My wife is working from home as she is ill, which I find a little crazy these days. In the past if you were too ill to go to work, you stayed home and rested. Now, there is an unwritten rule that you are meant to work. Also when kids were ill in the past, it meant staying with the sick kid, now it is sitting them in front of a screen while continuing to work.
Isn't remote work awesome?
Anyway, at some point and not during a meeting, she said she was having network issues, which has been thankfully pretty rare since I changed service provider a while ago. So I asked her if she had restarted her computer yet, while I checked my own connection - it wasn't working. Son I reset the router, and it worked again. The reset took about a minute to happen and then all is good. But I wonder if I hadn't been there, would that have happened. Unlikely. Instead of resetting the router, my wife would have connected to her phone connection instead and problem solved. But at the same time, this has happened many times previously, so why couldn't she troubleshoot it herself?
When there is someone else to take care of it, why would she?
This is normal in the workplaces, where people suddenly become useless toddlers whenever there is the slightest issue and are unable to take care of themselves, or take responsibility of anything that is not directly in their job description. Something they would take care of in the home suddenly becomes an insurmountable roadblock in the workplace, or outside of their capabilities. Even simple things like putting a coffee cup into the dishwasher is beyond many people. Instead, they pile them up in the sink until someone finally gets frustrated enough to do it for them. I find it pathetic.
But I think that it speaks to how we have changed as a society. In the past we used to have broader job roles in the workplace and had to take care of more, as well as had to fill in for people who were ill, or help people out that needed a hand with something. Nowadays, there is the expectation that everyone has to take care of themselves in a very narrow role, but anything outside of that role falls into no man's land, grey area. And since it is everyone's responsibility, no one has to do it. Perhaps employment contracts should include clauses like "make sure you put dirty dishes in the dishwasher" and "keep the toilets clean".
Does common courtesy need to be contractually agreed to and signed upon?
Social contracts used to be enforceable through social repercussions, but now that we are so disconnected from each other, and so self-centred, that people don't care what others think of them. There is very little social "shame" in much of society now, so people throw litter on the ground, don't pick up after their dog, shout and scream at strangers, and generally behave like they are the only ones who have right of way. And when everyone believes they have right of way and entitled to do what they want, it causes a lot of conflict.
A network effect is the state of something becoming more valuable the more people use it, like a social media platform. But socially, we are creating a state of network defect, where society is becoming less valuable the more people use it, because they aren't putting anything of value into the network. I believe that while the money is still spinning for now, social networks are losing their value the more AI content fills them. It looks like a lot of activity, but for individual users, it will start to become increasingly useless, meaning the network is losing utility.
I think society is losing users in the sense that many people feel that they no longer have to add value to the network, so the network effect of building a strong society is becoming instead, dysfunctional. Society is contracting in utility because people are abusing the network. Entitlement is a big part of the abuse, where people expect to get what they want without having to do anything much for it. Much like how social respect is earned, people no longer feel they have to earn the advantages of being in society, and as a result, society is collapsing. This is being driven by all the various corporations and their tools that empower people to be increasingly selfish, but at the end of the day, the conditioned user still has some chance of changing their behaviour.
But just like leaving dishes on the sink, once the first is left there, it is increasingly likely that the second will be, and then the third has an even higher chance. Pretty soon, the space surrounding the sink and in the sink is filled with dirty dishes, and no one wants to go through the arduous task of the clean-up.
Society is becoming increasingly cluttered with the filth of humanity, and the more there is, there more there will be, until like extreme hoarders, we are buried under trash, surrounded by rats, faeces and dead bodies. And by that point, we will know that we have failed, that the problem is too big to solve, so we may as well keep on creating trash and sitting in our own filth.
Someone else will clean it up.
Taraz
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Trust me, it's even worse when you are in my side of IT, then your wife things you should be able to magically fix anything and everything. It always breaks me a little when I don't know the answer, I feel like I am totally letting her down. Like she suddenly thinks I am less of a man. Silly right? People are so helpless these days. It's part of the reason I try to get them to fix it themselves before I send a worker or show up to look at it. I think it drives them crazy, and they probably think I am being difficult, but like I said in my post a while ago I am trying to teach them to fish, not just give them fish.
Perhaps not so silly. Maybe it is human nature to feel that we are letting those we care about down when we fail to help them. Maybe the real issue is when we have no one to let down and only act for ourselves?
They will ever appreciate it, until no one is there to help them.
You are probably right on all counts!
Well, working remotely is a great benefit, I wish I could go back to full time remote work, but we are now required to work 50% in office and it will be increasing. What working remotely lets you do is not infect those around you by showing up in person while you are still sick. Because that is a choice of showing up and infecting others while you are still contagious or loosing pay. So with remote work you can work while still contagious but feeling well enough to work and it is a win / win employer gets job done without affecting productivity of the others and you still get paid if you chose to. You can still choose to take a sick day remotely as well...
