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Do You Consider Your Social Life When You Choose A Career?
JordoCrouse writes "There has been an uproar in Salt Lake City, Utah over the comments of the new Iomega CEO, Bruce Albertson. Albertson attacked Utah's very annoying and confusing liquor laws as a reason why Utah has had a serious problem attracting engineers and other technology oriented folk, despite the low cost of living, high quality of firms, and access to excellent education. I didn't grow up here, but I went to college in Salt Lake City, so I was used to the various quirks of the local laws, but I am wondering: Do issues like liquor laws and social life really affect where engineers and programmers want to work? Does Mr. Albertson have a point, or was he just frustrated that he couldn't atract any good prospects?"
Seriously, maybe, just maybe the fact that there are millions of devout cultists (aka Mormons) in this state is the reason that everyone stays the hell away.
Some things they preach:
- The end of the world by fire and mass destruction is coming any day now! Really!
- If you are a righteous Mormon you will become a GOD! With your own worlds and people, and creating billions of spritual children with your many wives in heaven! (yes, they do believe that you can have multiple wives in heaven!)
- Their temples, like the endowment cerimony, are straight from the occult! They used to swear on their LIVES! that they would never tell what happened in their cerimonies lest their tongue be cut out, their guts spilled and so on! Crazy stuff...
and all sorts of other stuff. Having a majority of the population that beleives in things like this would be seriously discomforting to most people.
Not just a matter of your age. Software is a global profession, considering how easily people move across continents. Here's my impression, based on personal experience and what I've heard from others.
* Singapore : clean, excellent standard of living, everything you do is monitored. some people like it, some don't. YMMV. probably good for a short term contract, but I wouldn't live there.
* United States: The motherload. No other country offers so many opportunities or so many jobs. Cons - expect to chop off a solid chunk of your life and sacrifice it to the corporate god. If you're a citizen/resident, expect to get good payback. If you're a foreigner on a visa, possible the worst country to work in, because you don't have any freedom (ironic, considering the ideological brainwashing they subject the young kids to there, land of the free and all that). Permanent residency: 3-7 years. People who leave the US after their visa expires invariably end up wondering why they went there in the first place. Europe and Australia are much better alternatives.
* Australia/NZ : Excellent choice. Very safe, good standard of living, relaxed and friendly people, high shortage of tech. talent. Cons - not many choices. handful of cities to live in. not many companies. high level of govt. regulation, which means lower competition, suckass ISPs. Good beer, though. Easy to get a visa in a day or two. Permanent Residency - 6 months. Great place for families, low crime and no guns.
* Europe: Depends on the country. Lots of variety. Visa rules vary hugely. People working in UK have differing stories - the ones near london like it, the ones in the country towns are bored to death. Cultural, linguistic, and racial factors are a big deal in europe.
* Canada: Friendly, cleaner, nicer version of the US, with better cheese and the metric system. Getting a work visa is easy in terms of paperwork, but you won't find many companies willing to hire you on a work visa. Lots of bureaucracy at the company HR level, though the govt. does things speedily. Escape haven for programmers whose US visa is expiring - get Canadian residency (6 months) and then get a job. Good place to settle down for families.
Is social life a factor? what a DUMB fucking question! Despite the stereotype, the fact is that most engineers really do lead active lives beyond work. Additionally, they're likely to be logical people, who like to live in places that aren't insane.
I think that Utah is truly one of the scariest states in the republic. The line between church and state isn't just fuzzy, it's been erased, and the moronic liquor laws are just one embodiment of that problem.
I can safely say I'd never, ever move to Utah, not even to marry my cousin (which is legal there, when you turn 50).
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
You do, however, have to take a broad definition of the term "social life". For a 22 year old programmer, social life = bars, nightclubs, etc....or it equals hiking, biking and camping availability. For a 35 year old single worker, it probably equals the same thing..but for a married, 35 year old father of two, "social life" is really churches, youth football leagues and PTO meetings.
Whoever you are though, quality of life (which, to a large part, is defined by extra-curricular social interactions) plays a large role in a career selection.
Werd.
I'm certain that LDS folks would not approve of how I live my life, and I'm not confident of their ability to keep their noses out of it.
-=Maggie Leber=-
While I don't have a career (I was fired for sexual harassment 6 months ago and haven't bothered to find another job) and I don't have much of a life, I did spend 18 years in Utah.
I would never go back.
It's not the restrictive liquor laws that are the problem. Hell, if it hadn't been for easy access to liquor I wouldn't have sent the email that got me fired.
The problem is the environment. Utah is ugly as sin. The predominant form of vegitation in the great basin is sagebrush. There are also tall grasses that are green for 2 weeks in the spring and brown the rest of the year. It's ugly.
