Hi-tech Work Places no Better than Factories? 801
Anonymous Coward writes "A
tasty bit of truth.
Again, a Sociology Professor has found out what we all know. He wistfully comments on the state of geekdom in the modern corporation:
"They face the lonely insecurity of the individual entrepreneur in a marketplace and culture that stresses, with macho imagery from war and sports, that they are ultimately alone"
and adds that...
"For many this may be the shape of work in the 21st century."
You want to start a union? I mean how much is your boss making at your expense even if he did start the company long before you joined up?"
Stop whining (Score:0, Insightful)
anyone think this is going to change soon? (Score:5, Insightful)
And let's face it. Employers benefit from people's "But I'll be the exception!" mentality the way the government profits from lotteries and the service industry profits from aspiring actors.
negative, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, life sure is tough.
If you think a factory is better, go work in a factory! I'll stay in my cubicle and deal with being "lonely and insecure". I'm very thankful for my job and anyone who thinks a career in an office is difficult needs a big reality check. We have it very good, people.
Not for me (Score:5, Insightful)
When I talk to the other employees in other departments, I see that the developers have much more security, and much better working conditions, than anyone but the executives.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:negative, much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
cat
Nobody is "exploiting" you. If you work for what they pay, then its a business deal, and done. If you don't like your pay, renegotiate, quit, or SHUT UP. Because your company founder put his brains, personal capital, and personal life on the line to start a company, WHICH PUTS THE FOOD ON YOUR TABLE, and now makes more $$ than you, doesn't mean he's "exploiting" you. People have been hearing the worn-out battle cry of the second-raters so long that they're starting to believe it. Under communism, man exploits man. Under capitalism, man trades with man, to the profit and benefit of both. Nobody is forcing you to work (at least in Civilized places). Your boss gets the fruit of your labors, you get a check. His company grows, he lines his pockets, and you sleep under a roof. If that bothers you, start your own company.
blue vs white (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor geeks ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:negative, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Say it again, brother. I once worked in a factory that made plastic buckets. You know how handles get put on buckets? It ain't a machine what does it. It's people. People standing at tables and trying to make a quota for minimum wage. Argh. I have a co-worker who once worked in a factory where they made the coily handset cords for telephones. When the "kids" at our workplace complain about their slacker jobs, we like to trot out our factory stories. Doesn't help though. People who haven't worked in factories usually don't appreciate the mind-numbing repetition that goes on in a factory. I'd rather be exploited for $30K a year in a job that requires thinking than be exploited for $9K in a job that encourages brain death.
A bit of perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
and I'm here to tell you that it can be quite debilitating. Medically and physically, it becomes quite expensive when your living depends on your good health and you have to take off a week or two for medical problems. In other words, a week or two of no income.
It's not the Golden Era of manufacturing anymore in my part of the US; $25k gross is considered a decent middle-class income here. If you are fortunate to have any financial reserves, they are probably very slim.
It's mentally debilitating; there are no fellow geeks, so it tends to get lonely beyond a certain point. (my answer is to do Linux at home). Certainly, there's little of the intellectually stimulating debate that I love. (I majored in English, with a few years each of Philosophy and Art. Now I'm into networking)
Now for the perspective: I have to wonder how much of this sociologist's observations are specific to the IT industry, or is it all just becoming part of the US corporate ethos? IMHO, business is a very human activity, but the way we go about it certainly isn't sometimes.
Make an Informed Decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the problem is that there aren't enough good companies out there along with the dilution of the number of tech workers and the dot bomb is forcing people to take jobs they otherwise would not.
Long gone are the days of drive up dentists to Yahoo's main offices
Get used to it. (Score:4, Insightful)
IT people think they have some right to work 4 hours a day and get paid 200k a year. The .com boom is dead, get over it.
Welcome to the real world; job insecurity and other "stresses" are what all other workers have always faced. IT people are no better. In fact, programming has become more of a commodity than most other fields. If you aren't adding any real value, than you shouldn't have a job. Simple as that.
Blue and White (Score:4, Insightful)
Sign me up for the white collar nightmare.
Re:Stop whining (Score:4, Insightful)
If you disagree, state your "better" ideas. You sound like the usual progressive who says "I don't know the answer, I only know that this isn't it."
Survival of the weakest (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the classic corporate-machine strategy: increase profit, reduce expenditures. Squeeze whatever productivity from employees that you can; if they balk, replace them
Three cheers for capitalism...
Re:Dont like it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Small businesses may seem similar, but that's because very few small business owners will hire someone as a peer equal with as big an ego as their own. They prefer someone at a disadvantage, so they're not above a little bottom feeding themselves.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:5, Insightful)
So... only the rich mangement class are allowed to even voice an opinion on pay structure and labor issues ? That sounds... surprisingly like the current U.S. system, actually.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:1, Insightful)
The CEO and all his little VPs only make 500 times the salary of their average worker. Dear God! If they fire all the workers and hire a bunch of foreigners for 1/20th their combined salary, maybe the CEO can get that 3rd yacht!
Real economic recovery will only come about by a redistribution of the wealth (ooh, I felt a socialist tingle). Failing that, kill all the CEOs and Republican apologists.
Gimme dat -1 Troll, you fudge packing moderators!
No need for a union (Score:3, Insightful)
For people working under these conditions they need some form of group representation, because they have nothing else to bargain with. They can be easily be replaced. Your value as an employee dose not increase the longer you hold the job.
