my comment here, are deathly afraid that they will do too much work. Honestagawd - I knew a person early on in my career who wouldn't take a dump over lunch because he wanted to save it for company time. That kind of person will bd stressed if they accidentally work until 5:01 p.m.
I've worked lots of extra hours, and it didn't bother me a bit unless I just got too physically tired and started making mistakes. So very seldom stressful. A lot o
Re:Just like being on-call (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it is more in line with commensurate compensation, and by large extent that is set by the culture of management.
I too have worked long hours to a point my paycheck was 1/3 of total labor costs (no joke) for a few months, but that was done with the expressed understanding that it would be temporary, and that management would do (and had the capability to make happen) everything in their power to correct the situation.
I've also worked in places where any demand for anything not specified in my agreement, well, they could fuck right off. Management had done everything in their power to earn my contempt, and I could hardly hold back my smile when I was let go.
The difference being I know when I'm being exploited, and I know when management is taking my needs into account. The "flexible' aspect doesn't reside exclusively with the employee. It also resides with management.
Re:Just like being on-call (Score:4, Insightful)
It's understood that there are going to be differences between what management wants and what the employee wants, and at some shifting point in the middle everyone is at least not miserable.
And money quite honestly is the bare minimum that a job can offer. A co-worker was given two months off so he could fulfill his dream of back-packing through Europe. That type of consideration builds gratitude that will see a business through a rough patch. Most people tend to reciprocate in kind. That aspect of flexibility on the part of the employer is sorely lacking in most labor arrangements.
And for employees that may not be able (or willing) to offer more in times of FUBAR, competent management is able to take this into account and either fire (kidding) those people or at a minimum take pains to reduce the stress load.
The real problems are when management pays lip service to work-life balance, and there is no accommodation coming from their end. That shit won't fly for long.
Re:Just like being on-call (Score:5, Interesting)
Because you enjoy it.
For everyone like you, there is someone else like you. That means everyone else must be more competitive which directly translates to more hours for less pay which can add stress to already stressed people.
Ah yes - the jealous co-worker, who gets pissed at me because my presence means they cannot fuck off all day, because I make them "look" bad.
Sorry, but that's just a game of the laziest bastard controls the output, and a fine way to go out of business.
I've worked with a few people like you. Unfortunately they were eventually given all the time off.
Consider that if you look at your employer as the enemy, there is a good chance they'll consider you the enemy as well.
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The problem here is that you are working more without the commensurate compensation.
Are we? How do you know without any specifics mentioned?
I work the occasional overtime. I work the occasional nights when needed. Sometimes I get the occasional call. None of this is additional paid work beyond my 40hour work week that is listed in the contract. The contract also specifically says that some circumstances may require additional work beyond the standard work time. It's all very vague, and no mention of compensation either.
Yet when I look at the salary number on my contract I seem to be taking
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Yet when I look at the salary number on my contract I seem to be taking home more than a few of my friends who are working in the same industry for a different company yet stick to their set 9-5s. So am I not being compensated?
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. One of the oddest aspects that some co workers could not understand was why I was making so much more than they were. We weren't in a place where everyone know each other's salaries, but I knew theirs for financial scheduling, and they knew that I was getting paid way beyond the job's pay grade, which required special paperwork to be filed every year to deal with my raise.
I did almost all the traveling for my department, I did all the meetings, I did the computer support for them and
Re:Just like being on-call (Score:5, Insightful)
I was once again unemployed when I got my current job. Once again I took below my value to the company to get the job. Once again I busted my ass to prove my ability. This company saw my value and gave me that raise. Not only that, they saw that I could be more valuable to the company in the future and based that raise on where they expected me to be in six months, not where I was at the time of the raise. I will continue to bust my ass for this company, while the last six months at my last company (after I realized that they were not going to pay me for the effort) I spent doing what they paid me for and no more.
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I've seen the exact opposite. Where the people who had key skills worked 40 hours a week and were retained while those who worked 60-70 hours a week but who lacked key skills were let go.
And in many cases, no one had any control over whether they obtained a key skill or not. It was almost random.
