What's your weather currently?

[I-55]

Severe Thunderstorm Warning

[JayhawkCO]

Hazy blue skies.  The same as every other day recently.  Thanks Dixie Fire.

Chris

[Scott5114]

Traveling regularly to the Chihuahuan Desert, in a country where A/C is exceedingly rare, I think it's laughable for people to suggest employees should get hazard pay, special shifts, mandatory breaks, etc.–just because the temperatures are elevated.

Well, the United States is a rich enough country that we kind of have a higher expectation for accommodations against the elements here. If I go to a business here in the summer and they have no AC, I'm just not going to spend money there because I can go somewhere else that provides a more pleasant environment. Once you're air-conditioning the customers, you may as well air-condition the employees too. And of course, if you offer AC as part of your workplace environment, you have a greater number of applicants to the job because not everyone is even physically able to work in a high-heat environment. (This means you can pay the employees less because there's more competition to fill each job opening.)

And also, I mean, are you going to turn down hazard pay and extra breaks if they're offered? Cause I won't. I don't go to a job to build character and prove a point about how I'm a bad enough dude to live in Oklahoma in the summer, I do it to make money.

For context, I work in the cable business.  Our field techs work outdoors all day, every day.  [...] I'm trying to imagine anybody in the industry–anyone with actual field experience, that is–suggesting that techs should get extra pay or reduced hours on hot days, and all I can envision is them getting laughed out of the room.

That has less to do with the supposed unreasonableness of the proposal, and more to do with the fact that all of that is already priced into the wages of being a cable tech–trade workers like cable installers, electricians, and plumbers make a lot of money for the work that they do,  because they have to work in crappy conditions like that to do their job. Nobody would subject themselves to that for minimum wage.

[Bruce]

There's also the matter of acclimation. Having a higher indoor temperature would probably be fine in places where outdoor temperatures are consistently in the 90s and 100s, but here we're used to summers that should barely crack 80.

Another heat wave is headed this way for the rest of the week, with temps as high as 110 expected in southwestern Oregon.

[jakeroot]

There's also the matter of acclimation. Having a higher indoor temperature would probably be fine in places where outdoor temperatures are consistently in the 90s and 100s, but here we're used to summers that should barely crack 80.

Average-wise, but Seattle hits 80s at least 20-30 days per year. More often in the South Sound.

Still, I totally agree. Even if the human body is capable of dealing with 110 F on a regular basis, it's going to be a lot harder when you're not used to it.

[ET21]

Today will likely be the 4th day in a row with some form of severe weather. Went out storm chasing Monday and bagged three tornadoes. Been hot and humid much of the week but that comes to an end tomorrow with a cold front finally going through

[kphoger]

I mean, are you going to turn down hazard pay and extra breaks if they're offered?

Yes.  Did you miss the part where I said I went to the HR director when she tried making my department take even one break, because none of us wanted to take one?

It was nonetheless eye roll inducing to hear how many people really thought AC was an OSHA mandated item at certain outdoor temperatures.

They're probably the same people who claim there's an OSHA mandate that companies make their employees take a lunch break.  Oh wait, that was my own HR department a few years ago, in defense of forcing everyone in my former department to take a lunch break (nobody in the department wanted lunch breaks).  Until, that is, I asked the HR director to show me what specific legal regulation required it.

For context, I work in the cable business.  Our field techs work outdoors all day, every day.  [...] I'm trying to imagine anybody in the industry–anyone with actual field experience, that is–suggesting that techs should get extra pay or reduced hours on hot days, and all I can envision is them getting laughed out of the room.

That has less to do with the supposed unreasonableness of the proposal, and more to do with the fact that all of that is already priced into the wages of being a cable tech–trade workers like cable installers, electricians, and plumbers make a lot of money for the work that they do,  because they have to work in crappy conditions like that to do their job. Nobody would subject themselves to that for minimum wage.

Back before everything went digital, cable techs made a lot of money, but those days ended, what, a decade ago?  Gone are the days of just hooking up lines outside, slapping a modem on the desk, calling it an installation, and billing for every outlet.  No, these days, your modem might have 32 downstream channels and 8 upstream channels, and every one of them needs to have passing levels.  These days, your cable boxes all talk to each other through DSG tunneling–that is, the cabling has to be good enough for the same quality of data to pass both directions between all points.  These days, instead of a powered NIU pushing a halfway decent phone signal across corroded phone wires, those wires now need to carry a digital signal to your eMTA in order for phone to work.  These days, techs operate under all sorts of various metrics, reporting, field QCs, and other expectations–and each vendor company has to meet certain benchmarks for them all, and the vendor companies are in competition with each other.  And all of this increase in work per job has occurred over the same period of time that MSOs started paying vendors less money for the work they do to begin with.