I.T. (and most other jobs) your value to your employer does increase over time. Also your able to become a specialist in an area. (We can't let Johnny go, he's the only one who knows the AS/400). Having a union in this area is a bad idea for both the Company and the Employee.
While you would have easier working conditions and possibly more pay you would lose your ability to specialize. Unions don't want people to become more useful (I.E. learn how to do multiple jobs), they want to hire more people. (Which adds to the union's income) But your job would be secure as long as the company exists. Just keep in mind unions have been known to destroy companies. And forget about having a job you enjoy. Dose anyone really want a government job?
The company loses as well because they are no longer as flexible, and profitable.
As for your boss making too much money form you. Just keep in mind that you wouldn't have your job without him.
Re:Get used to it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Computer jobs becoming hard, painful and not rewarding ->
Less people coming to CS industry ->
Less options to replace CS worker ->
More options of re-negotiation and negotiation of support. ->
More valuation of a job...
The CS jobs were dempinged.
Re:Poor geeks ... (Score:2, Insightful)
When I was in school during the boom, at every coop or internship I had, the IT people were complete morons. Companies hired anybody who had 3 or 4 letter acronyms on their resume and thought they were real programmers.
No reality has set it and these people just don't want to accept that. They want to go back to their cushy jobs surfing the web and eating free in the snack room all day.
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm..well, the thing is out of the $4000 that was billed, on average, about $2000 is overhead -- rent or mortgage, utilities, marketing and so forth and materials. Then he gets his $300, plus it costs the company an additional $150. That leaves about $1550. Unless your friend reinvests part of that into the company, Uncle Sam gets about 1/3rd of that, or about $520. That leaves $1000. That's *IF* the shop is getting good margins. Most likely, the margins are a lot less than that and the overhead is more like $2500-3000. Meaning that the shop probably makes a whole $200-400 (not much more than your mechanic friend) or so on the whole $4000. Assuming everything's going well of course, and there aren't unforseen costs.
That $4000 sounds like a lot of money. Trust me, it isn't.
Re:blue vs white (Score:1, Insightful)
Monotonous, no thought required work, working in the heat, cold, rain, breathing death fumes, sore as a bitch after a day of work, joint damage so the pain continues after you get old, and I could keep going.
Trust me, if you have a choice, and have tried both, no one would pick manual labor.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Insightful)
As in all things, it's not the lack of skills. Skills can be learned. Face it: it's the lack of desire. The lack of drive.
I'm not knocking people who don't have that entrepreneurial drive; I've not started my own company yet (though I've made two abortive attempts). But I'm only worth what an employer is willing to pay. Note that I didn't specify my current employer. I'm free to try to find a better match; someone who values my particular skill set and persona more than my current employer. I'm not interested in doing so right now, because I already found an employer that treats me quite well, thank you very much.
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Labeling something "Marxism" gets you nowhere and effectively stops the reasonable discussion.
I can too label the current state of the affairs "Wild Capitalism".
Nobody is "exploiting" you. If you work for what they pay, then its a business deal, and done.
That's right.
If you don't like your pay, renegotiate, quit, or SHUT UP.
And that's not, except "renegotiate". However, the problem is that you're not ABLE to negotiate, because there are some 10 people outside, waiting for the same job and they have all to insist in same benefits.
Because your company founder put his brains, personal capital, and personal life on the line to start a company, WHICH PUTS THE FOOD ON YOUR TABLE, and now makes more $$ than you, doesn't mean he's "exploiting" you.
Yes, it means. Because I put my brains too, I put my personal capital too (be it time or knowledge or abilities) and I put my personal life too for the company, WHICH PUTS THE FOOD ON HIS TABLE, and in addition puts the mannor, the spa, the limousine, the jet, etc.
It is OK, if he makes more than me, but making 500 times more is RIDICULOUS.
If that bothers you, start your own company.
This is just outrageous. You effectively claim the workers have no rights, and if they want rights they must become employers first !
~velco
Class warfare beats the drums...again (Score:5, Insightful)
So I started my own business. What an education that was!
I've found that, as a business owner, I have to work far harder than I ever anticipated in order to keep the company viable. There's a tremendous amount of work going on that employees of a company never see and are rarely aware of, work that has to be done by someone with good management skills. If that work is being done properly then the employees never know about it and they're able to do their jobs.
I have a great deal of respect now for entrepeneurs who risk a great deal to start a new business. It takes guts, patience, perserverance, and more to do that.
Any fool can sit around and bitch and moan about how much they hate their company/boss/workplace/insert-bitch-and-moan-noun
Re:Dockworkers Union was right! (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at the crap the Unions are pulling with United. UAL has been in serious finacial shape since before the attacks, and now that it's in worse shape, the unions are asking for more and more money.
From what I've seen, all Unions pull dirty tricks. Have you seen a co-worker cry because she's scared to vote against the Union line?
Oh the Teacher Union wants more money, lets park in the spots the poor IT people park in and make them walk a half mile to and from thier cars, that'll make a point.
Screw Unions.
How about I bitch about the salary structure (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not doing me a favour by letting me work for him. he's hoping to get more than his moneys worth from me. I'm hoping to get the amount I'm worth from him. I'll meet him halfway.
