Training is a cost of doing business. Training costs are a risk assumed by the company. If a company can’t retain the people they train, that’s on their P&L. Not the employee’s.

Pushing business costs onto employees under the guise of “fairness” is absurd.

At least you are clear that this entire process is designed to benefit the company. You are sparing us airs about how the process benefits the employee.

Now explain why is anyone supposed to trust the company to weigh extenuating circumstances when you have already indicated that the company’s goal is to recover their training costs?

Training costs are a cost of doing business. Pushing them onto employees is unacceptable.

We have a LONG history in America of employee indebtedness to employers. It has never been a mutually beneficial arrangement. You are just dressing up the company store and trying to call it something else.

You are essentially forcing employees to borrow money for training that they can not decline and then forgiving that loan only if the employee is able and willing to remain within and advance their career within the company. This is unethical for multiple reasons.

The employee can not possibly know if they will be able to remain with the company. And it isn’t feasible to identify in advance every extenuating circumstance they might require one’s departure. Even if you could, it would be necessary to make a judgement call as to whether each case met the standards for the listed extenuating circumstances. Whether that call is made in house, in arbitration, or in court, the burden disproportionately falls on the employee.

I’m very familiar with jobs that are dependent on people moving up or moving out. The employer, not the employee, assumes the risks of a hire not working out.

Medical residents don’t have to repay the cost of their training if they drop out of their residency program. If you were in the hospital, would you want to be treated by a resident who wants/needs to be elsewhere but is finishing the program so that they don’t have to write a check to the hospital? Do you want a resident to keep their mouth shut about unsafe conditions or malfeasance because they fear the check they would have to write to the hospital?

Pilots don’t have to repay airlines for training if they leave before a specified date. Do you want to be on an airplane flown by a pilot who wants to be anywhere else but in the cockpit?

So if someone works for your company for 18 months, takes mandatory training, and then leaves the company (for whatever reason), your company would sue them for the training costs? That is absurd. And highly unethical. And it would not be legal in many states.

You made a hiring decision. You chose to invest in someone. If you made a bad decision, that’s on you.

I was a professor and got tenure back when one had 7 years to either get tenure or “get out”. It is unheard of to pursue reimbursement for training, research, and support services for someone who wasn’t granted tenure. The University made the hiring decision and took the risk.

You can invest in your employees or not. But there is no guarantee of a return on investment.

Can they decline the training?

The employer can’t give the employee no choice in the matter.

The employer could make it a two year position. But the employee would still have the right to leave at the end of the two years (or sooner). Which would mean having two open positions instead of one.

So you want her to take a job that is harder to fill and requires more skill, but are only offering another $6k/yr?

Can you hire someone off the street to fill the position you want her to take for her current salary plus $6k?

YTA.

You expect your employee to agree to a promotion that may not align with her professional goals or her personal needs simply because it suits your current needs. And if she won’t agree to your new workplace demands, you want to fire her.

If you want all the benefits of a loyal workforce that will take on whatever work needs to be done, you need to extend some loyalty yourself.

You say the company invests a lot of money in developing the staff. Then how is it that you didn’t know this employees professional and personal goals? Why do they come to work every day? Are they just there for the health insurance? Do they prioritize getting home to their family at a certain hour?

INFO: Your husband is managing the money. Where is it? Is it in a joint account? Is it in his name only? Do you have access to the statements? Can you confirm that your husband is responsibly managing your money?

Does your husband have a legitimate reason for not wanting you to access the money? Do you have a history of gambling addiction, drug use, compulsive spending, etc. that would give him concerns about your stewardship of the money?

How is this money being invested? Are you in agreement regarding the investment goals?

You could be describing financial abuse. Or you could be describing an earnest effort by your husband to carefully manage money.

The founding fathers were not in unanimous agreement on very much.

Multiple founders saw the government as an extension of the citizenry. They valued extensive citizenship engagement and a focus on the greater good even when it required self-denial.

Secular puritans fully support programs like social security. Self-denial for the betterment of society is central to their ethos.

Believing in and practicing hard work and demanding self reliance from all are not mutually exclusive. Many people work very hard and want to contribute to a social safety for those who can’t achieve self reliance.

You aren’t self-reliant. Are you American?

The Federalist Papers are pretty standard reading material for entry level political science courses at the University level. Some conservatives believe that many Universities have an inherent liberal bias and function to convert conservatives to democratic socialism.

