Uncle Joe

[twocoach]

Case in point: We advertised to replace my admin assistant. It is 20 hours a week at $13 an hour, with work from home flexibility. Normally, we’d get one or two applicants and settle for the least objectionable. This time around, I sifted through 43 applications, half of which were people with Master’s degrees. About 2/3 said they were looking for a second or third job because food and utilities had gotten so expensive. Yay?

Cool anecdote.

Do you have stats to back up that this isn't a super isolated thing?

Nope. Other than the fact that I adjunct at five other colleges on top of my FT job and my wife does the same at three others on top of hers. And pretty much everyone we know does the same.

I’m sure it’s just a south central Michigan thing, though.

Sounds like your primary job isn't very demanding from an hours per week perspective. I'd like it if my job left me enough hours per week to take on contract work as well. More income is good. Glad you have the time and energy to take on so much additional work but it sounds like taking advantage of opportunities, not necessity.

[jfish26]

There no reasoning with you. Make of it what you will. Anyone with an unbiased brain knows the left maximized and milked 1/6 for all it was worth. They let it happen to use it politically. Enticed it

I'm not asking for reasoning.

I'm asking for a straight answer to a simple question: what is the significance of LEOs being in the insurrection mobs?

Depends. Are you asking about in-uniform on duty LEOs or off duty LEOs in plain clothes participating as citizens?

Dunno. Our friend brought it up. So I’m curious as to his answer to the question. He’s a big boy, he can answer in as many parts as are needed.

[JKLivin]

Cool anecdote.

Do you have stats to back up that this isn't a super isolated thing?

Nope. Other than the fact that I adjunct at five other colleges on top of my FT job and my wife does the same at three others on top of hers. And pretty much everyone we know does the same.

I’m sure it’s just a south central Michigan thing, though.

Sounds like your primary job isn't very demanding from an hours per week perspective. I'd like it if my job left me enough hours per week to take on contract work as well. More income is good. Glad you have the time and energy to take on so much additional work but it sounds like taking advantage of opportunities, not necessity.

The adjuncting is all online, so it is evenings and weekends and holidays. It’s a matter of time management and lost sleep.

[twocoach]

Nope. Other than the fact that I adjunct at five other colleges on top of my FT job and my wife does the same at three others on top of hers. And pretty much everyone we know does the same.

I’m sure it’s just a south central Michigan thing, though.

Sounds like your primary job isn't very demanding from an hours per week perspective. I'd like it if my job left me enough hours per week to take on contract work as well. More income is good. Glad you have the time and energy to take on so much additional work but it sounds like taking advantage of opportunities, not necessity.

The adjuncting is all online, so it is evenings and weekends and holidays. It’s a matter of time management and lost sleep.

Great, glad you have a path to additional income. Count the rapid increase of online work capabilities as one of the few benefits to our lives that have come out of the pandemic.

[JKLivin]

Sounds like your primary job isn't very demanding from an hours per week perspective. I'd like it if my job left me enough hours per week to take on contract work as well. More income is good. Glad you have the time and energy to take on so much additional work but it sounds like taking advantage of opportunities, not necessity.

The adjuncting is all online, so it is evenings and weekends and holidays. It’s a matter of time management and lost sleep.

Great, glad you have a path to additional income. Count the rapid increase of online work capabilities as one of the few benefits to our lives that have come out of the pandemic.

Indeed.

[Sparko]

Biden's infrastructure investments enhanced the 5G networks. We are improving daily our ability to teach and learn online. Need more Republicans onboard with progress

[Mjl]

Biden's infrastructure investments enhanced the 5G networks. We are improving daily our ability to teach and learn online. Need more Republicans onboard with progress

Did they?

[Sparko]

No. They are pretending they did. But that fantasy is at least more positive.

[KUTradition]

About $65 billion in federal funding has been allocated toward expanding broadband access and 5G connectivity nationwide.

[zsn]

Count the rapid increase of online work capabilities as one of the few benefits to our lives that have come out of the pandemic.

It’s not really all benefit, IMO. While there’s now general recognition that most work can be performed from anywhere, the work-life boundary has essentially fully eroded as a result. It started with the Blackberry in the mid ‘00s and completed with Zoom in 2020.

It’s almost like everyone believes that checking out and bagging your own groceries is a convenience!! We have severely upset the work-to-live/live-to-work balance.

[twocoach]

Count the rapid increase of online work capabilities as one of the few benefits to our lives that have come out of the pandemic.

It’s not really all benefit, IMO. While there’s now general recognition that most work can be performed from anywhere, the work-life boundary has essentially fully eroded as a result. It started with the Blackberry in the mid ‘00s and completed with Zoom in 2020.

It’s almost like everyone believes that checking out and bagging your own groceries is a convenience!! We have severely upset the work-to-live/live-to-work balance.

Like most everything else, the benefit lies somewhere in the middle. Nothing is "all" benefit. There are more positives than negatives and the negatives are just new things that employees and employers both have to now manage. No one makes me work from home; I would be free to go in to the office 5 days a week if I wanted to. I just get more work done in the same amount of clock hours now because I don't have to spend time driving in to work and I save money because I don't have to service my car as much and I eat more of the lesser prices food I have at home than if I went to work, where I tend to buy my lunches more often. But I also tend to work more overall because when I was going in to the office there were multiple days per week where I had to leave work at the end of the day to get home so my wife could go to work and I would be the "parent on-site". I rarely got home and then logged back in to start working again. Now that I am already home, I just keep right on working.