It's also cold. Bitter cold. The best part is that the Salt Lake valley get's temperature inversions in the winter. This traps a pocket of extremely cold air in the valley. It's actually warmer at the ski resorts then down in the valley. This static cold air quickly turns brown from pollution and the snow gets a dirty crust. It's not pleasant.
In the summer it's worse. The brine shrimp in the Great Salt Lake breed quickly and then die. Then they rot. A breeze will waft this pleasant aroma across the entire valley. I can't describe how bad it smells. If that's not enough, in North Salt Lake, there are sulphur springs. The surrounding area always smells like a fart.
That's why people don't like living in Utah. If you look at popular high tech areas like the Bay Area or the Puget Sound area, they're great places to live. Utah is the armpit of the world.
--Shoeboy
I'm a non-drinker (never even been drunk), and the drinking laws would have nothing to do with me not seeking work in Utah. The overall backward, exclusionary, racist, and conservative attitudes that prevail there, and in southern Idaho, make it impossible for me to consider work there.
An example: my wife (who's not white) and I are travelling through the area (on honeymoon, actually). At restaurants, she's stared at, and there's lots of behind-the-back gossip. When we stayed at a business-class hotel, the hotel came around at 7am, knocking on all the doors, to wake us for service. The front desk folks were positively horrified that we were checking out when we should have been at service (with lots of whispering and finger pointing by the other staff). When I went to fill the tank on our car, the P.A. system at the gas station was playing loud, bad, religious music.
The whole message was, "You're not us, so go away." I'm wondering now how Utah is going to deal with the Olympics when they realize that many of the competitors are [gasp] foreigners and [gasp] not white.
I believe the Constitutional Amendment that repealed Prohibition also explicitly allowed individual states to pass laws restricting or banning the use of liquor. Given that, Utah is within Constitutional bounds to restrict alcohol (as long as they don't violate other parts of the Constitution).
The moral issue is different. Simply because the majority votes for something does not make it right--that's the classic "tyranny of the majority". Imagine 10 men and 1 woman stranded on a desert island. A vote is held, and by an overwhelming 10-to-1 margin, it is decided that the men should be able to freely have sex with the woman. Democratic, but definitely wrong.
Some rights are absolute, and cannot be taken away even by a democracy.
If I, while of sound mind and by my own free will, choose to engage in an activity which is dangerous to myself but not to others, nobody has the right to stop me. If the activity is dangerous to others (i.e., drunk driving), then it's a different matter.
A virgin Mormon porn czar?? [Are they kidding?!]
SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- Utah's new porn czar is an acknowledged virgin who rarely watches R-rated movies and has prosecuted a scant five pornography cases in her 15-year legal career. But Paula Houston asserts she knows smut when she sees it.
Utah - a state that regularly appoints teetotallers to its alcohol-regulatory board - is the nation's pioneer in creating an "obscenity and pornography complaints ombudsman."
Besides her experience as a city prosecutor, Houston, 40, unabashedly brings the values of her Mormon faith to an assignment that will include viewing XXX-rated movies, pornographic Internet sites and sexually explicit magazines. Houston's lack of personal sexual experience disqualifies her in the minds of some from passing judgment on just what constitutes pornography. Others say moral judgments are best made by those who are above reproach. For Houston, such arguments are entirely beside the point.
"My personal life is irrelevant," says Houston. [What personal life?]
From an article by Kevin Cantera & Michael Vigh, Salt Lake Tribune, 2/11/01
P.S., the "lameness filter" is a piece of crap! Just because Netscape inserts leading whitespace in copied material is no reason to reject comments!
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Some things just plain transcend law, and are a matter of decency and courtesy. Whatever you want to do in your own space is fine, but I'd rather you didn't try to share your lung cancer with me, thanks. I've got enough to deal with without having your damn tumors to think about...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Just to be the devil's advocate (or the church's) -- church/state doesn't come into this much. If the voters happen to be church-folk who don't want drinking, that's the way a democracy works. If the majority did want drinking, the voting would work things out for them. One of the nice things about 'bible belts' or 'tech belts' if you will, is that people of a given persuation can enjoy each others' views together (the non-drinkers together, the tech-heads together). One of the problems is that you end up with a severed sense of a "United" country.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
That said, I grew up on east coast and was always used to being in smoky bars and restaurants and at the time, it never really phased me even though I don't smoke. After having lived in CA for a while with the non-smoking laws, I have found that not only do I enjoy restaurants more, but ALL of my smoking friends do as well! They have no problems with stepping outside to keep the restaurant air clear. Of course, weather is much more mild in CA so stepping outside for a smoke is not a big deal.
- tokengeekgrrl
A mate of mine has a sign in his office:
I enjoy sex as much as you enjoy smoking but i dont fuck on your desk so please dont smoke in my office.
I think that about sums it up.
WordPerfect was in Utah for a long time. What about Novell?? Caldera???
