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?"
Dont like it? (Score:3, Interesting)
What about academia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mathematics (Score:5, Interesting)
S = Salary/Hourly Wage
B = Benefits
A = Administrative overhead (payroll, etc)
I = Business insurance cost per person
R = Revenue from your work
P = Profit from your work
P = R - (S + B + A + I)
Viewing this model you can draw several quick conclusions. First, if you are doing billable work, then the quickest way to get a pay increase is to increase your billable rate.
Second, no matter how long you work for the company, at any given moment there exists a maximum amount you can be paid before your company loses money.
It is pretty standard to get paid between 25 and 33 percent of your billable rate. Any less than that probably indicates a boss that is ripping you off royally.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally am tired of hearing people complain about this phenomenon and come up with bad answers to a very real problem. Creating a union is one "solution" i've heard. The people who make these claims will read an article like this and feel even more strongly that we need to be unionized. I believe this is the worst thing we could do. It will accelerate the trend to go offshore.
The real answer to the job security problem is to find new ways to add value, above and beyond custom development skills (which in many C level executives eyes has become a commodity). Had the steel, audio/video, and textile industries taken a different tact than hiding behind a union to avoid the "constant upgrading of skills" that the author of the articles derides, perhaps they would still be industries that employ millions of Americans.
Just like when I was in school, the sociology professor offers a very bad answer, one that will compound the problem. It amazes me how little things have changed.
Been There, Done That (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a chance that a "Geek Guild" would be a good thing. If anyone has a chance, this bunch might... However, anyone remember the old FidoNet power struggles?
Anyway, it might be wise to check out the experiences of today's Engineers unions (mostly aerospace as far as I know) as well as study the Guilds of Renasaissance times.
Keep the "Good", avoid the "Bad".
Cheers!
Perhaps time to reconsider definition of work ... (Score:2, Interesting)
LL
Dockworkers Union was right! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that thing that everyone is scared of is a Union coming in and telling them that they're relegated to Jr. SysAdmin while the mainframe guys are trained and promoted. People are afraid that they won't be allowed to rise to the level of their competance as quickly as they saw people do during the boom years.
Ultimately any union that is created for IT will be started by IT workers, remember that. It's not like the UAW is going to come in and force their methods of union dirty tricks on the IT industry. Would any of you have a problem with an IT Union that was built by Sage/USENIX, or a like organization? If there actually were an IT union and it had some clout who do you think could be lobbying in Washington against DMCA and the like?
The problem is we all still have some of that cowboy glint in our eyes. "Yeah I can be a CIO by 30, I know more than the doofus sitting in the executive suite does anyway" Grow up a little bit and see that while not perfect, in the face of a declining IT industry a Union is one thing that can give you some power back, on a large economic sized scale.
Re:Stop whining (Score:5, Interesting)
great words from someone that has ZERO clue.
I did start a business, I did have employees. everything went well until I sold out to another company for a tidy profit. My employees broght home more than I did because I did something silly... I invested back into the business to ensure that it did very well in the face of bad business times. Over 5 years before I was made an offer that I couldn't refuse.
so now I can hear you... "selling out on your employees, you're no better!" Yup.. they each recieved a healthy part of that tidy sum. as a reward and a thank you for doing me a favor oaa those years by working to make my business bigger and stronger.
Any business man that does not recognize that he is nothing without his employees and does not pay them well is a thief, shiester and a crook.. and NEEDS to have a union form in his business.
the problem is that lately the people starting the businesses have ZERO business sense or are not interested in doing anything but a rape-n-pillage run.
Re:What about academia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Increasingly, universities are run as corporations, complete with greed, terrible politics, and lack of interest in their teachers. ASU is a wonderful example of this - there have been articles in the Arizona Republic newspaper about the 'brain drain' hemmoraging from ASU because they just won't pay their teachers even close to what they deserve.
As for any business, you must eventually understand that the future is already written; we are all to be temp workers. I'm not sure how painful this transition will be, but already there are very few bastions of stable, long-term work. Heck, just look at what our president passed (or should I say "snuck" through) on Friday - ability to hire/fire workers, displace federal workers in place of the private sector, etc. etc.
