Decoupling your employment | Hacker News Reader

Decoupling your employment

jonathanconway.net

I've long thought that the single most underrated aspect of universal healthcare would be the increase in job-churn, an extremely beneficial economic phenomenon, would be much higher with people not afraid to leave their jobs and therefore lose their healthcare.

I, however, would feel extremely remiss if I didn't mention that it's likely unwise to consider Ayn Rand a hero of any sort. Besides being a wonderful writer of pulp fiction, she is a worthless thinker and an absolute unabashed crazy person.

Obligatory XKCD comic reference: http://xkcd.com/1049/

I can see the theoretical argument for universal healthcare making people more willing to leave their jobs in search of better opportunities, but I'm having trouble squaring the theory with the reality I see today: I can't think of any country where job-hopping is more commonplace or more accepted than the USA.

The only explanation I can think of right now is that people in the USA tend to be more self-centered and this is responsible for both the job-hopping and the lack of universal health care; but I'm not sure I'm convinced by it. Any ideas?

Can you substantiate your "I can't think of any country where job-hopping is more commonplace or more accepted than the USA" claim? I'm not sure you not being able to think of another country with a higher job churn rate is really worth addressing.

My claim is, by the way, that job churn would increase NOT that it isn't already high.

"Any ideas?"

Laws in the US are generally designed to make jobs temporary, as opposed to places like Japan and Germany where they're designed to keep you in one place for life.

- It's very easy to fire workers in most places.

- No compete clauses in employee contracts are invalid in many states.

- Most jobs don't have significant barriers to entry. Some do like medicine, law, teaching, etc., but plenty of others have none at all. (E.g. consulting.)

- It's very easy to create and dissolve companies, and companies themselves are designed to be temporary.

- Most industries are severely under regulated, it's easy for companies to switch between different industries and workforces.

Health care is the one big exception, but since every large employer needs to offer health care it's only a moderate barrier.

> - It's very easy to create and dissolve companies, and companies themselves are designed to be temporary.

Would you mind elaborating on this? I feel that this should be true, but in practice there are so many heavily branded names that it's hard to actually believe it.

I think he meant that, from the perspective of the law, corporations are meant to be temporary entities--not that they are generally run with the intent of being temporary.

I don't know what the job mobility statistics are, but remember that the US workforce is about one hundred and fifty million people and the European one is a similar order of magnitude. You need to scale comparisons accordingly (eg comparing the US to Canada where the latter has a workforce under 20 million).

Additionally it is far easier to move in the US. There are no immigration requirements, language barriers, major cultural differences, different education systems, certifications (sometimes states differ) or similar impediments. Many states are "at will" meaning that employment is not protected to the degree it is in many other countries. This means that mobility can happen from both employee and employer sides.

I don't think job hopping is due to being self centred (in the pejorative sense). The US tends to be very productive which means employment and employees are more able to move around to meet needs. That they do so is not a bad thing.

I've known couples where one works a big boring established company in order to bring in the healthcare while the other works at startups. They would both prefer to work at startups but by the time people approach 40 there is likely to be some health issues forecast if not already happening. (Even the fittest people wear out body parts!)

And if anything economic policies have been discouraging mobility. Higher house/ing prices makes people sticky and diverts income into unproductive use, but seems to be a goal. (We'd all be better off with a lot cheaper housing costs.) The lack of competition in communications (largely due to regulatory capture) means that remote participation is a lot less effective than it could be. And of course health care is dysfunctional and expensive, although the care received by some of the people some of the time is world leading.

I don't think job hopping is due to being self centred (in the pejorative sense).

I didn't mean it in the pejorative sense -- just that in Canada I hear people say they're staying in jobs they don't like because they don't want to "let down" their friends who are working at the same company... and I don't think I've ever heard that from people working in the US (startup co-founders excepted).

I worked for several years for a company just outside Silicon Valley where people said they stayed because they liked their colleagues so much, but otherwise would have left. Two anecdotes don't make data :-)

The author implies a false dichotomy in the following paragraph.

