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Forbes' Five Worst Tech Jobs
santan writes: "We've all read countless stories describing the revolutionary and high tech jobs available at Internet startups nowadays but here's an article at Forbes listing the worst tech jobs out there. Some of them include packing dog excrements, chatroom monitoring and searching for the most disturbing porn on the net. So go to work next week with a smile."
-- Igor Pavlov
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Since Microsoft Exchange Server.
Because by the time they call you (1) they already tried to self diagnose and fix some problem and ended up screwing it up more, (2) are by now totally frantic, (3) don't have time to explain the problem to you, and (4) want it fixed now. On Sunday at 22:30, Christmas Sunday, while you're naked in bed with your SO. and (5) customers with direct programmer access will ask "when will you fix it?" I dunno. That's an issue for management to sort out. I'm working on other stuff and the customer suddenly thinks he's my Boss and can immediately reassign my duties? Fuck that.
IMO, customers should never have direct access to the programmers. A buffer layer is needed. Programmers make for poor customer service reps, anyway. We know the software sucks, due to insane and lame requirements from the PHB, and aren't afraid to reveal truths that the sales guys would never dare reveal.
They said cell phone support by the programmers would be temporary until another tech is hired. It's been 3 years now and no tech. I hate my job.
When you've roofed houses in Houston, Texas for fourteen hours a day in August (105 in the shade and 99% humidity) to make $2.00 an hour, ANY job with a ceiling sounds pretty damn appealing, much less a job with air conditioning or one that allows you to sit down.
Nonperiodic Central Trajectory
Browsing through (albeit possibly 'disturbing') porn a tech job? The only skill there is doing it with one hand.
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"Almost isn't good enough - but it's almost good enough."
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"Almost isn't good enough - but it's almost good enough."
-Me
I was in the security department of a certain company which runs free porn newsletters. We had a sponsorship program and my job was to browse the sponsor sites to ensure that they met our terms and conditions. This meant that I saw some pretty disturbing stuff... rape, incest, child porn, scat, etc. I saw things that could truly give someone nightmares. It was up to me to terminate the offensive accounts and catch them if they tried to sign up again. I liked my job. Saw some disturbing stuff, but also knew I was doing a service to others by catching it. A lot of it was sites outside the US because they don't have the same laws regarding it like we do.
The popup windows were a pain as well. I got very good at hitting Alt+F4 really quick.
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Shadowcat
ealasaid@cybergoddess.net
kageneko@kageneko.net
"I can roleplay. I can frag. I can PK while you lag."
They closed down this past October, even before this Forbes article which was dated November 27, 2000.
I guess this is another example of how good the Internet research is at Forbes.
"searching for the most disturbing porn on the net"
Wouldn't that be the job of a Slashdot troll?
This is a job? At my last job, the guys did this every day. The challenge: find the most disturbing video clip of the day / week / fortnight / whatever. It was a hobby for them. So, every so often, you'd hear laughter or groans from the back room, venture in, and find a bunch of people crowded around a screen watching someone doing unnatural things to a horse... or a chicken.
And just think... this could have been their actual job...
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
In my short 7 year work life, I've worked at McDonald's, and I've worked two different tech support jobs -- one at a rural ISP, another at a premium software company (among other factory/programming jobs), so I think I'm in a position to testify on the subject.
Tech support jobs were the only jobs I was ever AFRAID to go to. To this day, I can't answer MY OWN PHONE half the time, because I'm sitting there wondering who is at the other end of the line, what they want, and how I'm going to fix it. If you have a lot of nontechnical friends, you know what I'm talking about.
In front line tech support, most people learn out or burn out. The people who leave usually aren't cut out for it mentally, the rest of them turn into emotional wrecks like myself. Take a guess why there are so many damn stupid MCSE's?
"Watch these suckers jump when I get root." - l33t j03
There was a drain which ran from the part of the building where animals were killed through under the yard and out to the sewer. This drain was known as 'the blood drain' because what it carried was mostly blood... and anonymous bits of animal which got cut out immediately in the killing room because they might taint the carcase. One very hot day in July, the blood drain blocked up... and in the end I had to clear it by lying on my stomach in the yard, reaching up the drain at full length of my arm, to pull nameless bits of semi-putrescent substance out of the pipe with my hand.
Nothing you ever do at a desk will be remotely as bad as that.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
no offense, but if the shit hits the fan on this economy, the average person will jump at the chance to hold an open zip loc below some pooches ass for $14 an hour.
didnja ever read the grapes of wrath?
since most readers are american, and living in the "american century", you really have no idea what it's like to watch people you love get turned into REAL WHORES or watch members of your family starve, die of diseases or get shot and robbed for what little they have.
don't get me wrong, i certainly don't hope these things come to pass (again), but historically it's a fairly strong possibility.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
No, previously the degree of voluntarily has always been such that is a choice between degradation and starvation or violence. He should save his shock and pity for the child who made his sneakers, not the voluntary whores of capitalism.
