The internet is changing the world and sure there are downsides but the upsides in my opinion far outweigh them. Just the ability to have knowledge at your fingertips alone is a huge shift. It is going to be interesting to see how big of an impact that actually has once we get a generation that was raised with smartphones and the internet in place from birth.

What about the people who don't have the sheer luck your background, brainpower, education, temperament and talent bestowed upon you? You've got yours so they should either adjust to being on the bottom or pull themselves up by their nonexistent bootstraps? I'm sure you're a lovely person and a great parent, but your self satisfaction is coming across as selfishness to me.

Apparently you missed this:

Progressives should be pushing for businesses to move more to this model, away from the 40 hour week in a cubicle- not trying to push people back into it by forcing employees to have their work done only during 9-5 hours.

This is where jobs are headed, regardless of background. Find me an industry that isn't going to be moving increasingly toward technology and online connectivity, and I will show you a dying industry.

The vast majority of people will have no way to even begin to find a job that pays a living wage in your increasingly tech driven society. It's like cutting off a person's feet and then telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Yes, this economy is heading in that direction. But what about that huge number of citizens who will be left behind? Well, what normally happens is they vote for a Hitler or a Trump.

The issue of the under-educated being unable to find jobs paying living wages, is a non-sequitur to the issue of the progression to technology.

Attempting to enforce restrictions on tech in the workplace, such as being unable to contact employees outside of business hours, is not going to help these people any. Having a basic (or better) understanding of the use of technology is going to be a requirement, regardless of whether the job can be done remotely, or it's required to be in the office from 9-5.

as the norm and who have to struggle for that B minus. You can give them all the STEM education in the world, but if they lack both the talent and the inclination, it will be a complete waste of money and their precious time.

Like it or not, technology driven businesses will not be how we build the world or maintain the world once we've built things. Imagine calling a plumber and getting only the information on what tools to buy to do the job yourself. That's your information age without all the non STEM inclined people you don't think should have regular, predictable hours and be paid for their work.

This is not a non sequitur. You leave those people behind with substandard wages and poor living conditions and they will eventually tear your glittering tech world down to the foundation, piece by piece. Your life will not work without them and you had better be prepared to fight for their rights as workers, too.

Oh, and anyone with STEM myopia needs to consider this little gem:

Imagine calling a plumber and getting only the information on what tools to buy to do the job yourself.

Imagine calling a plumber and having them ask you to bring your toilet into their office for them to fix it.

There is already no need for a plumber to go sit in an office from 9-5. Plumbing companies absolutely will be using these technologies and many of them already do, for generating leads, scheduling and sales.

These C students you speak of already have the capacity to use a smart phone and a computer. They are already many of the people in these jobs that are using these transformative technologies. Sales people were the first people this tech was made for. As someone who has often supported Salespeople, most of them haven't the first clue about how technology works and were just those average students, who get by on their people skills.

You are confusing using these technologies with being a technology developer. These technologies are already being used in so many ways. We have a food truck that comes by my neighborhood, run by a couple of immigrants that barely speak English and certainly don't have a high school education. They have an iPhone with the credit card swiper on it to take payment. Even this is one of these technologies.

The ability to take video meetings on your phone is no more complicated than answering a phone call.

The ability to make sales calls from your house, vs. in the office, doesn't mean you have to know a single thing about how a PC works.

The ability to schedule your plumbing appointments in your phone, or better yet, having your customers schedule them themselves directly in your system.

The ability for someone in Montana to sell their hand-knitted scarf to somebody in Austrailia...

None of this is "leaving anybody behind" that is capable of get a job in any technological climate.

Much of the world's work is not done your way. One size does not fit all. Yes, they need to use a cell phone, it is much better than calling in from pay phones or having a radio dispatcher. However, that's about it. Otherwise, you're talking management.

The web is great, I'm using it right now. However, it is not going to be applied to everything the way you seem to think it is.

One size does not fit all.

So, why would we want to mandate 9-5 work hours? If you got "one size fits all" from my OP, you weren't reading very carefully, since my point was the exact opposite.

Progressives should be pushing for businesses to move more to this model, away from the 40 hour week in a cubicle

The technologies that make these possible are not going away anytime and if you are progressive (by definition of the word) you need to be prepared to progress along with the world.

