On general note, this site really emphasizes how fucked up is health system in US. There is complete lack of correlation how much a plan costs and how much benefits you get.
There should be version: WhyHealthInsuranceinUSSucks.com
In part that's because, unfortunately, there is not that great a correlation between these advertised rates and how much they'll charge you once you actually go through the application process and have them pull your medical records, either.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you can say that "startup failed" if you haven't even quit your day job and focus 100% on your startup.
Maybe you can say that investigation/discovery phase didn't yield desirable results.
Honestly I don't know. I would guess it's slightly under the average at most companies. Cetainly less than 20 days as an average. But we've had people take a month and work in Thailand which is not counted as vacation. So this is not some scheme to get people to work more. It's simply offering flexibility and empowering our team to make their own choices.
I actually believe that lack of democratic institutions and lack of regulations is enabling rich (either rich by inheritance or self made) to become more rich.
I'm not sure how large corporation has influence to this because at least, in Eastern Europe, raise of inequality (tycoons and such) goes hand in hand with lack of democratic institutions (sometime outright corruption but in many cases everything is "legal") and lack of regulations.
Unfortunately, regardless of reason of increasing inequality, history showed us that inequality is often fixed by events which are not part of capitalism teaching (revolution, war, crazy people end up leading the country).
I just want to comment that policy like this will cause you problems in recruiting a certain type of talent. Of course, that will be imposible to measure, but I can tell you none of my friends (we are little older but not so much) will not work for a company which has a policy like that. We just had a beer talk last Friday about that.
- If a company is really about "we don't care about how much vacation you take", then why not to give me minimum vacations? It seems intellectually dishonest.
- How I do know how much of vacation I can take and whether that amount is preventing me of getting raise/bonus/promotion?
- This policy means that my vacation will vary depending on manager and current project. I cannot commit to travel with my kids, I cannot commit to visit my parents... because who knows: I might have a different manager next month.
- If I take two weeks vacation and none of my teammates are taking vacations, am I going to be fired? Are they going to consider me that I'm not a team player?
- I can lose a job after working for year or so without taking any vacation, but if I did accure vacation I will get some money (kinda reward for working hard for a year and not taking vacation), while in case of "flexible vacation" I get nothing.
It seems like the one correct answer to the vacation policy question is, "Do what you want, as long as you don't hose the company."
If you want to work remotely for the next month and nothing depends on your physical presence at the office, fine.
If you want to fuck off for the next month and you're not on anyone's critical path, that's fine, too.
Restricting things a bit, "not hosing the company" could be interpreted to mean that you can take off when you want, but for absences longer than x days you need to let your supervisor know y days in advance so s/he can take it into account when necessary. It doesn't sound like this would be an unreasonable thing to ask, as long as x and y are clearly stated by the company and respected by employees.
This whole thread reminds me of why I don't work for other people. The idea of someone demanding my physical presence for a portion of each day, for no reason other than the fact that they can, makes me frown and cock my head to the side like a puzzled beagle.
If you're doing good and valuable work, and the company acknowledges this, you won't want to vanish for weeks or months at a time.
The overriding goal is to run an outfit where the employees want to be there. If you do that, then vacation-policy abuse will not be a major problem. If you don't, then vacation-policy abuse is the least of your problems.
Hmmm... I like the idea 'take some' but then why not accure vacations anyway and 'force' people to take vacations before accuras expires?
Actually, in one of big companies developing world class mission critical software, my manager would send me an email saying something like "please take vacations since we are making Mercedeses and not Pintos".
Yes, there were pople working really a lot and not taking vacations, but it ended up that their designs are not well thought and implementation sloppy (yea, it is done faster than planed but locking was just not performing on SMPs), so they were passed during promotion / bonus time.
My understanding that this is a bill promoted by big law firms to make more money and to protect financial industry against patent trolls. Also, 'first-inventor-to-file' is something which big companies were pushing anyway.
Well...just to be play devil's advocate here for a sec...I don't know if that's the case, but just based on the vote it seems a bit fishy to me.
89-9 means many Republicans were on-board. The stereotype for the 'typical' Republican positions are torte reform and less interference with business process.
So just by that reasoning alone, if this was Big Law Firm (only) friendly, it seems to me that so many republicans wouldn't have supported it.
I am just putting forth a theory, as I was not party to the negotiations so I don't know for sure.
You really think that republicans and democrats are two different parties?
(sorry for being sarcastic... I'm just frustrated with politics in US... It seems so corrupted beyond belief)
You and me both cHalgan... I figure that this law won't do much to the status quo - or else how could they pass it? Reminds me of: "If voting worked, it'd be illegal."
Most people are unaware what exactly causes problems in the patent system; all they know is there might be something wrong with it. And here is a bill that they claim will "reform" it. The details, and effects of those details, are lost to the general public.
It is all too likely that this bill will benefit patent trolls and large corporations at the expense of everyone else, but there is no way the public will attribute these effects (which will happen years later) to the politicians who voted on this bill. It's really sad.
My biggest concern about 2007 collapse is that we DID NOT reform financial system after the collapse. Everything remains the same. The banks still operate in same way as before 2007.
And everybody should be careful to bet on recovery: we have a financial system which relies on public funds to be viable. We did not envolve.
We should do two things:
- allow failed banks to fail (ok maybe some gov oversight but essentially they should be broken up and sold in pieces)
- the regulatory system must be reformed (reform credit rating agencies, etc.)
Ratings required by the SEC, and the public, should not come from 'for profit' companies (S&P, Moodys, Fitch)when investment banks are allowed to shop around for the best rating. Blatant conflict of interest.
Actually, Yelp can play game like this and be profitable.
If business have a good rating on Yelp, then that pretty much mean that business is ok. However, a bad rating might be because business was not nice with Yelp sales people.
That is ok because they target small, unestablished, businesses which you will never discover that they are actually excellent business because they have just one star review.
In other words, advertising at Yelp does not guarantee you a good review. However, not being nice with their sales people might get you a bad review if you are a small business.
On general note, this site really emphasizes how fucked up is health system in US. There is complete lack of correlation how much a plan costs and how much benefits you get.
There should be version: WhyHealthInsuranceinUSSucks.com