"This is why I don’t accept the usual “benefits” package. I go for the jobs that offer minimal benefits and high pay. I go for the jobs that challenge and improve me, not the jobs I’d settle down in and feel like I can’t get out of."

Why not go for the jobs that offer great benefits, (at least) good pay, and challenge you? And, if you find you can't leave such a job because it is just too good, then maybe the job is worth sticking around for?

I work in an at-will state which means that I can leave my employer at any time for any reason and they can let me go under the same constraints.

If ever there was a phrase that deserves the derisive phrase "first world problem" it is "the benefits are too good for me to leave."

Finally,

"A less obvious reason [for great benefits] is that they increase the employee’s dependency on the employer and create barriers to the employee leaving the company for a higher paying and/or more challenging job."

this isn't a less obvious reason at all. At my current employer, the company explicitly provides strong incentives to keep employees. People still leave when they find another challenge more to their liking, benefits and all. And that's exactly the way it should be.

I think an important factor is that benefits muddles the value of your total compensation. It gets really tricky to compare an offer for another job with your current package.

At my last job, I got subsidized gym at a fancy place with a pool, but it was as bit out of my way. At my new job, I get free gym, no pool, but right next to my office, so I can go in my lunch break. Which is the more valuable benefit?

I'm in the UK, so I have universal healthcare. But my last employer had a private add-on that was really good and not too expensive (benefit-in-kind, ie. company pays, but I pay income tax on the cost) which I took. My new one has an even better, but more expensive one, so I probably won't take it. Which is the more valuable benefit?

The post is narrowly focused. Unless the author plans to make no friends with anyone at a place where most people spend more than half of his awake hours, his plan is insufficient to make it easier to leave a job. At this point, I would say letting down my peers and friends at work is a strong motivation for me. Perhaps in the eyes of some people, perhaps the author, caring about what others think of me makes me somehow weaker or less "rational". As a matter of preference, I would rather trade off some independence for the benefits of friendship and camaraderie.

Furthermore, his argument is unrealistic. Most of us don't compare one job with no benefits vs. another with benefits. The situation in the Bay Area at least means that we are often comparing jobs with very similar benefits. Thus, the benefits offered by my current employer is nullified by the equally good benefits of the competing offer, just as companies offering the benefits hope they would do. In the end, most jobs in the Bay Area are fairly comparable in terms of benefits and pay. What matters are the less tangible things: culture, opportunity, challenge, etc. The biggest factor that's keeping me at my company right now are the friends I've made there over the years and I have no regrets about having tied myself down with friendship.

What is with all the Rand hate? I myself don't know that much about her beyond the big picture (books she authored, something called Objectivism, etc.)

There seems to be a large group that detests her. Where is that coming from? (Honest question looking for facts, not to start a pointless debate).

I was going to ask the same thing and then decided to do some research myself. I read some of her books many years ago, and they struck me then, but right now I don't have a strong opinion on the matter.

So far I have failed to find any well-reasoned criticisms -- most of the criticism appears to come from people who misunderstand her work (or perhaps I do). I think the topic is ripe for analysis.

I'm a confessed Rand hater.

The reason why is because the vast majority of people I've ever met who bought into her ideology were selfish assholes who used the writings of Rand as a pseudo-intellectual justification for their selfish assholeness.

So in a way the hatred is personal, though a couple of steps removed from Ayn Rand the actual person.

The hate is probably more directed at people who identify with Rand's writing than at Rand herself, for two reasons. First, in many people's experience, being a fan of Rand correlates strongly with being a bit player on the intellectual stage. That's been my experience, at any rate. And second, not only do the people who clothe themselves in Rand's way of thinking tend to be dull, but they tend to think -- and to insist as much to anyone who'll listen -- that they're terribly clever. It only takes a few encounters with such people to poison the well.

Well, as an anecdatum, many people think Greenspan made the housing bubble worse by trying to remove regulation, and that he did so due to his belief in Objectivism.