The 70 year old guy that supported the obsolete system was retained. The 35 year old guy who had solid skills but who could be replaced by an indian was let go. The daughter of the senior director who was prett
Re:Just like being on-call (Score:4, Insightful)
>
It's the same with being on-call in an IT-support gig. Some people are happy to carry a pager and responded to it now and then, others for some reason that I don't understand get really stressed by it and feel on edge the whole time the pager is on their belt.
When it's in addition to your normal workday hours, and you have a week where you don't know what you're doing at night or over the weekend because you can't really make plans or go out to dinner or have too many beers, because some system might go down or need a restart or whatever, so you need to be home to VPN in, or lug around a work laptop w/ a cellular connection, that can work on the nerves. Especially so in a rotating schedule where some of the systems we may have to troubleshoot aren't really our own (our group is broken into logical specialties but the on-call thing is general). Worse, in my group's case anyway, we're expected to actively check our cellphone email (not a pager) regularly during that time, so we have to constantly be edgy.
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The digital 'leash' is bad enough, but being responsible for actively checking something is what makes go from on-call to just 'work'. On-call should be based on some sort of active push/handoff, not actively watching for something. And making the push be every email that comes in to a distribution that is not used solely for notifications of this nature doesn't count.
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My biggest concern about being on call isn't so much the on call part, but the reliability of the underlying systems I'd be expected to support. I can deal with logging in outside of normal hours once a month or so to reboot some frozen service, but I would go insane if I had to spend all night every night manually running a really troublesome system.
Also, if I would be expected to respond immediately rather than waiting an hour if I choose that would be hugely more stressful. I'm not taking the work phone
Re:Just like being on-call (Score:4, Informative)
It's the same with being on-call in an IT-support gig. Some people are happy to carry a pager and responded to it now and then, others for some reason that I don't understand get really stressed by it and feel on edge the whole time the pager is on their belt.
The problem is that there is an expectation of interruption, if there is a possibility of interruption.
It's the same reason that approximately 50% of us can't work in an "open plan" office as effectively as if we had offices, and why approximately 15% of us can't think as deeply or profoundly about a problem when there is the risk of an interruption. It doesn't matter if it's the kids, or it's the wife, or it's a phone call, or it the "bong" from an incoming email or text message, or it's the vibration of your cell phone.
Being constantly "on guard" for an interruption means you have to divide your attention between monitoring the sources of potential interrupt for the interruption happening, and the thing you actually want to be or should be doing.
Almost all advertising in fact *relies* on the concept of attention economics, and interruptively stealing attention away from other pursuits in order to engage the target with the advertiser.
See also: Continous Partial Attention
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You're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
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The problem is that there is an expectation of interruption, if there is a possibility of interruption.
Being constantly "on guard" for an interruption means you have to divide your attention between monitoring the sources of potential interrupt for the interruption happening, and the thing you actually want to be or should be doing.
I think the problem is that you care too much about the risk of interruption. Better just not to care about the fact that it might happen and that you might have to change your plans later on. It's much better to just live your life and adapt to things as they come along. What's the point about getting stressed that about a minor risk that you might have to spend 10 minutes replying to an email at 10pm in the pub once every now and then.
I once spent two months on 4 hours notice to fly from London to Kansas
Re:Just like being on-call (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is that you care too much about the risk of interruption.
I think the problem is that you don't understand that some people's brains are not wired in such a way that they can shut that sort of thing off.
These are the same people who make sure your product actually *works*, instead of just building a prototype or saying "Oh well; we'll fix it in the next release". People who are detail oriented can't simply shut that crap off.
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I owned and ran my own company for a long time. It's sold and I'm retired because of it. During that time, I was on-call 24/7. Granted, calls weren't that frequent once things got settled down and we had some growth.
I can only offer one thing, I think, and it might help. Sometimes you just have to let things go. You're on call, yes. That doesn't mean you're a fireman. Don't rush to answer the phone, check the email, or head into the office. "I'll be there as soon as I can." That means, "As soon as I am done
Due to management definition of "flexible" (Score:5, Insightful)
It usually means "I want to be lazy, not do any planning, not do my job and you'll be at my beck and call to iron out my blunders".
And yes, that's going to stress you into a burn-out.