That's basically one size having to fit all from your OP. Society doesn't really function if one size doesn't increasingly fit all though. Like you can't have people picking and choosing which taxes they pay, or when they pay them.

It doesn't matter which way we do things, people will be left behind, or pissed off, or whatever. It's been that way, it is that way, and it will be that way. Everyone can't be prepared to progress along with the world(not that the world is progressing, but that's sort of a different topic). Everyone can't have the great job. If everyone could, it wouldn't be as great of a job anymore. Simple supply and demand and all that.

Whatever happens, however it unfolds, it won't be neat and tidy. One size must fit all, but one size can't fit all.

Multiple degrees and today I climbed into a boiler to direct the welders

Tech is great but some one needs to take responsibility for the work to be done correctly

The point is that more and more jobs are moving in this direction, and many others can move in this direction. Blanket laws forbidding practices, like taking calls outside of 9-5, are not a good thing and not looking at how technology can be transformative and help.

It's for hourly type work that requires a set location and set hours, salaried or no.
If you're a consultant, you can be called in at any time to do a gig.

Look, consultant work is not typical for most average workers - the high school diploma/180 hr. certificate-based/associates degree type semi-skilled to skilled labor job is far more common than most professionals and consultants think.
Most people with decent-paying cubical or office jobs never really see (or forgot) what the other 50% of the workforce go through just to get one job that pays enough they really don't have to have a second income just to be able to pay rent and keep the family car running.
The consultant, rabbit or gig economy that does not serve these people; miss one job, drop one task, and they fall through the cracks. So these people go for surety and stability. The 8-hour site based jobs where they have a regular schedule and a place to be to provide a service to customers or work on production. And a contract where they can depend on being paid at a certain time, so they can pay their bills. It's mentally stressful, and the business that uses their labor to make the profit for the owner and/or shareholders determines the situation in which they work.

As you say, more and more jobs are moving to consultants. Unfortunately, there are jobs that are going to consultancy because the business thinks it can short-cut labor skill requirements and workplace training/safety to make more profit shifting scheduled site-based labor into an "at will" consultancy basis.
If I may re-iterate - the practice transferring hourly/non-exempt salary workers to consultants has been used to cut labor costs on a workforce should not be consultants to begin with.
At many industrial sites, it has lead to a decrease in product/service quality and higher incidence of injury and negative incidents due to lack of experience and training due to turn-over.
Lower level service workers do not have the ability to schedule their work, and often find themselves as the newly minted "consultant&quot exempt salaried worker) working several weeks of short hours - 20 to 30 - then get hit with a 60 hour week because there's an emergency and the project needs to get done, all without notice because "well, you're a consultant now".
That's one of the reasons that DoL is looking at changing the definition of consultants, and to restrict "on call" after hours calls if the consultant already has a 40 hours of work tasked per week. The typical gig worker or Uber driver might be miffed because they work on a 7 day basis and are on call, but for an increasing number of hourly "consultants" who are still sitting 9 - 5 in an office answering phone calls as they come in - just to keep the job they have - adding that no "on call" after hours provision allows them to have a family life and their horrible office job.

The other thing to remember is that working "On Call" doesn't mean setting your own hours for most workers. It means "drop anything you had planned with the family, cancel all your appointments for the next five hours, call up your babysitter, and go to work now" for most employees.

I know it sounds protectionist, but until employers understand and agree to on what really means to be a consultant or an on call expert, instead of putting profits first and yanking their workforce around on the "at will" chain, the average worker still needs some protection from exploitation.

We need to get a grip on what it means to work, and what it means to make a living. Right now, the current structure focuses on and values work and the money that can be made off it - not living.

Haele

phuck the begrudgers.

Just because you have a great life/work balance, you're to wear sackcloth and ashes !

You have a better balance than myself (though I mostly work from home as well), but it's good you put forward that it can be good as well. It should be used as an example rather than a stick to beat you with.

However, the majority of people are not so high up in the "expert" range of their careers (if they have careers) that they can set their own hours or decide when to work. Their employers dictate where as well as when they work, and if they're a salaried worker, too often they are working 40 hours at the job site, and then on call whenever they're not on site for a specific time.
As you yourself point out, "9-5 in an office is exhausting". But unless the value of labor and nature of employment itself change radically, most people are stuck in a scheduled, away from home existence.

