For 10 years, Americans have had access to flu shots that protect against four strains of the virus: two A strains and two B strains. Starting this fall, however, all the flu shots distributed in the United States will contain only three strains, and the change happened in part because of Covid-19.
The culture I grew up with valued this type of thing.
Why did you miss work? A cold? If you’re not in the hospital and you’re not here, you are a slacker.
It doesn’t help when you don’t have any more paid sick time and you need to keep paying the rent.
It’s so infuriating that it feels like life is structured in such a way that it is difficult or impossible to recover from these types of things without exposing people to your own sickness.
No excuses for people that are sick don’t stay home when they have the opportunity though.
ETA: masking does definitely help though and I’m glad the culture doesn’t find it as unusual as before
The thing about that kind of attitude is that it’s inherently self-defeating, because if you insist your employees come to work sick, they’re going to get everyone else sick too, and productivity will plummet even if everyone keeps showing up. Sick employees don’t perform well.
You assume performance matters. A ridiculously large number of jobs are “bullshit jobs” and just require a body/someone to be there.
Example: When I was a teen I had a job at a roller skating rink that involved working at a snack bar. On Tuesdays (designated little kids figure skating practice time) the likelihood that anyone would enter the place was slim and the likelihood that someone would come to the snack bar was probably 1/10th of that. However, if the place was claiming to be open at that time they needed someone there. If only to prevent people from stealing the snacks/drinks 😁
Even at “modern” offices there’s tons of jobs that don’t have anything practically measurable in terms of “performance”. How do you measure the performance of a receptionist who’s job is to just hand people clipboards and then enter their info? Smiles? Typos? LOL
Even “fancy” jobs like “systems administrator” often have no realistic measure of performance. Did anything break today? No? Fantastic job 😁👍
Those are all useful things though - they’re not useless, they’re just not working at full capacity.
Systems administrators do have meaningful metrics though…
I’m assuming you mean glorified IT so I’ll start there. Hardware breaks down obviously, but do does software. They have update schedules, so every few months they have to test updates, research it, and decide how when to roll it out. They have to periodically check equipment, and convince the company on what to buy when. And obviously, at any time something can explode and stop the entire company from working
For systems engineers for more complex systems, you have the same things, except the stakes are much higher. So there’s a lot more math, test systems, and so on.
The metrics come from methodology, not just nothing going wrong.
When I think of a truly useless job, I always think about sales. What do they actually do? The better they are is basically how much they can force others to act suboptimally - to pay more, to buy more, to trust a product more because it came from someone charismatic.
I mean sure, they could be using their powers for good and actually helping connect buyers to appropriate products, but most of that is because marketing has muddied the waters. And sure, they might actually be handling necessary logistics with expertise others don’t have, but I’d go so far as to say most of them do more selling and less facilitating
It just seems like a lot of humans being stupid humans. It’s work we entirely created for ourselves. And sure, it makes money for a company… But even that’s just playing with made up numbers.
Which brings up a whole lot of even more roles based on stupid humans being stupid.
(And reception is again logistics and support - could you imagine walking into a doctor’s office and just waiting in an exam room until someone shows up? Their presence enables someone with presumably valuable skills to multiply their productivity)
It’s such bullshit. I am ill with a mystery illness that I am going to the Mayo Clinic at the end of the month and have been for over a year now. Before I left my last job, I was told (after being told that they understood that I was sick and to take as much time off as I needed) that I had taken 80 hours of time off in the last year and I had to go on FMLA or quit. So I went on FMLA and then quit because I wasn’t getting any better. It’s been a good thing for a lot of reasons despite going down to a single income, but it’s bullshit that I should be put in that position because of health problems that I could not avoid.
It is so much bullshit that you get put in that situation for something that isn’t your fault, but glad you had options. It is appalling how we neglect the sick and disabled. My partner was physically messed up for nearly a decade because she could not afford the healthcare or the time off needed. (Fortunately she is doing much better now after I could support her financially to get treated.) In a time of great abundance, this should not be a common occurrence.