Re:Due to management definition of "flexible" (Score:5, Interesting)
And being told to "flex" your hours which means work overtime today (unpaid because you are salaried) and just work fewer hours tomorrow.
Oops. Not tomorrow. Here's another important thing that requires overtime. You can take 2x time off the day after.
Rinse and repeat.
I've had too many managers who think that making everything a "crisis" is an effective means of management.
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There's an easy fix for this. Admittedly, it has to come from the government.
Simply enact a law that requires companies to hold reserves for the overtime hours still to be paid. Because if people are laid off, they have to get a financial compensation and to ensure you're able to pay, you have to stash money. Dead money you can't invest in anything, lying around. In government bonds with a crappy interest rate, just for good measure.
You can bet your ass that your overtime hours have to be gone before long.
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Rinse and repeat.
You let managers get away with that? Not all managers are dicks. Maybe shop around for a nicer job?
That is actually quite inline with workplace trends. A large portion of people leave their job not because their hate their job but they hate their manager.
It's not flexible if work can demand when you flex (Score:4, Insightful)
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This right here. The article makes it sound like flexible times are stress, but I would define stress as having to settle mortgage documents but not being able to leave work to do it. Having to go to the bank / post office for something important but unable because I'm clocked in till 5pm. Having to go to the supermarket during the bloody peak hour of the day, and drive to work stuck in peak hour.
That last one is a real kicker for me. If I work 30min longer every day due to my flexible work hours and my bos
Well, then don't work at home (Score:2)
FTFA:
Working away from the office or part-time can isolate employees from social networks and career opportunities while fostering a “grazing” instinct that keeps dangerous stress hormones at persistently high levels, they said.
I don't see part-time work as a problem, as long as you are free to say that you don't work during those hours/days. On Wednesdays, I'm off. That means I don't respond to emails and of course don't come in to meetings or some such.
As for working away from the office, it's fine as long as I'm not actually working at home. Often, I'll just go to the local university library and work there for a day. Excellent wifi and absolute silence.
Preparedness (Score:1)
If you job is keeping you stressed 24/7, then maybe you are doing a poor job? The way to deal with the stress of being fulling responsible for something, is to do such a good job that their is no need to worry about it.
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One of my employees was a wizard. Seriously. I don't know how he did what he did but he did it. He was a DB admin and I, and you might think I would, know very little about such a job and can barely join tables or even do much more than read from a database.
In all his arcane spells he seemed to have one that made him look busy - no matter who was looking. However, with careful observation you could tell that he wasn't actually doing anything - ever. I'm sure he did stuff but I don't actually know what or wh
Flexible tasks though.... (Score:2)
Flexible tasks though really help from being burnt out on any one thing
I can spend my time just about any work day either doing some website work, teaching a workshop, exploring new stuff that is job related or could be job related, answering phone calls, doing individual support for one or two people at a time, dealing with emails and our online ticketing system, etc.
My two coworkers and I split things up as we see them as being "fair". But when one of us gets tired with doing a particular thing, or deali
Conclusions are flawed (Score:2, Interesting)
The conclusions made on the article are fundamentally flawed from an English perspective, because looking at a Dutch company.
Historically harsh Calvinistic work ethics prescribe a strict work-life separation and that's one of the more blatant causes of stress, anxiety, irritation and frustration in a Dutch-only workspace. Rather than flexibility, isolation and alienation at work, so common in such environments, are the problem. People stress themselves due to lack of normal social interaction even when sitt
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My business was not really new per se but was new in that it was doing a lot more than had previously been done because we could now do it "on a computer!" (We modeled traffic of the vehicular type and then expanded to include pedestrian traffic.) So, we pulled in a lot of different people and even needed to send some to school. I cheated and did things like pay a university for research and then stole the researchers by paying them well and giving them good benefits. Prior to this, traffic engineers cum pr
Utter nonsense (Score:2)
A flexible work schedule literally cannot mean less stress if that is a goal.
It's vastly less stressful to drive outside of core rush hour times.
Work is less stressful if you have more flexibility as to when it can get done, or you can do it at home without interruption. As for being "outside of social circles", how many slashdot readers would KILL for the chance to work at least one step removed from a typically politicized company org structure? That part is amazing!
