Please don't do this. It's ok to be late.
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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that depends on where you work. at some places 3 late clock ins, can be a fireable offense. in the world of contracting its usually not a big deal.
Fired is better than dead or alive but responsible for a family's death
for most Americans, fired also just means you've probably just become responsible for your own family's ruin. for most of our working poor, being more than 10 minutes late is a quick route to eviction and years of more crippling debt for them and whoever else might be at home with them, which could well immediately destroy other's major life plans like college for kids, moving somewhere cheaper, eldercare, even medical treatments or medication, etc.
this doesn't make driving like this less dangerous or inadvisable, of course, but the folks saying what you're saying should be aware that for a lot of folks, the certain risk of the firing is often similarly dire to the uncertain risk of driving like this.
if you knew your partner on your work health plan was going to suffer or die without continued treatment if you're ever more than 10 minutes late to work, you'd probably consider driving like this too when you overslept because you're sick or something. it only takes one little slip-up.
Then it’s not a place worth working at
Another option is leaving earlier. Don't drive a car you can't see out of.
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Fortunately, I'm in a leadership position at my workplace, and I say it's ok no matter what! No matter what happens because of lateness is not worth someone potentially hurting themselves or others.
I mean then don't get yourself into a situation where spending a minute cleaning the windshield will make or break you. Any nontrivial commute has that much variance in it anyway, so if you are routinely cutting it close, three late clock ins seems inevitable.
Better be late to work then a late worker.
Better to be a smart feller
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In Norway you lose your license immediately if the police sees you driving like this
Good punishment. If you don’t consider this extremely dangerous you shouldn’t really be allowed to operate any machine bigger than a lego set.
In the U.S. you might lose your job if you don't. One missed alarm.
Good luck.
Yeah but the US is fucked when it comes to the working situation and workers rights.
Sure. Though that doesn't change the shittiness at all. It just represents the issue the loudest, and one that occurs in more places than just the U.S.: Abysmal working conditions and shitty bosses. Forgive me for pointing out something I think everyone already understands, though we are part of a global economy. To create effective change we should also act as a global force to promote those changes.
In a perfect world, at least. Sadly, problems on our own doorstep takes away a lot of energy to do just that.
I legitimately cannot imagine a scenario where you have time to clear this eye hole, but don't have another 30s to clear the rest of the windshield. It's pure laziness, regardless of how exploited your surplus labor might be.
You DONT have time to clear that eye hole
It's done as you pull out, that's why it looks suddenly wiped with your sleeve!
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But if you hit oncoming traffic you'll still be late for work and also potentially kill someone and end up incarcerated for vehicular manslaughter.
We're doing that thing where we blame the person and not the system that provokes these choices. Statistically, a significant number of people in the U.S. are living paycheck-to-paycheck. To them their life almost literally depends on making it to work. I am not saying it isn't stupid and dangerous. I am saying that being a few minutes late for safety shouldn't decide if you get to eat that week. It should, by any reasonable account, be requested to make up. Not placed on some arbitrary point system or lofted lazily over the person's head as a form of control.
Just to add on to what you are saying, around 62 percent of us live paycheck to paycheck. On top of that, we have at-will employment laws in most states, that allow an employer to fire a non-union employee for any reason they want, as long as they don't violate federal labor laws. It's also easy for employers to make up a reason for termination, even if they are violating said labor laws.
We need to unionize and get some power to the workers back in this country. People won't do this kind of thing nearly as often if their livelihood isn't at risk of being taken away.
If you are incarcerated you don't have to worry about the mortgage. Win-Win!
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I was literally going to say that exact thing. Det er veldig slitsomt å kjøre i Troms :(
it is unlikely that they see "you" driving then. just to mention ;-)
Pro-tip: you don't have to defrost a windshield if you walk, bike, or take public transit instead.
I work over 2 hours away each way by bus or 20 minute drive. I'm gonna drive. Not everyone has the option.
I live about a 20 min drive from work, that's why I use my bicycle.
It's about 15km one way and takes me about 40-45 min. Normally the car takes 15-20 min, but in rush hour traffic it can easily be 30-40 min. So for my office commute the bike isn't even that much slower. And if there has been an accident or something like that, I could easily be stuck on traffic for over an hour. With my bike I get there in 45 min, no matter what. I love the fresh air, the exercise and the feeling of being outside.
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Ah yes, because those are definitely viable options for everyone. Sarcasm aside, I'm not saying that these aren't the ideal modes of transport, but they simply aren't viable options for a large portion of people (including me).
In my city, the school buses only pick up kids that live more than 1 mile from the school. I live in a pretty dense (albeit still single-family) neighborhood, so almost everybody who goes to my kid's school lives too close to ride the bus.
It's amazing how the majority of the parents are apparently willing to spend five or ten minutes clearing the frost off their car windshield only to drive half a mile and then wait another ten or fifteen minutes in line at the car drop-off, when my entire round trip by bike is maybe ten minutes total.
Frankly, the "large portion of people" in my anecdote are just flat-out doing it wrong, to both society's and their own detriment.
The number of people who do have alternatives are a lot higher than many of them are willing to admit.
Yeah people will use bikes or public transit if it's a better option for them than driving. But decades of carmaker lobbying, terrible zoning laws and bad urban design makes driving the only available option for most Americans.
Cities who invest in good public transit and sensible urban design always see a huge decrease in car traffic.
I was about to say. Imagine driving to work.
My wife takes the car, and I transit because she works closer but in a corner of the city, while I work in a highly transit centric part of the city. It only takes me like 35-40 mins to walk, bus, and walk. Plus my dog can come with and we get a nice little walk in for the morning!
Imagine having to leave your house to go to work.
My commute consists of walking down the stairs into my office. Takes about a minute unless there's a cat, in which case I'll be stuck for a few minutes giving him pets and letting him know he is a good kitty.
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Speedrun tip: just completely remove your windshield with a sledgehammer to remove the ice
Much easier than pouring boiling water on a frozen windshield I guess.
But then you miss on that cracking action.
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That's too messy and requires a tool. Just push on it from the inside with your feet. It might even come out in one piece so you can put it back.
(Don't do this except in emergencies.)
That’s a separate category, 0% defrost 100% sledge, because the no windshield glitch reduces head on collisions so effectively
Cue the sound of me revving the engine to heat the defrost after I half ass the scraping
I just got a manual for the first time in a while and I forgot how great driving at 45 mph in 2nd gear to warm up your car is.
Most (all?) automatics have a couple gears to manually select.
Or at the very least you can put it in "L" which will keep it in a lower gear longer, which burns more fuel but warms the car up faster.
Though I'd only do this on really cold days because it's incredibly inefficient.
Wonder what’s more inefficient, a little extra wear and tear, and gas for low gear revving, or letting it warm up for 10 minutes.
Iirc, most car manufacturers don’t recommend letting it warm up on idle. Most say to take of at a moderate speed to warm the engine up “properly”.
I know that driving a car will get it up to operating temperature faster, but whether it's more efficient to let it idle for 10 minutes or to drive in a lower gear could be a toss-up.
This is why we need the MythBusters to get federal funding so they test these things.
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I totaled a car this way when I was 17. Would not recommend.
My first car didn't have a blower in the air conditioning system. It worked off of convection. The first winter I drove it, I'd roll down the window and stick my head out into the weather.
Haha, funny. You could’ve killed someone.
Look the ford pinto was peak engineering at the time, it was as safe as it got back then🤷♀️
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I usually just spray a lot of washer fluid on it.
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