I think this is fair. It's reasonable to require a stowed phone, and we don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy while driving our cars. No essential liberty is being violated.

Not necessarily busy work, it's just flexible when it needs to get done. I did read your post twice, and it is kinda normalizing godawful management practices.

I don't need to be fully engaged every moment I'm at work. I need to be paid for the time I'm asked to reserve for it.

They would have you do cleaning and stuff, and just do less cleaning on the busy days. Or they'd have you watch the mandatory annual safety videos.

It was their problem, not your problem.

I'm still bored at work occasionally to this day, but I'd rather that than have today's poor boundaries on my "days off". Your whole day can be shot de facto on call with no compensation.

So anyhow my wife, kids, and me all have different last names. Complicated hippie stuff yada yada.

At first, my dad was all disappointed the family name ends with me.

Fast forward fifteen years. My dad discovers that our family changed their names when they moved to the "old" (middle?) country 100+ years ago, to assimilate there. They just didn't anglicize the name when we moved here.

TL;DR: all names are just made up

In the 1990s and 2000s, employers would just have more people show up than needed most days. We used to have "easy" days sometimes when there was more employees than work.

The whole calling people on their day off thing used to be rare, and it's absurd that saying no is now counted against you. What we consider fully staffed today has shifted considerably.

I thought Kurzweil predicted 2045?

One of my coworkers is like this, and it's a small company. I keep having to remind myself that he's a wage slave too.

If Trump supporters all had good aim, he'd be dead.

No wonder exercise makes you lose weight

They're literally working with FIFA right now

Without the protection of the LAPD those cameras won't last long.

I see other people talk to their bosses like that sometimes. I'm always shocked at how blunt they are in a clearly hostile business arrangement, but these guys do exist.

Makes me thank my lucky stars my boss is just a normal person.

I mean don't get me wrong you gotta assert your boundaries, but I'd just say "no" and not offer a detailed reason. You can hear how I really feel while I'm on the clock. 😜