Only 25% of the jobs that can be done from home or ad hoc/telework are available to the average skilled worker; and most people are frankly, just overall average, even though they may have one or two skills that set them above their fellow workers.
Unless they also have the skills and network to become a freelance or consultant, very few are expert enough - valuable enough to a company - to be able to be in a position to choose from employers who would are in a bidding war to be able to call them "our employee" and dictate their own working hours and conditions. Even then, some careers require a schedule and set work location.

Take for instance the Medical field, which is a fairly stable, lucrative career for a lot of Americans - a surgeon is stuck on shift at the hospital, plus s/he's on call when not on shift. Likewise, most nurses, medical technicians, support staff...all have to be at a work site to provide the service they're getting pay to do. Maintenance. Management. Administrative staff. Security (including situational monitoring). Light Manufacturing and Construction. Retail. Food Services. Teaching. All labor that requires a site and schedule.

The other issue you bring up is the growing use of the rabbit economy, or what they normally call "gig" economy. Again, the value of labor and the nature of employment is at play here.
While it's progressive to want people to be able to choose their employment, the nature of employment in the US favors the employer or the owner, not the labor or other infrastructure required for that employer or owner to provide the product or service. While you can look at, say, Iceland or Finland, and see a very progressive way of handling labor and employment, you also need to look at how the society views the connection between labor and capital to a thriving overall society - not just the GDP or financial side of a society.

If Americans can get past the idea of "GDP" and "financial growth = strong economy", you can see the shift to a sustainable flex employment environment, where people can have lives as well as work, if they are capable of doing so.

But chasing profit is like heroin. The power that comes with the acquisition of wealth is intoxicating, and shrinks one's world view down to seeing and defending only what one can control. Technology just makes the acquisition of wealth and power easier and cheaper, if one already has the means to invest in it.

You aren't going to get corporations to willingly let themselves submit to a realistic lifecycle. And it's going to be extremely painful trying to get the few people who think they've worked "hard" to get to where they can create their own personal world to be willing to give some of it up to the masses of workers who sacrificed just as much, if not more, so that these very well off investors, corporate heads, and owners could get to where they are.

I can see where you're coming from. But there's a very old saying "There can only be so many in charge". So long as people think in a hierarchal manner, where there is always someone to defer to, to control the resources, there's always going to be a seriously limited amount of autonomy available to the average worker based on the overall value they bring to the social structure. Those who don't work - who don't contribute and don't have the potential for creating value - are going to get whatever crumbs the hierarchy chooses to determine to be available to them.

For most people - the average person - to continue to sustain themselves and their families in this modern, high tech culture where the average job is disappearing, we ultimately have to address that.
Until then, the best we can give the average worker is working protections, for them to have just a little bit of life as they're struggling to keep the increasingly scarce 9 to 5 site-specific jobs they're forced to work if they're going to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.
If we can force businesses to act beyond their own selfish profit and practice enlightened self interest to be able to continue to operate, we may eventually get to the point where all people can have quality lives while they work at will in the new "gig" economy, instead of those who have enough talent/skill, networking ability/social skills, and luck/opportunities to do so now.

I'd like to set my own hours and live the way you do now.
I get where you are. I'm too f'n old - seven years from retirement, and I've had a long, fruitful, interesting (ala the Chinese proverb) career. But even though I'm a highly skilled and valued engineer, my "on call required work away from home due to customer work hours and infrastructure" weekend shift starts in an hour and a half, taking me away from a sick husband who is left to take care of his almost 5 year old grand-daughter, and a beautiful weekend in which we had planned to spend the day at a park after grocery shopping tomorrow, and to do a little home renovation on Sunday before I went back into the office for my 40+ hour week.

Haele

At my company, and in my industry, this is the reality for even relatively entry level people.

And increasingly, this is becoming the case. You are right that businesses will act selfishly, in general. But that's part of the point. The technology is making it more effective for many companies to operate in this model. It's cheaper to allow your employees to work remotely, in most cases, and the technology to do so is becoming more cost effective to use every year.

