This article doesn't mention it, but being laid off will change you at a psychological level. It can be a deeply traumatic event.
I was laid off over 5 years ago, and, as these things usually go, it was a complete shock to me. The company had been acquired, and my services were no longer needed. It ended up being a very positive change for my career, but to this day, if I ever get a moment of déjà vu, my immediate thought is to check my phone and see if I've been fired.
> being laid off will change you at a psychological level
it certainly can do, but it's also fine if it doesn't
when I was laid off, some family members simply refused to believe that it hadn't had a profound negative effect on how I viewed myself. Dealing with that disbelief was by far the most difficult part of the process
I felt absolutely fine, because at the time I had no emotional investment in my job or career
> being laid off will change you at a psychological level. It can be a deeply traumatic event.
I didn't get laid off, but I project I put years of my life into was shut down (in a "row on a spreadsheet" type of way), and it effected me surprisingly deeply. I'm still dealing with the after effects, and reading this thread is making me realize it was cognitively really similar to a layoff.
I wish it didn't bother me as much as it did, but that doesn't change the impact.
I'm 24 years into my career now. I think you just get used to this after a while.
I've worked on several big (at the time) software products that our company built and shipped to customers for a while, that we have since abandoned. And in those cases, the entire organization within the company that owned the code was disbanded, so there was no one left to know about it or care about it. I'm not 100% certain but I strongly suspect that there is not a single copy left anywhere in the company of the code for those products - code that I worked on for years.
It's strange thinking that there is basically no trace left of something that I put years of professional work into, but I think it happens more than most people realize. I suppose it's no different than startups that fail and everything disappears.
I also think this is why so many software people end up enjoying hobbies that revolve around physical things, like woodworking or restoring old cars. Having some physical object that you can point to and say "I built that" is kind of nice compared to everything else you've done living on a flash chip somewhere.
I was laid off in a face to face meeting with the VP.
Checking my phone might be irrational, but irrational thoughts can be a symptom of trauma. Then again, I do work fully remote, so I'm checking for tell tale signs. Mysterious meetings on my calendar, DMs from the CTO, etc.
I was laid off twice, about a year apart. Both affected me deeply, and clearly in a traumatic way. The last one was about a year ago.
My spidey-sense has been tingling for the last couple weeks, and there's a vesting cliff coming up, so I've been looking at my manager's calendar for suspicious upcoming meetings. I figure there are 8 potential firing days left (Mondays, Fridays, and regular 1:1 meetings) until that cliff, and then I can relax.
One of the things that has helped me cope is to constantly be interviewing at smaller companies. It's a lot less stressful to be laid off when you already have another offer on the table.
These devices are typically installed in "high crime" areas. They then detect more crime (Or just loud noises). This calls police to respond to the area, and increased interaction with police commonly leads to increased confrontation with police leading to arrests. Thus re-enforcing the "high crime" reputation of the area.
If this were a camera that identified when and for how long a software engineer showed up to the office and notified their employer of "unwanted behavior", how long would it take for that story to end up on the front page of this site and torn apart as invasive and infantilizing?
Software engineers have full-time managers (which are a lot more overhead to pay for but kinda serve that purpose from the client perspective) and are paid well enough and consistently enough to usually only work one job on a given day. Subcontractors sometimes do decide not to show up to your job site because another employer offered them a bonus to do theirs that day instead. The point isn't (only) to humiliate or do a show of power to the workers, it's to counter an economic incentive they have.
That said, for a lot of subcontractor trades, it's so hard to find anyone that I'd worry about the reverse: you get known as "the freaks with the cameras" and no one good bids on your stuff anymore, and then the delivery is even more delayed.
> it's to counter an economic incentive they have.
I think economists would call that a feature and not a bug. It is essentially an auction (something economists LOVE). You could instead take that money that you're spending on surveillance and instead spend it on giving the contractors a bonus to show up to your place instead.
I really don't buy that this would "shame" them into coming to your place first. Everyone already is aware that they don't always show up because you got out bid. You're "solving" the problem the wrong way because you're not addressing the actual problem.
I would imagine shaming doesn't work because I think residential GCs have higher demand for workers than there is supply, but the cameras still solve the problems of making it easier for the GC to react when it happens (and the reaction could be offer to pay that sub more if the project is late or all the other subs have been showing up, realizing the work from the earlier stage wasn't done, and going home, or it could be lengthening their project schedule).