In general, from the standpoint of someone against it, Objectivists seem to think that poor people and welfare programs are preventing the wealthy from "saving the world", totally disregarding the fact that poor people do all of the labor and numerous examples of wealthy people encouraging legislation to prevent competitors and innovation.

Disclaimer: I'm nominally anti-Rand. I'm going to struggle to be objective for this comment, though.

A lot of people do dislike her as a semi-famous figure (i.e., not having known her personally) because she has said and done some things that are fairly disagreeable. (The easiest potshot to take is that her ideal human is a sociopath.) But by and large, it's because she's had what is often perceived to be a very negative impact on society.

Here's a biased, first-person, but vitriol-free perspective: http://www.salon.com/2011/04/05/my_father_the_objectivist/

There's also the little publicized matter of Rand's hero worship of a child killer[1], which fits her sociopathic "philosophy".

[1] - http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/romancing-the-stone-c...

I agree with you that there are a lot of people who simply refuse to engage with Rand's ideas.

No matter how much one dislikes an idea, I think one should be willing to understand and engage with it, especially if it's an important idea that has had influence (as some of Rand's ideas have, for example, her concept of "force").

I personally agree with most of Rand's philosophy, but that doesn't prevent me from being willing to listen to and engage in discourse with Marxists, Keynsians, and other schools of thought which differ strongly from Objectivism.

If someone really thinks their ideas are true and right, then they should have the confidence to see those ideas tried and tested in the real world, against all the alternatives.

They should count it as a privilege to discuss/debate their ideas with opposing schools (as long as everyone respects basic manners/decency), because doing so will deepen their knowledge and improve their ability to convince others of their ideas.

Anyway enough ranting. :)

"If someone really thinks their ideas are true and right, then they should have the confidence to see those ideas tried and tested in the real world, against all the alternatives."

My idea is that dropping a bomb on you would immeasurably improve the world. Care for me to try that, or are you ready to admit that some ideas shouldn't be tested?

I think it is because her philosophy is naive in that it only considers the economic angle, and extremist in that by doing this, it takes market-thinking to it's brutal extreme.

The market, and the self-care that drives it, are wonderful mechanisms, and have brought great wealth. But (stating the obvious) humans need more than being able to buy and sell at will. They need health-care, education, welfare, etc (even if their parents / family happens to be poor). There are other factors than market-fairness that a civilized society should take into account. Not doing so is economism. And almost every one of us probably knows someone who would have been left to rot/die by Rand'ists if they had it their way.

So I would not say it is (just) hate that makes people stop listening when Rand comes up. But rather a kind of (not very laudable) impatience with naivite, that might be familiar to anyone who ever did any teaching, or for example tried to guide a novice elderly person through using a computer.

Why you might want to detest Rand personally may include her "saying European colonists had the right to take land from American Indians" (see wikipedia) or her hypocritical cult-of-personality/adultery (google for Nathanial Branden).

This raises a very good point, but the Rand quote is sure to polarize people's responses and I personally don't think it's necessary.

> Ayn Rand, a long-time favourite thinker of mine

I think disclaimers are generally best put near the top.

Looking at your linkedin you do mostly contract work, so I'm not sure what you know exactly about what you are talking about?

People churn through employment based on ambition, boredom and opportunity. In 20+ years I've never met someone who stayed at a company strictly for the benefits. I'm sure those people exist, but my guess is that it's not the benefits thats keeping them there, it's their personal need for security and stability regardless of the offerings. These people are likely not ambitious nor risk takers by nature.

And then the Ayn Rand being your "favorite thinker" made me throw the whole of your argument into the rubbish bin on the merit of that alone.

A lot of the time the benefits are there to 'sweeten the deal', their monetary value to a business is low. Turning them down won't net you their perceived value on top of your wages, they're also not a lock in to a single employer as for the most part most employers offer the same benefits, more often than not sold from the same group.

