Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Yes, admits Vandana Vasudevan in OTP Please , the gig economy has its ugly side of oppression too. And it’s a lot more complicated that you might imagine.   For starters, those ratings affect gig workers opaquely : “Every action is judged by people they can’t see, according to rules they don’t know.”   There is also a systemic bias against older workers. No, not due to their age. Rather, based on how long they’ve been with the company. Why? Shouldn’t longer term employees be valued more as they know the setup and expectations? Yes, but that gets countervailed by the fact that they become eligible for additional incentives as they stay longer. So the company’s algorithms reduce the amount of work assigned to them as they approach those milestones. As a result, their income reduces (since it was tied to number of orders fulfilled), and they end up leaving before they hit the milestone. Sneaky, right? “While capitalism hid exploitation behind a labour contract, digi...

“Because I said so”. It’s a phrase every parent uses with their kids. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need to pull rank, but we don’t live in an ideal world: -          Some things are just too complicated to explain to a kid; -          Sometimes we’re not in a mood; -          There’s no time to get into all that; -          And last but not least, kids can be a pain deliberately . Pretending not to understand, testing how far they can push you, enjoying asking “Why” to whatever you say. And then there’s this other reason I stumbled upon based on this chat between my daughter and my wife. It started with my daughter asking whether my wife had stopped going to the gym. My wife replied that she was finishing the gym at office during lunch time, so it wasn’t visible to the kid anymore. This is how the conversation co...