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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

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I spent a little bit of time responding to each of your questions with why I think they're much less harmful to an employer than pretty much anything an employer can do to their employees. But I realized none of that point-by-point stuff really matters, and deleted it all.

An employer can systematically destroy an employee's life and finances if they pull the right levers. In places like the US, employees are often terrified of getting fired or laid off because they'll lose their (and often their entire family's) health insurance. Companies use this (and other leverage) to give crap raises, make employees jump through ridiculous hoops to get promoted (and then deny those promotions anyway), "encourage" employees to take the bare minimum (or no) time off, etc.

And employees have to eat it all, or risk losing their livelihoods. Let's think about that phrase, "losing your livelihood". The fact that it's a common saying really tells us all we need to know. Employers hold the power. If they're caught doing bad things, usually there little to no penalty. Employees sometimes do sneaky things (all those things that you mention) and eventually get fired and/or sent to prison.

> In places like the US, employees are often terrified of getting fired or laid off because they'll lose their health insurance

This is a common misunderstanding.

If an American loses their job for any reason, they can always keep their current insurance through COBRA. In fact, they don't even need to take any immediate action. If they need healthcare in the month of, or month after, their loss of job, they can go get it and then later on pay their premium to have the insurance retroactively go back in time to cover them. The only difference is that the covered person needs to pay the full premium, while the standard employment agreement has the employer paying a significant portion of the premium.

For people who don't want to stay on their previous employer's plan, the loss of the job is a "qualifying event" which allows them to immediately do things like join their spouse's plan or sign up for an individual "Obamacare" plan through healthcare.gov. There are subsidies based on income to make the premiums manageable for low-income people if they can't afford the market rate.

> If an American loses their job for any reason

This is incorrect, it's "for limited periods of time under certain circumstances" [0] (and citizenship is not required).

> they can always keep their current insurance through COBRA. [...] needs to pay the full premium

This is true but vastly underplays the cost. It isn't unusual for "the full premium" to be over a thousand dollars per month [1] (!). They even get to charge you an "administrative fee". Oh, and there's also tax implications.

> For people who don't want to stay on their previous employer's plan, the loss of the job is a "qualifying event" which allows them to immediately do things like join their spouse's plan or sign up for an individual "Obamacare" plan through healthcare.gov.

More likely for people who can't stay on their previous plan because it would bankrupt them. Or if their spouse is not working. What happens if the employee has children/dependents on the plan? Etc, etc.

None of this is easy. Switching insurance changes which doctors are "in network", so at minimum it's significant hassle. At worst, their or a family member's current treatment is only partially or not at all covered.

So, in practice, parent's description is accurate enough.

[0] https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/health-plans/cobra

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/cobra-insurance-cost-7486539

Your loss is an expense, and an employee’s loss is the threat of homelessness. That’s the reason I find your perspective difficult to agree with. You’re holding the cards in these interactions.

He said he nearly lost his business, that means his and his employees livelihood. How is this difficult to see.

I mean small business (under like 20 employees) owners are more precarious, but my point still stands honestly. Do you really think business owners are under the same threat of homelessness as their employees?

> Having more than one "full time" remote job?

Not your business policing that unless they actively causes reduced output or conflict in the work they do for your business.

Yeah, I've seen this debated at length numerous times here. If that is your opinion, you shouldn't object to productivity monitoring software installed on your work laptop. After all, you're being paid for your time.

You’re being paid for your labor. Your time is a proxy for that labor. If an employee can do two jobs at once, then let them without intrusive monitoring. If the intrusive monitoring is the only means of determining their output, then fine, but I’m gonna go ahead and guess that there’s less orwellian metrics, and that the primary motive for their introduction is to force more work out of already productive employees by making them self-police, panopticon style.

If an employee can do two jobs at once

nobody can work 16 hours a day and be focused all the time. heck, most people can't even do 8 hours of focused work. i am not paying you to sit on a chair, but to actually pay attention. if you do two full time jobs, you are not doing the work at the required focus.

sure, there may be jobs where that doesn't matter, and there are jobs that are paid full time but aren't actually full time jobs. like a sysadmin in a small company, where our boss told him that his job was to keep the servers running. if he has nothing to do he is welcome to goof off. and in such a job he could also have used the free time to do side jobs, or a second job.

but for most jobs it does matter that you are focused working for the whole time, and if i find out that an employee is doing a second full time job then i will be very much concerned at that persons effectiveness.

Can you measure their performance? If so, I assume you expect a certain volume of work from your employees. If they keep up with that volume without paying their full attention, why is that your problem? If they aren’t doing their jobs it’s a completely different story, and I don’t blame you for your worry, but frankly what business of yours is it how they get the job done IF they do it to your desired standard? I’m sure they aren’t having fun doing 16 hours of work, but they’ve got bills to pay.

If they keep up with that volume without paying their full attention

some work is not about volume but about quality. and exactly the fact that the work can not be measured is the problem. some work can not be done effectively when you are tired, and some work is even dangerous. driving for example. paying attention to safety and security requires you to be a wake and able to focus.

as a programmer i have good days and bad days, and noone can say whether my work is the best i can manage or is slacking because i have a second job. and if i am spending more than my market rate salary as a programmer affords then i need to change my lifestyle, not get a second job.

in germany for example the laws for the maximum time of work an employee is allowed to do in a day covers all jobs. two full time jobs would simply not be possible because you are required to have 11 hours of break between two workdays.

I’m not trying to make arguments about work where the output isn’t measurable; Of course businesses are going to err on the side of caution and try to weed out employees with second jobs in that case. I am also very pro labor protections and want far more here in the US. My issue is with businesses that seem to see their employees as their property and over-scrutinize their lives outside of work, even in cases where the quality of that work can be clearly measured to be adequate.

For many jobs (like programming) measuring productivity is nearly impossible. But if a programmer is being paid for 40 hours of work, and he only does 20, then the employer is going to feel cheated, because the employer is only getting half of the productivity the programmer promised him.

The impracticality of measuring the productivity is irrelevant.

I would argue that if what the employer expects to be done in 40 hours can be done in 20 by a skilled employee, then it’s not exactly the employee’s job to tell them to allocate more work on his/her plate for the same amount of pay. That business needs to do a better job of understanding the work they need done. This, of course, won’t apply to a job like a call center or something where the time on the job is itself the labor being done, only in cases where the output is measurable. But in those cases, the employer’s feeling cheated by not being able to waste the time of/underpay that skilled employee doesn’t exactly sadden me.

Again, it is rarely possible to quantify the productivity of a programmer. That's why we pay them according to how many hours they work. Contracting for 40 hours but only delivering 20 is fraudulent.

I’ll put it this way: if I feel like I’ve given you 40 hours of work in 20 hours, I’m going to lie to you and go do something else unless I enjoy my job, and I don’t feel like that’s morally wrong unless I’m incorrect about my output.

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