A good friend of mine has tried over and over to get a stable IT job - he's been through it now about ten times in the last year. Each time there was a different excuse, and the last few times they've fired and re-hired the next day for someone who was willing to work cheaper! In his words, "Welcome to Corporate America: do what you can, just don't get caught."
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, in America and all modern productive countries, the masses have given up their freedom to further the goals of the employer. As an employee, I spend most of my life serving my employer. So much of my quality of life is controlled by my employer. (And all full time employees). I think it is reasonable to expect and ask for job security, freedom from wrongful financial persecution (someone firing you 'cause they don't like you), and a reasonably comfortable work environment. After all, I am giving my employer my life. The least I could expect is to be treated fairly.
In conclusion, Unions can be horrible for an industry when they don't consider the business needs of the company. On the other hand, Companies need employees to make money. Employees sacrafice a great deal of control in the employee-employer realtionship. The least a company could do is provide employment fairness and comfort, and restraint on cracking the whip.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:1, Interesting)
by FauxPasIII on Sunday December 01, @11:38AM (#4787737)
(User #75900 Info)
> Go start a business, THEN you can comment on how to do or do not like the salary structure.
So... only the rich mangement class are allowed to even voice an opinion on pay structure and labor issues ?
Yup. That about sums it up. The employee has the option of working or not working there. There's no reason whatsoever for an employee to have a voice when it comes to pay unless A. They're an owner or B. They are negotiating their initial employment contract. Other than that, no, no say whatsoever.
Very interesting point (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems like H1Bs should be aimed at execs, since each visa can save the company more money. Aiming them at engineers is a misuse of company funds.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Interesting)
And as a computer programmer who was very good, I can tell you my project managers, both company and client side, sucked ass, and weren't worth whatever they were being paid. The problem is simple; the people running the businesses are the ones who were most successful at leaching off of other people, consumers and employees alike. THAT, my friend, is the reality of the situation.
And to those who say, well, why not just start a business? Because I want some bloody land, and you can't get a reasonablely-priced mortgage unless you have at least 2 years of records for your business, of which 2 of them have to be years you have shown a profit.
The end result, a person who basically runs his own projects, looking for "security" of a wage-slave job.... Thats the system we live in.
Want out of the "factory"? Become management! (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, do your best to infiltrate the top ranks now. We may hold a lot of resentment towards PHBs, but with a little tact we can defeat the PHBs like the Mandarin Chinese defeated the Mongols - not by force, but by integrating them into our culture.
I leave you with this quote:
"If you hire someone smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are." - R.H. Grant
factories are NOT like tech jobs. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but none of you have a clue what it's like in the real world. fortunately I was one of those that did the grunt work whil I attended college full time. so I got to live the live that I never ever would wish on the worst of my enemies. Yes some places in the tech industry suck, with bosses that are basically robbing everyone blind to keep his ferarri detailed... but... you can always work elsewhere (relocate! what the hell are you still doing in your location? if you wont relocate then you're just throwing excuses... or you really dont want a different job.
There are employers out there that care for the employees and recognize that the employee is what makes his business work and profitable.. anyone that doesn't is of course.... an idiot.
Re:Does this differentiate between R/D and coding? (Score:2, Interesting)
My analysis of the pros and cons (Score:3, Interesting)
I've worked in the whole Bell Labs chain of companies (AT&T, Lucent, AT&T again, Lucent again, Avaya) for 10 years already and as of last August I've been laid off. There are some obvious pros and cons:
Good points:
Bad points:
Let's face it, it's a toss up when you talk about the pros and cons, but ya get a CS/CompEng/IT/IS degree because you're interested in computers, so that really tips the scales. The cons may be significant now, but the fact that I can say the pros and cons balance out even when the economy is so horrible tells us really how good the jobs are when the economy is good.. you can't tell me you had it that bad before the recession, when companies left a dozen job offers on your answering machine every day. I won't believe it. You see blue collar workers working multiple jobs all the time anyway, these days, so while you might say "Money isn't everything," I would disagree when you're talking about the nasty hours.