The other reason why flexible working
Depends on the work (Score:2)
I just had a creative gig and, for me, creativity doesn't happen only between 8am and 5pm. And it may strike for a few minutes or ten hours. Maybe I wake up at 3am with a flash of inspiration and I'm back to sleep by 3:30. Or nothing clicked until 4pm and I worked until 2am. I did the job for a flat rate with a couple check-in points to be sure I was producing what they wanted but how I managed my time was my business because I was working alone.
On the flip side, most of my career has required that I be
Come again? (Score:1)
You're telling us this, on the very first day of the New Year, here, in a country that is either way too loud We're number one!!,or too obnoxious Did I mention, We're number wan!to stop for a moment and consider that there is no other country that ignores vacation.
It places more responsibility on YOU .... (Score:2)
I'm doing the flexible work schedule thing myself, right now, to an extent. (Essentially, I work for a company that would ideally like me to stay in the office from 9-6PM every Monday through Friday -- but I've always pushed back against that, since so much of the I.T. support and maintenance I do can be done just as well from a computer at home over the VPN. I live 50+ miles from the office and the commute can really start to wear you down after a while.)
I have a great boss who is understanding, but other
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> they require some discipline on YOUR part as the employee
It's not important so I'll post this as an AC. However, I think you'll find many people have (and perhaps legitimately so) forgotten that part. They've forgotten that they have an obligation to the employer just as much as the employer has an obligation to the employee. It's called "earning a paycheck" and not 'collecting a paycheck" in an ideal world. Just because some employers have neglected their end of the bargain does not mean one is entitl
re: ticket system (Score:2)
I appreciate the concern and suggestion, but I don't think that's an issue where I work. Maybe someday, when we have a different group of people managing I.T. But the thing is, we *do* come in on a regular basis and take care of anything from server or network upgrades to making sure a new hire has a computer configured and ready to go for them on their desk when they come in, in the morning.
The outsourced I.T. guy who lives 5,000 miles away can't be expected to agree to pop in on a Saturday afternoon while
I WAS going to post something meaningful... (Score:1)
Seems more like... (Score:1)
...constantly being interrupted is the real problem. I work a normal schedule and constant interruptions are my number one source of stress. It is understandable that working a flexible schedule would amplify the source of the real problem. Best solution: get rid of phones, instant messaging, email and let people work from home. If somebody needs you to do something for them, utilize a ticketing system and require all work requests to route through that. This goes beyond IT support and covers general office
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Yeah like corporate handouts !!!!
Death to corporate handouts!!!
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We can only be free if we drop ALL handouts, regardless of corporate or private.
Western society has degenerated into a big mess where everybody tries to steal from the public purse. This is not productive.
So no more theft - no more bailouts, no more subsidies, no more handouts.
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The problem is that, with things as they are, we'll kind of need those "handouts" for quite some time to come - perhaps at an increasing rate as automation increases. If you're advocating allowing the disabled, less-fortunate, or less lucky people be allowed to starve then, by all means, just say so. However, roving hordes of disenfranchised people who are motivated by basics such as hunger doesn't sound like a good long-term plan.
It's probably cheaper to feed them than it is to hire goons to ward them off.
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Taxes pay for the countless things you are seemingly unaware of but which provide for you the life you lead, including letting you moan about taxes on Slashdot. Your life without taxes wouldn't be heaven, but quite the opposite. Hint: you are not an island.
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Then why are you still working? If being out of work is so great with everything being paid for you, what kind of masochist are you that you're still trying to keep a job?
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The commenter is pointing out that a person on welfare programs likely also doesn't have everything they need, and very likely also has to try to find work or do something to maintain a balance. For example I've a family member that is trying to get into a new career later in life. They can't do fulltime work (for a piss poor pay rate of $9.50) which would help them get into a position they want, or they lose medical benefits that they need in case something hits the fan, which is likely.
There are many case
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That's by design. It is to keep a class of dependant voters and subsidizing businesses while maintaining the appearance they are not. Is it any wonder that before welfare was a government thing that a family could commonly survive off a single income? Or that medical expenses, while still hitting the pocket book hard, could largely be paid by these single income households before they inflated sky high after the introduction of Medicare?