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
No problem. I'll just quit, lose my health insurance, my paycheck that feeds my family, and risk a poor reference because my boss doesn't want me to quit. Oh, and in this great economy I'm sure I'll find a better job right away. Of course the founder is allowed to make more money, like you said, that doesn't mean he's "exploting". However, don't act like employees have the power to renegotiate resonable wages, because most of the time they don't. Sure, his personal capital may have started the company, but the ongoing contributions of employees is what grows it and what really generates the profit.
Union pros and cons (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously, a group has much more bargaining power than an individual. At least in the short term, the situation for the entire group will improve. As time goes on, though, productivity and profitability become second to the needs of the union management.
Those highly competent individuals (we know who we are!) who do most of the work and, sometimes, are rewarded based upon this, will most certainly lose out when their voice is swallowed by that of the masses.
A practical solution, I don't know. A secret brotherhood?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dockworkers Union was right! (Score:1, Insightful)
Power corrupts
I have never seen a non-corrupt Union.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget C. They're prepared to quit.
Unions == Socialism (Score:3, Insightful)
Unions were a good idea prior to the labor laws that are now on the books. In today's world you have OSHA and other agencies looking out for the safety and health. And don't tell me that they are overworked and can't do their job. Someone at my place of business calls and complains and there out tout-suite and a nice little bulletin gets posted on the company bulletin board.
The problem we have now is that people get into a company and into a union and they're like ticks. They work poorly and you can't fire them. They get drunk and hurt themselves and you have to put them on disability. Don't hire them and they stand outside your business and menace your customers and other employees. Hire them and they might strike anyway for that "safety" problem you have and oh by the way they want a raise. I see them all the time, every day almost, standing outside some little shop or mall or street corner with their pickets with words so small that you can't read what it's about. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what it's about and if they really wanted you to know what it was about they would get out of their lawn chair and out from under the umbrella and put down the plackard and go out and talk to people and contact the media and write a senator and start a campaign that actually changes something for ALL employees.
Unions are nothing more than a poorly constructed SOCIALIST system. Which makes it that much funnier because most union people I know are so anti-communist and anti-china but yet they are working under an almost identical regime. See in the real world people work hard to get a raise. The people who don't work hard don't get raises - unless you are in a union. If you work hard and don't get recognition you have choices... the choice to find another employer, the choice to work for yourself, the choice to move.
It's like the farmers who feel entitled to get the government to pay them to farm in an area and time when it doesn't pay to farm. Well my daddy did it and my grand dad did it and my great grand dad did it, so I'm going to do it and my son is going to do it... If it doesn't work it doesn't work, find another way!
I'm not envious of any union worker I've ever met. My step father was an autoworker at GM, my father is a teacher, my grandfather worked for Boeing, the guy in the cube next to me worked for Mac... at the end of the day I've not heard one of them praise a union for what it's done for them. My father is facing a pay cut and higher class sizes along with needing to pay for some of his own supplies. The unions are doing crap but threatening a strike if pay raises aren't negotiated. So at some point pay raises will be negotiated and then the schools will "downsize" to pay the teachers they have with the budget they have and class sizes will increase again and more supplies will come out of my fathers pocket. The more out of pocket expenses the more the unions will call for raises and so on and so forth.
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:3, Insightful)
What the hell are you talking about? First of all, the American ideal has never been work hard for someone else and work hard. The American dream (or myth, whatever you want) has always been about striking out on your own. The yeoman farmer, the 49er, the guy who drops out of Harvard to start his own small software business, etc.
Secondly, I'm getting weary of the idea that working hard is some kind of lie that has been foisted upon us. The fact is, until very recently, people simply had to work long hours to survive. And it wasn't just exploitation by aristocrats or an unfair system - it was an economic fact of life. Production wasn't efficient enough to allow for people to work fewer hours.
Now, in the past few decades, a few lucky countries have become efficient enough to allow people to work fewer hours (Japan, Europe, America, etc.). But even then, I would not count on it simply being "We're only working hard because of a lie we're being told." Yes, workers in France and Germany work fewer hours at better conditions than American workers do. But on the other hand, France and Germany's economies have been stagnant for the past decade, while America's has been dynamic. And that's not just the bubble - America's GDP growth rate last quarter was much higher than either Germany's or France's, and is predicted to be much higher for next year as well.
As our production methods get more efficient, we can make our choice between greater production and more hours off. Europe leans towards more hours off. America leans towards greater production. Simple as that.
Personally, I am comfortable with America's choice, because I think Europe (Britain excluded) is headed toward financial crisis, and will eventually be forced to switch towards a system more like America's anyway. I am also comfortable with America's choice because there are many things we have yet to achieve, that I would like to.
But indeed, one day we will have robots to do most of our labor for us, and we'll have genetic engineering, clean energy, and all the biotech advances we could ever want, and then I'll be ready to start making the trade for fewer hours. Because at that point our production will have become extremely efficient, and we'll have attained the things I want to see society achieve.
[OT] [Meta] Open Letter: (Score:1, Insightful)
Open letter to Slashdot editors:
Topic: Editorializing on the front page
Please consider editing opinion out of story submissions. Journalism, in the name of integrity, separates fact from opinion, which is why newspapers have a separate editorial page. Allowing the sort of politically charged language that the poster of this story uses in what is ostensibly a news item is unprofessional, a disservice to objectivity and ultimately to slashdot's credibility. Let the posters espouse their opinions in their comments, but please, not in the story submissions themselves.