Re:You wanna start a Union? (Score:3, Interesting)
Union needed for IT workers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course the ugly side of forming a union would be that eventually the standard industry qualification for joining would be "MS Union Certification.NET".
Do we really need a union? How many of our lazy IT buddies are willing to go on strike, and walk a picket line? Is Dilbert really up to "scrub busting"?
Re:Dont like it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless the owner/CEO is paying your salary three months' late, and later every month, because he knows the job situationis tight and you have to take it or nothing.
Happened to me, till I finally found a new job and took the fucker to court. But after a year in spite of blatant law breaking, he only had to pay me the money I was owned, no penalty imposed. If I'd helped myself to his money as he did to mine I'd have been in jail in a minute.
A Little Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Certainly unions became something else after the years of struggle ended. They shifted their concerns. Like any other institution, they evolved, and not necessarily in consistently productive directions. Consequently, we tend to emphasize the negative effects of present-day unionism and forget how it came about. This is a common phenomenon -- another quick example: the FDA, designed to make sure you didn't fall over dead when you ate your hamburger, is now derided for being slow and bureaucratic. So, a basic historical principle: you can't understand a mature institution by looking at it's mature behavior.
That said, let's look at the present discussion.
Unless and until current employment conditions are perceived as inhumane, unjust and evil by a substantial number of employees, employers will basically have carte blanche within those parameters. Unless conditions become (or are perceived to be) so intolerable, there will be no real attempt to find solutions that better those conditions. It is in the interests of employers to better conditions only if it improves productivity.
Besides, the solution to the problems of the capitalist triumph -- anarcho-syndicalism -- has already been found. We simply have to wait until the capitalists, unrestricted by a government they own and laws and law enforcement they control, decide to tighten the reins a little too far. Of course, well-educated employers probably won't regard their employees as mere resources, but continue to regard their employees as people.
Damn. No grounds for revolution.
Trained as an historian, living as a coder.
Big Business (Score:2, Interesting)
"Start your own company if you don't like it..." is nonsense, that's exactly what happened in the
Quite honestly I believe the comparison to factories of old are a good one. Until labor unions formed, people worked 60+ hour work weeks, barely made enough money to put food on the table. There are many differences, but the like areas are the POINT. The point is the discrepency between what corprate big-wigs see as a return. I make $XX dollars and hour, yet my company bills my time at $XXX dollars an hour. Sure my boss had the "gonads" to start his own business, but his buisiness will fail without us, shouldn't there be a stronger relationship between us? I work 60+ work weeks with no bonus often, other than the ability to keep my job.
Sure there are great companies out there, but there are more Dale Carnegie's in this world, than there are Jean Valjean's.
Steaming Pile (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted there's no one locally that I can talk to about my code, share my experiences etc. but at least I'm getting paid for it and there are about a billion forums on the web for me to discuss my coding probs.
I suppose if I had to work in the factories I could talk to my co-workers about that damn machine acting up or that idiot boss assigning all the good jobs to his/her favorite people while getting stuck with a shit job. Yeah maybe I should give up this lonely ol life and go back to that wonderful fulfilling life in the factories. Think of the wonderful conversations I could have with my co-workers about last night's episode of Survivor or of any of the various sitcoms featuring a balding fat guy with young cute wife
As far as the boss making more? If they have the ability to market my skills and make buttloads of money then good for them... I don't have the ability to market my skills effectively and really don't want to learn how... I do what I do, I do it well and if someone can keep food on my table while "exploiting" me then more power to them.
I am a commodity to be bought and sold, as are all employees and employers. When things get to far out of whack and I feel I'm being taken advantage of then I'll re-negotiate or I'll trade my employer in for a new one, that's how the world works. When the boss feels like I'm not making him enough, he'll trade me in on a younger fast model. It's cold and hard but its just good business. If I find that I can't make enough writing code then I'll have to do something else but for now I'm pretty content working long hours and being lonely and I don't need some jackass professor telling me any different. I don't seem to have as many problems dealing with management as many of the posters here maybe it's because I'm old than most coders or maybe it's because I'm an asshole (I've been told that on more than one occasion:)
Fifteen Years in a Union. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
As a union member these past fifteen years (two different unions at two different workplaces), I have to ask: How many of you have even belonged to a union? How many of you have firsthand experience being on a union negotiating committee, walked a picket line or have seen a horrible injustice averted by a grievance? I have, and that has helped me see how I get value from my union. (And, no, I don't hate my employers or have a bad relationship with them -- we're all professionals.)