Trust me, there is nowhere near the money to be made as a cable tech that there used to be.  No, it isn't minimum wage, but our average field tech isn't making any more money than I am here in the office.  They get around $2.10 per point, an average tech's route usually runs around 80 points, and they generally work about 12 hours a day.  A good, veteran tech can do more in a day, but that's about average.  That comes to $14/hour–and they purchase all their own startup gear, most of them use their own work truck, failed QCs and lost equipment come out of their own paycheck, and as 1099 workers they handle their own taxes and insurance.  I think you might have been under the false assumption that my company pays its techs an hourly wage (such as the MSOs themselves do in paying their in-house field techs).

[Roadgeekteen]

90s and sunny

[JayhawkCO]

It was nonetheless eye roll inducing to hear how many people really thought AC was an OSHA mandated item at certain outdoor temperatures.

They're probably the same people who claim there's an OSHA mandate that companies make their employees take a lunch break.  Oh wait, that was my own HR department a few years ago, in defense of forcing everyone in my former department to take a lunch break (nobody in the department wanted lunch breaks).  Until, that is, I asked the HR director to show me what specific legal regulation required it.

If people hear one or two others say that something is an OSHA reg, then they just believe it without checking.  Heck, as far as OSHA is concerned, your company can work you 24/7.

Not an OSHA requirement, but cities and/or states can require it.  It's particularly a headache in my former industry (restaurants).  To be fully compliant, we have to give our servers a break that might fall right in the middle of a busy dinner shift, so they'd have to transfer all of their tables to someone else to go take a mandatory break.  Needless to say, no one wanted to take a break, so I always got yelled at by HR for not having my staff follow the rules.  We came up with some waiver that everyone signed that said they acknowledged that if they wanted a break, they could have one, but they could also forego it if they so chose.



Back to topic at hand, only 84 today and slightly less hazy.

Chris

[J N Winkler]

Trust me, there is nowhere near the money to be made as a cable tech that there used to be.  No, it isn't minimum wage, but our average field tech isn't making any more money than I am here in the office.  They get around $2.10 per point, an average tech's route usually runs around 80 points, and they generally work about 12 hours a day.  A good, veteran tech can do more in a day, but that's about average.  That comes to $14/hour–and they purchase all their own startup gear, most of them use their own work truck, failed QCs and lost equipment come out of their own paycheck, and as 1099 workers they handle their own taxes and insurance.  I think you might have been under the false assumption that my company pays its techs an hourly wage (such as the MSOs themselves do in paying their in-house field techs).

This sounds to me a lot like piecework.  I can understand the techs objecting to reduced hours because that reduces their income, but why say No to a higher payment per point?

[Scott5114]

None of that changes the fact that the conditions a cable installer must endure is known to someone before becoming one. My dad really wants me to get a job in the trades. I've been blowing the suggestion off simply because you can't pay me enough to crawl around in an attic all day. I certainly wouldn't do it for $14/hour ($100/hour and maybe we can talk about it).

The mindset that would lead someone to turn down lunch breaks and other creature-comfort accommodations if offered is so foreign to me I can't even begin to comprehend it.

[kphoger]

This sounds to me a lot like piecework.

It is piecework.  Different MSOs do it differently, though.  In our Cox markets, each task of each job is assigned a certain number of points, then they're added up for the job total.  In our Charter markets, each type of job pays a different number of points (installation of one service, installation of three services, upgrade, service call, etc).  Techs get a certain dollar amount per point.

I can understand the techs objecting to reduced hours because that reduces their income, but why say No to a higher payment per point?

Because, if you add up all the hot days and cold days, you basically end up with half the year.  That is to say, inclement weather is just "normal working conditions" to them.

[webny99]

The mindset that would lead someone to turn down lunch breaks and other creature-comfort accommodations if offered is so foreign to me I can't even begin to comprehend it.

In kphoger's example of no one wanting lunch breaks, it could be as simple as them just wanting to leave an hour or half-hour earlier at the end of the day, and that being more valuable to them than the lunch break.

[kphoger]

The mindset that would lead someone to turn down lunch breaks and other creature-comfort accommodations if offered is so foreign to me I can't even begin to comprehend it.

In kphoger's example of no one wanting lunch breaks, it could be as simple as them just wanting to leave an hour or half-hour earlier at the end of the day, and that being more valuable to them than the lunch break.

Sort of.  It's because most people didn't even eat lunch, so why take a lunch break, especially if that meant getting home later after your shift?  Plus, the same number of calls came in regardless, so the people left just ended up twice as stressed during that period.

[adventurernumber1]

Going by my Weather Channel app, every single day from now until the 26th (which is the limit on the forecast) has on the forecast either thunderstorms or scattered thunderstorms. It's rare I have seen that be the case for so many consecutive days. Furthermore, this has pretty much been the reality for the past few days already, every day at some point there has been an unpredictable, albeit brief, thunderstorm. This has manifested a few times conveniently as I was walking across campus at college. 

[Max Rockatansky]

The mindset that would lead someone to turn down lunch breaks and other creature-comfort accommodations if offered is so foreign to me I can't even begin to comprehend it.

In kphoger's example of no one wanting lunch breaks, it could be as simple as them just wanting to leave an hour or half-hour earlier at the end of the day, and that being more valuable to them than the lunch break.

