Why do you want to fire those 50+? Clear age discrimination to me and knowing that is a way you choose to get rid of people I’d both avoid working for you but also never recommend the company to anyone at any age.
5 Likes
In the United States anyone over the age of 40 is a protected class in a workplace setting. There are limitations, business with fewer than 15 people are exempt.
Anecdotally I see it more as a resistance to change. Secondary is maybe a fear of technology. Which is absurd. Personal computing has been around for 40 years now. The internet as we know it came to prominence 25 years ago. What we do with it has changed.
My old man thought it was going to be a fad like CB radios. Now, at 86 years old is on Facebook and has his first smartphone.
I am looking at a job that amounts to setting my own hours, has a small office in a suite and requires some travel. If I had an option for a home office I would jump on it.
It’s 20 now. Also exempt are independent contractors (a huge class in the 21st century), the Federal government, most state governments, and employment agencies.
It’s true that policies or practices that have a disproportionately adverse impact on older workers are unlawful unless the employer can prove they are based on a reasonable factor other than age. But good luck being protected by “protected class” status; it gives you grounds to pursue a complaint with the EEOC (which may or may not [slowly] side with you) and to sue (if you can find a lawyer who’ll agree to take your case on contingency).
It’s not fun to do any of this, and outcomes won’t be swift or sure.
In Europe there are typically stronger circuit breaker employee protections than in the US. In Germany, where Lars is from (according to the flag next to his name, at least) I don’t believe there are laws specifically protecting older workers, but as a result of an equal treatment law passed 15 years ago all workers have discrimination protections against job applicants or employees on the basis of gender, race or ethnic origin; religion or belief; age; disability; or sexual orientation.
It has been awhile since visited this thread – I know it took me awhile to do this(!); but I did promise to post my results.
Duplicated @cornchip’s experiment. Partially because I wanted to play with the updated version of Audio Hijack Pro. … Have been invited to be a guest on a podcast and want to ensure I do a good job of keeping a high-quality local audio recording, without interfering with the process. Would like to send them something good when we’re done; so they have my “channel” in the best possible quality.
I did the audio files twice. The second run files (that I ended up using for this) are dated April 15th!
Also thought I had mixed up the graphics. The Results from the Sure MV51 look worse than the results from the others. But, I think they sound better.
Here are the audio clips:
Test - AirPod Recording
Test - EarPod Recording
Test - Sure MV51 Recording
And here is the graphic, “showing my work.” … It was harder than I thought it would be to roughly line them up:
What do you all think about the sound of the three input devices?
I think the Sure is good enough and I probably won’t be digging out better gear I own as this is a “kitchen table” effort (someone installed a bunch of windchimes next-door and they can be heard from my office but not my kitchen).
This is a great forum; thanks for indulging me [and, since it’s Star Wars Day, “May the fourth be with you!”].
–Tim
1 Like
If you read what I wrote: we are getting people back from home office, because many are struggling. And especially older ones.
Reasons:
- no proper place to work at home. One of those coming back from home office today: “I am so glad. I don’t have a proper desk+office chair at home and my back was hurting.” Another: “Me+my spouse+my 2 studying kids had to share the dining table…I had to video-conference from the bedroom.”
- for some, in 20-30 years, working alone from home was never asked (nor requested, or a skill that lead to their employment). This lead to feelings of isolation, overwhelm, etc.
- One guy I phoned with: “I am stuck at home for a month now…can I please start coming to the office…”
And so on.
The evaluation of the effectiveness and strain of home-office work led to the cancelation of several home-office contract extensions. Because for some, it just didn’t work. And for that, I received a critical comment. So, I stated, what would be the alternative, fire the people?
Today we had a huge “batch” of people returning from home office and the overall sentiment was that it was great to get back to some normality. So, I stand to be judged by my staff, not by random forum people.
1 Like
What grated on me is the comment you made "esp. 50+ " implying that you wanted to get rid of all older workers. I agree with other posters that training and accommodation is preferable to firing them.
I’m surprised there are many/any workers who want to come back to an office in spite of how difficult it might be to set up a decent home office. I think that it puts them and everyone at risk for transmission of COVID-19 and more should be done to ensure they can continue to work form home effectively.
3 Likes
Our office is considered essential, so we never closed. But we gave everyone the opportunity to work from home. All of them have some sort of desk setup and we gave everyone permission to take home office equipment (monitors, peripherals) if they needed it to expand their home setups.
Two people worked from home two days a week, another person once. The rest of the time they, along with everyone except me (I have been working remotely exclusively for almost two months now), was in the office full time. Nobody wanted to be “stuck at home”.
1 Like
I have a Shure MV51 as well and really like it! The looks are very retro, but I like that it sits down out of the way, yet has multiple modes, on device muting, and a jack for monitoring output in real time.
1 Like
This was going to be my “portable” and/or “take-along” mic. Did not realize how heavy it was! … But I like it. Simple, great output, saves me an intermediate step required from my more expensive mic.
It’s a keeper!