Yes, unions can have their bad sides, but so do some employers who take advantage of employees unwilling to rock the boat when their employment rights [dole.gov.ph] are violated.
So don't dismiss unions out of hand. At least learn a bit more about them [afl-cio.org] first.
Manual vs. desk labor (Score:2, Interesting)
He buys his own tools (although his boss will pay for reasonable maintenance). He has to be at work at 7 on a construction site. Weather doesn't stop the work. Maybe the clowns in road crews don't do any work, but I know my friend does. He makes, at most, about 1/2 of what I do.
I, on the other hand, sit in my office all day. I go for a run at lunch time to keep the blood flowing in my body. I have full medical coverage. I work in a safe part of town. I drive a nice car and live in a nice house. How exactly am I being exploited? Sure, my boss makes more than me, but he built the damned company after all.
Some of the entitlement mentality I'm seeing on this board makes me fear for the future of society. You wankers are gonna get a real hard dose of reality one day.
Re:I'll never work for someone else again (Score:2, Interesting)
Obviously you know nothing about Japan. Believe me, I'd prefer to be a factory worker in USA than an IT worker in Japan.
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.
Err, why would I fucking care for the "dynamic" economy, whet I get ZERO benefits from it ?
Do you know that in Europe people generally get 4-6 weeks of paid vacation compared to the pathetic 2 weeks in the USA ?
Hell, even in
~velco
Why the high-tech business model is dysfunctional (Score:2, Interesting)
Most programmers think of themselves more as artists than engineers. Most of the management models and software development models kicked around misunderstand this. Even more confusing, many people writing code aren't motivated by money -- and the fact that more people say that than actually beleive it makes it even more twisted.
Since it is hard to measure output, especially on software that isn't done, we usually just measure input. This is profoundly bogus, life isn't graded on effort. How many times have you heard someone brag, "we have four hundred engineers working on that problem!"?
That is like deciding a movie is better because of the cast is very large, or that a rock band is better because they have four hundred drummers.
Writing software is a pretty interesting activity. One of the rather wild things about it is that individual productivity varies by huge factors, probably as much as four orders of magnitude. My own experience (and I doubt many people have seen very few exceptions) is that on any given software project, a tiny minority, usually no more than four or five people, do nearly all of the work. Generally there is pretty strong agreement on who those four or five people are. The rest of the people either make minor contributions or make problems that the people actually doing the work have to clean up.
I've never worked at an organization that didn't emphasize that they hire, "only really good people." The question comes up, where do the 50% of people who are honestly below average end up working? I've never found this place.
For various reasons, size of a software development organization does matter. None of those reasons have anything to do with productivity or the quality of the end product (an important exception is how good Open Source projects parallelize debugging and testing). In a big company, a bigger development organization affords its managers nicer chairs and offices. In a start-up company, a bigger development organization impresses naive investors. In neither of these cases does a bigger development organization produce better software more quickly.
This is analogous to creative businesses like making movies, music, or writing books. I suspect in the end that salary distributions will be very similar -- a few people will make big bucks and have quite a bit of visibility, the vast majority will make pretty poor wages, and there will be a whole lot of wannabees waiting tables hoping for their big break. Companies will pitch having a few star programmers on their team to help lure more investment and interest in the product (think about how Julia Roberts or Nicholas Cage generate buzz for a movie just by being on the cast).
The current model for employing coders is a lot like the old "studio system" that Hollywood had before WWII. The current economic mess might be a force that will move the industry closer to the "star" system that Hollywood has today.
Some might argue that companies have a huge stake in controlling their programmers, since they are the only people who have the expertise to improve the products they have developed. But nobody would take a Terminator sequence seriously without Arnold, and Nirvana without Kurt Cobain is similarly unimaginable.