So I too am interested in hearing about all the Socialists, Democrats, and Liberals who have never read the Federalist papers. If the liberal bias on campus is as pervasive as many assume it to be, almost everyone who has read The Federalist Papers would be a Liberal Social Democrat.

Do you think President Obama read the Federalist Papers? He was a political science major at Columbia, has a law degree, taught law, and has written about the Federalist Papers, so I assume he is familiar with them.

I disagree. I grew up in New England.

From the religious Puritanisms of the colonies to the secular Puritanism that defines modern New England, the good of the community has always weighed more heavily than benefit to self.

What part of America are you thinking of when you talk about valuing self-reliance? Valuing self reliance is something I’ve observed ironically in parts of the West and sincerely in the Mid-Atlantic. But it is not part of the ethos in much of America.

Granted, my experiences are based on a small sampling of the places I’ve lived.

As America expanded, it gave the people living on annexed lands the right to maintain their culture and language. How does that square with the concept of a national character?

What gave her the right to shoot a man in his apartment who, by her own admission, was not doing anything that could reasonably be interpreted as a threat to her safety or well being?

Stand your ground laws only apply when you are occupying a place that you are legally entitled to occupy. Guyger was trespassing. If she felt threatened, she should have retreated.

Guyger was a police officer. Her ability to make and report accurate observations was critical to her job. She has given testimony in criminal trials based on her observations.

Her inability to discern her apartment from a stranger’s apartment is highly concerning. If she lacks awareness of her surroundings, then her observations about other criminal matters are suspect.

Do you support reopening every case in which Guyger was involved and reviewing her observations and testimony in light of the revelation that she can’t tell the difference between her apartment and a stranger’s apartment? Different doormat, different furniture, etc.?

So the driver was fully aware of road conditions and chose to hit a human being instead of a deer? They should be held accountable for that decision.

Again, against whom are you going to be defending yourself?

Who will be threatening your family’s well being in this fantasy civil war that you are waging in your mind?

How is Obama relevant? Obama can’t be impeached.

Investigating corruption is one thing. Specifically investigating Trump’s political opponent, at Trump’s request, with the assistance of Trump’s personal attorney as the US Attorney General is something different.

Trump ran on the claim that Mexico would pay for the wall. He did not run on a pledge to reallocate military funds to build a wall.

Senators in states that lost considerable funding due to Trump’s reallocation of military funds have to answer to their constituents about the funding. Do they not?

Trump asked a foreign head of state to investigate one of Trump’s political opponents. This is a violation of election law by attempting to solicit a thing of value from a foreign power. Even if Zelensky returns nothing to Trump, the solicitation is highly problematic.

Are you comfortable with soliciting election assistance form a foreign heads of state?

INFO.

Did you call the restaurant in advance and ask if they could prepare you a vegan meal?

Defend them from whom?

Someone whose views differ from yours? Are you so threatened by people who don’t share your views that you need to take up arms?

Does my late husband’s specific condition matter? It was Parkinson’s. And there are more Parkinson’s patients in the US than in any other country. The prevalence of Parkinson’s in the US is high compared to much of the rest of the world. The US market is the world’s single largest market for Parkinson’s treatment. But the best treatments are not available in the US. Because a free market is not the only driver of innovation.

A free market encourages the development of medication, devices, treatments, and surgeries that can treat the largest number of people possible. The free market does not encourage the development of personalized medicine. Do you want a treatment designed to serve as many people as possible? Or do you want treatment customized for you and your specific needs?

Separately, how do you measure medical innovation? Specifically, how do you parse out how much innovation is due to the refinement of past development (oh, my 50-year old injectable now comes in a pre-loaded pen!) and how much is due to unique advancements unrelated to past development? The US has an impressive body of historical achievements. But we aren’t innovating faster than other countries with regard to producing new medical technologies, compounds, or treatments. South Korea is innovating much faster than we are. So is Ireland for that matter.

When my husband was sick, I took him to South Korea, Israel, and India for treatment that was not yet available in the US. In each of these countries, healthcare is paid for by either the government or a not for profit entity appointed by the government.

How can you account for non-stem cell related innovation in these markets given their government’s role in paying for healthcare?

Obviously, these countries have a profound advantage with regard to stem cell treatment that has nothing to do with payment model.

Was that before or after Washington’s troops rammed the ramparts?