Slashdot Mirror
Getting Over the Stigma of a Previous Job?
Subm asks: "Some friends-of-friends worked at a company with such a high profile downfall their past employer became a liability. They weren't involved in causing the downfall, but with the name 'Enron' on their resumes, interviews were spent defending their past employment. SCO is more focused in its industry than Enron, was and its reputation is in a downward spiral in that industry (Unix and GNU/Linux, not lawsuits, that is). SCO's staff will have to look for other jobs sooner or later, and most within the Unix/GNU/Linux community. Can good workers get over the stigma of an employer's reputation? How will working at SCO affect its staff's careers? Does anyone at SCO talk about this?"
In March of 2002, my company shifted three-fourths of our CUW Systems Team (kern-devs) -- which had been untouched, platform-wise, the previous two years -- onto a parallel development path with Linux 2.4.18.
This bold (in my opinion) decision was made despite Wind River International, the dominate embedded software technologist, matter-of-factly asserting at the time that they view Linux as inferior to their preferred platform, VxWorks, and would never include Linux in their product line. (They eventually changed their minds.)
Four months later, on July 19, 2002, my company, in consultation with our customers, announced that we were ending all new development for CUW, were placing it into maintenance mode, and were solely developing for Linux. On a personal level, myself and most of my team were ecstatic about the new direction the company was taking.
As we are all so evidently aware, the SCO Group began its grandiloquent and legal smear campaign against Linux in February, and March of 2003. Well almost four months ago, I was assigned the somewhat informal task of determining the validity of the SCO claims of ownership to Linux. Despite the seemingly preposterous evidence offered thus far by SCO, I'm saddened to reveal that they may have a solid case for copyright infringement in the 2.4 Linux kernel.
There are three code pieces that appear to be copied verbatim. The first is forty-two lines of packet handling code. Following the ip_vs_state_table variable is where most of the infringement takes place. Only the state transition handling seems to be original. The second is sixteen lines of VM allocation code. Five lines after CONFIG_DISCONTIGMEM, and eleven lines after VMALLOC_VMADDR. And the last is seven lines after SELFPOWER, USB specific power management code.
It's possible, some would say probable, that this is actually code that SCO copied from Linux. Not the inverse. I'm not knowledgeable enough of the history to determine that, but it definitely needs to be looked into. Nevertheless, it's still accurate to state that the vast majority of the Linux kernel code is original. And that's really the only fact that matters to the nontechnical mass media.
(AC for obvious reasons!)
Last year when I was starving from my two dot coms killing over dead, I actually became a porn actor for a while. That's something I'll never get over. If my wife, family, or current boss ever found out, my life would be over!
I am in constant fear that somebody will notice me on the internet.
As "wonderful" as you think it might be, it really is not a good lifestyle. The producer had us guys taking high dose viagra to try to get as many "takes" in as possible. I walked around looking like a beet for days... I practically glowed red from the medication.
We guys really didn't even get paid that much. The chicks, however, cleaned up! My female counterpart would received 4 to 5 times more day than I would. The girls would mainly pretty but much, much older than they appeared. I worked with a couple of girls who looked 18-19 but we really thirty with several children between them.
I now worry about my health as well. Nobody would allow us to use condoms. All the actors received HIV viral loads looking for infection. Evidently this is much more sensitive than the routine HIV tests. We were also tested for hepatitis C, I think. A nurse would actually swab our various body parts once per week looking for the clap and other bugs. The swabs included our mouths and our tails as well for reasons I never quite understood.
Who cares about working for SCO or whatever! At least you were not degrading yourself for money. That is something that I can never get over.
AC
I guess I can chuckle about it now. It would be a great story to tell my buddies sitting around the poker table one day.
I just too embarrassed about the whole thing. Back in college I always thought I would love to do adult video. However, being some faceless out-of-shape guy in a porn video is not something to brag about.
AC
Evil deeds, like paying their mortgages, feeding their kids, keeping their credit stable...
When you pay your mortgage, feed your kids, or keep your credit stable using blood money, you deserve to be marked as unethical.
SCO apologists (and those who apologize for the denizens of SCO who make up the body of the corporation engaging in this activity, as though being only a part of something bad somehow magically washes one's hands of it) seem to have difficulty differentiating in the ethics of how one obtains their money and the ethics of how one spends it.
If you had a job as secretary at Enron, making $20k year subsistance living, and knew what was up, you are unethical irrespective of how many brats' mouths you have to feed.
Ditto for anyone working at SCO, knowing what we know of SCO's current behavior. Using ill gotten gains (and providing support for a corporation whose business model is quintessentially unethical is an ill means of getting gains) for good purposes does nothing to change the fact that those gains are ill gotten, and you are an unethical person for having gotten them that way.
It may be a handy way to put a nice spin on what you are doing, that the gullible with limited skills in critical thinking may buy, but at the end of the day the fact that you choose to feed children (who will likely to grow up to be just as unethical) rather than, say, to buy hookers for a little afterwork play, in fact changes nothing: by continuing to work for SCO, and opting to continue to collect your paycheck with the full knowledge that the eight hours or more you put in each day is actively spent supporting and propogating (and pulling your own weight in) an unethical business engaged in widespread fraud and disinformation, you are behaving unethically.
That makes you an unethical person, by definition.
Hell, you can feed your children on welfare or unemployment: you do not need to sell out every aspect of common decency to keep the little tykes fed. Choosing to keep such a job, knowing its social and economic consiquences to thousands (perhaps millions) of others, is an act of greed, cowardice, or any number of other negative motivations: it is not, under any circumstances, anything remotely resembling a selfless act of sacrifice "for the children." So please spare us your platitudes and your spin: most of us aren't foolish enough to buy it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
If they weren't willing to bend the rules for you, you must have sucked.
Sorry college boy, but its true of many more companies than you realize. Cisco has the exact same policy AND if someone "bends" the rules they get sued for violating their contracts (because management contracts contain a clause stating they will uphold the "no references" policy). So stick that in your pipe dumb-ass.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
You really are a twat, aren't you ?
You obviously don't have any family, or are as bitter as hell about some rejection somewhere.
I'm lucky, I'm in a good job I enjoy, I'm relatively well paid and I live in a country (UK) which at least has some safety net should things go bad (at least I dont have to pay medical bills).
I DO have an 18-month old daughter, and ethics or morals or any other crap can go out of the window regarding employment, as long as it keeps her in food and shoes on her feet.
One day when you are man, and have the responsibility of being part of raising a family, you'll understand (although with an attitude like yours, the only way you'll ever have sex is if you hand over money for it).