Respectfully,
A longtime loyal reader (posting anonymously because I'm obviously - necessarily - "off-topic")
Personal experience with unions in Europe?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The company I work for is based in Europe, and I work in their US based headquarters. In the last year we have had five rounds of layoffs resulting in a massive (measured in thousands) number of US employees losing their jobs. With each round of layoffs the company had to spend tons of time negotiating with the unions in Europe before they could do anything. From the people I know overseas they tell me that (because of unions) it takes an act of god for someone to lose their job. Most of them are shocked to find out that 1) we get no vacation time compared to them, 2) we have to pay for our own education, and 3) we can get fired without any notice in most US states.
If unions can improve the quality of life and make it easier for us (in the US) to get training (for example) then what is wrong with that? I think we can learn from the mistakes of the auto industry unions and do better. After all we are talking about a totally different class of people here. How many people that worked on a car assembly line have graduate degrees? How many people that worked on a car assembly line started intellectual revolutions like open source and Linux? A majority of us are people who enjoy challenges, want to constantly improve ourselves, and want to work hard to see our employers succeed in the marketplace!
Of course all of this becomes a moot point when you consider that there are countries like India where people are willing to take our jobs and do them for something like $4 an hour.
Re:negative, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, factory work is tough and in the early days abusive employers could get away with lots of nasty things we consider illegal and/or immoral today. It took a combination of public outrage, progressive politicians, and organized labor to fix many of the worst ills associated with factory labor conditions.
Just because code serfdom is a better choice than factory work does not mean that all is well or that conditions cannot or should not be improved.
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
-Accept your current working conditions
-Work out new ones with your employer
-Leave and find new sources of work
Our industry is in a slump, and a bad one. We just came off one of the biggest booms of the modern economy, and we're hurtin'. It'll turn around, it always does. But while it's bad, it's going to suck. And people are very eager to find new work. You don't like your current job? Go find a new one. Oh, wait, none out there? Tough shit. This is what the market will bear, if you think you can do better, go do it. With the employment market so tight, you probably can't, unless you're Just That Good. It's reality, nothing more.
But get this: we did the SAME THING to our employers not two years ago. Don't want to pay me $100K/yr., pay my cell phone, and let me wear ripped jeans to work? Tough shit: go find another techie. Oh, they're really hard to find? That's too bad. The shoe's on the other foot, and we don't like it. It'll all even out, but until then, you put up/shut up, or bide your time. Stop whining about corporate greed/getting it from your boss. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Personally, I've been laid off twice this calender year, by two separate companies. Do I begrudge the executives? In the end, no: they're making business decisions, and while some of them are really stupid, in the end, their responsibilites are to their shareholders, and the greater good. I notice folks here screaming away about the burgious executives of the world trampling the masses. News flash, people: IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY. Now, we simply have more visibility and awareness of the robber-barons, that we actually have a chance to get pissed off about it.
Take it from this perspective: do some research about starting a small business, or work for a small business (50 people). I have, on both accounts. Some of my best knowledge and insight into a business was from watching my bosses (the president and another officer) sweat payroll. And when you look at the sheer amount of effort in management and planning, administritivia, guiding the vision, hiring/firing, sweating the money, the details, the long hours, *plus* actually producing for the company...
I'll tell you what: if I'm ever lucky/good enough to put that business together, you're goddamned right I'm gonna be one of the highest, if not *the* highest, paid SOB in the group. And I'll do my best to treat my employees like gold. But this is not a charity-fucking-ball. Corporation exist to make money, and for no other reason. The balance will swing the other way. In the meantime, sharpen your skills, build that resume, and wait.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple fact. Unions promote complacency.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Insightful)
The business argument (Score:3, Insightful)
OK. Exactly what risks is he taking? Well, if things go wrong he will lose everything he has got and wind up having to work for someone else. It is true that is not a risk his employees take; but only because they are already on the down side of that situation.
It has been my observation that it is a very difficult task to make money honestly in a business. Because it is very difficult only the very best in a given field are ever able to do so. Most people who are successful at running a business do so by stealing from someone. If they steal from the government they risk prison, if they steal from their customers they risk losing them (1), if they steal from their suppliers they risk being cut off from the material they need to stay in business. About the only remaining avenue is to steal from employees; this seems to be a universally accepted way of doing business. The fact that the vast majority of businesses do steal from employees is the main way that most business stay solvent.
If stealing from employees were eliminated from business only the very best companies in a given field would remain. The huge numbers of incompetent people who would find themselves unemployed would probably trigger a massive depression.
Because of this we maintain the fiction that people are paid what they are worth in a free market economy. The truth is that people are paid as little as the businesses figure they can get away with.
If you were to eliminate the greed angle - so that business owners didn't make substantially more than employees for the same amount of work - very few people would ever start a business; the greatly increased responsibility and pressure of running a business compared to being an employee would ensure that was so.
