[ams6110]

I worked at another Big Ten IT division. The amount of productive work per salary dollar would shock anyone in the start-up or corporate sector. Staff would roll in from 9:00 to 10:00AM, surf the web or fool around with some toys for a couple of hours, take a 90 minute lunch, go to a few meetings, and be out the door at 4:30 or 5:00PM. A lot of these people making 6 figures or close to it in a town where that is a VERY good salary. On top of that, 6 weeks of PTO and pretty generous benefits.

Every few years there would be a reorganization to create a bunch of new job titles and new useless layers of bureaucracy, since that's the only way to give people more than a cost-of-living raise.

You could fire half of them, hold the other half accountable to a reasonable level of productivity, and notice no difference. There might be a net gain.

[HarryHirsch]

In all of Europe 4 weeks of paid holidays and a regular 8-hour workday are the norm. And university is free or very affordable. What I'm saying is that poor working conditions and crippling student debt is a policy choice.

[thejdude]

I agree, except that people in Europe aren't paid for their holidays, but for their work. Companies are simply mandated to give you 4 weeks+ off per year - that money is of course deducted from what they would pay you otherwise.

Not saying that is a bad thing; actually, it probably improves overall productivity vs the US model. But it's not a free lunch, and it's not the employer's charity - it's the money people actually worked for, equally distributed over working days and holi-days.

[kerneis]

I don't know where you got this idea, but it is just wrong. Of course, employers are free to do whatever back of the envelope calculation they want to decide your salary, but the law in France, the UK, and most other countries is about "paid leave" and that's exactly how it works.

[thejdude]

Yes, that's the part you SEE. But I'm pretty sure your boss doesn't pay your "paid vacation" out of his own money - it's part of the calculation of the total package they have to pay you (including your desk, the money they might have to pay to headhunters to acquire you, ...), mandatory state "insurances" or fees.

They only pay the value of the package - you can calculate your hourly rate on total yearly pay / yearly hours worked, or are free to imagine you get paid total yearly pay / total hours of the year, and then boom, you're also paid for the vacations, for weekends, for the nights and so on. But in fact you're only paid because your boss knows what value you provide and how many hours you'll be there that year.

[scrabble]

I worked in the IT department of a college while I was a student and this matches my experience of the full time staff. They couldn't even be terminated because they were unionized employees. I recall one terrible employee in particular who just sat at his desk and watched Star Trek Next Gen episodes all day, working his way through the series. What a waste of money.

The student employees weren't much better, because it wasn't ever established what their behavior should be. I remember a lot of time spent torrenting, watching movies, and playing games -- occasionally breaking to reimage a computer.