The Water Cooler - 2018-05-28

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11:51 AM

Yeah it's normally "I need tags so if that's what they want I'll pick some tags. I wonder why there are no fitting ones. This is a pretty dumb tag system but they get what they ask for." They don't spend time thinking about the deeper implications of that lack of relevant tags because they're already sure they're in the right place and it's not their fault the site's tags don't work.

12:38 PM

@MaskedMan I really hope that they move on that, at the moment I see far too many questions from Indian employees who are basically getting held hostage over their relieving letter...it places all the power in the hands of the employer and that employer basically has no incentive to behave themselves correctly...

12:55 PM

At the same time, I am pessimistic about whether or not anything will actually change...

@Cronax I share that sentiment, but I will keep trying, and I also plan to mobilize some more guys to join the fight. The current government is receptive to people's concerns unlike some of the previous governments, so I still have hope.

There's also that saying about someone having to plant a tree for someone to get fruits to eat, or something.

That sounds like a great time to push for it. 🙌

IDrinkandIKnowThings

1:24 PM

@doppelgreener Thats easier to say than to do.

Requires high effort and carries a signifigant risk of failure even if he does it right

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Of course

Crossed the river styx

Ah the gangs all here, including some of my favorite people.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

holy crap who mentioned the SE that shall not be named in this chat room?

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax Indians in America on H1-B visas are in dure strauts as well

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Just don't use the "T" word, you'll get your comment flagged as rude

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Crossedtheriverstyx yeah but its alot like living the difference of living in poverty in the US vs poverty in india. H1-B get the shaft by US standards, but by indian standards its like working in the cave of wonder.

Crossed the river styx

1:31 PM

@IDrinkandIKnowThings And that's the death grip the US corporations have on them. They're often supporting their families back home. Conditions in the US, are better, AND they get to send extra money home. From their perspective it's mostly a good deal.

But when the boss says jump, they'd damn well better, or it's back to poverty in India.

Which is why I am glad that the standard of living in India is rising.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

1:43 PM

@Crossedtheriverstyx It is one of the modern day slaveries. Another is the American Welfare system. Pays more than minimum wage, so if you try to better yourself they can yank it all away and hurt you and your family.

The right complains about the costs of the welfare, the left knee jerks that its only the waste of corruption that costs money, so they put in strict controls that allow them to be the one and only savior for those down and out. Right looks like monsters if they dont back it.

Out of interest, how well does the American welfare system work? I am only familiar with the Dutch and Belgian welfare systems, where the Dutch one works exceptionally well in my experience

Crossed the river styx

@IDrinkandIKnowThings When I was climbing back up from the depths of poverty, the American welfare system was a barrier, not a help. Not in the least.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Crossedtheriverstyx yeah they fight against any efforts you make to get out of welfare unless you lie and cheat the system, Then they come after you for cheating if you do that.

Crossed the river styx

1:58 PM

@Cronax Having dealt with the American welfare system, I can tell you it's a travesty. It rewards failure and bad behavior, and it punishes any efforts to get out of poverty. It's almost impossible to do without breaking the law. So, you either become a criminal, or suffer, or are increadibly driven.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings They cut me off because I told them I was starting a job. The kicker? They cut me off before I started the job. Reason? I told them I wouldn't be able to attend a meeting because i was starting a new job. Note, I hadn't even MISSED the meeting, just told them I couldn't come because I found a job!

People call me heartless because I hate the welfare system. I hate the welfares system because I went through it and see how it hurts people. Yet, I'm the heartless one.

Gee, where did dopplegreener go? Was it something I said?

@Crossedtheriverstyx that sounds terrible. I guess it's not about to change anytime soon either because the one side will accuse anyone who wants to change it of wanting to make it worse and the other side will accuse the same people of wanting to make it more expensive?

Here in the Netherlands the welfare system actually stimulates you to find a job, the only problem is that it can be a little overzealous, when I'd already found a job I still couldn't stop receiving welfare, I had to keep reporting my income to them every month until they decided I didn't need the welfare anymore

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax oh, here, it's not even as subtle as that. If you say anything about it, then you're accused of hating poor people. The fact that you've gone through the system and seen how horrific it is, notwithstanding.

@Cronax. They give you 140 dollars a month in cash, then about another 180 in food stamps. The only way you can up those numbers is to have lots of kids (but don't marry the father!) be a rug addict, an ex-con, or disabled in some way.

You're either going to starve, or cheat, or get out ASAP.