This might seem grossly unfair to the vast majority of programmers. It is. But there are people running loose portraying themselves as programmers who have:
- Edited CVS repositories directly to "save time"
- Deleted comments from source files to make the files compile more quickly
- Bulk-converted all project source files to uppercase so they were easier to read
I haven't made any of these things up. One of the few benefits of a newer system is that people who do stuff like that would be sleeping on grates.The author has never been in a factory (Score:4, Interesting)
Look, I'm an industrial engineer who specialized in manufacturing systems. I've worked in factories and I spent the last few years doing computer simulations of factories. This meant I have spent a LOT of time in factories as well as a lot of time as a high tech worker doing programming. I have lived in both worlds and let me clue you, high tech jobs are cushy by comparison.
Yes high tech workers have their problems. Project managment tends to be poor, hours are long, bosses can be clueless. Lots of folks here on slashdot are well aware of the problems and I don't mean to trivialize them. But I do mean to give a dose of reality.
Working in a factory is in many ways harder. You are on your feet all day, every day, often 6-7 days a week. The work is usually physically tiring, repetitive, and mind numbing not to mention dangerous. (sorry carpal tunnel just doesn't compare to getting run over by a forklift) If someone doesn't show up one day you get to cover for them which means your day just got significantly longer and harder. Even the best plants are not exactly comfortable to be in and are loud, smelly and often dirty. You'll be wearing ear plugs and safety glasses all day long. Any office is plush by comparison.
If you are skilled labor you might pull down a decent wage, though you will never be rich. If you are unskilled labor, you will make minimum wage or close to it, and you will be stuck with the crappiest, most mind numbing jobs you can imagine. And you can be replaced in a heartbeat with pretty much any monkey off the street unless union rules prevent it.
Your co-workers will be a mixed bag of intelligence, but generally uneducated past high school. We're talking the same crowds you find at your typical NASCAR or WWF event. Piss someone off at work and you might find your tires slashed. (especially if your are a manager) Never drive a nice car to work if you work in a factory.
Want to join a union? Let me clue you in about unions. (I'm speaking in generalities here, there are exceptions to everything I'm about to say) They *can* serve a useful purpose but you don't really want to be in one if you can avoid it. Unions are all about rules and they will define job descriptions to the Nth degree. Only certain people are allowed to do certain jobs. Unions will remove much of the flexibility from your job. Want merit based pay increases? Dream on. Unions are about preserving jobs with a relatively high average pay, not promoting individual achievement. You'll get the same pay increase as everyone else no matter how hard you work. And since people know this, they tend to not work very hard. Want a close relationship with managment? Not very likely with a union. You'll often have a shop steward present for every conversation you have with management.
Anyway, the point is that unions are sometimes necessary to avoid a truly abusive work environment, but frankly very few white collar jobs even come close. If you are a skilled worker with talents that are in demand, I cannot see any logical reason you would want to join a union. It would only hurt you in the long run.
To get back to my original point, factory jobs and hi-tech jobs just aren't the same. Sure any job can be hard and you can get a pointy-haired boss who will make your life miserable. But I don't think anyone who has actually spent time in a factory could agree with this author.
Re:Dont like it? (Score:4, Interesting)
ER
Re:Dont like it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know any successful entreprenuer and, believe me, I know a lot, that believes that their employees are unimportant. Quite to the contrary, most successful entreprenuers have a great deal of respect for their employees and they fully realize just how important they are. Nonetheless, it is often the entreprenuer that is the glue the keeps the entire ship together (not to mention keeping it pointed in the right direction). Talented teams don't just assemble by themselves; they are often brought into and held in place by the entreprenuer. What's more, it is often the entreprenuer that keeps the teams energy focuses on the task at hand, to deliver a product or a service that is of real marketable value. That is to say that the entreprenuer is both the catalyst and the sustaining additive, if you will, without which the company would quick fall apart. While the employees are very essential, they tend to be a lot more interchangable and a lot less critical to the organization as individuals. (Note: this is not to say that there are not exceptions, but that those that view their jobs through such a limited scope are rarely ever that uniquely valuable) That is to say that while entreprenuers tend to share a lot of things in common they are often not interchangable as different industries demand different skill sets and the number of qualified entrenprenuer (or like managers) are in short supply. If starting up a business were easy, or if it were a license to print money, as so many kids on slashdot suggest, then a lot more people would be doing it and the profits that any entreprenuer could make would fall sharply.