The culture I grew up with valued this type of thing.
Why did you miss work? A cold? If you’re not in the hospital and you’re not here, you are a slacker.
It doesn’t help when you don’t have any more paid sick time and you need to keep paying the rent.
It’s so infuriating that it feels like life is structured in such a way that it is difficult or impossible to recover from these types of things without exposing people to your own sickness.
No excuses for people that are sick don’t stay home when they have the opportunity though.
ETA: masking does definitely help though and I’m glad the culture doesn’t find it as unusual as before
The thing about that kind of attitude is that it’s inherently self-defeating, because if you insist your employees come to work sick, they’re going to get everyone else sick too, and productivity will plummet even if everyone keeps showing up. Sick employees don’t perform well.
You assume performance matters. A ridiculously large number of jobs are “bullshit jobs” and just require a body/someone to be there.
Example: When I was a teen I had a job at a roller skating rink that involved working at a snack bar. On Tuesdays (designated little kids figure skating practice time) the likelihood that anyone would enter the place was slim and the likelihood that someone would come to the snack bar was probably 1/10th of that. However, if the place was claiming to be open at that time they needed someone there. If only to prevent people from stealing the snacks/drinks 😁
Even at “modern” offices there’s tons of jobs that don’t have anything practically measurable in terms of “performance”. How do you measure the performance of a receptionist who’s job is to just hand people clipboards and then enter their info? Smiles? Typos? LOL
Even “fancy” jobs like “systems administrator” often have no realistic measure of performance. Did anything break today? No? Fantastic job 😁👍
Those are all useful things though - they’re not useless, they’re just not working at full capacity.
Systems administrators do have meaningful metrics though…
I’m assuming you mean glorified IT so I’ll start there. Hardware breaks down obviously, but do does software. They have update schedules, so every few months they have to test updates, research it, and decide how when to roll it out. They have to periodically check equipment, and convince the company on what to buy when. And obviously, at any time something can explode and stop the entire company from working
For systems engineers for more complex systems, you have the same things, except the stakes are much higher. So there’s a lot more math, test systems, and so on.
The metrics come from methodology, not just nothing going wrong.
When I think of a truly useless job, I always think about sales. What do they actually do? The better they are is basically how much they can force others to act suboptimally - to pay more, to buy more, to trust a product more because it came from someone charismatic.
I mean sure, they could be using their powers for good and actually helping connect buyers to appropriate products, but most of that is because marketing has muddied the waters. And sure, they might actually be handling necessary logistics with expertise others don’t have, but I’d go so far as to say most of them do more selling and less facilitating
It just seems like a lot of humans being stupid humans. It’s work we entirely created for ourselves. And sure, it makes money for a company… But even that’s just playing with made up numbers.
Which brings up a whole lot of even more roles based on stupid humans being stupid.
(And reception is again logistics and support - could you imagine walking into a doctor’s office and just waiting in an exam room until someone shows up? Their presence enables someone with presumably valuable skills to multiply their productivity)
You are so very right. However, these facts do not deter these managers. (And other people that think like this.)
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It’s such bullshit. I am ill with a mystery illness that I am going to the Mayo Clinic at the end of the month and have been for over a year now. Before I left my last job, I was told (after being told that they understood that I was sick and to take as much time off as I needed) that I had taken 80 hours of time off in the last year and I had to go on FMLA or quit. So I went on FMLA and then quit because I wasn’t getting any better. It’s been a good thing for a lot of reasons despite going down to a single income, but it’s bullshit that I should be put in that position because of health problems that I could not avoid.
It is so much bullshit that you get put in that situation for something that isn’t your fault, but glad you had options. It is appalling how we neglect the sick and disabled. My partner was physically messed up for nearly a decade because she could not afford the healthcare or the time off needed. (Fortunately she is doing much better now after I could support her financially to get treated.) In a time of great abundance, this should not be a common occurrence.
I hope you find answers and relief soon.
Thank you.