Re:Working vs. not working (Score:5, Informative)
wow talk about taking things out of context.
inflation has gone up so much that you need two incomes to compensate for it. When women started working people suddenly had extra income. which they then spent on things. businesses expanded, which hired more workers, and the situation pushed farther and farther. now you need two incomes to survive.
Also back then medical expenses where cheap yes but then so was the care. no mri, no cat scans, more people died on the table than lived. etc. medical expenses are sky rocketing because we have old people who need constant care, but can't pay for it. however if we take away that care they get pissy. try it. in the USA our budget is easily broken down into 30% for medicare, 30% for SS and 30% for military with he balance for every thing else.
not once will you hear any political talk about cutting SS down sharply to pay for the ever growing debt.
now back to inflation. yes officially the USA government puts it 2% a year more or less, however it all secondary markets (not food, gas, etc) it goes up on average 5%. with some goods like TV's or dishwashers actually going down -2%. that is why new tv's keep coming out, and why refrigerators are still $500-$1000 the same price they were 30 years ago. Car however keep going up. with base models of basic cars used to $12k in 2000, it is closer to $18k for the same model(mostly) now.
lastly before medicare. 60% of the population didn't have any health care. doctors are for the rich after all. that is your moto is it not? Currently 30% of the population doesn't have decent medical care. I can't afford visits to my primary care doctor. I can't afford the co-pay even with health care. I don't have an extra $100 per visit to spend.
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Biowar? Dept of Ag.
Chemical warfare? Pest control.
Brainwashing? Dept of ed.
Nuclear weapons? Dept of energy
The true cost of the warfare state including the VA costs and retirement approaches 50% of the total budget.
And SS, as we ALL KNOW, is off book entirely, being a separate trust fund!
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This has less to do with macro economic than it does Federal-level financing in a society with a negative birth rate after the baby boomer generation. Boomers simply did not have enough children to support the ponzi schemes created by social security and the welfare state. Governments haven't dismantled immigration systems to support old people (they don't care about them), but to prop up the unsustainable central banking system which depends on constant growth and perpetual positive interest rates. These
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This has more to do with wages not keeping up with inflation rather than anything else. We're in a race to the bottom and it seems we're losing by getting there first.
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Oh yeah, if we'd get rid of welfare people would immediately get paid better.
Care to explain the logic behind that? Why the fuck should I pay the slave more money just 'cause he can't get welfare money anymore? For all I care he can starve to death, there's plenty more where he comes from.
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Ah, so you have an "elsewhere" to work where they pay better? Really? Where is that magical place?
They won't pay more. And people will STILL go there and work for them. And get a third job on top of the two they already have. Because there are 3 jobs available, 10 people want one and even getting a third of the money you need to make ends meet is more than getting NONE of the money you need.
Businesses won't pay more. They will always find people desperate enough to work for them.
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Seriously though. The purchasing power of wages could fall, taking the workers' standard of living with it.
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you really have no clue what you're talking about.
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I dare you!
You will find people who are poorer for doing MORE WORK, but not for making MORE MONEY.
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A tax rebate is part of your taxes that you wind up not paying, not a handout. For example, there's a property tax rebate in my state, which I don't qualify for because we make too much (not to be construed as a complaint). It is intended as partial payment to offset property taxes. If we made a lot less, we'd be in a position where a single dollar could make a sizable difference.
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Could you clarify? What is the gift to support one particular industry, and how?
There's also the refund when I've overwithheld. It's money coming to me from the IRS, but it isn't a handout.
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Commercial Fuel Tax Rebate
Need we go on?
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Nice projecting though.
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The best example I know is medical care for welfare recipients. Many people find that they don't dare make too much money, since they're at jobs that don't have group medical insurance available for them, and if they go over the medical assistance limit they have a risk of being hit for lots of money, or risking their child's life, or something like that.
The best way to fix that is single-payer health insurance, but that's still going to be a while coming in the US.
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The request was to find people who were poorer because they made more money, not to find people with less income. There are tax credits and the like that depend on income, and they often have income ranges. If you're at the very top of the range, and make a bit more, you might well wind up with less money.