(1) Yes I know that Microsoft has been eminently successful in stealing from their customers: $299 for a product that costs them under a dollar to produce qualifies as theft in my book. However people are slowly starting to catch on to them. Oh, by the way please don't give me the corporate line about how much it costs to write Microsoft XXX product in the first place; Microsoft net profits (after every accounting trick in the book to lower them) are in the 40% of gross sales range - it typically costs MS more to advertise a product than it ever cost them to write it. The actual costs of writing software are so low that it is possible to write a major operating system using the programmers' donated spare time. Come to think of it Microsoft steals from the government also; last year they paid not one thin dime if federal corporate income taxes. They also steal from their shareholders, since contrary to federal law they don't distribute any of their massive profits in the form of dividends.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a good point - in moderation. It is not reasonable for people to expect all their employment goals to be handed to them by a legal framework. It does take some pushing and stretching yourself outside your envelope. And certainly the law ought include ample provision for the work and effort put in by the founder(s) of a company to be rewarded. But this goes too far:
That really depends on who you are. For the programmer/engineer types that haunt
On the other hand, most people in this world start with so few resources that they are subject to a lot of exploitation. Factory workers (god forbid you toil in a high-production, low-cost place like China or Singapore), retail, data-entry, office support drones, and an endlessly long list of other jobs involve skills that are perceived as basically interchangeable, and most everyone knows this.
And the fact that someone with brains, brawn and balls started a company ought not to give her the right to exploit people, nor does it grant her the right to a mighty river of money just cause she did some good work at the outset, nor should it excuse her from the duty we have to other human beings to give them a little help in this life. Upper management's sense of entitlement is just as honed as the worker bees, and just as bogus.
An IT workers coop - not quite a union, but with some of the same goals - that helped take some of the rough edges off of life as an IT worker could be a great thing, to keep things in balance in the workplace.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:4, Insightful)
What on earth are you talking about? There is no "management class". You think all the managers in the IT industry went to the same prep schools, joined the same fraternities at college, play golf together at weekends? What rubbish, if anything the "management class" is more diverse than the "programmer class"
If you're talking about the company owner, then it's up to him/her to set pay structure... and it's up to employees to decide whether or not they want to work there. That's it. The system works remarkably well, and is the basis of all the successful economies in the world. Class War rhetoric is the hallmark of the world's economic basket cases.
Re:Stop whining (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dont like it? (Score:2, Insightful)
You obviously need a history lesson.
Not all that long ago--well, a century and a half or so ago, but who's counting--the US did rely on business owners to set their pay and salary schedules. And you know what happened? By and large, they set them as low as possible, made their employees into virtual slaves, and got filthy rich off of the suffering of others.
This is where unions came in. Unless you're a business owner or a capital-P Professional (who, by and large, had their own "unions" for quite a bit longer), you owe your current pay rate to the unions and organized labor.
The system we have DOES work remarkeably well. And a vital part of it is organized labor to keep the "going rate" for most jobs at a liveable level.
The cold war, with its "capitalism vs communism" rhetoric, ended much like the civil war. The USA won, but we wound up with all of the desired goals of the other side, anyway.
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a tight market, though, you are forced to take what you can get, and employers know this.
That's because, in a tight market, you're worth less. Supply and demand: when supply exceeds demand, as in a tight market, price will decline, because there are more options available. It's called "competition," and it's amazing how certain Slashdotters call it a good thing when there's competition in the consumer goods market (lowering prices), but a bad thing in the employment market (lowering wages). The world is not structured to benefit you (the collective you) all the time; sometimes, you have to take your lumps, suck it up, and survive until you get another chance to thrive. Matter of fact, that's been a pattern in life since, oh, about the time life began. Famine and feast. You want to improve your value? Reduce supply. No, that doesn't mean getting rid of other techs, it means making yourself more valuable. If you add to your skillset, you move yourself to a new market, essentially the Skill +1 market. That's smaller than the Skill 0 market. Do it again, moving to Skill +2, and there are even fewer people against whom you'll need to compete. As you do so, you make yourself more valuable; you're worth more, and you'll get paid more. Just don't sit and whine because you're not living in a permanent "feast" time, and able to pull down the same salary you were five years ago because the supply was tight relative to demand.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatever... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Survival of the weakest (Score:2, Insightful)
I could also take your argument and say that employees try to get money for free. They try to make as much as they can, job hopping, all the while trying to weasel their way out of work as much as possible.
That's how business works. Both sides have demands, and they meet in the middle.
Geeks can't form a union (Score:1, Insightful)
Remember what happened during the Reagan years when the air traffic controllers went on strike?
Well, it's even worse in IT. For many years, the suits have hoodwinked/bribed the US Congress into believe that there was a shortage of skilled American IT workers. In truth, there *was* a shortage... of easily-hireable, easily-fireable foreigners who were willing to work for pennies. Thus, the rise of the H1-B and offshoring initiatives.
Management might not have gotten away with this had there already been a geek union. But it's too late; the firewall is irretrievably open. If geeks were to form a union *today* and then stop work *today* (okay, tomorrow because today is Sunday) management would just accept a week-long halt in productivity while they find H1-B contractors to fill in. And then forget about coming back to work.
The sad truth is, that by the time that we dumb shmucks realized that we needed a union, management had already preempted the power that a union would bring.
Whining about business (Score:3, Insightful)
First: "It's not fair that the boss makes more money than I do. I work all day long, and he sits around and gets a ferrari."
The boss does not sit around and do nothing and get a free ferrari. 99% of small businesses fail within 8 years; this implies that the successful small businessman is providing a service that 99% of people who tried were incapable of providing. If running a company were so easy, and a ferrari were guaranteed, then everyone would do it.
The fact is, small business owners subsidize both employees and consumers. This is a well-known economic fact. They do not intend to do this; they wrongly think that running a business is easier than it is, and they end up bankrupting themselves while paying employees and consumers. It is simply not true that the small business owner is "exploiting" you.
Another point I should take issue with: "It's not fair that I'm only paid $80k per year. My company is exploiting me and driving down the price of my labor, so that my bosses can greedily increase their profit margins."