In Finland, people get paid if sick anyway - there is no obligation to work. They aren't losing salary. My wife would get paid if she laid in bed. The US system is a bit different I believe and it is not very good for workers. Lots of pressure and they can just fire people as they please without much reason.
That's correct and our sick leave is usually limited to maximum of two weeks per year...
And even then, they don't care. One of my ex-colleagues was fired the day she got back from maternity leave. When she left, she was one of the highest performing sales managers.
Also true...
Is she sick that she should get off the computer to be resting and recovering quickly or sick as in feels okay enough to work but due to either drowsiness or contagion is staying home? If you're working from home because of the latter that makes sense but the expectation that you continue working from home because you're sick is stupid.
J works from home and he still takes sick days if he feels sick.
Things that are simple for some people are insurmountably overwhelming for others (though if they're finding washing their coffee cup insurmountably overwhelming they need to do some serious self reflection or something). I've had to introduce things in slivers (not even bite sized chunks! XD) like "okay if this happens again press this button here til the lights go off, count to ten, and press it again and wait til the lights stop blinking. If that doesn't work text me". And then add a troubleshooting step each time.
And in fairness to her if used to being in an office environment you should not reset the router and maybe her brain just automatically geared that way as she was working XD
Ergh. I am so glad we stopped having this problem at work.
I have been No One on several occasions. We're on a high at the moment where there's more Everyone pitching in, there was a period of time where there were just a few No Ones doing everything. I guess I can only hope the improvements we keep trying to foster in that little social hub keep rippling outward.
Hope your wife feels better soon and that you don't get re/infected :D
Yeah, same for my wife, but she has to be very sick.
It seems that people are overwhelmed by a lot of what used to be simple for everyone.
Well, in her office she has an IT department that would already have reset the router, because no connection would have interrupted their gaming. ;D
Did you hire foreigners who would do the cleaning up? This is what happened in my office. Now I am not there, I guess there might be another foreigner doing it.
Reminds me of:
Sometimes that simple thing is the straw that breaks the camel's back (Youngest simply cannot understand why I sometimes won't "just" do really simple things that "should only take a few minutes" because I have so many things that "only take a few minutes" that they all take up way too much of my day and shock freaking horror I want to do my own thing sometimes).
And sometimes people really do just need to htfu because things could be so much worse.
You made me scare the poor cat XD
You made me scare the poor cat again but she just glared at me this time XD I think half my work (staff and clients/participants/whatever you wanna call em) is "foreign" XD
No something just changed with one of the other programs, I think they were just overwhelmed for a little bit. And then we got a dishwasher which...well...it's a cheap dishwasher that does its very bestest and it does help some XD
Funnily enough I just read that story on sketchplanations earlier XD (it was linked from a more recent one).
This I get. What I think though is most people these days aren't camels, they are worms without a spine :D
Is he from SE Asia?
LoL! XD
Here if you are sick you go to the doctor and get the certificate to stay home and rest, no one can force you to work with that paper
As for kids, it's a big problem cause you have nothing to assist you if kid is sick, no days granted...
I think it's not just a matter of people, there are also no rewards for knowledge and being useful in many ways, at my work place if I was able to do more tasks and positions I'd just get more problems, more work and issues but no monetary gratification... So why do more than the needed? It's a culture problem starting to the top of society
Here people aren't "forced" but people feel the obligation that they must. Legally, they don't have to, even without a doctor's certificate. I think people can be away three days in a row without an explanation.
This is good in Finland, because essentially if the kid is sick, you are sick. You have the right to stay home with them. Most companies don't require a doctor's certificate either afaik.
sick day?? haven't had 1 of those since.. ever?? :P
i am always 'working' i think.
I think the last ones I took was when I had a stroke. I don't remember being sick enough not to work after that.
I feel like this working from home was majorly influenced by the advancement of technologies around the globe, all entrepreneur, CEO, and the big boys in the don't want the work or business to be held even if its for 24hours. You can work, attend to customers round the clock. To me it's just not fair. Holidays, staff leaves should be a prioritize.
@tarazkp your wife is indeed an energized individual. Kudos to her. I admirer her dedication.
People are expected to nearly always be available in some capacity, just in case. And I think it makes the home a worse place.
Your network defect idea is interesting though. The flip side of a network effect. Instead of everyone adding value, people start extracting value without contributing and over time the whole thing weakens You can actually see that in a lot of spaces now plenty of activity, less substance.
I think it is frustrating to see people become helpless when faced with minor issues, and then consult AI at workplace.