@Crossedtheriverstyx Ah yes, the good old 'you said X and since I think that everyone who says X also believes Y I am going to accuse you of saying Y'

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Crossedtheriverstyx They like it that the only way to get by on welfare is to cheat. Because this way they can make sure you stay on welfare. The slave is borrower to the lender. And trust me every dollar that the government hands out in welfare is Borrowed.

also, those numbers seem wildly insufficient to fund anything other than a homeless existence

IDrinkandIKnowThings

2:12 PM

@Cronax why you have to cheat to get by. Any increase in funds backs an increase in the number of people selling their souls to the government for the handout.

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax It's by design, right out of Orwell's 1984. If you're on welfare long enough, you are either going to break the law, or put yourself in a position of having made so many bad decisions that you will NEVER be able to take the steps to get out, because the moment you improve, they pull the rug out from under you.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings yep, and since everyone KNOWS everyone is cheating. they get people to jump through any hoops they want.... or else

IDrinkandIKnowThings

Im in the vortex of it right now. About to lose everything. In 6 months I will be homeless and have no income, then the state will step in and try to pretend like it wants to help. Where if I could get the help now, I could get on my feet and back out being productive. But I made too much money last year, so at the onset of winter ill finally get to rock bottom because I still have too much.

Crossed the river styx

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Yep, been there. I had to lose my house and end up on the streets before I was eligible for a dime.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Crossedtheriverstyx I have 2 underwater houses...

Dont get me wrong, I put myself here. How do you plan to have a nervous breakdown though...

That's another thing I was wondering, is it really so normal in the American system to be in serious debt?

IDrinkandIKnowThings

2:17 PM

@Cronax It is nearly impossible to live with out debt of some type

But yes the american economy runs on ink and plastic. If you cant sign for it, you can put it on your card and pay for it when ever you feel like it (or not)

I mean, here in the Netherlands you accrue some debt by going to University/other higher education, or when you buy a house, but my understanding is that in America it's normal to have multiple credit cards and be balancing them so that you can build up a credit score

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax You are almost forced into debt as our government punishes savings and success. Save your money, it's taxed.

@Cronax credit scores are scams. Be in debt, or you can't get money

I got that impression too

IDrinkandIKnowThings

No matter how much money you make, you will never be able to keep up with the Jones's on your salary... Even if you are the Jones

it's amazing, here in the Netherlands a lot of the same mechanics exist as in America, but over here they actually work whereas it seems like over there everything is broken

Crossed the river styx

2:22 PM

@Cronax and very little of what our government claims to spend on the poor actually gets to the poor, and when you criticise the programs, it's because you hate the poor.

@Crossedtheriverstyx Stuff like that makes me angry. A large part of me wishes we could just move the heck on already and enter a post-scarcity society

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax And if we did, what kind of power would governments have over us? There's your answer as to why it's not happening.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

There is No trust in our Government to operate effectively because there is no trust in the people running our government. So the government here operates as it is expected to. Poorly and corruptly

Crossed the river styx

We already have enough resources to feed everyone in the world, all hunger and starvation is political in origin at thisi point,

@IDrinkandIKnowThings If it were easy, I wouldn't bother doing it. 😸

Wish me luck! 😻

IDrinkandIKnowThings

2:27 PM

@MaskedMan whats up?

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Not what should be.

Gathering some data on the relieving letter stuff and some other idiotic practices prevalent here.

Anyone else thinks this belongs to puzzling.SE as against law.SE? :) ...

-3

Q: Who legally owns Business Facebook Page?

My S corporation legally owns the name of the business page. The location on the business page I own. My tenant changed ownership status to herself and made me an employee. Also, she blocked me from editing any of the about information. My tenant does not have any ownership in my corporation. I h...

conflict-resolution

Yeah my first question is 'what is an S corporation'

but I didn't ask that as it seems irrelevant, the whole question doesn't belong on the Workplace

IDrinkandIKnowThings

0

Q: Aside from the fact that it is fraud, what controls are there to prevent faking a relieving letter?

I understand that new employers in India require that a candidate possess a relieving letter from their previous employer before coming on board. But India is a nation of nearly a billion people. It would seem an impossible task to prevent widespread fraud through the faking of relieving let...

india relieving-letter

It occured to me that maybe the relieving letter scam is nothing more than a sophisticated 419 scam perpetrated by the government of india. :p

I am answering your question now.

2:45 PM

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Do you mind if I make the question more...wordy? XD

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Cronax np at all

@Cronax Don't invalidate my (as yet unposted) answer.