Fact: the average profit margin in large U.S. businesses is 4%. That profit margin is not blown on ferraris; it goes to expanding the business. In short, there is no extra money. Your livelihood is not being stolen and sucked up in greedy profits. In order to increase your salaries, business would have to raise prices, which would make everyone else in this economy poorer. And don't say: "we can just take money away from executives!" Executives do something that you could not do. If being an executive were so easy, companies would fire them and replace them with someone less expensive. Comapnies don't want to blow money on execs any more than on anything else; the only reason execs are paid alot is because they render a service that few others can provide.
And a final point: "Look at the fruits of evil capitalism. I am only paid $80k per year, and I am forced to work, and my job leads to loneliness, etc. Capitalism has done this!"
A typical salary before capitalism was ~$800/year. That is what the salary still is in communist China. You are paid 100 times that amount. Capitalism has led to a phenomenal increase in the standard of living; NOTHING ELSE could have done this.
All of this demonstrates a few basic points:
1. Slashdotters, and people in general, are radically ignorant of both business and economics.
2. Their suggested "improvements" would wreck the phenomenal machinery that provides them with a fantastic living. The masses go in search of more food, and the methods they employ are generally to wreck the bakeries.
I want to bitch and moan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dont like it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you trolling? Some small businesses can exist with just a boss, but once a boss doesn't want to work 120 hour weeks, it needs an employee.
Take your local comic book store. It's small, but it still needs employees. And I'd like to see Micro$soft run by just Bill Gates.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sociology? At your expense? WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
But get this: we did the SAME THING to our employers not two years ago.
That was, in fact happening a few years ago. However, the average techies were working 60-80 hour weeks. I also notice that H1-B was more than doubled to increase the supply of captive tech workers.
I further note that when the dot-coms crashed, nobody did anything to reduce the supply of tech workers to match.
I do agree that tech work sucks a whole lot less than factory work. I've done that and never will again.
Other professions have their own brand of problems. In sales, you don't know how big your check will be from week to week, clerical work is generally boring, lawyers have to be workaholics and have a lot of stress related disease. Entrepaneurs suffer from long hours and financial uncertainty (often going from minor disaster to minor disaster).
Perhaps the real problem is that our economic system is fundamentally incapable of meeting our goals (most people want security and work that doesn't suck).
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:1, Insightful)
The offshore/H1B issue is a symptom of a larger problem -- the perceived commoditization of IT skills. I say "perceived" because to the IT-illiterate senior manager, this new source of cheap labor means quick savings in the short term, and leverage against domestic IT workers in the intermediate term. The quality may not be what it could be, but the real decision makers are seldom in a position to see the difference. If you're blind, all TVs work about the same.
Modern software tools contribute to the problem. In ancient times, you really needed to know something to design a database. The software alone as a huge commitment, and the design and implementation process was way too complicated for a newbie. Today, any moron can use a $99 tool to build a database. Not a well-designed database, but enough to fool the average manager. Every once in a while, the "junkware" performs a useful task, which perpetuates the myth that "anyone who can type can do this stuff." It is increasingly difficult to convince employers to pay a premium for people who can deliver well-integrated solutions, when these employers don't even know what a well-integrated solution is or why they might want one. If you have never tasted real coffee, the instant stuff tastes just fine.
I find it absolutely amazing that employers are willing to "bet the company" with offshore/H1B labor, when nobody would ever think of hiring teachers, auto mechanics, or sales reps this way. In many companies, the senior executives have secretaries that make more than the average programmer. If the CEO's secretary retires, will they find (and pay) an experienced replacement or just roll up to the drive-in window at McDonald's and hand an application form to whoever delivers the french fries? If one of my programmers quits, why is the replacement process any different?
I say it is a mistake for anyone to try and compete with cheap labor. If businesses really want to bottom-feed in India, China, or wherever, nobody is going to stop them. Instead, let's concentrate on the weaknesses of the offshore/H1B competition. For starters, we have the language issue and the 48-hour turnaroud time for e-mail that goes to distant time zones. To me, language is a key issue because it limits the ability to work from an incomplete or constantly changing specification.
One option is to let the offshore/H1B fad run itself out. When enough projects fail and people sift through the rubble to figure out what happened, the value of cheap labor may be called into question. The end may very well be in sight: check out monster.com and see how many IT positions say "no sponsorships" or "citizenship required". It will take thousands of man-years to fix up all the damage done by people who barely understood the specifications for the projects they worked on. To me, that looks like an opportunity, although it may take a few more years to ramp up.
It was a free market that allowed the IT industry to grow as it has for the past 4 decades. Unions would offer minimal protection for existing IT workers, at the expense of future growth and opportunity. I think unions are a poor option, especially when you have things like Usenet and the perpetual retention of Google Groups. When people start using their first ammendment rights and "outing" the sub-par employers, much of the problem will be self-correcting.