You try working for 8% of the piece of the pie (Score:3, Interesting)
Bitchers and whiners (Score:2, Interesting)
To get to the meat of my point: those who bitch about their grunt factory jobs are whiners and wimps.
They don't care about you.... (Score:1, Interesting)
OK, I will bite (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm really intrigued. WTF did this come from? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it was in the episode "There's Something About Paulie" but I could be wrong.
Unions kill everything they touch (Score:2, Interesting)
Auto workers
This is why we drive Japanese cars and not American.
Communication workers (CWA) - This is why our phone systems are still rooted in 1940's technology and is still the biggiest expense for any real business.
Airlines (pilots, mechanics, and stewardices) - This is why United is about to go belly up.
Textiles
This is why all of our clothes say "Made in China" or "Made in Taiwan"
Teachers - This is a big reason of why Johnny can't read
Construction industry - This is why it costs 10 times more to build in the US than it does overseas.
Teamsters - enough said
Shall I go on. Unions are a big scam. They don't stand for making the employee a better employee. They stand for putting up as many roadblocks as possible to prevent improvements that would cause their members to lose their jobs. In the painting industry, members are not allowed to paint a wall using sprayers because they would finish the job in 1/10th of the time it would take to do it by using a roller. In the teachers union, it takes 5 years to fire a teacher who has been found sexually abusing children. This is what unions give us.
Ask yourself, would you trust your future to such an organization? Sorry, but I'll take my chances. I can improve myself and if I don't like the work environment, I can leave. My opportunities are much better than being part of a unionized (communist) group.
Re:Unions == Socialism (Score:3, Interesting)
My father was a teamster from when he was 16 until four years ago. The whole time he was making more than twice what the other truckers were making, with better work conditions. Now he is retired, living of his nice pension, while his new wife is getting worried about her 401k dying dramatically.
One of my close freinds just started to work as a truckdriver, but is he massivly anti-union, pro-capitolism. He now took a job with Swift paying a QUARTER of what my father last made, doing even more work (cross-country v. interstate). His job takes him away from his new family for weeks at a time, and he isn't allowed break (tag-team driving). All for a quarter of the pay.
I see nothing wrong with unions supporting only those who pay their due. Those who are willing to support the general cause deserve support, those who insult their own class (working) until they need representation deserve nothing.
Yes, unions are socialist, as is universal health-care, social security, and other things that are generally considered good. Not all things socialist are bad, most is better than the US's social-darwinism policy.
If you want to protect your rights, join others like you. Thats how our country was founded.
Also, yes I'm rambleing, unions are more DEMOCRATIC than what you want. Teamsters VOTE for their president, and vote on other things. Teamsters also can ignore strike lines if they really want to.
on comparing to factories and on underskilled IT (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't it interesting that some execs make hundreds or more times their workers? If pay were equal, that'd be (by my envelope) about 10% fewer layoffs. So-called "deadwood" is an asset: pay them to take classes and run drills -- preparedness is value. Pay them to hang around with light hours and make the office more comfortable while they attend to a life outside the office -- aren't these things implied by "conservative values"?
The party line among execs is that their pay is justified by a "global competitive market" for their skills -- but really, how many of these folks are being actively recruited in any serious way? No -- they are an old boys club. Obscene stock grants and bonuses don't "align their motivations" -- they "isolate them from the rest of us".
All that said, one of the bigger problems in IT is the substitution of bodies for brains. Too many IT workers don't really know what they're doing -- but have positions of high consequence. I'm not sad to see them go -- I'm sad to see them hired in the first place.
One common pattern I've noticed is eager, young, generally nice-folks execs and upper managers who fret primarily about the role of the appropriate use of their "authority" -- and that tends to result in arbitrary and counterproductive exercises thereof. Another pattern is HR execs who write COE's (conditions of employment documents) that fill many pages, the gist of which is "we have arbitrary rights over you, you have no claims against us". In other words, from one way of looking at it, our jobs suck because everyone at every level is paranoid, untrusting, and isolated.