:)

IDrinkandIKnowThings

is relieving letter fraud a bollywood meme I wonder?

I'm not changing the actual question at all, just writing out some assumptions to make it a little more clear for people with less knowledge

There we go, I hope I actually made it better

IDrinkandIKnowThings

:fist bump

you did great

2:55 PM

other than the fact that my keyboard ate a few letters here and there XD

3:08 PM

@MaskedMan Best of luck Masked Man!!

Damn, I have recapped for the day already. I shouldn't have answered that question today. :P

I wonder if it is a legal requirement for company, or it is just a old practice not dead yet

IDrinkandIKnowThings

*Relieving letter fraud doesn't occur frequently enough to warrant any special measures.*
If that is true, there is a control that exists somewhere that makes it so. Because in the US there is widespread resume fraud, to the extent it is an expected part that you upsell yourself on your resume.

> widespread resume fraud, to the extent it is an expected part that you upsell yourself on your resume.

I guess I am doing it wrong all these years :/

@VarunAgrawal One reputable labour lawyer told me it is not legally mandatory for an employer to ask for the relieving letter.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

3:12 PM

@MaskedMan And that right there is what I am getting at.

I absolutely hate Indian bureaucracy. I once did a 2 month internship in India

@IDrinkandIKnowThings I meant there are no special measures specific to this fraud.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

It seems alot like a huge scale teamsters scam

Out of that, I waited 1.5 week to get contract from some CA and I was not given access until then

3:24 PM

Morning everybody

@DarkCygnus Evening ;)

@DarkCygnus yo

Crossed the river styx

3:51 PM

I never understood what purpose a relieving letter serves

@Crossedtheriverstyx I think the original idea was to give companies leverage that will prevent employees who are in their notice period from not putting in any work/effort

@Crossedtheriverstyx long story ... take a deep breath ...

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax The reverse side of the much maligned "Right to work" and "employment at will" states is that one can tell one's boss to shove it, walk out during lunch, or any other time, and not have one's career negatively impacted

The story starts from the early days of independent India, when agriculture was the predominant occupation. The government wanted industrialization, but there was no guarantee of labour. After some lobbying, a compromise was reached and a law was made that having more than one job at a time is illegal ... because if you go through the trouble of setting up a factory, you don't want labourers running off part time to work elsewhere.

Crossed the river styx

@MaskedMan yes, US labor laws are as irritating at times. I was once in a situation where I three days of 12 hour shifts would have worked perfectly for me because I was reduced to public transit. In the USA, that means an hour or more commute to something that is one town away. (almost worth it to walk). The state's law required overtime for anything over 8 hours in 1 day. The company wanted to accommodate me, and I would have been fine at the standard rate, but the law got in the way

4:02 PM

However, because labourers tend to be more in number than the owners, and political parties tend to want more votes, some safeguards were needed, and the relieving letter was introduced, which was meant to be a document that prevents employers interfering with the employee's next job. You wouldn't want to start a new job only for your previous employer to come running after you demanding that you are still working for them.

But of course, as you would expect, law of unintended consequences took over, and the relieving letter became a means to exploit employees rather than protect them.

Crossed the river styx

@MaskedMan The ADA is a nasty one in America. It caused employment among the disabled to plummet

We need to remember that when the labour laws were formed, they had "blue collar" and unskilled labourers in mind. Nobody foresaw that one day India would have such a huge population of "knowledge workers". The labour laws talk in terms of "factory" and "workers", for example, and even have provisions for things like what if an employee gets injured while operating a machine and so on.

@Crossedtheriverstyx Don't get me started on at-will employment, I think it causes a whole new set of problems and doesn't actually solve most of the problems it is supposed to be solving

@MaskedMan Hindsight is always 20/20 but really, it seems quite clear that such a law will be wide open to abuse...

to start with, I think it should be up to the worker to decide if they want to work two jobs, as long as their performance in both jobs is satisfactory

but I can see how some people need to be protected from themselves

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax It has it's advantages to it's disadvantages. You have much more freedom as a worker, which I like. and if you want to work two, three, four or six jobs you can/

@Cronax That's quite a privilege you can afford when you have lots of employers to choose from.

Back in the day when the law was made, there weren't too many people willing to set up factories in India, so leave alone working two jobs, finding one job was difficult.

Crossed the river styx

4:09 PM

@Cronax I grew up with disabilities and had numerous omnipotent busybodies protecting me from myself. Oddly enough, they did far more damage than good. As an adult, I was able to fend off those seeking to help me against my will. I prefer it that way

@MaskedMan I could see how it would encourage investment, but now, it's a relic of a past time, and needs to go.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Cronax People like me see things that are in the law as obvious places of abuse, and think intentional. Its hard to see it happening otherwise.