Fight Spammers!
Indiana has had a law (ever since I can remember) that no alcohol of any sort will be sold from a store on Sunday.
BUT (and this is the part that kills me) a few years they modified that law to where you could go to a restaurant and buy it to drink while you're sitting there.
So in effect you can't buy it, take it home and drink safely. No no. If you want to drink on Sunday you have to go OUT and do it then drive home.
Way to support those drunk driving laws guys. Thanks buckets.
To stay on topic though.. I think it has a mild effect but not to the point this guy says. If the job has sufficient compensations (in your opinion) then these annoyances can be overcome.
and I'm a fairly active Mormon (in that I go to church, mostly because my wife thinks it is a good idea) I should fit right in in Utah but right now I'm very involved in trying to move to the Portland Oregon area (btw if you need a good Unix/GNU/Linux systems guy and are in that area send me a mail) Why? Becuase Utah has many problems above and beyond drinking laws. First I have no idea where this myth that Utah has a low cost of living came from but it is not true. Also taxes tend to be very high and wages much lower than other spots that have the same cost of living. And then there are the Mormons. In other places in the country that I have lived I have really liked many of my fellow Mormons and in fact enjoyed going to chruch. Here in Utah most of them tend to be aholes. In short people not coming to Utah has nothing to do with liquor laws but more to do with the fact that on many other levels it sucks.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
My Utah experience: I went to Provo to visit my girlfriend's daughter and son-in-law, who are Mormons. One night after visiting with them, we decided to get a bottle of wine to take back to our hotel room. It took us 45 minutes to locate the state-run package store situated in a dingy part of town. It looked like a run-down methadone clinic, with bars on the windows, burned-out neon sighs, and a trash-strewn parking lot. We got the bottle of wine from their lousy selection and wanted to get a corkscrew. No gots. At a liquor store. So we go to a large supermarket and ask one of the 18-year-old stockboys where to find a corkscrew. He didn't know what a corkscrew was. Finally had to track down the manager to ask, and he ultimately led us to where they were. Moral: if you're going to drink in Utah, have it shipped in from elsewhere so that you don't have to deal with the locals.
It's a common practice in manufacturing to locate facilities in very rural areas. This has several benefits. Land is cheap, labor is cheap, unions tend to leave you alone, by being the biggest employer in a small town you get a lot of influence over local regulations, you tend to get a lot of tax breaks, and a few other things. But it also has some drawbacks and one of the biggest is in getting technically skilled workers to work in very rural areas.
People who are skilled with technology and have the corresponding education to go with it, tend not to want to live out in the middle of nowhere. Tech workers tend to be young, educated, and like the lifestyle afforded by living in a more urban (or suburban) area. Not to say there aren't exceptions but as a rule this is very often true. Since technology is daily becoming a bigger part of manufacturing, this is daily becoming a bigger problem. People like to be surrounded by people who want a similar lifestyle to their own.
Lifestyle is important and there is a reason more people live in cities than in the country. People like it that way. If Utah has problems attracting tech workers, you can be quite sure lifestyle has at least something to do with why. I've been to Austin and San Francisco. I understand why those areas might appeal to young tech workers and why Utah might not be at the top of their lists of places to live.
Before I move anywhere I always like to check out the prices, quality, and quantity of the pot in the area.
I am a geek and have a social life... why, for valentine's day, I bought my gf some new ram and we went to the local computer shack here to browse the hardware selection. On normal days, we walk hand-in-hand looking at eachother's palm(pilots)... We go out quite a bit... to the local cybercafe so we can surf the net in a different atmosphere.
ok. I'm getting ridiculous--nevermind.
Humorless sig goes here.
These laws place ridiculous restrictions on:
- Business Hours (eg: it is illegal to be open on sunday in one NJ county unless you sell food)
- Alcohol (eg: no alcohol on sundays, or after 8pm, or before noon, or on a full moon)
- Free Speech (eg: anything judged pornographic and the whole "i know it when i see it" camp)
- Physical Activities (you'd be surprised how many states make it illegal to place certain parts of yourself in certain parts of your significant other or the fact that in some states it is actually illegal to live together without being married)
These laws never had a time or a place, they were just forced upon us by the "moral majority"... that, when you get down to it, isn't very moral at all.Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
For me it wasn't so much the nightlife as the general convenience and fun of living in SF. But the rule still applies - I like shopping on Haight St., others like good nightlife. Employers who locate in the middle of nowhere ignore these factors at their peril.
sulli
RTFJ.
As a long-time smoker, I can honestly say that there is nothing that bothers me more than having some right-wing tree hugger complain about my "second-hand smoke".
Every restaurant I have ever entered in the past 10 years (with the exception of a few smaller bars) has established both a smoking section and a non-smoking section. Maybe I should explain the concept of these sections to you, since you obviously have some problems understanding. Smoking section=People who smoke. Non-Smoking Section=People who don't like smoke.
