Morning Ed: Europe {2016.04.11.M}
If you care about smoking, drinking, and vaping, here’s a helpful index on where in Europe you should live.
I guess I’m glad to know it’s not just American parents who are crazy.
Well this seems about right. As when Rincewind falling off the side of the Discworld, what else is there to do?
Sweden has a national phone number, which you can call to talk to a random Swede. I don’t know why I consider this such a neat idea since I can’t imagine I would ever do this and I don’t know who would. Maybe a journalist who needs a “word on the street” on some upcoming election?
Proposed labor reforms in France are not going over well.
Peter Osborne reports on the 30-year Civil War of the Tories.
John Schindler argues that Russia is manipulating Europe’s refugee crisis, and possibly Western European elections.
Call that random Swede number a thousand times and you’ve just conducted a randomized poll.Report
Only if they’ve picked the people that answer from a random selection of the population
(and nobody calls near dinnertime)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UmUX68KtEReport
Parents: sigh.
Russia: Hell, the US has been doing this type of stuff. Why shouldn’t the Ruskies do it too?Report
Look, I don’t think nationality has anything to do with it; all parents are crazy!Report
Many parents of very young children seem to treat their kids as pets.Report
OFFS, Russia is going to use refugees as deep cover illegals? Deep cover illegals are not going to be Arabic, or even look ‘Middle Eastern’. They’re going to be mayonnaise on white bread like Philip and Elizabeth (and Anna Chapman) were.Report
There has to be some sort of good balance in laws covering the rights and responsibilities of labour. Perhaps France currently goes too far in the pro-Labour direction but I still think it is important for their to be laws and regulations that protect the rights of employees. This should not be something left to luck and whim like the current system in the United States. Why is paid parental leave still very hard to achieve in the United States?
My old employer demanded that salaried employees work a lot of hours a week but it was never clearly established how many. The general rule seemed to be that if you worked 55 hours a week, you would not get a complaint from the partners. However getting to 60 a week was probably more on the safe side. The really good way to get promotions and raises was through working 65-75 hours a week. Keep in mind that my firm did not bill on an hourly rate. We billed on a contingency fee basis because of the type of cases. Partners also kept close track on how long employees would spend on cases and activities so you could get an e-mail saying, you spent too long on X task/case.
As far as I could, the hours thing was important just to show toughness and dedication. The partners and upper-levels did not put any thought into things like diminished productivity and quality from working that many hours consistently. What happened to me is that I could work 12-13 hours a day for Monday-Wednesday but by Thursday and Friday, I was crashing hard. I ended up usually needing to do some work on Saturday mornings as well.
The partners worked hard as well but I wondered how much they enjoyed their work. One talked about his second home and I wondered “When do you get to enjoy it?” Another did have a very nice house with a wonderful view of the San Francisco Bay. Ditto on the enjoyment wondering.
There was also the time when I was 25 and doing a temp proofreading gig on a Sunday during/after a major blizzard. When I got there, a lot of associates were just sprawled on couches. They spent their Saturday night trapped in an office building. The partner called up his family while they were on vacation without him!
I’ve never been able to figure out why Americans put up with such extreme working hours. I don’t think there is anything wrong with them from time to time but to hit 65-75 hours on a regular basis seems like it is going against all of mental and physical health. Do we just have a dedicated number of workaholics who really love their jobs and expect the same of all others because they all get into management positions?
So maybe France is a bit too far the one way but I think the general lack of employee rights in the United States is far more toxic.Report