Same with stuff like groceries. No one makes me bag my own groceries but I can choose to if I feel that it is more convenient to me. I tend to enjoy the chit chat with a few of the regulars who work at the checkout and usually have too many things for self-checking to be more convenient, or items that will require an in-person interaction such as alcohol or produce that I don't feel like figuring out how to ring up myself, so I usually choose to go through the regular line.

This whole post-pandemic phase just happened to align with a period in my professional life where I am ramping up my role and performing as a lead for my team. This has meant taking on some really challenging projects that are very time consuming along with a lot of other responsibilities from a customer support research, compliance and audit perspective so I was already going to be negatively impacting my work/life ratio. But it would have been a MUCH more negative impact to my work/life ratio if WAH had not been implemented as it has with my employer as we simply would have had to find childcare to cover the gaps when I could not get home in time. Either that or I just would have had to say "no" to a lot of the initiatives that I have taken on, to the detriment of my career. WAH really has allowed me to progress faster in my professional overall.

[Mjl]

I hate it. I know I'm in the minority. But I just hate not leaving my home. But I have a 12 minute commute. Might be different if that weren't the case.

[zsn]

All fair points, twocoach. However, the fact remains that the new normal is working longer, for whatever reason. While they may be legitimate reasons, employees’ acceptance of what they would put up with would not have been normal even a few years ago.

The department I lead does a lot of work with outfits located in China, among other overseas entities. We have calls with them starting at 6 pm PT (9 am in China), going on until 9 or 10 pm. These are in addition to our “day jobs”. People end up working 12-14 hours for several days in a week. I’m extremely sensitive to the burnout that is coming. It’s definitely not sustainable for a long period. I don’t want to normalize this practice.

[twocoach]

All fair points, twocoach. However, the fact remains that the new normal is working longer, for whatever reason. While they may be legitimate reasons, employees’ acceptance of what they would put up with would not have been normal even a few years ago.

The department I lead does a lot of work with outfits located in China, among other overseas entities. We have calls with them starting at 6 pm PT (9 am in China), going on until 9 or 10 pm. These are in addition to our “day jobs”. People end up working 12-14 hours for several days in a week. I’m extremely sensitive to the burnout that is coming. It’s definitely not sustainable for a long period. I don’t want to normalize this practice.

I fully agree with your points. That's too bad to hear that your employer is allowing that type of schedule. That will catch up with them in the long run. No employee wants to feel like their personal time is not valued.

[Mjl]

All fair points, twocoach. However, the fact remains that the new normal is working longer, for whatever reason. While they may be legitimate reasons, employees’ acceptance of what they would put up with would not have been normal even a few years ago.

The department I lead does a lot of work with outfits located in China, among other overseas entities. We have calls with them starting at 6 pm PT (9 am in China), going on until 9 or 10 pm. These are in addition to our “day jobs”. People end up working 12-14 hours for several days in a week. I’m extremely sensitive to the burnout that is coming. It’s definitely not sustainable for a long period. I don’t want to normalize this practice.

My observation has been the exact opposite. Benefits dropped off in the oughts, but they're turning back around. PTO days are up. Expectations of long hours are down. Wages for the lowest earners are considerably up.

Boomers had an implicit loyalty agreement with their employees - I'll stick with you and you'll be loyal to me.

X'ers were pushovers. They're accepting of being walked over, so that happened. They were loyal to their employers, but the employers weren't loyal to them.

Millennials have turned it around. They aren't loyal to employers because, for one, they saw how that loyalty burned the X'ers. Secondly, they haven't experienced times like the early 80's with lingering unemployment. They usually haven't had a hard time finding a job, so they didn't need to be subservient.

[japhy]

I assume you work for a state school or a well-funded private one. Christian higher ed is a different ballgame. We are tuition-driven and survival is a constant struggle. We often have faculty positions open for a year or more in my department, too, but mostly because a clinician can easily make three times what a full-time professor is paid. Those of us who teach, do so because we are investing in the future of the field. If no one trains mental health professionals, they will cease to exist.

I work at a well funded private sector consulting firm. Our issues are different. Everyone is throwing money at employees right now. So we have to differentiate ourselves from the pack by being a "better" place to work.

The crisis in education seems to be different in that while the schools and administrators themselves value the employees, there is a movement out there to scapegoat educators. From the Republican fight to try and eliminate tenure, to the harassment of boards of educcation from organized right wing groups, to being labeled groomers, to trumps recent claim that he would make it law for parents to vote on the retention of principals at their kids school annually. All of this draws big cheers from the grievance rubes. The movement to devalue education has turned into an economic devaluation of educators in general.

"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind." I heard that in a movie once.

Keep voting "R".

[randylahey]

Biden continues his history of lies. Always trying to take the credit and shift the blame. Its nice to finally see a big tech company call him out and remain unbiased

[randylahey]

[jfish26]

Biden continues his history of lies. Always trying to take the credit and shift the blame. Its nice to finally see a big tech company call him out and remain unbiased

So, I read your post below this quoted one, so you don't need to tell me the issue.

That said - where's the lie? The crisis line was implemented under Biden (and did not become operational until this time last year).

Seems like a weird (and kinda gross) flex on your end?

[randylahey]

Biden continues his history of lies. Always trying to take the credit and shift the blame. Its nice to finally see a big tech company call him out and remain unbiased

So, I read your post below this quoted one, so you don't need to tell me the issue.

That said - where's the lie? The crisis line was implemented under Biden (and did not become operational until this time last year).

Seems like a weird (and kinda gross) flex on your end?

Gross? Lol goodness. You're insane. Here I'll show you something gross



Biden constantly sniffing little girls. Creepy pedo vibes