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You’re not reading what I’m writing. The fact that you know how long your wife’s shift is supposed to be is my point. The fact that nurses are being paid extra money for extra time is my point.

Engineers in Silicon Valley don’t clock in for a 12 hour shift. They are put on salary and any discussion of schedule is discouraged in favor of talking about “hustle” and “team players.”[1]

My point is not “health care workers don’t work hard.” My point is that they are set up with schedules and structure, which tech companies avoid… and then try to point at health care workers or “contractors” to justify the chaos.

Also I bet your wife is not working so hard just so the hospital can meet its financial goals. If she is like most nurses she is motivated by patient care and probably hates the administration, who are usually seen as bean counters who (if anything) impede care. Again, compare to tech companies who build myths around founders and corporate missions to obscure the purely financial stakes of their work.

[1] I know that not all companies operate this way, not all managers do this, not all engineers experience this. But there is obviously some sort of shared experience among a lot of people that the blog post at the top of the main thread is tapping into.




My wife's schedule is 12 hours: 7 to 7. Except nine out of ten times she's there until 8 or 9. It's "scheduled" but much closer to BAT times then sun revolution times. Any talk of schedule is discouraged and nurses are fired very quickly if they don't become "team players". Engineers in the valley have a lot more leeway because hiring is a lot harder. I can actively push back against my managers. My wife would be fired on the spot.

You're making numerous points and your later ones are good ones. But the working conditions for front line workers, including but not limited to their scheduling, hours, pay, etc, are all terrible.




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