What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Razgovory]

I don't find Larch or Dguller unpleasant.

[grumbler]

It seems that Amazon was not alone in that kind of shenanigans, another employer in Kentucky was willing to sacrifice its employees' lives to keep the vital supply of scented candles up and running.

Can we maybe not use that kind of language before we know the details of what happened?  When people go around claiming that employers sacrifice their workers' lives without really understanding what happened, it just builds up outrage fatigue and makes it harder to make more certain cases of employee abuse be taken seriously.  Tornados are not like hurricanes; you don't have much warning when they come, and sometimes you're just fucking screwed because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.  People who die in their own homes when tornados hit probably didn't want to sacrifice themselves for any cause either, but they still die.

Oh fuck off already.

You've become a really unpleasant poster.  Yeah, yeah, I know, you're going to say the same thing about me.  Whatever.

No, I'm not going to say that you've become unpleasant. What you've become is unbearable. And what I've become is sick and tired of your continuously obtuse and condescending attitude, as well as your apparent need to police what other people say to decide if it's fair or not. Who made you forum arbiter of what can and can't be said?

First Rule of Holes, Larch.  The guy saying "fuck off already" sounds a lot more like the guy who thinks he is "forum arbiter of what can and can't be said" than the guy saying "can we maybe not use that kind of language before we know the details of what happened?"

[Admiral Yi]

DGuller, maybe give some thought to dropping the condescension a notch and see how that plays.

[The Brain]

I think DG's tone is reasonable.

[viper37]

Why didn't the factory managers just shoot that tornado in its battery? WHY THE FUCK DIDNT THEY THINK OF THAT???

They should have shot the workers.  It's the way things are done in America.  When in doubt, shoot someone.

[Solmyr]

I am just going to go ahead and be outraged at the report Syt linked, though. I know MURRICA and all that, but still.

I am skeptical. It just sounds stupid. Not that people being stupid are that hard to imagine, but this just seems extra dumb. People who run businesses are generally not so totally ignorant of basic relations between employees and managers.

You have a really rosy view of people who run businesses.

[Berkut]

I am just going to go ahead and be outraged at the report Syt linked, though. I know MURRICA and all that, but still.

I am skeptical. It just sounds stupid. Not that people being stupid are that hard to imagine, but this just seems extra dumb. People who run businesses are generally not so totally ignorant of basic relations between employees and managers.

You have a really rosy view of people who run businesses.

No, I just don't have a reflexive animosity against people who run businesses.

Running a business is hard. Being bad at it generally leads to failure of the business.

The market is actually pretty damn good at weeding out stupid business owners. I doubt making candles is getting massive out of market subsidies to keep them going while they blunder around making idiotic decisions.

But hey, maybe in this case they really are dumb and the market just hadn't caught up to them yet.

[DGuller]

No, I just don't have a reflexive animosity against people who run businesses.

Running a business is hard. Being bad at it generally leads to failure of the business.

The market is actually pretty damn good at weeding out stupid business owners. I doubt making candles is getting massive out of market subsidies to keep them going while they blunder around making idiotic decisions.

But hey, maybe in this case they really are dumb and the market just hadn't caught up to them yet.

I agree that over the long run, bad businesses and bad business practices are weeded out by market pressures, but I think there is a lot more dumb luck in the short term that most people give credit for, so this process is more like a slow evolution rather than a brutally efficient optimization algorithm. 

Sometimes you can make bad decisions and prosper for a while, because other things that you have no control over happen to bestow you with good fortune.  I think there are also situations where there is a collective failure to get it at the industry level, where each company is doing things stupidly for a long time, and yet inexplicably the practice doesn't get weeded out with one standout company destroying the moron competitors, or disruptors ( ) coming in and eating their lunch.

[Berkut]

No, I just don't have a reflexive animosity against people who run businesses.

Running a business is hard. Being bad at it generally leads to failure of the business.

The market is actually pretty damn good at weeding out stupid business owners. I doubt making candles is getting massive out of market subsidies to keep them going while they blunder around making idiotic decisions.

But hey, maybe in this case they really are dumb and the market just hadn't caught up to them yet.

I agree that over the long run, bad businesses and bad business practices are weeded out by market pressures, but I think there is a lot more dumb luck in the short term that most people give credit for, so this process is more like a slow evolution rather than a brutally efficient optimization algorithm. 

Sometimes you can make bad decisions and prosper for a while, because other things that you have no control over happen to bestow you with good fortune.  I think there are also situations where there is a collective failure to get it at the industry level, where each company is doing things stupidly for a long time, and yet inexplicably the practice doesn't get weeded out with one standout company destroying the moron competitors, or disruptors ( ) coming in and eating their lunch.