One question (Score:4, Insightful)
The average worker puts in about 40 hours a week, goes home for the week, and is done with their job. That's fine and good, and we need people like that, but you just can't run a company like that. Most entreprenuers I know work about 80 hours a week under the stricter definitions (e.g., time at the office, on the road, in meeting, etc) and that's not even counting the many hours spent at home, on the phone, etc. Basically the entreprenuer never gets time off, really. Add responsibility/stress to that. If things don't work out, the average worker might be able to say "I put in my 40 hours this week" and wash his hands of the matter, but the entrepreneur still has to answer to the investors, employees, customers, the community, etc at the end of the day, because at the end of the day the responsibility for the entire organization rests squarely on the manager. Oh yeah, and don't forget that the entreprenuer is generally heavily invested in the corporation. Not to mention the fact that the entreprenuer generally needs a certain level of education, i.e., you need to compare their compensation to similarly skilled/motivated people. Are you going to motivate, say, a bright ~9-5 programmer that's earning 70k a year to bust his ass like that for 100k a year? 200k? How about a doctor or a lawyer?...
The world is not fair, but that system of compensation, if you could call it that, is about as right as it can possibly be, considering the world's flaws, on the aggregate.
My "Important Note to Recruiters" (Score:3, Insightful)
-
Important Note to Recruiters and Contract Agencies
[goingware.com]
Headhunters and contract brokers are a large part of the problems we have, expecially with older workers not being valued for their experience - they only want the latest buzzword.I'm a software consultant, I deal exclusively with the end client, because I feel that brokers don't serve my needs, or (in my honest opinion) the needs of my clients.
Headhunters are a pestilence on the face of high-tech. Join me in boycotting them.
What can you do if you're looking for a perm job? Apply directly to the company. Most open positions are never advertised. Just send your cover letter and resume to companies you think you might want to work for, regardless of whether a position is advertised.
This page [goingware.com] has some tips on job hunting, it's most useful to people from Santa Cruz but the methods are helpful to anyone.
The "dot.com downturn" has been challenging for me as well as everyone else - but I have continued to work and be able to support myself and my wife throughout it. An I have done so without the help of headhunters.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Insightful)
A one person operation is not a business. It's a guy scraping a living. Yes some people (very few) make a living working for and by themsleves but most of them are artists or street musicians. Eventually somebody get hired to answer the phone or keep the books though.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
How About Respect & Appreciation? (Score:4, Insightful)
What I want to know is - how old are those posting the anti-union, pro-intelligentsia drivel that is in this thread?
So many here are missing one basic issue that the BBC article alludes to: IT work itself is ABSOLUTELY NOT RESPECTED by most companies nor managements, and neither are the practitioners. I think that is the underlying problem that is reflected in poorly designed, one dimensional, excessively macho work culture in this field.
To reflect this assertion, the proportion of top executives in most large companies whose background is engineering or applied sciences is truly insignificant, and the career track in IT and engineering is absolutely non-existent and must be manufactured ad hoc by the individual. This is as truly a young person's game as major league "anything".
My post is not about wanting anyone to guarantee me a job, nor a plea for anyone to kiss my ass in gratitude for knowing how to code a constructor or a GUI. I simply would like to see some genuine appreciation from the people whose businesses I help. Alas, I find that I am expected to: shut up; code my nuts off; not express any opinion; and conveniently disappear when my piece is done.
You may feel that you're doing great at 25 or 30. I challenge those beating their chests in shared exultation at the primacy of the uber-geek to say the same things at 40 or 50! At some point real soon now, unless you enter into some sweetheart partnership or start your own company, you're going to see your options shrivel unless you *aggressively* re-make yourself. In my area, I simply see almost nobody over 45 in high tech.
My background and perspective: I am a self employed IT contractor and have done this for 9+ years. Prior to that I was employed in several jobs for a total of 20+ years of experience in mixed HW and SW applications. I have mainly developed shrink wrap resalable applications for my clients and I have represented myself, so I have not had to contend with any static from a body shop agency.
My experience, overall, has been that I have pretty much been treated more as a temp or grunt worker along the lines outlined above. Here are some of the wonderful roses and tokens of appreciation thrown to my feet for developing mission critical applications for my client base.
- Threatened with death/disappearance/lawsuit/other by a startup's paranoid CEO if I were to quit a 1099 contract or reduce my work hours.
- Bullied continually by another company when working on a fixed cost contract, and treated like I was their janitor and their property - it was a conversion of their flagship vertical product to Windows. I pulled it off in a reasonable time and cost and I was told later that they felt I was 'sleaze'.
- The president of a long term client took something like four months and much wheedling and begging from me to write a simple stinking letter of reference. This from a guy that claims that he was grossly underpaid and abused when
he was "just" a programmer... IE: my brother, a corporate controller, says that he dashes off letters like this on demand within 2-3 business days so that he doesn't forget.... and feels that it's his duty when someone does their job well.
- Another client's owner insists on using me pretty much like a robotic pair of coding arms, reserving all design decisions for himself and treating all developers in his company like code technicians. "Here, put this 'Begin' starting at column 4, and space down two lines, and put a 'writeln()'.." etc.
- Got shingles (at age 37!) working in a boiler room office coding VB apps while the office's tech writer is constantly over my desk grunting inane questions at the other developer in the office.
Mostly, I find that flagrant hypocrisy, psychological abuse, ingratitude, and snotty holier-than-thou "I was a coder once but now I'm not a loser like that" attitudes are bestowed on software and engineering types by business owners and managers.
So why am I still doing this crap, you may ask? The major reason is degree of investment in the industry - at some point, age, cunning and (my) nastiness
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unions might create the following problems
Corporations Exist to Make Money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm reminded of something my Anthropology teacher told me. If you extrapolate the actual time that hunter-gatherer societes spent "working" to sustain themselves it comes to about 15-20 hours a week. Of course, those were simpler times when the mantra of consumerism didn't dictate that a person becomes happy when they own 3 cars and a 5,000 square foot house.