Crossed the river styx

@IDrinkandIKnowThings I honestly think that the ADA was designed to make people with disabilities worse off.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Crossedtheriverstyx I made the mistake of self reporting last year... Did not save my job when my health took a crapper

@Crossedtheriverstyx That is exactly what I was trying to get at. Before we criticise a solution, we should also understand the problem it was trying to solve. I think having an expiry date on every law would be useful, and not just in India. That would force the lawmakers to review laws to keep them relevant.

@Crossedtheriverstyx In my system where you have to serve a notice, you can still do all those things and yet you still have the security that comes from knowing you'll at least be safe until your next paycheck

IDrinkandIKnowThings

4:14 PM

@MaskedMan What they really didnt want was their competition setting up shop across the street and hiring away their staff at a higher rate.

I could never live with the knowledge that my employer can decide tomorrow that I'm not going to earn any money anymore this month.

Crossed the river styx

@IDrinkandIKnowThings yeah, I ran into the same thing at a previous employer

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Cronax that is not really how it works though

Another example: here in India, there is still a lot of ambiguity in the law as to whether using a mobile phone while driving is allowed ... because there were no mobile phones when Indians started driving cars. By the time they get around to making laws, they would be pretty much pointless anyway, since people can now connect their phone to their car ...

IDrinkandIKnowThings

It is very expensive for an employer to fire someone.

Crossed the river styx

4:15 PM

@Cronax The flip side to that is there is a much greater availability at jobs, and it is a very very rare thing where you are just let go by an employer, because if employers get that reputation, nobody goes to work for them, or if they DO, it's at a much higher cost.

@Crossedtheriverstyx I am always very skeptical when people claim there are more jobs because of something like this

Crossed the river styx

Back in the 1990s, ATT had such a bad reputation, that they couldn't get people in the door for less than 1.5 times the going rate

... and even those laws will eventually become irrelevant because self driving cars will be ubiquitous by the time they figure out if connecting phone to car is "distracted driving".

Crossed the river styx

@Cronax You can be skeptical, but if you look up the data, there is a good deal of support for it. In general, right to work states tend to have much lower unemployment

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@Cronax It is expensive to do it, but it can be done. That means that employers can take a bit more risk in hiring someone they are unsure about.

Crossed the river styx

4:18 PM

@MaskedMan we could have an entire forum dedicated to obsolete laws.

Everyone, as much as I am enjoying this discourse it's getting late and I should be getting home. Have a good one.

Crossed the river styx

@IDrinkandIKnowThings yep, that's why even with a five year gap, I was able to find someone to take a chance on me.

@Cronax Cheers! HAve a good one

@Cronax Enjoy your journey, and don't get distracted if you drive. ;)

Can I get a badge for posting an answer after repcapping for the day?

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@MaskedMan - So why do more people not just provide fake relieving letters if their employer wants to be a jerk and try to say you are absconding

@IDrinkandIKnowThings because why would I provide a fake relieving letter when I can get a real one?

Besides people have standards, there is a natural aversion to committing fraud. Just because someone else is a jerk, people cannot just convince themselves that fraud is fair game.

For example, in the US, it is a almost a "monthly festival" for someone to go on a killing spree in one or the other college. How often do you see relatives of these victims going on similar killing sprees in revenge?

@IDrinkandIKnowThings If the whole point of your question and the subsequent discussion was "why don't you commit fraud if you are unlikely to get caught anyway?", then that is pretty much a non-starter. People don't decide to do something bad based on whether or not they will get easily caught.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

4:54 PM

@MaskedMan No they have a need for a document that they can not get legitimately

and if it only ever happens to 1% of the population thats 10million cases

is there some huge penalty that is involved if you get caught?

Or is it just an asian honor thing

are there any anti-hero's in Bollywood?

5:19 PM

@MaskedMan 5th vote to reopen on the Joel Q

Regarding that, what happened to the user that posted the comment-answer? Seems to have deleted or something their account

Hah, was it that dwp user

?

I think so, but what should we do now with the comment-answer? Perhaps a community wiki post?

3 hours later…

8:04 PM

@DarkCygnus You mean gwp - yes, it was that user (compared this to that one). And yes, it's common to post it as community wiki to not gain rep.

I just went ahead and did it.

@AnneDaunted nice :) beat me to it

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