Sort of.  It's because most people didn't even eat lunch, so why take a lunch break, especially if that meant getting home later after your shift?  Plus, the same number of calls came in regardless, so the people left just ended up twice as stressed during that period.

Speaking of lunches, I've been paid on salary for the last 16 years.  Something my company was doing for awhile was mandating an hour lunch for salaried managers and only 30 minutes for paid employees.  Essentially most managers just eat in 15-20 minutes at their desk or they do so at their desk while working.  For the most part it amounted to a 45-60 minutes of free labor.  I only schedule myself 8.5 hours and get shit for it all the time.  Really I ought to just be working  until my job is sufficiently done or simply just scheduling 8 hour days.

[J N Winkler]

I can understand the techs objecting to reduced hours because that reduces their income, but why say No to a higher payment per point?

Because, if you add up all the hot days and cold days, you basically end up with half the year.  That is to say, inclement weather is just "normal working conditions" to them.

Sure!  So why turn down higher pay for half the year?  What is the tradeoff we are not seeing?

[kphoger]

Sure!  So why turn down higher pay for half the year?  What is the tradeoff we are not seeing?

What they would laugh at is the notion that they should receive higher pay half the year, that they're entitled to it, that it would be justified.  I'm sure they'd take it after all that, humans being selfish creatures and all, but I can't imagine any higher-ups even offering it to begin with, because they all started in the field too.

[Bruce]

Watching the wildfire smoke slowly roll in last night while looking for meteors was disheartening. Now it's smoky and hot.

[J N Winkler]

What they would laugh at is the notion that they should receive higher pay half the year, that they're entitled to it, that it would be justified.  I'm sure they'd take it after all that, humans being selfish creatures and all, but I can't imagine any higher-ups even offering it to begin with, because they all started in the field too.

Thanks for the explanation.  Given that additional pay for unforgiving weather conditions is not actually on offer, would I be correct in understanding that this concern about entitlement to and justification for higher wages is primarily in reference to workers in other occupations?

[kphoger]

would I be correct in understanding that this concern about entitlement to and justification for higher wages is primarily in reference to workers in other occupations?

It started with this assertion:

Excessive heat should really trigger some actual protections (or hazard pay). It's ridiculous to see people in non-adjusted climates having to work outdoors in the middle of the day when it's over 100.

[Scott5114]

Sort of.  It's because most people didn't even eat lunch, so why take a lunch break, especially if that meant getting home later after your shift?  Plus, the same number of calls came in regardless, so the people left just ended up twice as stressed during that period.

Taking a break midway through the shift is not only to provide employees a time to eat. It is also to provide an opportunity to relieve fatigue, both physical and mental. Fatigued employees do worse work than non-fatigued employees, and a mental "reset" caused by taking a break can improve the overall quality of work. Some people are prone to thinking that taking a break is a sign of weakness–why someone would need to flex on their coworkers by overworking themselves I don't understand–but these people are as prone to fatigue as anyone else, whether they'll admit it to anyone or not.

One thing the casino I worked at did get right was providing a 30-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks per day, all paid. Given that my partners at the grow operation I'm starting came from the same environment, I expect we're going to operate the same way. I intend to ensure the employees under my care actually take these breaks, given my experiences with the work output of employees that refused breaks.

[Max Rockatansky]

Sort of.  It's because most people didn't even eat lunch, so why take a lunch break, especially if that meant getting home later after your shift?  Plus, the same number of calls came in regardless, so the people left just ended up twice as stressed during that period.

Taking a break midway through the shift is not only to provide employees a time to eat. It is also to provide an opportunity to relieve fatigue, both physical and mental. Fatigued employees do worse work than non-fatigued employees, and a mental "reset" caused by taking a break can improve the overall quality of work. Some people are prone to thinking that taking a break is a sign of weakness–why someone would need to flex on their coworkers by overworking themselves I don't understand–but these people are as prone to fatigue as anyone else, whether they'll admit it to anyone or not.

One thing the casino I worked at did get right was providing a 30-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks per day, all paid. Given that my partners at the grow operation I'm starting came from the same environment, I expect we're going to operate the same way. I intend to ensure the employees under my care actually take these breaks, given my experiences with the work output of employees that refused breaks.

I can't be the only one who actually feels less productive and more tried after stopping what they are doing to "take a break?"   A lot of my surveillance operators actually will wait until the last possible minute (two hours before their shift ends) to take a lunch because feel mentally fatigued after stopping.

[jakeroot]

Watching the wildfire smoke slowly roll in last night while looking for meteors was disheartening. Now it's smoky and hot.

Two mountains? No, wait, just the Schneider Springs Fire. This, of course, was taken yesterday before the clouds rolled in thick.


Pyrocumulus Clouds from Tacoma by Jacob Root, on Flickr

[Max Rockatansky]

If it makes you guys feel better we (me, my wife and her cousin) are going hiking in areas of the southern Cascades this weekend which flagged AQIs in the 300 range a couple times this week.