Re: Like long hours?

Subject: Re: Like long hours?
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 16:05:28 -0700


Richard G. Combs wrote:

An employer may decide with whom to make the
exchange, but an employee can only agree to the offer of an exchange.


What a curiously passive employee this is! My own experience belies this (as
does yours, based on your previous posts). As a worker, I can decide not
only to which employers I offer my labor, but what kind of labor and in
which field.

You can offer your labor, and try to make the offer attractive enough that it will be accepted, but you can't simply start working at the company you're most interested in (although, come to think of it, in one of my permanent gigs, I did receive a resume on which the stated objective sounded very much like the applicant wouldn't take "No" for an answer.

As for the kind of labor and the field, your choices are constrained: first by the grades you receive in school, then by the training you receive. If you need a job quickly, you may not have the luxury of changing directions.

Bruce, you see the workers' side in its full complexity -- the constraints
of family and mortgage, the pressure of bills, the tough decisions. But you
see the employers' side only in caricature -- some Catbert imperiously
picking and choosing from among a crowd of hat-in-hand supplicants --
without acknowledging the constraints, pressure, and tough decisions on that
side of the equation.

No, this is your caricature - not my view at all. I've been on both sides of the fence, and I've admitted all along that employers have some constraints. All I've said is that employers have less constraints.

I think that the major point of difference is that you (and one or two others) are talking in terms of choice or no-choice, while I'm talking about choice within constraints. Talking in terms of choice/no-choice, you suggest that a choice exists even when it's more theoretical than real. There's not much room in this either/or view for limits on choice: you either have a choice or you don't. That's why I said that the view is an over-simplification.

To me, talking about choice within constraints more accurately depicts the situation. There's not much comfort in having a choice if you're constrained by alternatives that are equally unattractive - say, between staying with a job you hate and trying to survive without money.

Also, once we start talking about constraints, I think it's easier to see where the most power lies. both employers and employees are constrained, but employers less so - or, at least, they frequently have more alternatives.

But I suspect we'd better stopbefore the rest of the list succumbs to gibbering madness. I don't think we're advancing the discussion any longer.

--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177





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References:
Re: Like long hours?: From: Andrew Plato

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