What exactly is the problem here?
As a smoker, I make a conscious effort to keep my smoke away from those who choose not to smoke. This means that when I am in the presence of a non-smoker I will excuse myself and go outside to smoke. I also try to stay away from busy doorways and entrances when smoking outside to allow passerbys to have the benefit of clean air. By banning ALL smoking in restaurants, California has benefited non-smokers, but is causing great inconvenience and discrimination against smokers.
So, while YOU, personally, might not like smoke, there are others of us who CHOOSE to smoke and you should have the courtesy to respect their needs as well.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
In other news, the CEO of Iomega, the company that makes those unreliable drives that are warrentied till "the end of their life", bitched today that he could not get drunk while bribing senators to save his companies ass.
Burn Hollywood Burn
First off, Bruce: do you ever go outside? Have you not, perhaps, noticed, that Utah really is first rate for outdoor recreation activities? If you're into clubbing, no, this is not the place to come, but there are other sorts of recreation. And some of it here in Utah is first rate. Zion's nat'l park. Arches. Uintah national forest. To say nothing of skiing and snowboarding.
Second: have you ever tried to get alcohol in Utah? Getting into one of the "private clubs for members" where drinks are served is pretty easy. Grabbing a six pack is even easier.
Third: I do consider my social life when I apply for a job. Mostly, though, I look for flexibility in terms of schedule and vacation and weekly hours no greater than 40. That's what social life means to me: I get time off. My job is NOT my life. Are you doing that? Try offering a month of vacation to your engineers and tell them they only occasionally will have to work overtime. You'll probably get a decent response.
Fourth: Are you aware that there's a fairly large talent pool endemic to Utah? There's 3 universities here with student bases of over 20,000 and more than decent engineering schools. Some of these people want to leave (me), but I'd expect that many of them wouldn't mind staying.
Gripe, gripe, gripe. Engineering is a high-demand profession at the moment. Attracting good talent is hard. Find the strengths of the place you're located at, make your corp a happy place to work for, and get over it. Hell, serve drinks at work, if it's that important to you.
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
"Do You Consider Your Social Life When You Choose A Career?"
I thought this was going to be a question about " marketers get the babes" vs "bankers have more meaningful relationships".
Turns out you REALLY mean to write "Do You Consider Your Social Life When You Choose A Location?" Which, of course, is totally unrelated to computers, technology or anything resembling "News for Nerds".
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
My wife used to work at a Walmart here in the Texas panhandle. For several months, she did the overnight shift.
Now, the way Texas's blue laws work, you cannot buy alcohol period after 2 A.M. After 12 A.M. you can only buy from a bar, and after 9 P.M. you cannot buy from liquor stores. This means no hard alcohol for mixers after 9 and 24 stores like Walmart and Albertsons have to refuse alcohol purchases after midnight and until noon on Sundays. This *really* makes sense in a state where the biggest pastime is sitting around the tube watching football all day sunday with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other.
As you can imagine, the Mrs. got some very angry customers who couldn't buy alcohol when they wanted to.
One day, a former Texas Representitive walked into the store at 4 A.M. Sunday morning. He picked up several bottles of wine, and a couple nice cases of beer. He was getting ready for an all day family get together, see?
So when my wife told him that no, he could *not* buy the booze, he slapped himself on the forehead and said, "I just had to sign on that renewal bill, didn't I?"
Most legislation is passed by people who aren't even paying attention to what they're doing.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
In my opinion, sure, things like alcohol laws and access to social activities (both of which are in short or just nasty supply in Utah) are very important to where I'd move for a job. When I'm done coding some large project for Iomega, I'm going to want to go out and ingest one or eight strong drinks to forget the workplace for a little while. Not only that, but these laws are indictive of other things such as the lines between church and state (and let's face it, when your state is definitely Mormon in the majority, these lines will be very blurred), government control, fellow citizen's attitudes, et cetera.
Know what I'd recommend? Head east about six hours to the beautiful state of Colorado. We are the microbrew capital of America (i.e., no "Captain Bastard's"-brand beer like in Utah -- no kidding), have an exponentially increasing tech corridor within short drives to the mountains, and dammit, it's FUN out here (also, per the concerns of this person, it's GREAT here. ;)
Utah is great to an extent, and I'll certainly head out there once a year to go backpacking, but living there? Nah. Iomega, move your operations out here and you'll get your engineers. We are also one of the more laid-back states, that's for sure. Stay out of Colorado Springs (home of Focus on the Family, which otherwise tarnishes a great city and my former hometown) and your religious, social, and living views won't matter much more than an iota, neither will anyone else's.
Ryan
"All your base are belong to this file I send in order to have your advice."