Ironically, I know a few people in the medical industry that also have actually moved somewhat more toward this model. Yes, it's not anywhere near the same extent that my work is, but there are administrative jobs that can be done remotely. Surgeons are of course, still on site and will need to be for the foreseeable future. Though, there are some interesting things happening with robotics combined with Virtual Reality in the medical field, so even this may not be permanent.

I actually agree with you. But I've been through this rodeo before.
Quality workplaces. Happy workers. Flex work. Family first. Silicon Valley in the 1980's...ah, the tech boom, and all the promises of "innovate out of your garage, creative thinking out of the box, cooperative development".
Remember the movie "9 to 5" - the business did better when they took care of their workforce and took the long view, and stopped playing office politics and looking at quarterly profits?

The Department of Labor was actually doing studies, talking and planning on preparing U.S. manufacturing and service businesses for "the job of the future" about this in the late 1970's. And then we got Reagan, and "Greed is Good".
That's when corporations and businesses really looked at the numbers and saw 2% growth when they treated labor well - but 5% growth when they looked at "investment" income instead of concentrating on products and services. Piketty's book covered that very well.

I'm glad your company, and what you see of your industry, is thinking about the future.
But Randolph Big-Wig the III still has to make enough revenue keep his company running and enough of a profit to keep the investors his daddy Big-wig JR and the BoD put the company in debt to happy, and Joe Delivery Driver still has to make his daily schedule to pay rent and feed his family every month, so we have to look at their current reality before both fall off the monetary cliff, as well as look to see what the future actually will be.

How do we deal with all those petty bourgeois investment corporations who live and thrive by the motto "F-you, gimmie your money". Those mini-mafias are killing us as a society and an economy.
If we don't rein them in at the same time we try to focus on what the future of the economy as a whole - society, production and consumption - will be, we will end up with a tattered safety net holding the remnants of a skilled work force, a few with great wealth, and the rest squabbling over scraps.


Haele

It would make a great OP, or longer form. Do you write elsewhere?
John

We're expected to put in a full day at the office AND respond to request after the work day has concluded. We are NOT allowed to work from home nor remotely even though we can do so. Technology has given my boss entre into our personal lives.

Progressives should be pushing for businesses to move more to this model, away from the 40 hour week in a cubicle

Working from home isn't as great as some people think it is.

It's always there and even being in your ripped flannel jammies doesn't make it go away.

My billable hours have gone way up since I made the move.

... we're also putting this country at a security risk by abandoning manufacturing. We don't even make large transformers in this country anymore. What happened when the next big coronal mass ejection from the Sun hits us and wipes out the electrical power grid?

Much of that high technology is also susceptible to such EMP's. Smart phones won't do us much good once their tiny circuits are fried, not to mention absence of satellites and other means of communication.

See here:

I have a high IQ and earned degrees in math and physics, but I've also met people who can't seem to grasp simple algebra. I finally said to one fellow, "I'll make it easier. X equals 2. What is X?" He nervously replied, "4?" YET he was skilled in other ways as a craftsman! Those kinds of people shouldn't just be cast aside.

I survived engineering school so I tutored math and a couple of hard sciences when I went back to nursing school. Some people just aren't going to get it, not with the most basic, visual explanations from the best teachers. Their talents lie elsewhere and if we all want to eat, we can't penalize them for not being STEM educated.

... people are unique and one size doesn't fit all.

I've also had co-workers in factories who say they "don't get computers" and the like. It might be beneficial for people working in high-tech to expose themselves to those people occasionally.

This country is increasingly the computer-driven money manager for the world too. Yeah, that's going to make us strong... NOT!

EDIT: I suppose the OP was mostly talking about work hours? Given that so many words were devoted to the "wonderful" future of a more computer-based economy, I wouldn't have guessed that was the main point.

makes life easier for private citizens. But that doesn't mean we have to accept it as a package deal when it makes it easier for companies to exploit their workers.

The two are not the same thing and technology, in one context, shouldn't be accepted just because technology, in another context, makes people's lives better.

You ensure that their profits and bonuses to the fat cats at the top keep going up while you and your co workers let them take all the productivity gains you create. It sucks, from my point of view.