No question. Market pressures, like all pressures, are something that are exerted over time. At any moment in time, the local conditions could outweigh those pressures. The demand for candles could just be so great that even shitty, dumb candle makers are suceeding.

I am just saying that the overall pressure of running a business is *hard*. In general, people who run businesses are smart, driven, ambitious, and flexible - at least the ones that suceed and stay in business.

I suspect that statistically, the average business owner who has managed to stay in business for any length of time is not an idiot.

Hence, why I don't buy into the reflexive animosity and delicious angst so many have towards those dumb business owners that exist in their imagination out there doing dumb things while their brilliant workers roll their eyes and could do ever so much better if only...

[crazy canuck]

Larch, maybe you don't realize it because of unfamiliarity with tornadoes, but the proper procedure is to stay in the building.

I question the lunacy of keeping operations running with tornadoes running around in the area.

Edit: Cherry on top, threatening workers with firings if they left their shift due to the tornadoes? Not cool.

Factory workers threatened with firing if they left before tornado, employees say

As a catastrophic tornado approached this city Friday, employees of a candle factory — which would later be destroyed — heard the warning sirens and wanted to leave the building. But at least five workers said supervisors warned employees that they would be fired if they left their shifts early.

For hours, as word of the coming storm spread, as many as 15 workers beseeched managers to let them take shelter at their own homes, only to have their requests rebuffed, the workers said.

Fearing for their safety, some left during their shifts regardless of the repercussions.

At least eight people died in the Mayfield Consumer Products factory, which makes scented candles. The facility was leveled, and all that is left is rubble. Photos and videos of its widespread mangled remains have become symbols of the enormous destructive power of Friday's tornado system.

I would question the lunacy of doing that as well, but nothing you've linked said they kept on working during the tornado.

Ah, it is not enough that the warning sirens were sounding.  Got to wait to see if the tornado actually hits.  Then it is ok to leave?

[Berkut]

You guys don't actually understand how tornadoes work, do you?

[crazy canuck]

You guys don't actually understand how tornadoes work, do you?

Tell us what we are missing.  Do people sound warning sirens for reasons other than what seems the reasonable inference - to warn that you need to take some action?

[DGuller]

I'm not going to say this with absolute certainty, but I think one thing missing is how much time you have once you hear the warning.  It's not like you check the weather forecast for tonight, see a tornado touchdown forecasted, and then choose to stay home if your employer lets you.  You typically have minutes once you hear the alarm.  If I'm the supervisor at a factory, and my employees want to go home because they hear the tornado alarm, I would actually wonder whether I'm letting them put themselves in harm's way by letting them out.  Hopefully I would have training on how to deal with it, because I sure as hell wouldn't have time to figure out the right thing to do from first principles, but I think the issue is more complicated than assumed.

I really want to know what is meant by "for hours" in the article that talks about employees wanting to go home.  I'm pretty certain the tornado that did hit the building did not come with a warning hours ahead of time.  However, it's possible that many tornados were touching down, so maybe the other tornadoes and their warnings spooked the employees, so that again makes it a more complicated situation.  That's why I want to wait for details.

[Berkut]

Exactly DG.

The article talking about "hours" made me immediately suspicious.

A tornado doesn't last hours. It lasts minutes.

You would not get a tornado warning "hours" before the tornado. You would get a tornado watch when conditions are such that a tornado is likely, or if tornadoes had been observed elsewhere.

What to do in that case is a good question. When should people be sent away from a workplace? What is the protocol? Was it followed?

What about other businesses in the area that were at just as much risk as this one, but did NOT get nailed by a tornado? Most tornados do a very narrow track of damage - often just a few hundred feet wide.

I wonder what really happened here. The story is so extreme ("WE WANTED TO GO HOME BUT THEY TOLD US THEY WOULD FIRE US THEN THE TORNADO KILLED THEM!") that I suspect the truth is somewhat more nuanced. And the shoddy style of the story and very vague timelines it reports makes my skeptical that it is being reported honestly.

[Berkut]

You guys don't actually understand how tornadoes work, do you?

Tell us what we are missing.  Do people sound warning sirens for reasons other than what seems the reasonable inference - to warn that you need to take some action?

The warning sirens mean that a tornado has been seen. The action that should be taken is harder to discern.

I lived in Kansas for years. I was there for some really spectacular tornadoes, including one that killed some 40 people and I was activated as a member of the National Guard for three weeks to patrol the rubble and help clean up. I *watched* that F3 tornado go about 1/2 mile from my home while it was killing people while I watched it.

A tornado is fucking...random. It is not like a hurricane at all, where it forms over time and then devastates this massive area. It's this point thing, and the storms that generate them are often huge in area, but the tornado themselves are just fucking random pinpoints of devastation. It sucks, and is insanely hard to know what to actually DO about them in the moment.