Plus I can't imagine anything more soulless than going to work every day and thinking that I'm there til I'm gone. Almost like getting into a relationship and thinking its just for the moment. Our jobs shouldn't rule our lives but it almost sounds like the author is just grinding it out, rather than throwing yourself in and revelling in the joy of the work you get to do.

Maybe I'm weird though.

I'm thinking of the perks he mentions in terms of a utility function. In other words, how much salary would you trade for paid vacation, company gym membership, company cafeteria, etc.?

Companies offer these things because they think, on average, employees will say "More than they cost the company to provide."

This post essentially reminds people that they should factor in the switching costs for all of these things. It also notes that those switching costs may increase super-linearly if multiple service agreements expire at the same time due to a change in employment.

If he was offered a salary of $100 million per year, I'm sure the author wouldn't refuse it on the basis of a gym membership being part of the package.

This example shows that the services he names have some finite value (perhaps zero or negative) which can be added to the salary value. A person considering a change in employment just needs to figure out what that value is, so you can put competing offers from different companies on the same scale.

Since he's claiming to value benefits at near-zero, a better counterexample might be a job paying below-market wage, but with free use of a private jet, a personal chef and trainer, and other insane perks :)

Now a job like that I would strongly consider. :)

Could it be the tax on these 'benefits' is less than that for salary? So if you were an employee that would've subscribed to these things anyway, both you and your employer would benefit having the employer pay for the benefits and incur less tax in the process.

I included the Ayn Rand quote because it's simply the most straight-forward and succinct summary of what my blog post was all about.

I hazard a guess that those who detest Rand's thought will probably equally detest mine. :)

“A rational man never leaves his interests at the mercy of any one person or single, specific concrete. He may need clients, but not any one particular client — he may need a job, but not any one particular job.”

I included the Ayn Rand quote because it's simply the most straight-forward and succinct summary of what my blog post was all about.

In the context of your blog post, the Ayn Rand quote is arguing for MULTIPLE clients and MULTIPLE jobs to avoid dependence on any one client or employer. Your post argues for choosing ONE single particular job, with ONE single, specific employer, using criteria not based on employer benefits. I don't see what one has to do with the other.

Definition: A person is a Randian rationalist if any particular entity only supplies a proper subset (i.e., less than all of) his interests.

Definition: For simplicity, let interests = job + gym membership.

With these definitions, a Randian rationalist wouldn't consider getting an employee gym membership. Which seems to be what the author is advocating.

I think you misunderstand my intentions. What I meant is that one SHOULD have multiple clients/multiple jobs, and that doing so will be easier if one doesn't become too dependent on any one employer due to benefits, etc.

SHOULD is still a strong word. I don't mean to say nasty things to a consultant. But consultant work isn't for every single developer. In fact, I don't like working with contractors. I want to work with the team that works for my company. I don't want to go outside and speak someone who doesn't understand our company's culture and how we work. Besides, consultant work DEPENDS on the market. You are tied to the market. Your value is depending on the market, not YOU as an individual. If your skill is no longer special because there are tons of people doing the same thing, your value will be lowered. It is a lot secure to work for a company. As a consultant, you need to either find a client yourself because you are starting, or you need to work your ass off just to make enough. I don't know about you, but most of us here can't make enough these days. consultant is freelancer, if you really think about it.

Moreover, I choose a job based on the role and the culture there. I can expect $80k ~ $100k on average for a software engineer nowadays in the city. I can keep myself comfortable with one single task, not multiple task.

I don't detest your thought, I just find it ridiculous.

If you want to use the life as software analogy, here's one.

