Slashdot Mirror
Longhorn Developers @ MSDN
ePIsOdEOnline writes "The official Microsoft Longhorn Developers website went live. Content is filled with information fresh from the PDC, and the host of secrecy swarming Microsoft and its next generation Operating System,
Longhorn"
I have less then zero interest in longhorn, if the public is willing to bend over and take what ms is gonna give em with this particular upgrade, then they diserve what they're gonna get.
BRAVO.
October 27, 2003
Silicon Valley Tech Worker Challenges Beltway Politicians
WashTech News
By Jeff Nachtigal
In many respects Natasha Humphries is the model Silicon Valley high-tech worker: bright, articulate and highly motivated. And now unemployed after her job was outsourced to India.
But her willingness to testify before a House Small Business Committee hearing last week about high-tech jobs being offshored definitely does not show up in any company handbook.
In Washington D.C., Humphries spoke passionately about the issues she and her fellow workers now face since their jobs were sent to India, and how this short-sighted perspective of companies trying to save a dollar today will have lasting negative impacts on the industry in the future.
"It's corporate profiteering at its worst, and that's all it is," Humphries said.
"One reason I was so interested in testifying is that while corporations have their lobbyists, to have a private citizen tell their anecdotal experiences about what is happening from an insider's point of view makes it really hard for them to refute your testimony," she said.
Humphries was a senior quality assurance engineer at Palm, Inc. for three years until her position was offshored to India in August.
"A lot of people are afraid to come forward because of blacklisting, which is a very real fear for a lot of people, and is one of the reasons Silicon Valley needs a labor union of some sort," she said.
For Humphries, the choice to speak out wasn't hard.
"If it's be blacklisted versus one or two years of unemployment, what's the difference? Give me the dice, I'll throw them!"
Humphries said Palm offices in Andover, Boston and Seattle have been closed and that at least half of Palm's U.S. positions have been offshored. A study by Forrester Research Inc. estimated that U.S. employers will move about 3.3 million white-collar service jobs and $136 billion in wages overseas in the next 15 years, up from $4 billion in 2000.
Humphries, 30, doesn't shy away from challenges and willingly admits she has an assertive personality and tends to challenge the status quo - beginning with her managers at Palm, Inc. who, in her words, "answered evasively, dodged the questions, threw out fictitious numbers, and tried to blow me off," when she asked what she needed to do to save her job.
Despite her tenacity, Humphries is also a bit of a Pollyanna in that she has always worked hard and stuck to the corporate game plan, hoping that as long as she worked hard she would keep her job.
After graduating from Stanford she worked for Avistar, Infotech and Apple before landing the position at Palm, where she tested Palm OS software applications, Palm's calculator and wireless applications. At Palm, Humphries worked hard, often staying late and working weekends even though her salary had not gone up in her three years with the company. She said she put any thought about a salary merit increase out of mind until the company returned to profitability.
And even when the company made extensive plans to offshore jobs and she knew she was likely to be cut, Humphries willingly went to Bangalore, India, in December 2002 to train Indian software quality assurance engineers, hoping there might yet be a place for her if she stayed loyal to Palm.
She admitted at the hearing in Washington D.C. that, "I may have engineered my way out of a job."
It happened fast, but she wasn't surprised when the ax finally fell.
"We were told on Monday at 3:30pm of a layoff, and notified on Wednesday that we were terminated."
"How did I get duped?" Humphries said. "I was aware this (layoff) was a possibility, but I miscalculated the time horizon, I thought that the India team would take at least three years to perform my job as well as I do... I thought they would still need people like me at headquarters. But they
You're new here, aren't you?
Over 120 comments, and no-one's pointed out the errant apostrophe in "it's"?
To what is this site coming? I demand a refund! Oh wait...