"I want to hold them captive all day long:" Australian mining boss opposes staff leaving office for coffee
"I want to hold them captive all day long:" Australian mining boss opposes staff leaving office for coffee
Managing director of Mineral Resources Chris Ellison wants to "hold staff captive all day long".
Workers who leave the head office to buy a cup of coffee are costing an Australian mining firm too much money, according to its boss.
Managing director of Mineral Resources Chris Ellison said during a financial results presentation on Wednesday he wants to "hold staff captive all day long".
"I don't want them leaving the building," he said.
The head office in Perth has a restaurant, nine staff psychologists, a gym, and other facilities designed to encourage staff to stay in the office. "We have a lot of different benefits that we have brought on," said Mr Ellison, whose company has a strict "no work from home policy". "Why have I done that? Because when I get them first thing in the morning, I want to hold them captive all day long. I don't want them leaving the building.
There are so many better ways he could have phrased that, but like most old, white men in his position this guy is probably a complete idiot who has rarely needed to think about the importance of language in sensitive discussions. People like that think this stuff is just a joke and they're either completely unaware or just don't care that many workers do actually feel trapped by their circumstances of employment.
32I don’t think he is joking. As an out of touch billionaire who thinks that he is a modern feudal lord, he sounds on message.
24I guess what I mean is that privileged people in positions of power often seem to think language doesn't matter and that they can just say whatever they want with no repercussions. When it gets called out or questioned they pull the "it was just locker room talk bro" line and act like it was funny and everyone is overly sensitive/overreacting. The pain of others is a joke to them.
13
Says Mr Planet-rapist
21Hot tip boomer, commuting is a waste of time and money and in most jobs doing away with this has no bearing on performance outcomes.
Another hot tip, just because someone is in the office doesn't mean they aren't wasting time. Don't assume for one minute that the office days are somehow the glory days . Believe me I see the time wasting and shit talking every time I go into the office.
Arguably the distractions of an office 9 times out of 10 are actually counter productive.
20He agrees it's a waste of time, so he goes by chopper.
19What a dick.
7Can't have him wasting time away from the office
6
“Back when I was a lad, we used to commute into the city every day in our V8-powered sedan and it only took 10 minutes because petrol only cost 30c/l and there weren’t as many cars on the road.” “I expect my workers to do the same, even though petrol is $2.30/l and it takes them an hour to and from work.”
4
If he needs more money he should get a 2nd job
20Someone should beat him to death with Gina Rinehart's corpse
8"I want to hold them captive all day long"... because I love them so much and wouldn't want anything to happen to them, you wouldn't understand, you just wouldn't!
6It sounds like he has given his employees pretty good damn perks.
Restaurant, psychologists, medical, daycare.
They said “ hey it’s costing us a ton in missed opportunities, let’s just provide these services here and then instead of spending an hour in traffic they can spend it getting paid.”
Just the child care thing blows my mind
4When the game developers did this it was considered bad. It should still be considered bad.
People have lives
7This is the same to me as when I say Israelis should just come move to the us.
It’s an offer, not a demand.
If they start forcing people to stay at work, if they just have a shit ton of benefits then send me an application.
My life would be so much easier and better with free childcare at work.
Traveling places takes time, that’s why we built towns and cities in the first place
1
Honestly, this headline is outrage reporting at its finest.
It sounds to me like this guy was simply paraphrasing (in an earnings call) his desire to encourage people to stay in the office for a more complete day. He's backing that up by alleviating a lot of the reasons for people to spend time away from the office: restaurant, gym, and even a childcare centre with doctors and nurses.
It's not like he's locking the doors until 5pm each day.
-4It seems that he actually said the words and from what he has said that he doesn’t like a reasonable work/life balance. He probably thinks that he’s a great employer however the millennial workforce may disagree.
13As the one calling the shots, he’s entitled to run the business that way.
As employees in a free society, his people are free to leave if they don’t like it.
If he turns out to be wrong and the arse falls out of the company as a result, the board will hold him accountable.
No one is forced to do anything here. Everyone is able to make decisions that change their outcomes.
-7