As our production methods get more efficient, we can make our choice between greater production and more hours off.
The US culture will always choose more production because for some reason it is bad do the same thing two years running. Zero percent growth would panick the US market, but in some circles that is seen as sustainable living.
But indeed, one day we will have robots to do most of our labor for us, and we'll have genetic engineering, clean energy, and all the biotech advances we could ever want, and then I'll be ready to start making the trade for fewer hours. Because at that point our production will have become extremely efficient, and we'll have attained the things I want to see society achieve.
Don't count on it. Consider a simple example: If I use a machine (computer, for example) that lets me produce n number of widgets in an 8 hour day, and then for a modest sum I get a computer twice as fast, shouldn't I only work 4 hours (after paying for the upgrade)? Again, don't count on it. As long as the competitor plans to run the 8+ hour day you will see no difference. Progress doesn't do anything signficant for the employee unless it improves safety and comfort.
Re:Unions == Socialism (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of the people taking part in this discussion are skilled workers. Frankly, the discussion of whether unions work for unskilled workers (as your anecdote argues) is irrelevant to the discussion of whether they work for skilled workers.
And there's another side to this debate altogether - whether or not unions are good for society.
My 2 cents - unions are great for unskilled, unambitious workers, especially those who are chummy with union higher-ups. They're bad for everyone else - society - which has to pay the inflated wages, hard working people who want to rise on the basis of their merits, skilled workers, etc.
Re:Boss == Customer (Score:2, Insightful)
The concept that employees should be eternally grateful to the boss should have disappeared with the dodo. Both the boss and employee have responsibilities and rights that reach far beyond the client/customer relationship.
I don't know some days its like the union movement didn't happen.
Parting Shots (Score:2, Insightful)
Having worked as a Development Engineer for most of career, I can definitely say that the BBC article is right on the mark. Sad, but true, technology jobs have become the white-collar equivalent of 19th century factory work: job insecurity, no retirement, terribly long hours, job isolation, meaningfully upgrading skills almost impossible.
Regardless if you're a PHd Research Engineer or a techie wanna-be armed with a freshly-minted MCSE: you are a work-place commodity. Most often, you are viewed by your employer as high-priced overhead that's to be worked like a pack animal and terminated as soon as the project is near completion - and if you can be replaced by an indentured servant in the form of an H1B, then that's even better.
If disrespect from employers wasn't bad enough, what is transpiring at the technical level is even worse: complete delusion. There's a macho belief amongst lots of "techies" that their skills and personal entrepreneurship make them somehow "special" and not merely commodities. Their constant chest thumping would be amusing if they weren't typically chronically underemployed and, as a result, almost complete strangers to the benefits of health insurance, retirement accounts, and the like: all provided by that old-fashioned concept known as "stable employment".
Worst of all, when techies reach 40 years-of-age, or so, a magic/tragic thing happens: they become almost unemployable. The Chest Thumper (you remember them - the chronically underemployed) will tell you that older techies who are unemployable did it to themselves. According to them, the older techies have "lost their skills", "lost their drive/innovation", "lost their ability to learn new things", "won't work 80-100 hour weeks", and other such nonsense. But, the cold, hard fact is this: most employers don't like the older guys because they feel they must pay them more, and they've become a little too smart. The mentality of most body shops is that an ignorant 25 year-old chest thumper making 40K is much easier to manipulate than an experienced 40 year-old making 70K: regardless of how much more productive the older guy may be. Sad but true, there's a trend in the tech industry where 3 inexperienced guys making 40K are more highly sought than a single experienced guy making 70K - even though productivity/man-hour is sacrificed. That's because techies really are commodities.
Of course, many on these boards will say, "You've got a loser attitude...I'll never be a throw-away commodity because I work and study so hard!". Yeah, right. You just keep believing that, and in the meantime, keep grinding out those 80-hour weeks coupled with the relentless self-initiated technical study necessary to keep up with the latest technical-fad Du Jour. Then when the day comes when you have had enough, you'll be so smart and wise that you'll be able to magically start your own little entrepreneurship and make jillions of bucks and be free of anyone's control. Yeah, right...that's how it works.
For me, I've had enough. I guess all those inspired 80-100 hour weeks and years of self-study just don't cut it for guys like me - ya' know, "old" guys with "loser attitudes". So I'm gone - I'm leaving tech work. Meanwhile, I'm entering a career where I'll earn only half of what I did as an engineer and, for the first time, get to enjoy a few things I've never experienced before as an engineer: going to sleep knowing I'll probably be employed the next day; real vacations - ya' know, the kind that last for two weeks; most weekends off; the assurance that my health benefits will be around tomorrow; ability to live in a single location for more than two years; the assurance that my successful completion of a project won't result in my being terminated because I'm now considered "expensive overhead".
Will I miss the money? Probably not for I never really got the time to enjoy it while I worked as an engineer. Ain't that a bitch - all that money and no time to enjoy it? Anyways, I can be damn happy making 40-45K.
In summary, my parting shot is this: save your damn money while you can for it will save you in the future. It has been said that "Time is Money", but this is wrong. Actually, "Money is Time": time to find a new job you like and/or time to change careers. When you are 40 years or so, make damn sure you've got money - otherwise you'll have run out of time - time to change - time to be something other than someone else's throw-away commodity.