The best high-tech employers I've ever heard of were various coops -- most often, celebrity coops (coops of already famous hackers). We need more of those, and we need efforts to bring everyone up to speed with those, attitude-wise.
The most satisfied class of employees I've ever seen are non-tenure-track university employees, especially the unionized ones. Their pay sucks. They have no end of gripes. But their benefits are generally good, job security good, hours good, job satisfaction often good, work product often good, and they all live in and _help_to_create_ the best urban environments in the nation and drink plenty of good coffee and enjoy good affordable food.
What about the AMA model? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How About Respect & Appreciation? (Score:2, Interesting)
Your points are well taken. Ever hear of the frog in the slowly boiling water? You are right to scrutinize the speaker of a contentious commentary like mine.
On desperation: more to the point, most of these episodes happened when I was somewhat less confident and held "BUSINESS" people in the same lofty regard as their egos demanded. As I have seen such people's bloated self image and arrogance collide with personal and professional disasters instigated mainly by their own ego and hubris, I have realized just how full of s*** the ego of most semi-successful small time entrepreneur's truly is. This realization helps me tolerate the nonsense better than I used to.
Also, I am in Ohio, whose business culture is generally anti-innovation and (in logic notation) "Silicon Vally NOT" or "Silicon Valley - bar". Very thin technology market here that is geek hostile, and as a result I've had to nurse along some slim pickins.
Re: the reference letter, it would be truly interesting to see if the guy that I am writing about blunders in here and recognizes himself. I "tolerated" this one because the alternative was pissing him off by "demanding" mature reciprocal behavior and thus getting no letter.
Lastly, much of the abuse has been simple innuendo, disparaging one-to-one off the cuff comments, etc. which is pretty much beyond the reach of law.
I don't think I am being singled out or am singularly inept in dealing with customers, because, for all the crap I've had to deal with, the FTEs I've known have generally had it much worse. At least I get to set my own hours!
Forget a Union, what we need is a Guild (Score:3, Interesting)
The guild would set various universal guildlines for technical workers and be international, what is believed to be acceptable wage in the US should be the same elsewhere.
The guild would address broad issues, after putting up polls to the membership, move and lobby for certain rights and issues that important to the IT industry. Anything could be proposed, everything from wages to free speech and would be put to polls, if a course of action was decided on then suggestions for how to pursue and polls for that would then be raised. (All this could be done within a matter of a few days).
I'd be happy to do the initial work to get this going, but I can't do it alone. If you'd like to help in some way, have webspace to contribute for a donations, legal assistance, manpower, etc please mail me at wendoy@mcleodusa.net [mailto]
Depending on resources available I'd to see this also be a place for exchange of ideas and information to help people enter the IT industry, or existing professionals to learn. Howto's and tutorials, platform bias is not really what we need here, I'd like to see windows and linux side by side.
the middle class never join unions (Score:1, Interesting)
Newsflash: A Australian recent study revealed that school bullies have much more successful (yes, even the money part) and satisfying lives than their victims. Why, because they know how to fight in the first place.
Geeks though, are brought up to be afraid, meek and quiet. Their parents never want an individual who stands up for themselves. How scared would you be in the face of baton wielding cops amd lawyers yelling threats while you try to defend your wages. You'd run like a baby. The sissy, childish culture of geeks is exactly what makes them so easily exploitable. They believe anything and live on the smell of hoping they, one day, will be as rich as Bill Gates.
The perfect employee.
Read a book for starters (Score:1, Interesting)
The book was published back in 1975 but to my astonishment is incredibly up to date! The book is called "A Seventh Man" by John Berger and Jean Mohr. It tells the story of a migrant worker in Europe and in the process you find out a lot of things. Among them why high-tech work places are not better than "good" old steam driven factories.
"A Seventh Man"
A book of images and words about the experience of Migrant Workers in Europe
by John Berger and Jean Mohr
Penguin Books
Enjoy the photos!
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Re:I'm really intrigued. WTF did this come from? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Geek Union? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Geek Union? (Score:3, Interesting)
Reading is fundamental.Unlike most people in the world, I tend not to use words unless I understand them.Did I say there was?
Reading is fundamental.