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Stop extrapolating your mythic tax victim and SHOW ME AN EXAMPLE of a real PERSON losing money thanks to rising income
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Socialism makes the lives of everybody (except the 1% elite, even when it's no longer called politburo) miserable.
To complain about that does not imply - not for one second - that you "envy" some street bum.
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... apart from when it doesn't, which judging by the quality of life scores around the world, is most of the time.
When do you want to give up the US military, as that's about as socialist as you can get? I mean, if you want to be consistent, there is a lot you'd have to get rid of, leaving you in a very precarious situation afterwards. It's almost as if you haven't though this through at all, and can't look past your own wallet.
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Now imagine how much of a burden people who don't have anything to lose would be. Because if the choice is to starve to death or to kill you and take the 20 bucks in your wallet, your chances to reach retirement age are rather low.
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If you give non-workers a place to sleep, three meals per day but NO MONEY and NO FOOD STAMPS then nobody has to fear starvation.
And I'm sure we will see a 90% reduction in welfare dependence.
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Add some whips and we're back to 1850.
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Wow, quite a bit of assumptions there. Lemme guess: You've never been "down there" and your information, I'll use that word loosely here, comes from various, let's say, less than unbiased reports (again, for a lack of a civil term that would describe it more aptly) in various TV shows?
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Yes, we can of course ask people who want money to perform a service in exchange. As long as you don't turn it into forced labor that is, that slippery slope is a bit too greasy for my tastes.
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What happened was a few food industries that don't really entertain the idea that you could cook yourself. That's their bottom line we're talking about!
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At your income level, the amount of money that the government takes is negligible.
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Here's a fun one. Given the person tidbits you've shared about you and your spouse and what I know of tax rates, I can reasonably presume that I pay lower percentage in taxes than you. Add to that, I'm able to buy things that last longer so I'm putting (theoretically, realistically - I'm kind of bad at this) less back into the system with consumption. Then, I've the time and means to do things like have a giant garden and hunt/fish for a good portion of my food then I'm putting even less back into the syste
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Go to this payroll calculator web site [payrollguru.net]. Enter a monthly salary of $8333 ($100k per year). Set one federal and state exemption. Tax comes out to $2900 per month. My rent is much lower than that, and I live in a higher than average rent location.
$2900 is more than I pay for rent, fuel, and utilities combined.
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In the San Francisco Bay Area, programmers and IT make around $100k/year. If you work at Google or Facebook or Netflix and are compensated for being one of the harder working programmers, it's probably closer to $150k/year. If you type $150k into the calculator yo
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I have two choices when it comes to politics:
#1 is to cut welfare and benefits, then pay for police, soldiers and such to deal with inner city people who have absolutely nothing, wonder where their next meal is coming from, and decide to take it out on the local stores and populace. This sounds "cool" in theory, especially having police constantly raid and "keep order", selling fear about how these people are coming for you.
#2 is to have some benefits, perhaps a negative tax, or welfare and food stamps.
IMH
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This might come as a surprise but, and you can try this and get back to me, you might find that they steal less from you if you learn and adhere to the rules - regardless of what others are "getting away with." Seriously, I drive far more than most and have driven far more than most. They haven't ever stolen a thing from me. I agreed to abide by a certain set of rules (that's part of getting a license - an agreement) and then follow those rules. When I don't follow those rules, as I am wont to do from time
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That just means that both of you are doing it the wrong way. It shouldn't be your responsibility to find somebody to cover for you; that's your boss's job.
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I work from home 100%.. 5x8. Problem is I'm also on call, which can add another day to my week without notice
But what if you had an appointment with a friend or somesuch?
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Workers need a right to disconnect to give them downtime to recover.
You're misunderstanding what flex-working is. It doesn't mean you available 24/7, it means you choose what hours you work to produce what you agreed to have working by an agreed deadline.
It's about empowering yourself to structure your own day, rather than having office hour imposed on you. Not everyone is at their most productive during normal office hours. I suck at mornings and often have constructive ideas late at night.
When you work very different hours to you co-workers you need to get over the binary
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