Life is about making choices, and choices involve tradeoffs. If life was like software, to remain free to move around in any circle and jobs, besides employment benefits, one would also only program in the most popular programming languages (Java,C#), speak the most commonly spoken languages (Chinese and English), eat the most commonly available food stuff (McD's), dress the most commonly worn clothes (T-shirt and Jeans from age 3 - the day you die), do the most commonly done things (Watch TV) so you can have things to talk about when you hang out with your common friends. Some people like those lives, and that's fine. But some others like to have the finer things in life, and that involves going off the mainstream and be elitist as you would probably say. Instead of programming Java, some would program in Python. Instead of watching TV, some would like to read a book or go to museums. Instead of working for 50k a year with minimum benefits like everyone else, some would work for a company that gives them PTO, health insurance, gym membership etc etc etc. People work hard so they can get hired by a company to have those things. They want it. That's their freedom. Their freedom to choose the life best suit them. It's not that they can't leave, they don't want to leave, because they feel they've earned the benefits in the first place. If some would like to leave, that's when they are making choices that value something else over employment benefits. That's also freedom.

The author is a consultant so I find this article biased. A friend of mine works as insurance manager and he has dealt with some startups and many medium-size companies. Group purchase is relatively cheaper and more convenient to manage.

So why people love universal health package from your boss? The most obvious reason is it cost a few thousand dollars per year to cover your own premium. http://news.ehealthinsurance.com/pr/ehi/how-much-does-health... According to the source above, family is around $4000, and individual is around $3000

Google and Facebook always competes for the best people in this industry. Suppose both get rid of health insurance, but Facebook is willing increase salary by $1000 - $2000 on average. WoW. So which one would you go now, Mr. Author? Facebook? Yeah. Because that $2000 is used to cover premium. On the other hands, Google doesn't raise my salary and I would have to take out $4000 total to cover my whole family.

The fact that your employer has someone to deal with the agent, does all billing and contacts for you makes your life easier as a worker. You don't have to scratch your heads trying to find the best agent out there. All the basic health plan covers the same. Some big companies will purchase expensive package because they want to attract more talent workers.

The amount your boss will save by canceling health package is a lot, but they won't increase your salary by $5000 - $10k. They just won't. Maybe $1000. You still have to pay for the rest yourself.

Getting breakfast, lunch and even dinner all by yourself is a lot of money. Big tech companies are known to offer free meals because they want to make sure their workers can get the most out of their work time AND at the same time getting the most out of their salary. Which company would offer more than 20% of salary raise by getting rid of employee benefits?

Another problem is showing caring. Even in a small bakery shop, the #1 benefit is they can purchase left over food at very low price. Some nice owners even let workers to take them home (I used to work for a bakery). My boss didn't pay me health insurance because it was a small shop, but I get to save my breakfast for my parents by getting free food every night! Many Chinese takeout hire workers from other states and they live in the same apartment. That's their benefit. That kind of convenient makes both employer and employees happy.

I hate to say but people should stop trying to make life as a software. Seriously.

If you like software methodology, fine, here is one: stop re-inventing a common wheel. Let your boss does the billing for you. You use that third-party API. Now move on.

and to make my point even more clear. Companies will keep their good workers by giving them benefits + higher salary. Benefit is just the floor. There is no upperbound. Google, Facebook, Apple all want the best people, so they will keep increasing salary. Other startups too. When they have money, they will do the same.

"According to the source above, family is around $4000, and individual is around $3000"

Additionally, I think the average listed there is a misleadingly low self-selector in that most anyone who has a pre-existing condition is likely to get quotes so expensive that getting an individual or family plan outside of the workplace is simply not a financially viable option.

There are many, many Americans for whom health insurance outside of a workplace group policy simply isn't an option, and that is sad, but the last thing needed to fix this problem is an application of Randian principles.

As somebody who is not an american, why would it be cheaper to get a health insurance through work if I had a preexisting condition - other than the obvious tax savings?

Presumably the employer has more bargaining power than a single individual.

Your individual pre-existing condition does not bubble up to the group. However, when negotiating as an individual, then each pre-existing condition does get considered and factored into the cost. There's power in groups.

Thank you.

So at the same time, if one has no health conditions, one could expect to get a cheaper rate on an individual plan?

Well, in most situation yes. You as an individual. There other problem with pre-condition, it's very broad. They can make up all kinds of BS and claim your application must be filed different because of some "magical" precondition.

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