From: peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: Employer encouragement of alternative means of commuting
Date: 14 Oct 92 23:20:47 GMT
Reply-To: peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce)
Organization: Peirce Software
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.6v1


In article <2928070930.0.p00004@psilink.com> (ba.transportation), p00004@psilink.com (Michael Smith) writes:
> >DATE:   12 Oct 92 21:06:47 GMT
> >FROM:   Joshua Levy <joshua@Veritas.COM>
> >[material deleted]
> >  Government transporation wants everyone to travel at the same
> >time.
> 
> Ah yes. Dat ole debbil the Gummint again.
> 
> Actually, the owner of any large fixed capital asset (like a railroad or 
> a power station) has a strong incentive to  
> distribute use of it as smoothly as possible, and avoid the "peak hour" 
> phenomenon as much as he can. The Gummint has in fact made a number of 
> rather feeble attempts to encourage flex-time and spread out the "peak" 
> in a number of jurisdictions. Why feeble? Because it's in fact the 
> all-holy, all-benevolent corporation that resists it. 
> 
> I've worked for quite a few different corporations, some large, some 
> small, and most were quite hostile to anything approaching flex time or 
> staggered hours. No doubt there are exceptions, and it would be 
> interesting to examine the reasons both for the general pattern and for 
> the exceptions, but the fact is really not in doubt. 
> 
> Indeed, the idea, implicit in Levy's observation quoted above, that it's 
> Gummint that wants everybody in lockstep and encourages conformity for 
> its own sake, seems quite bass-ackwards in general to me. The real 
> Kulturkampfers and conformity monitors are the company men. The 
> besetting sins of Gummint are indolence and lethargy, but Akkme Inc. 
> would plant a device in your brain if they could. 

Huh?  Maybe that's your experience, but I'd like to offer a completely
different experience.  I've worked for a number of companies in the
Silicon Valley.  Each and everyone of them has encouraged people to
work flextime.  Usually there are "core-hours", something like 10-2
when everyone is expected to be there.  

A number of my wife's relatives work for the government (federal and
local) and not a one of them is able to use flextime.  Those govenerment
jobs are very much measured by the clock and not really by their contribution.

Of course there will always be jobs that can't offer flextime (somebody
gas to be there when you call 911 or order the MacSandwich), but in
my experience it's been the companies that are very much offering
flextime to their employees.  It's pretty much required these days
in order to attract the best employees, otherwise they'll take a job
with the next guy - who offers flextime.

Also, there is a distiction to be made between companies and governments
encourage or not encouraging flextime for their own employees and
governments encouraging it for non-government workers (typically called
coercion).

--  Michael Peirce      --   peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org
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Newsgroups: ba.transportation