I think if these got to the point of "worker stared at floor for 7 minutes" it would be invasive. If it tracks when a vehicle shows up to site and leaves.
That being said, as someone with digestion issues, tracking bathroom habits is offensive.
In short, yes this is invasive. But much like AI, this type of thing isn't going away, there is just going to be more lawsuits about it in the future.
We don't track port-o-potty use, just if they move. Vandalism is at an all time high on construction sites, tipping port-o-johns is a common teenage prank and the GC needs to know if and when this is happening on sites (and hopefully catch the perpetrators).
I guess I would say that subcontractors are more like hourly workers (who are time tracked meticulously in almost all industries) - not salaried like software engineers, who would deserve the respect and absence of tracking.
I would argue salary employees deserve more tracking since they are given more freedoms.
An hourly worker is paid hourly, and given tasks at a much smaller interval.. often by day and sometimes every few hours.
If you have quarterly goals for salary employees, they probably need more 'tracking' to make sure they are doing what you expect as time goes on.
Not really, in the housing industry, it is generally job bid instead. The contractor taking longer just means they get paid later and don't get as many jobs done.
It's less about tracking how long they're there and more about when they showed up. We do the former because we can, but the GC really wants to know if and when their subs are showing up without having to be on site 24/7 waiting for them.
For example, they can look back through yesterdays events to see that their plumber showed up - and then they'll know they need to go check on the work. The alternative is trying to get the plumber on the phone to figure out if the work had been completed or not - which is difficult in 2023.
There's not a lot of unioned workers in most states for residential construction. But autoworkers, and anything else in manufacturing would be used to the constant monitoring. Commercial construction also typically has fulltime site superintendents, who would do this anyway.
That's an interesting angle. My Father actually, by chance, owns a residential drywall and finishing business. The 'did the plumber show up' factor is key. Though I'm not sure why this couldn't be solved by having the subs of a builder agree to give basic job updates. How do residential customers feel about someone's camera watching their house?
Anything that makes the GC more efficient is going to be a win for the future homeowner. This might get more problematic for remodels, but we primarily work with new home builds.
The GC can often bill it down to the homeowner as antitheft, which reduces time/money to complete the build. The biggest being time. An example, if custom windows are stolen, it could delay a project by months right now.
Hourly means “paid by the hour,” so verifying time on the job is directly related to salary. “Punching in” on remote worksites is the problem being solved with this solution.
Thanks to both the parent for raising the ethical issues in this product and to OP for responding/addressing them. Our industry gets a lot better when we don't shy away from both asking and answering these kinds of questions!
I think the first sentence of this article may hold the key. Weeks after the President takes office with the mission to undo every accomplishment of his predecessor, the Cuban embassy is 'attacked' with Cold War era fantasy weapons with no motive, suspects, or physical evidence. Giving the President the excuse he needs to revert another of his predecessors key accomplishments, and return to locked-down relations with Cuba.
Its no wonder the administration has done nothing to de-escalate the situation, but instead fanned the flames of public speculation, and re-enforced the claims of the affected embassy workers.
My father has worked with metal his whole life. If just a tiny sliver of metal shaving landed in his eye and worked it's way around to the back, an MRI would tear it straight through the eye ball.
I can't seem to understand the buzz around chatbots. I read an earlier article on here about chatbots replacing apps in China, but something about it seems so gimmicky. Why should I spend the cognitive energy to attempt a scripted conversation with a machine, when I can just talk to an actual person or use a native app?
Slides.com is focused on the presentation. The audience is not typically interacting directly with the deck.
When you create a deck, there is a pretty good tutorial explaining how the interface works, including what spacebar and escape do.
The real advantage of the service, for me, is the support for embedding any digital media you want into a slide via iFrames, and the ability to use your phone/tablet to advanced slides and see speakers notes if your venue did not provide you with a clicker.
It also has another pretty neat feature where audience members can pull up the presentation on their laptops/tablets to follow along, and their slides will automatically advance to match my progress through the deck.
I'm just trying to explain why its very much a tool for the presenter, not the presentee.
Edit: Slides.com is a locked down instance of reveal.js
I was laid off over 5 years ago, and, as these things usually go, it was a complete shock to me. The company had been acquired, and my services were no longer needed. It ended up being a very positive change for my career, but to this day, if I ever get a moment of déjà vu, my immediate thought is to check my phone and see if I've been fired.