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Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
Wow, what an ass. I know at least in BC, Canada, requiring people to work 11 hours a day with only a half-hour lunch break would violate the law, regardless if those people are salaried or not.
Better take a second look at those laws. There's a special bit of legislation dealing with "high-technology professionals", that exempts them from many of the provisions of the Employment Standards Act. Take a look here for the details.
I'm not sure if this particular example would be legal or not, but just about all of the other "overtime"-type regulations don't apply to "high-tech" workers. The idea is that your stock options are supposed to make up for all the unpaid overtime you put in, while your semi-literate CEO pulls in 6 figures for sitting behind a nice desk and watching his screensaver (and/or browsing porn) all day.
You *have* to wonder what sort of resume you need to present in order to get a job as a porn scanner...
"Have personally sampled over 10,000 porn websites in my 'research'"
"I can instantly tell by a domain name if it will have porn on it or not."
"I don't puke when I see that goatse.cx link that keeps turning up on Slashdot..."
Even more interesting is this version in the Seattle Times. It looks like someone decided to change "5:45" to "6:45" and "6pm" to "7pm". Given that change, it makes me wonder how much else of the letter was changed (as Barnicle claims).
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Quote:
Until further notice, all employees are required to be at their desk from 8am until 7pm, with 30 minutes for lunch. There are no exceptions.
Hands in my pocket
Interviewer: "What's it like searching for porn?"
Worker: "It's hard."
Interviewer: "Your job is hard?"
Worker: "No"
Interviewer: "What's hard then? Oh...never mind."
zx75
This is not a sig.
Note that this article is from November 2000. Since that time, of the two big dotcoms mentioned in the article, MyLackey has gone (as the Register so nicely puts it) "titsup.com," while Kozmo has pulled out of some cities and reduced its presence in others.
Now these facts may just indicate poor execution, but perhaps, just perhaps, a company that routinely subjects its employees to the humiliation and lack of respect described in the article will eventually find that its primary asset - its people - have grown to hate and resent it?
ObDogPoop: my parents own a veterinary clinic, so I received a comprehensive education during my childhood summer vacations in the gentle art of retreiving and disposing of canine feces. Yes, it's every bit as bad as the article suggests. It's a shame that I couldn't find a place for that on my CV...
For the second year in a row: crack whore trainee.
Good thing Jon Katz didn't write this article. Otherwise one of the selections would be "High School Student"...
...running a cool technology-focused website with an interactive discussion system that is abused by hundreds of adolescent trolls that insult you, fill up interesting threads with garbage, exploit every possible hole in your system, put your e-mail address on spamlists, make bogus submissions, continually accuse you of conspiring with your employer and lots more?
But seriously, searching for porn is listed as one of the worst. I've been doing it for free for years. I had no idea I could be getting paid for it.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
They forgot the all horrible Slashdot Moderator job ^_^.
Seeing is that when I was a teenager working at the teenage hell boot camp that is McDonalds, and then later doing tech support(in '95 and we DIDN'T have internet access),I'd say a bad tech job PERIOD is better than flipping burgers. Okay, except picking up dog shit. That's just inexcusable, and I'd hardly call that a tech job.
Only in america can we have jobs involving "tech" and still complain about it. Beats working in a sweatshop for Nike, or picking rice somewhere in Vietnam.
... that journalist who has to write cute little Internet stories for online magazines. When interviewing folks from around the web, you can look no further then Joe Queenan, writer for Forbes. In an email interview, he had this to say:
It isn't all that hard. Thank godd above that I can yuse Microsofft Werd to do my spell checkin. Oh, this intervew is for a Pro-Linux website? Well, I meant Star Office, er' KOffice, er, VI. LINUX ROCKS! If anything was difficultt, it was finding the picture of the dog taking the ****."
How about the grueling demand of the all important deadline? When Queenan was asked this, he responded:
What deadlyn? I have hat that stori bruwing for weaks.
So, there you have it, the confessions from someone who works the sixth worst job in the Internet.
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
I did.
*Backs away in shame*
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Porn viewing in and out of itself is a blessing to LOTS of people, and as for gross stuff, cops, doctors and undertakers probably see a LOT worse every day of their lives.
PR flacks existed long before the 'net and probably were universaly hated by any techies.
Chat room monitors is pretty new, but i'm not sure it's much worse than being a councelor in a teenage summer camp. Now, running Slashdot, that is likely a job from hell *snicker*
And lackeys existed long before technology, never mind computers, even in US of A.
Now, if you ask me, the worst possible job is a low level tech support for some financial company. Why? You get all the "benefits" of a tech support position, combined with being the bottom of the food chain for people who posess no technical knowledge (true for all lusers), proud of it (true for all lusers) and can fire you if they don't like the tone of your voice with one phone call (not likely in your average tech support position).
-DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein