Fired Via Instant Message

JThaddeus writes "Yahoo! news reports that South Korea's third-largest credit card issuer, KEB Credit Service, fired 161 people--a quarter of its workforce--via mobile phone text messages. Hey, at least they got told, right? Afterall, they could have been like Milton."

Comments

"You've Got Vacation!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Permanently.

Re:"You've Got Vacation!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when I was a software contractor (where I could and would get fired at the drop of a hat), I used to call it "instant vacation." I also used to ask my boss everyday: "am I fired yet?"

But now that I'm retired, yeah, that I call "sweet permanent vacation." Heh.

Re:"You've Got Vacation!"

[1u3hr]

Why is this article filed under "funny"? If 161 Americans had been fired by instant message I rather think it'd be "your rights online". But because they're foreigners it's only important as something to laugh at. Maybe the editors have their aidience pegged, as the post above and the majority I've looked at are dumb insensitive jokes.

Re:"You've Got Vacation!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this article filed under "funny"? If 161 Americans had been fired by instant message I rather think it'd be "your rights online".

Because it's them and not us! Those crazy Koreans will now have more time to play games for 72 hours straight ^_^

Re:"You've Got Vacation!"

[SuperDry]

Does anybody have Kim Jong Il's SMS address? I have a message I'd like to send him...

Re:"You've Got Vacation!"

[zero_offset]

While I agree with you in principle, I think it's "Funny" if it's just being a story being related to the readership, but would be a "Your Rights Online" if it was posted by someone actually affected by the event.

Re:"You've Got Vacation!"

[1u3hr]

While I agree with you in principle, I think it's "Funny" if it's just being a story being related to the readership, but would be a "Your Rights Online" if it was posted by someone actually affected by the event.

Looking back at recent "YRO" stories, I don't see any that fit that criterion.

The message was...

[dyj]

"You've got fired!"

Re:The message was...

[thestarz]

You've got mail! You've not got a job!

Re:The message was...

[WorkEmail]

We R Sry, but U R Fired. gtg, TTYL.

lmao.

Re:The message was...

[Anonymous Coward]

YHGF. YHL. HAND.

Re:The message was...

[StuWho]

All your wages are belong to us

Re:The message was...

[WorkEmail]

I have used email and text messages to call in sick a few times. :) If I had called and didn't get anyone I will leave a message, and text message my boss's phone, and email, just to make sure. "I am Sck 2-Day. TTYL. ROTFLMAO."

Re:The message was...

[NanoGator]

Well I don't know about you guys, but I'm filling out an expense report for the $0.10 charge on my phone bill for recieving that message.

Re:The message was...

[jellybear]

we welcome our fired overlords

Re:The message was...

[Anonymous Coward]

SMS is free in Korea. Free as in beer.

Re:The message was...

[Snaller]

Except in civlized countries its the sender who pays, not the recipient.

The Milton Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

"...they took ... my ... my Swingline ... and then, they texted me a pink slip ... going to burn the place to the ground ... this is, yes, this is the final straw"

Re:The Milton Solution

[thelenm]

Studies have statistically shown that there's less likelihood of an incident if you fire people while they're not in the office.

Re:The Milton Solution

[Phattypants]

"Just let me get my red stapler and I'll burn the place down"
-(virtual quote)

Wouldn't it be cheaper

[dysprosia]

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to tell these people quickly in person? Considering the cost of a text message in some places...

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[LostCluster]

These people were on strike. They couldn't be told at the end of their next shift because there was no next shift for them. So, the only way to get them in person would be to summon them via text message for an annoucement...

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Futaba-chan]

They were all out on strike (and apparently, firing striking workers isn't illegal there), so there was no way to tell them in person.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it wouldn't be. The angry worker would try to chop your head off. Ain't cheap, that.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

and apparently, firing striking workers isn't illegal there

Why should it be? If you're not working, I'll fire you, plain and simple. There are plenty of hard working people who will take the job.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[geekster]

From the article: "The firm said it had no method for contacting striking staff other than using the short message service (SMS)."

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that registered mail would be more appropriate, more traceable, and more reliable.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[LostCluster]

You'd think that registered mail would be more appropriate, more traceable, and more reliable.

And much more expensive. When a company is bankrupt and shutting down, things like that just aren't quite an option.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Penguinshit]

So you like working for $0.25/hour, or whatever the employer decides to pay you that week.

For all their problems, organized labor unions (with laws protecting their rights) are a necessity to protect the common workers from exploitation.

Labor Strike != "not working". It is the only tool workers have for forcing fair negotiated wages and other compensation.

No, I'm not (and never have been) part of a union. Thankfully I'm in a profession which doesn't require that kind of protection. But Upton Sinclair and Tennesee Ernie Ford didn't get famous for bitching about non-issues...

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[dolphinling]

It's called your right to strike, it has a lot to do with unions and the like, and it's one of the few things that (attempts to) keep capitalism from degrading into an awful muck of worker exploitation, decreasing middle classes, and huge poverty rates. Or at least, that's what numerous trips through history tell us.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

all these replies are nice and good, but no one has yet to tell me why you have a right to strike (I am not disputing your right to strike here) and not get fired to allow the employer to hire someone else who IS willing to work.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[LostCluster]

Labor unions are a great idea on paper, but sometimes in implementation they go wrong. In this case, it did. Any time a strike results in being the death blow to a weak business, it's a misuse of the tool. The union doesn't benefit from the destruction of the employer.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[espo812]

It is the only tool workers have for forcing fair negotiated wages and other compensation.

How about better jobs from competing companies? If you are valuable, someone will pay you more if you're underpaid. Not showing up for work (especially consistantly) sounds like a plenty good reason to fire someone.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Penguinshit]

That's why I attempted to qualify my statement with "For all their problems...". And I was merely responding to the AC's cold attitude towards striking workers.

However, in this case, the company was going to go under anyway so these folks were screwed no matter what.

A good example of your point in current practice is the upcoming expiration of the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement. The NHLPA (the players' union) is refusing to even discuss a salary cap, even in the face of an independent analysis of the NHL finances. I really think the NHLPA should reassess their position because a two-year work stoppage (as they are advising the players) would pretty much kill the NHL. Only us hard-core fans would be left (and I'd seriously look at where else I could spend my sports-viewing dollars).

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[dolphinling]

Because if your employer can just hire someone else, that makes the strike worse than useless. The point of the strike is that you're not getting paid, but your employer isn't getting any work done and therefore isn't getting any money either. If they can hire someone else, they still get the work done--and you, because of that, have lost your right to strike.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[srinivas_rc]

sometime you can just send an email which can be recieved on your cellphone. In that case, it might be cheaper or i say free.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[ceejayoz]

The union doesn't benefit from the destruction of the employer.

I disagree. Other companies will pick up the slack caused by the downsizing / folding of this company, resulting in new jobs - which the fired employees will probably snap up. Those other companies will make damn sure they are a little nicer to the union than the dead company was.

Sure, it's temporary hardship for this group of employees, but the whole workforce benefits in the long run.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[orangesquid]

I know it doesn't answer your question, but part of the issue is that there's always someone out there who will work for cheaper than you will. There are 6.2 billion people around here... chances are, I'll be able to find a handful of people who will work for moldy bread crumbs.... but that doesn't make it ethical to have that kind of set-up.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

http://uk.cambridge.org/bibles/

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

There are plenty of hard working people who will take the job.

A typo in your message. I think you meant to say:
There are plenty of exploited working people who will take the job.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

The union doesn't benefit from the destruction of the employer.

Workers don't benefit from destroying the employer but in some cases they do. For instance, if an employer has lower standards or wages than what one would expect in a particular society, workers won't lose much if such businesses go out of business. This is why labour supports minimum wage, even though it puts many companies out of business. It is much better for these low-wage companies to go out of business than to have them pay something very low.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Capitalism has no such thing as underpaid (or overpaid). Capitalists would do anything to drive wages as low as possible. Things like outsourcing are primarily done for such reasons.

Of course, I don't expect a libertarian-conservative like you to accept my view.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only true in a society where the number of jobs is equal to the number of workers.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

It's called your right to strike

Obviously, you've never spent much time in Korea. Things are different there.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

People have the right to strike (in many countries) because society (mostly the working people) are of the opinion that workers need power to battle the employers. That is the reason why the right to strike was instituted. People didn't have such right in the 1800's or even early 1900's. So to sum up, it's just a right enshrined to give power to workers (who are often weak because they don't have capital--most important thing under capitalism) to defend themselves against employers (who do have capital). If you don't understand any of it, just read a bit on history and the worker movements from early 1900's to mid 1900's. The right to strike was developed during that time period.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. Registered mail costs about USD 7 here. One would assume that it's at most 2-3 times that much in Korea. Call it USD 20. For 161 people that comes to...USD 3220. That's not exactly unreasonable considering that companies which are winding down their operations typically spend anywhere from a few thousand to a few million on legal fees associated with the process. It seems a small price to pay for meeting one's obligations in a dignified manner.

Not to mention the fact that this company isn't winding down its operations at all.

Now, to be fair, if I go on strike I would feel the company totally justified in letting me go after three days for job abandonment (in California, job abandonment is defined as failure to report in for three consecutive days without leave), so a notice of any kind to striking workers seems entirely unnecessary. But contracts and foreign law probably place entirely different requirements on this particular circumstance.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[LinuxInDallas]

I'm not sure how much registered mail costs but I doubt that at the end of the day it would have made a huge impact on their business. It's not like they were going completely out of business, the people affected represented 1/4 of the entire workforce. 161 registered mails surely wouldn't put them completely under.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[jrexilius]

In america yes but I have been to Korea and any job is a good job. And that is a fairly well off country in comparison to much of the world.

I would say that Korea may get to the point where that statement is as true for them as it is for us and other G7 countries, but it aint there yet.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[b4k4]

That's why business ethics is an oxymoron.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Lately I've been thinking that we should extend antitrust legislation to unions. If there were multiple unions in each field, they could compete for contracts from companies needing labor. This provides more incentive for the union to ensure the competence of its workers.

I believe that unions are neccessary in order to give workers a voice. However, as you said unions have their problems and I think this would help with many of them.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Mr. Piddle]

This is why labour supports minimum wage, even though it puts many companies out of business.

The minimum wage is a joke. It is all short-term gain, while driving inflation in the long run. The primary effect of the minimum wage is creating artificially high unemployment rates among the truly poor (if a homeless person had the choice between earning $20 a week or zero...).

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Durandal64]

Kind of reminds me of the Simpson's episode where Burns flashed back to when he was a child with his father taking him through an old factory, before there were unions. As the 1920's variant of the teenage pubescent is being dragged off the floor, he says, "One day, we workers will form unions, so we can get the wages and benefits that we deserve! But then we'll go to far, and become corrupt ... and the Japanese will eat us alive."

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[jadavis]

It is much better for these low-wage companies to go out of business than to have them pay something very low.

What's wrong with hiring a kid to help build a fence on a weekend and paying them little? The kid has few responsibilities, and isn't accomplishing very much. He'd also be happy to get the money.

What's wrong with hiring a highschool student to do low-wage work as he lives with his parents? $4.00 an hour might pay for all the gas & food he needs.

The thing about minimum wage is that you're assuming that it's a career position, when in truth it's often a passing job on the way to bigger and better things. It's not good when young people have no opportunity to work a low-level job. How are they supposed to get experience and become more responsible?

Instead, young people can't find a low-responsibility, low-pay job. So, they just don't work. Then, when they're expected to be independent, they have no job experience at all, they just have a High School degree, which is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on (as far as representing knowledge and responsibility).

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[dj245]

Telling them in person would seem to make more sense. Whos to say that a bunch of them won't show up to work (even though they're on strike) and say "text message? what text message? I didn't get a text message!", at which point it kind of becomes a he says they says kind of thing, unless the company wants to try to prove it. Much easier to just tell them in person.

"I told you were fired but you showed up anyway! Shau Yun Fat was there. Pei Pei Hu was there. Chow Yi Hung was there. We were all there when I told you you were fired. Go home."

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[C10H14N2]

If a person worked 65 hours a week at $3 per hour, they'd still be homeless a year later. The reason there is a minimum wage is to ensure that you are paid at least enough to feed, clothe and house yourself. $20 per week? For full time? That's fifty cents per hour. That's not even a McDonald's value meal by the end of the day. Do you honestly think that if we got rid of the minimum wage that suddenly the cost of the necessities of life would go down or that a homeless person who can panhandle $20 per day would work for eight hours to receive less than the price of a hamburger? Please.

There are 25 million Americans are working full time for at or near minimum wage. If you eliminated their wages entirely, it would reduce the wage expenses of the country by 267 billion. That's if they were SLAVES. Total salaries and wages in the United States are roughly 6.5 trillion. Would you institute slavery to get a four percent discount at Taco Bell? No? Then, would you make someone work 80 hours a week just to be able to afford food and shelter so you could get a two percent discount on your McValue meal? 60 hours so you could get one percent? Where do you draw the line?

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Obfiscator]

Okay, so how does he recompile?

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Mr. Piddle]

You don't quite get it. The fallacy of a "living wage" is that each increase in its minimum requirement is totally of a short-term benefit. The wage increases get passed right back to customers (e.g., the wage-earners themselves), so the minimum wage is nothing more than a feel-good Democrat vote-getter.

You use the word "suddenly." This is also a major huge problem with politics. People want immediate solutions, and they simply don't care about whether they are fucked five years down the road.
This is what Bush did with this tax cuts, this is what Kerry will do with health care. Politicians necessarily have foresight that lasts only a few years into the future, which is why they are so dangerous to citizens and why citizens should never put much faith in the government.

Regardless, if a person is homeless, $20 in a week provides: a nicer box, soap, a new t-shirt, and one good meal. This is pretty good for someone who otherwise sifts through trashcans for food.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[GigsVT]

There's something about that argument that doesn't pass the smell test.

If the employer was bad, then the employees should just quit. At least then the company, if it truely was paying below market wages, will have to raise wages to hire new people, and has a chance of becoming a viable, good, employer.

To sum up:
No union: people quit over a period of time, people lose jobs, company still has a chance to make amends.
Union: People strike, people lose jobs, company destroyed.

I see no advantage to the labor union here.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[C10H14N2]

No, I get it and I've spent quite some time studying economics in order to "get it."

The problem is sustainability. You cannot sustain an economy where people are paid less than it costs to survive. The result is usually revolution. There's more at stake here than whether or not you spend $1.50 or $5.00 on your hamburger. If you can't see that, there's no argument that will convince you.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[GigsVT]

And I've heard that what you say is exactly the case. Very very few full time adult employees in the US are making minimum wage, it's almost all temporary/part time jobs and teenagers.

The only thing raising minimum wages does is get a few teenagers some extra cash, at the cost of there being less jobs for them to get.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[fsmunoz]

Now, to be fair, if I go on strike I would feel the company totally justified in letting me go after three days for job abandonment

Wow, laws in the USA must be very different! Going on strike is totally different from job abandonment, workers strike is a legally valid option for Unions, which is turn are legally valid organizations of workers. Nobody can be fired for being on strike for 3,4 or more days, since a strike is a legal and valid form of protest. Not going to work for 3 days is a totally unrelated matter since I suppose that those days were not accounted for legally (sickness, pregnancy, etc).

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[M. Silver]

Wow, laws in the USA must be very different!

They are... from state to state, even. But in any case, legally recognized unions can legally strike in the US, at least under legally mandated conditions. ("Wildcat strikes" are another matter.)

I've never worked in a union shop, so that's about the extent of my knowledge... other than when the machinist's union at Boeing settles in for a protracted strike, it's a great time to shop the classifieds for a used boat, motorcycle, plasma TV or other big-ticket luxury item.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[FLEB]

Without a union supporting otherwise interchangable and easily-screwable workers, the company would have nothing to make amends *about*, since their dismally low wages would be "market wages" as usual.

No union:

Company lowers wages, but employees can't quit (can't afford to move, find a new job, etc.). Employers can keep cutting wages and benefits to a "barely living" wage. With lower labor costs, the company can cut retail price, maintain rising profits, and gain from both ends. To compete, other companies must follow suit. Overall market wages go down. Nobody's wages are below "market", but "market" sucks.

With union:

Company tries to lower wages. Union responds, stops work. Company is forced to negotiate, and keep wages high. Even non-union workers benifit, since the market retail and market wages are higher, and there is competition on a decent-wage playing field.

This works, of course, until someone finds a supply of non-union labor and finds it's easier to import, but... well... that's free trade.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[ceejayoz]

To quote you, there's something about that argument that doesn't pass the smell test.

Why should the employees quit so the company can hire others at higher wages? Why can't they strike so they can benefit?

Let the company fire them if they feel like they can employ others at the same wages.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Boricle]

Call me a little bit crazy, however

if they can receive an SMS message, doesn't that mean that they have a mobile phone

in which case you can ring them and ask them to come in for a "meeting".

Or at least TELL them they are fired over the phone.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[espo812]

Capitalism has no such thing as underpaid (or overpaid).

On the contrary. The market for jobs determines the fair wage for a worker. For example, if you can code in C, the average wage will be $x. If you are more efficient than the average coder, and you are being paid the average wage, it is in some company's interest to pay you more to produce more. This is underpayment in the capitalist market. The same works if you are subquality and overpaid.

Capitalists would do anything to drive wages as low as possible.

Capitalists will do anything to maxamize profits, typically. This may or may not involve driving wages as low as possible (which would be $0, theoretically.)

Things like outsourcing are primarily done for such reasons.

Done for maxamizing profits, as said before. Outsourcing allows profits to increase, and with competition will allow prices to be dropped. Protectionist policies will cause labor costs to be artifically high - which causes prices to be high. This results in a tax on everyone to pay higher prices - due to an inefficient market.

Of course, I don't expect a libertarian-conservative like you to accept my view.

I appreciate your candor. If only all /.ers could do the same.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got to warn you. Don't fall in with the libertarian crowd. I made that mistake once and I'm still regretting it.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Vess V.]

No you haven't. What are you talking about?

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[TastelessGarbage]

"Independent analysis??" If you are referring to the much-publicized Arthur Levitt analysis, according to Business Week the NHL owners paid $250k for the "analysis."

If M$ pays Beryl McSlide $250k for an analysis that asserts that Windows is more secure than Linux, would you believe that it was independent?

Check out Gary Thorne's recent "elephant" column for more info on this situation.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Mr. Piddle]

Sustainability goes both ways, and driving up the costs of survivability doesn't help. The free market works like the wild kingdom, because it works. Given resources, the system will sort itself out or die. The only role of government is to do as little as possible to keep it from finding the most unstable solutions, because wholesale political solutions are the most unstable of all. Propping people up on some false hope of abundance is simply setting them up to get crushed when the whole economy falls on top of them.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Planesdragon]

The union doesn't benefit from the destruction of the employer.

Yes, it does.

An employer that doens't play ball with a union can die. Just as a union that doesn't play ball with a company dies.

We're a capitalist country, and so is most of the rest of the world. Capitalism demands that we let people who make bad decisions and plan poorly fail.

In my perfect world, the government would guarante a basic, VERY spartan income for everyone, and there would be NO retirement, minimum wage, or social security laws.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[iopha]

Economics has to be the one highly mathematized discipline where, for some reason, isomorphism with reality just is not an issue.

The free market is only able to create economic equilibria in very idealized cases (perfect information, rationality, etc-- see the work of J. Steiglitz on this issue). It will *not* sort out wage and supply to 'optimal' conditions left to its own devices. If you read any history, you will see that it took sustained political pressure to get such luxuries as a 40-hour work week and a decent living wage. Capitalism was perfectly content with steep levels of social stratification for decades until political movements forced significant redistributive measures.
Moreover, the 'free market' has always required government intervention-- once again, a glance at history will show that, depending on context, protectionism, nationalization, subsidies, and/or free trade, privatization and laissez-faire were required. Your Chicago School view of economics is pretty much obsolete in serious academia. It lives on in corporate-funded think tanks which have, ironically enough, political motivations.

iopha

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why all of those working at Southern California supermarkets were fired for going on strike, right?

Oh, wait, you can't fire union workers going on strike. It's illegal.

If you decide by yourself to go on strike without being a union member, that's job abandonment. But once a union is organized, there are laws protecting those unions.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[betsywetsy]

The wage increases get passed right back to customers (e.g., the wage-earners themselves)

To some extent, but not totally; product prices aren't totally based on labor cost, and not all labor's working at the minimum wage. And the customers are not always the same wage-earners.

The minimum wage should be raised with caution, but it's not at all fair to say that it wouldn't increase the living standard of the wage earner, or tie it directly to inflation.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[geekster]

I agree. But I just quoted the article. Personally I think they sound like another one of those cold hearted corporation that I enjoy to bitch so much about...

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Protracted strikes are always a ton of fun. The unions pay these guys a couple of bucks a day, so after 2, 3, 4 months of job action I don't doubt people may start selling off some stuff.

And, AFAIK, in Canada you can't get fired when on strike. At least not fired in the usual sense. There may be lay-offs as part of union's agreement with the company. Most strikes these days are over contract renewals anyways, so unless your guys are going on several years without a contract (read: without pay raises or meaningful promotions), it's unlikely even that would happen.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[pod]

So you like working for $0.25/hour, or whatever the employer decides to pay you that week.

That would depend on what the laws are like. In Canada, the employers don't pay you anything, since you're not working. You don't accumulate vacation time, bonuses, etc, and your benefits are probably done through your union anyways. Instead, the unions pay the people who show up to picket a couple hundred bucks a month.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[pod]

Well, there are some jobs where that is not an option. If you can be replaced by a guy walking off the street and doing a day of training, you have very little leverage. They're still jjobs that need to be done, and are valuable in that respect, but with so little power, the workers can easily get screwed over; no one else will hire them, they already have all the people they need, and they can't quit, they need the money.

It's nice for us highly skilled white collar workers to sit in our comfy chairs in front of our high-priced luxury items (computers) and talk about wage competition and such, but that's just not a reality in some cases.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Penguinshit]

I believe it's almost exactly the same here in the States (again, I'm not in a union). However, the one thing that WON'T happen is that you'll be fired for striking (with very few exceptions, such as Air Traffic Controllers, which are positions which have direct effect on public safety).

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[C10H14N2]

Given resources, the system will sort itself out or die.

That, in a nutshell, is the entire point. It is not desirable to just let the system die. Even a free-marketeer like Hayek conceeds that you'd have to be a fool to not have central control of the money supply. Milton Friedman may have come up with such stinging soundbytes like "the minimum wage is the most anti-black law on the books," but as you point out, some statements are more about politics than economics and the obvious implication is that blacks will (or should) be paid less than whites on a slippery slope down to a reinstitution of slavery. On the contrary, Hayek, a fellow monetarist, believed quite strongly in minimum standards of income, despite otherwise being one of the most stalwart defenders of the free market.

For all the criticism of minimum wage laws, take a look at places without them. Sure, people have work, but go spend a week in Burma working in a Disney sweatshop at $192 per year and come back and let us all know how wonderful abolishing the minimum wage laws would be.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I think minimum wage may not apply to hiring kids to build a fence (I'm not 100% sure). I know for a fact that certain jobs (eg. newspaper deliveries, canvassing, etc) are below the minimum wage.

The thing about minimum wage is that you're assuming that it's a career position, when in truth it's often a passing job on the way to bigger and better things. It's not good when young people have no opportunity to work a low-level job. How are they supposed to get experience and become more responsible?

There are a ton of jobs at minimum wage! There is no shortage of them. You can literally find minimum wage jobs in retailing, fast food restaurants, factories, etc. I really don't think young people are out of jobs because of it. Perhaps this may be true for rural areas (with fewer potential employers) but in municipal areas, minimum wage jobs are plenty.

In any case, there is no such thing as a career. Maybe you have a career but most of the lower class people don't. If you think some people don't work minimum wage for most of their lives, you probably live in a world without any knowledge of what goes on around you. Just look around and you'll see what I mean. There are adults in minimum wage jobs such as fast food restaurants, cleaners, waiters in restaurants, factory work, taxicabs, certain sales, "homeworkers", lifting and moving, and so forth. These jobs are carried out by adults--not some students who live with their parents. You live in a parellel world not conscious of such situations. There are actually people who make around $15k to $25k per year even though they work 40 hours. These people are called the working poor. You might want to look it up.

Instead, young people can't find a low-responsibility, low-pay job. So, they just don't work. Then, when they're expected to be independent, they have no job experience at all, they just have a High School degree, which is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on (as far as representing knowledge and responsibility).

I just love the arguments coming out of capitalists these days (yes, you are one :( ). THe problem I have with your argument is this: capitalists justify compensation based on skill sets. There are a whole slew of UNSKILLED jobs with very low pay. If the job is unskilled, why do you care about past experience? Past experience in most of these cases is totally irrelelant to the job anyway (eg. a packager now applying for transportation). Knowlege and responsibility is totally irrelevant in these cases.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

You cannot reach the stage where workers has improved conditions without asking for it. The capitalists will always suppress wages and like to keep all the profits for themselves. If you dont' believe me, look at history.

In the early 1900's (say 1930's to 1950's), workers in USA (and Europe) were very poor. The conditions at that time were similar to what most poor and developing countries face (Korea is actually better than what USA was at that time). The economy wasn't as good either. However, the workers demanded--and fought for--benefits. That is why most workers in USA have good conditions now.

If someone was following your argument (which is nothing new by the way: it is a classical capitalist argument against worker benefits), then someone could argue that the workers in USA in the mid 1900's should NOT ask for wage increases and better conditions. Fortunately, your advice (or at least your bretheren at that time) wasn't followed. If your line of thinking was followed, the workers in USA would still be as poor as they were in the mid 1900's. The owners would not share the profits (that's what wage increases and improved conditions are!) and things would pretty much be similar.

To put this into the modern day, Korea will unlikely EVER be at the level of the G7 in the near future. Even if Korea becomes wealthier, the G7 will likely become even more wealthier. Under your thinking, the workers will never get to the point that they can really ask for better compensation.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Clearly, any arguments against a capitalist like you is going to fall on deaf ears...

I care more about unemployment and working conditions than inflation. Capitalists, like you, care more about inflation and growth rate than anything. People could end up working 12 hours a day for low wages (and basically become exploited robots like in poor countries) and capitalists like you won't care. To you, it would make no difference: inflation will still be under control and growth will still be sufficient. I, on the other hand, will not put up with that.

According to capitalist theory, inflation and unemployment are inversely correlated. You can't have both. You, like all capitalists (especially the popular neo-liberal economists), pick inflation as being more important. I, being an anti-capitalist, is picking the other side.

One final note... Judging from your comment on homelessness, you either have no clue what homelessness is or you don't care. Homelessness has nothing to do with minimum wage. It is a social problem, not an economic one! Homeless people have personal problems that need to be dealt with. That's why they are on the street. It's not because they can't find any work. You CAN find jobs at minimum wage (if you can't, you can always revert to the underground economy, or the black market, or the gray market, or something). Yet homeless people don't. It's because these people need social help more than anything. It's too bad you don't realize that but hopefully you will one day.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

The wage increases get passed right back to customers (e.g., the wage-earners themselves)...

There is something you are overlooking with anti-capitalist measures like minimum wage. The increase is SUBSIDIZED by the higher classes. So yes, prices go up but it is subsidized across the whole spectrum (including the middle and upper classes). What this does is that the increase isn't so large. This is the principle by which socialist institutions and policies work. A socialist institution like a library, for example, works because it is subsidized by everyone. Only a few use the library while many pay for it. So the cost of the library is spread across the whole spectrum. Minimum wage is somewhat similar (since only a fraction of the people work at minimum wage--most don't). THe lower classes actually benefit from minimum wage because they aren't borne the full costs. If EVERYONE was working at minimum wage, I would agree with your view that the increase in wage will be passed on and the lower classes wouldn't benefit. However, only a few work at minimum wage so it works.

You are most likely against minimum wage because you are nowhere near the lower classes and hence you don't want to subsidize their wage increases. All of your other arguments are nonsensical. Passing on the costs is not a big thing. You can probably poll the lower classes and ask them whether they want wage increases (i.e. minimum wage) with higher costs passed down or no minimum wage, and they will likely pick the first one--and it's a correction/rational decision too.

Politicians necessarily have foresight that lasts only a few years into the future, which is why they are so dangerous to citizens and why citizens should never put much faith in the government.

That applies to anyone. I mean, corporations, perhaps the most important capitalist institutions, are very short term oriented as well. You mention things like tax cuts and medicare. These are actually long-term plans. The tax cut is something like a 10-year trillion cut and the medicare is long term as well. The tax cuts, for example, were largely supported by all the leading capitalists and their institutions (including Federal Reserve Bank Chairman).

If you don't want to put faith in the government that's fine. But you should do it because they are corrupt--not for the reasons you say.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anne Thwacks]

What's wrong with hiring a highschool student to do low-wage work as he lives with his parents? $4.00 an hour might pay for all the gas & food he needs.

What is wrong is that pretty soon this gets to be used to justify paying $4/hr to people doing other jobs too "its the going rate", and then to justify $4/month to single parents on other countries whose children die because US drug companies charge $4/pill for medicine.

Its obvious there IS a problem. The solution is less obvious.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Boricle]

My apologies - I didn't mean to imply that that was your opinion - Its definitely from the article - it just seemed like the right place for the comment.

Cheers, Boricle.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

On the contrary. The market for jobs determines the fair wage for a worker.

Most non-capitalists and socialists, like me, do not consider what you describe as fair wage. Fair wage, to us, has a more specific meaning. What you call fair wage has nothing to do with fairness. Instead, it is market wage.

Because the market determines wage (intersection of supply and demand), there is no concept of overpaid and underpaid to capitalists (i.e. someone who supports capitalism and subscribes to that theory). A CEO making $22 million is no more overpaid than a factory worker making minimum is underpaid. At least that's the capitalist view.

If you are more efficient than the average coder, and you are being paid the average wage, it is in some company's interest to pay you more to produce more. This is underpayment in the capitalist market.

If you are being paid a particular wage, that's what yo uare worth. That's basic capitalist theory. You may think you are worth more (or less) but that's irrelevant.

Capitalists will do anything to maxamize profits, typically. This may or may not involve driving wages as low as possible (which would be $0, theoretically.)

I think it has to be nonzero positive value. But anyway, driving wages down is one of the most popular ways of maximizing profits. Wages are huge component of most employers' costs so they try to drive it down at all times.

Outsourcing allows profits to increase, and with competition will allow prices to be dropped. Protectionist policies will cause labor costs to be artifically high - which causes prices to be high. This results in a tax on everyone to pay higher prices - due to an inefficient market.

I'm not a capitalist and I'm ok with paying "taxes" or more accurately, subsidizing others. You might be selfish (like all capitalists) and might not want to do that.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[toriver]

The free market works like the wild kingdom, because it works.

Except there is no such thing as the free market. It's a theoretical construct where an infinite number of customers chooses among an infinite number of suppliers, all of which (by necessity) produces at cost.

As long as a company makes any profit, it operates in a non-free market.

In the real world, things are regulated - and for good reasons, too. Unless you want to start paying "protection fees" to the police or armed forces.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with hiring a kid to help build a fence on a weekend and paying them little?

Because you're a cheap bastard.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Zebbers]

part of what keeps the nhl competitive is the cap
without it, it will go to hell
there will be nhl teams like the yankees...
and it will slip into disgusting oblivion....

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[GigsVT]

Both you are the other poster seem to have forgotten, we are talking about a company that is on financially shaky ground here.

Such a company might be able to slowly replace people at higher wages, but such a company almost surely can't survive an entire shutdown caused by a strike.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[ceejayoz]

Well, then, consider it economic Darwinism. Other companies'll be happy to pick up the slack, and will treat their workers all the better for it.

I'm not a big fan of the idea of treating a company with kid gloves when it won't pay its workers fairly.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the market determines wage (intersection of supply and demand), there is no concept of overpaid and underpaid to capitalists (i.e. someone who supports capitalism and subscribes to that theory). A CEO making $22 million is no more overpaid than a factory worker making minimum is underpaid. At least that's the capitalist view.

Not quite. It is possible to be paid more or less than your market value, but capitalism says that the market will correct itself quickly, so you won't be over or under-paid for long, in comparison to your market value.

I think it has to be nonzero positive value. But anyway, driving wages down is one of the most popular ways of maximizing profits. Wages are huge component of most employers' costs so they try to drive it down at all times.

If this were a serious discussion, I would hope you would back up these extremely vague claims with at least a few specific claims. The reality is, in a free market, if a company wants to succeed (which they do), they will have to pay market value for their employees.

I think it's interesting that you see this issue in terms of the large corporation versus the blue collar worker. While that undeniably a part of this discussion, you can't exclude small businesses from the picture, where forcing a company to pay an artificially high price for labor could mean forcing that company to close its doors. And I'm sure you'll agree...$1/hour is better than no job at all.

I'm not a capitalist and I'm ok with paying "taxes" or more accurately, subsidizing others. You might be selfish (like all capitalists) and might not want to do that.

Why do you stoop to a personal attack here? So much for a rational debate.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[GigsVT]

Darwinism implies a "natural" selection. What's natural about workers that refuse to change what they do, to move with the times, to do things in more efficient ways?

I've watched a similar situation play out in my home town, we lost one of our largest employers due to unions, and their constant petty strikes.

In the company I work for, some divisions have union labor and some (like the one I work at) don't. We're constantly told, "well, we'd love to do (thing that would make workflow more efficient), but the union won't let us."

There are unnecessary convolutions in our workflow just to accommodate the union... Lot of the "not my job" attitudes going around. No one wants to take responsibility for a quality product, everyone just wants to sit in their little niche, do their one little piece of the job, and nothing more.

Anyway, our division, the non-union one, was the only one to show a significant profit last year. I attribute that directly to the freedom we had in streamlining workflows to reduce unnecessary steps.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[geekster]

No problem, I don't think you did. Just wanted to let my opionion be clear

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[sjames]

Instead, young people can't find a low-responsibility, low-pay job. So, they just don't work. Then, when they're expected to be independent, they have no job experience at all, they just have a High School degree, which is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on (as far as representing knowledge and responsibility)

Perhaps it is better for the kids to have no job experiance than to have become tolerant of near slave labor conditions.

It isn't hard to make the argument that full time work should be good enough to support a person. The kids don't have to support themselves, so can work part-time.

If employers don't pay living wages, society ends up subsidizing the employer by making up the difference. In a completely free market, wages would be driven up anyway by the labor shortage caused when the unemployed workforce died from starvation or exposure. Minimum wage and other labor laws are simply a way to avoid that.

The other possability is that the underpaid workers would become organized communists and revolt violently. (look at the labor movement in the '30s) Society can't afford to have a significant portion of the population left with nothing to lose by revolting.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[jadavis]

Hey, my dad never paid me $10/hour to help him build a fence. I got $100 for like 50 hours of "work", and I was happy about it. I didn't do anything too useful, so why would my dad pay me $600?

The great thing about working for little is that people have low expectations. That's exactly what I wanted: low expectations. If you're being paid pratically nothing, than it doesn't matter if you take a break or show up late.

I get your point, but I'm not talking about $10 to watch the neighbor's dog or something; that's a one-time shot. When you get into a few hundred dollars, than most people would care whether something is actually being accomplished wihtout necessarily being called "cheap".

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[jadavis]

I'm not entirely sure that I follow you about the pills. Anyway...

If $40/hr becomes "the going rate", than that just means inflation. Inflation is good for established people with a mortgage, and bad for renters. I don't see how that helps your argument.

There is a problem. The solution is not to manipulate the economy. If someone needs it, pay them aid, don't sell them on a false solution.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[jadavis]

There are a ton of jobs at minimum wage!

However, a HS kid might not want a difficult job at $6/hr, maybe they want an easy job at $4/hr. However, minimum wage makes that illegal.

There are a whole slew of UNSKILLED jobs with very low pay.

If you're not able to produce anything worthwhile, you're going to just talk yourself out of a job if you raise the minimum wage. And if raising the minimum wage does help you, it just displaces other workers who the company no longer find it profitable to hire. I don't see how any of this is helpful.

Yes, I am a capitalist (although not an absolute capitalist). I don't have a problem with providing aid, but I do have a problem with manipulating the market. Economists know that the former is much more cost effective.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[C10H14N2]

If you look at the history of the minimum wage and adjust the historical figures for inflation, you will quickly understand why we should (or, IMO, must) continue to raise it. In 1938, when the minimum wage was instituted, it was $0.25 per hour, which is equal to $3.28 today. The reason we periodically increase the minimum wage is purely to keep pace with inflation. Before you jump up and say, hey, we're far ahead of $3.28, well, that was only nine years after the Great Depression and there was a little thing called "WWII" that happened just after that, so by 1950 it had tripled to $0.75 and by 1956 it was raised to $1.00 per hour. That $1.00 per hour is equivalent to $6.81 today. Incidentally, teenagers can be paid less than minimum wage. The minimum wage is NOT "the teenager wage." In fact, over 70% of minimum wage earners are over 20, with the vast majority of those being over 25.

The notion that businesses cannot pay more than some arbitrary point on the minimum wage history is ridiculous. Minimum wage and near-minimum wage, that is sub-20k per year, accounts for only four percent of the total salary and wages--but it accounts for 18% of the workforce.

A ten percent increase in the minimum wage would result in less than a half percent increase in total salaries and wages. If that puts a business out of business, there are greater issues than the minimum wage behind that failure. Even the current OMB, in an administration quite hostile to raising the minimum wage, postulates that such a 10% increase would have less than a 1% upward effect on the natural rate of unemployment. In fact, in the last 40 years, despite numerous adjustments, that rate has remained essentially flat.

Minimum wage history:
http://www.labor.gov/esa/minwage/chart.h tm

The inflation calculator
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[mabhatter654]

The key is that Unions have a formal contract with employers. Most of the time normal contractual chanels are enough to clear up most matters...there's a whole legal field deticated to this! Most Unions in my part agree not to strike while the employer is following the contract...If the employer stops following the contract a strike is the least of their worries!

But when the contract run out in the US that's a whole different story and usually when problems arise. Under most cases employees default to "work for hire" under the offical legal chanels...but they are all still members in the Union organization...so they can't just do whatever. So the employer is in the position to deal with the whole union or fire the lot...as well as dealing with loosing the entire workforce if they do. Often employers use negotiation time to open a new plant out-of-state and chain alone workers until they're up and running. I've always wanted to see a union do the opposite!!! I'd be fun to see a union under failing negotiations placed all the workers in other Union shops! That'd be the ultimate in fair playing fields!!!

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

I just love the arguments coming out of capitalists these days (yes, you are one :( ). THe problem I have with your argument is this: capitalists justify compensation based on skill sets. There are a whole slew of UNSKILLED jobs with very low pay. If the job is unskilled, why do you care about past experience? Past experience in most of these cases is totally irrelelant to the job anyway (eg. a packager now applying for transportation). Knowlege and responsibility is totally irrelevant in these cases.

You say capitalist like it's a bad thing. It isn't and judging from your statements, you don't really know enough to judge. Of course capitalists justify pay based on skill - well how else are you going to justify pay? Looks? However, the capitalistic job market, including the 'unskilled' job market, doesn't just care about skills, it also cares about reliability, quality and interpersonal skills. About 70% of MacDonald's managers and 60% of American franchise owners worked for minimum wage at a MacDonalds. Even an 'unskilled' job teaches a person responsibility, the importance of dependability and how to work with others. While working in as a packager in the recieving and shipping department may not lead to a job in transportation, it could lead one to a job as manager of other packagers.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[osgeek]

THe problem I have with your argument is this: capitalists justify compensation based on skill sets

How outrageous!

Next, you'll be telling me that those dirty capitalists actually try to run businesses that make money!

What's this world coming to when some of us can't just work our asses off for that unskilled, unmotivated, worthless piece of shit next door who is more than happy to reap the benefits of our hard work? If only this world were more fair like Comrade Marx wanted it to be!

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[ipfwadm]

However, a HS kid might not want a difficult job at $6/hr, maybe they want an easy job at $4/hr. However, minimum wage makes that illegal.

I would bet that if there were no minimum wage laws, he'd have just as hard a time finding that easy job for $4 an hour, because the employer would only be willing to pay $2 an hour.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Not quite. It is possible to be paid more or less than your market value, but capitalism says that the market will correct itself quickly, so you won't be over or under-paid for long, in comparison to your market value.

True... but I'm not talking about these inefficiencies or anamolies; I'm talking about after it stabilizes (the market wage). Read my third comment to see what I mean.

If this were a serious discussion, I would hope you would back up these extremely vague claims with at least a few specific claims.

I'm not going to waste my time looking this up (sorry, I don't have any bookmarks or anything that I can reference quickly). You can try looking it up. In most industries, the major component of variable costs are wages. This is blatantly obvious for service industries but is also true for many other industries.

The reality is, in a free market, if a company wants to succeed (which they do), they will have to pay market value for their employees.

I am assuming the employer in question is paying market wage (no inefficiencies, mistakes, etc). Even if a company pays market wage, it can be above or below fair wage. To a capitalist, market wage and fair wage are the same thing. To me, it's not. Fair wage, in my view, would include things like worker conditions, welfare, cost of living, and things like that. For example, someone being paid $5/hour in USA (in the underground market) is not getting fair wage but they certainly are getting market wage.

I think it's interesting that you see this issue in terms of the large corporation versus the blue collar worker. While that undeniably a part of this discussion, you can't exclude small businesses from the picture, where forcing a company to pay an artificially high price for labor could mean forcing that company to close its doors.

It's about employer vs employee (or capitalist (i.e. owner) vs worker). My comments apply equally well to small corporations. In fact, workers are exploited more in small companies than large ones (unless they get ownership or something). This is going to be surprising to you but it will point out our different world views: I would rather have that small business that you mention go out of business than it exist and provide "unfair" wages! If a small business can't provide what I call fair wage then I'm perfectly ok with not having them in my economy/country. If your business can't provide fair wages, I don't care if you go out of business. This argument is similar to leftist argument against highly polluting businesses*.

And I'm sure you'll agree...$1/hour is better than no job at all.

No, I disagree! I'm ok with having no job (whatever that means; as if you have to have low wage jobs) than having $1/hour** jobs. That's why I am in favour of minimum wage. If you were in favour of having a job at any wage, then you would be against minimum wage. This view is what seperates us. You don't care about wages. All you care about is some notion of jobs.

Why do you stoop to a personal attack here? So much for a rational debate.

There is no such thing as a rational debate in these cases. We can present our views and debate them but there is very little rationality in any of them. The reason for this that econopolitics (what I call politics+economics) is about ideals, principles, and philosophies. One cannot rationalize anything (except within one system). If we could have a rational debate, we can prove one view and all of us would admit that is the best policy and go from there. Instead, there is never any agree because of underlying differences. For example, a socialist would consider it evil that a few people can hoard large amounts of wealth (and consequently power, and everything else that goes with it) under capitalism. To a capitalist, that is perfectly fine (afterall, the guy became rich due to his own attempts, or luck, or whatever). In contrast, a socialist would say that red

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[jrexilius]

hmm.. you seemed to have extrapolated an argument from my point which was not there. I appreciate your sentiments and I think we both agree on the intent and goals.

What I was saying, however, is that timing is critical in the conflict between workers and share-holders (or whoever is making the profit driven decision that is not simply reflected in wages). There are points when an economy or business is too fragile to bounce back quickly from forced wage pressures. Yes, there will always be conflict between profit motivation and worker compensation, however, the timing of when one takes precedence is the important thing to note.

Your argument, as well, is rather stale and your emotional involvement in it seems to have blinded you from the point that "classical capitalists" make. The free-market worked during the industrial revolution in the US and other countries. The pressure and demands began to increase precisely because productivity and prosperity increased. Those were natural market forces, not a planned-event as you would like to believe. It was the market that drove the workers to demand more when it became obvious that it could support it.

People often miss the relationship between market forces and social and political action in a self-governed nation. People who come from state-centric countries or mindsets who like to view the world as controlled and mandated like to say that it was government and unions that made the change. They miss the point that the government and unions were simply responding to social forces, which were responding to market forces. You could have transported the exact same government and unions back in time 50 years when the market could not support it and they would have been ineffective at best and catastrophic at worst.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper

[jadavis]

Ok, so maybe he would still rather have the easy job than a hard job at a higher wage. I don't really see your point.

My point is that minimum wage doesn't take into account the difficulty of the work because that's difficult to quantify.

And it's still much more economically efficient to just pay poor people than to manipulate the economy in their favor. And minimum wage really doesn't favor the poor anyway.

hmm

[Christoff84]

Well at least they saved a tree or two worth of pink slips. Although on Monday there are going to be a few pissed off people that had their phones off all weekend.

GOOD NEWS!

[jonfromspace]

You Are Fired!

Sucks to be Corben Dallas!

Re:GOOD NEWS!

[Tremor (APi)]

Yeesh. I can see it now. "Oh, hang on, that's me ringin'... what's this? @$%#!!!" I just hope they didn' t have their ringtones set to 'Ode to Joy' or something... how depressing...

sms?

[tuggy]

well they could at least send it using MMS to cheer them up a bit :P

Re:sms?

[Anonymous Coward]

The last thing i want on my mobile is a pic of goatse.

Re:U R FIRED

[petabyte]

*Warn*, *Warn*, *Warn*, *Block*!!

It's what they had...

[LostCluster]

This really wasn't PC instant messages but SMS text messages, which they use over there a whole lot more than we ever do. Since these workers were on strike, they couldn't very well be told at the office anyway.

Re:It's what they had...

[poulbailey]

> Since these workers were on strike, they couldn't very well be told at the office anyway.

Whatever happened to old-fashioned snail-mails to their private address? A simple phone call would work too.

"Hi u r fired :) :) :)" is a shoddy and impersonal way to fire someone. High usage of text messages or not.

Re:It's what they had...

[orkysoft]

Nah, it would probably look more like...

UR SO FIRED CAMPFAG!!!1 UR EX BOSS!!1

Re:It's what they had...

[LostCluster]

Stamps cost money. We're talking about the last gasps of a bankrupt operation here...

Re:It's what they had...

[ceejayoz]

Mail takes a few days to arrive, which isn't very helpful if you don't want them to show up for the next shift...

It's not the first time this has happened

[alanw]

Bust company sacks workers by text

Friday, 30 May, 2003

The UK's largest personal injury claims firm, Accident Group, has sacked 2,400 people - many by text message - after its parent company Amulet Group announced on Friday that it would go into administration.

Staff with company mobile phones received a series of text messages, warning them that salaries would not be paid.

Accident group was a bunch of ambulance chasing lawyers - you know the adverts - "have you suffered an injury - contact us and we'll sue for you" (and take a massive cut from any compensation).

Re:It's not the first time this has happened

[madpierre]

I remember this. The sacked staff went on a looting spree of their
offices as I recall. It was hillarious seeng all these middle class
lawyer types lugging chairs and stuff out of the building.

The company director did a runner to Spain I think. :D

Re:It's not the first time this has happened

[SmackCrackandPot]

Accident group was a bunch of ambulance chasing lawyers

One time I was shopping in downtown Liverpool, when I saw a whole bunch of dudes hanging around the main street handing out leaflets. As they were dressed in black uniforms with red/white lettering on their shoulders, I thought they might be the salvation army, or some far-right militant group. Only when one guy approached me and handed me a leaflet did I find out they were from the "Accident group". Basically, they were fishing for anyone who might have had an accident in the past six months (tripping over uneven sidewalk blocks, cracked asphalt, raised drains exposed tree roots, etc..)

In all of these cases, it was the city who would get sued.

heh

[Anonymous Coward]

The message sent was actually "SRY WE DNT ND U NEMRE KTHX BAI THX 4 WRK HRE".

I can just imagine this...

[chrisopherpace]

-----Boss101 is now online----- Boss101: ur fired. Worker202: wtf? this is bs, what did i do that ur gonna fire me? Boss101: just leave damnit. Worker202: fucking n00b, can't fire me, ive had e-nuff of this. Boss101: bye ----Boss101 is now offline.-----

Re:I can just imagine this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is: ,,|,,

And the employees were left wondering...

[PerlPo8]

Where's that middle finger emoticon again?

Re:And the employees were left wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be the emoticon for "See Figure 1"

Re:And the employees were left wondering...

[Cliffy03]

"There is no emoticon to describe what I am feeling!"

Re:And the employees were left wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

B-

Re:And the employees were left wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean this? ..!..

Re:And the employees were left wondering...

[octover]

my friends and I use nlm or mln to signify giving the bird.

Re:And the employees were left wondering...

[McCrapDeluxe]

..|. This?

You got to admit...

[k4_pacific]

It's efficient.

This happened before in the UK

[cjellibebi]

In the UK where text-messages (SMS's) are old-hat, this has happened previously. See these articles on BBC news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2949578.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2043610 .stm

Re:ATTENTION MICHAEL SIMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Sims doesn't read the articles, let alone the comments, so this message will never reach him.

Before you lose it...

[juuri]

... understand that Korea is a very different culture when it comes to cell phones and things like SMS than the USA. SMS usage is waaaaaaaay more common with everyone and people use SMS more frequently as it is much cheaper than actually talking on the phone.

My girlfriend who is Korean can friggen enter SMS messages by using the keypad faster than I can write them with a stylus on my p800; it is both awesome and scary at the same time.

Re:Before you lose it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mail order her?

Re:Before you lose it...

[WorkEmail]

Very true, in places in Europe most often Texting is so much cheaper than voice communication, so people become very fast at it. Becoming efficient with the T9 feature on phones is very important. I can send quick messages while I drive without even looking at my phone. Different phones have different methods of how you compose, read and send messages. Most new model phones come with T9(R) Predictive Text - when you start entering a word, you only have to press the key once for each letter and the phone will anticipate what word you are typing. T9(R) Predictive Text provides: Easy and fast text entry - just one key press per letter Nearly twice as fast as "multi-tap" text entry Ability to add custom words to your T9 dictionary Full punctuation and symbol capabilities Available in all major languages

Re:Before you lose it...

[Phroggy]

My girlfriend who is Korean can friggen enter SMS messages by using the keypad faster than I can write them with a stylus on my p800; it is both awesome and scary at the same time.

I remember hearing a comment about the effects of using SMS so much in Britain and Japan; someone said teenagers are so used to using their thumb on their phone that the thumb has become their dominant digit, and they use it for things like ringing doorbells etc.

Re:Before you lose it...

[WorkEmail]

You think after about 15 years playing console games we'd be that way too. lol. I call it "Nintendo thumb" I can use my thumb on my television and go from channel 2 to about channel 45 in like 2 seconds. Ha ha ha.

Re:Before you lose it...

[MurphyZero]

Is that why New Yorkers use their middle finger to ring doorbells?

Re:Before you lose it...

[CowboyNick]

Just curious, what finger do you use to ring a doorbell. I have always used my thumb....

Re:Before you lose it...

[fasura]

I can send quick messages while I drive without even looking at my phone

Sorry this has to be said.

You're a complete dick and I hope you crash into a non-essential inanimate object a long way away from any other people.

Re:Before you lose it...

[abulafia]

T9(R) Predictive Text provides: Easy and fast text entry - just one key press per letter Nearly twice as fast as "multi-tap" text entry Ability to add custom words to your T9 dictionary Full punctuation and symbol capabilities Available in all major languages

Do you get paid for this?

Re:Before you lose it...

[dan dan the dna man]

"Becoming efficient with the T9 feature on phones is very important. I can send quick messages while I drive without even looking at my phone."

I don't want you on the same motorway as me. Idiot.

Re:Before you lose it...

[WorkEmail]

The point in that message was that I can do those things without taking my eyes off of the road. And I ALWAYS use a hands free headset in my vehicle. I disagree with the opinion that voice communication while driving poses a huge risk with most drivers. There are a lot of people out there not capable of doing two things at once and end up slamming into the back of a minivan full of kids while trying to play Tetris on their phone I am sure. But, I don't know what is worse, me using my headset and talking on the phone, or some guy drinking his coffee and smoking while he tries to read directions off of his dayplanner that is sitting on his passenger seat. And as for the T9 specs, I just copy and pasted those features of it for those unfamiliar with it's concept.

Re:Before you lose it...

[Phroggy]

Well, come to think of it, I suppose I often do too just because I can push harder with my thumb, but sometimes my index finger.

Re:Before you lose it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I always use a stick, that way there's no finger print or DNA left behind!

Re:Before you lose it...

[Anonymous Coward]

When driving, either get off the goddamned phone, or get off the road! Yes, I'm sure you're perfectly capable of multitasking, and would never be caught dead rear-ending a minivan-full of kids.

So if someone is doing something bad, it is ok for you to be doing something bad as well, as long as it's not 'as bad' as the other guy? Your logic escapes me.

Re:Before you lose it...

[Anne Thwacks]

I have to say that for me, predictive text has NEVER ONCE GOT THE RIGHT WORD. I put this down to the fact that the dictionary is centered around teenagers. I can enter the message the "hard way" faster than I can with predictive text. However, my old phone used to default to predictive text on every time it was powered up, leading to serious cases of "text rage".

Anyway the moral of the original story is: you are more likely to keep your job if you dont have a mobile phone.

Re:Before you lose it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I use my nose.

Re:Before you lose it...

[WorkEmail]

I think most people are capable of talking on the phone and driving. And talking on the phone and driving is not as bad as putting on make up and driving, or reading directions, or talking to someone who is in the car, or drinking a beverage,or smoking, etc. Can you outlaw all of those things too? Especially with a headset, talking and driving is fine.

Re:Before you lose it...

[WorkEmail]

It could have beena phone that did not have a very extensive text dictionary to pull from or something. I have the Samsung A660 and it almost always, I would say 98% of the time gets the word right. Plus, most phones have a USER DICTIONARY, where you can customize obscure words that you use commonly. So if I use the name INTERTECHNODRON, all the time, I could add it to my personal T9 dictionary, and the predictive text would recognize it evey time. ;)

I can see it now:

[Ieshan]

u fired! kekekekekekekeke!!11111

Re:I can see it now:

[Anonymous Coward]

ZERGRUSH! KEKEKEKEKEKEKE

RTFA

[Brian Dennehy]

South Korea's third-largest credit card issuer fired a quarter of its workforce via mobile phone text messages on Friday, after negotiations with striking unionized workers broke down.

The firm said it had no method for contacting striking staff other than using the short message service (SMS).

I suppose, to them, it would be no different than calling them all up directly, other than the fact that that would take too long (plus, you'd have to put up with them complaining about getting fired, etc.).

Attention Mods: Refernce Explained

[Anonymous Coward]

Reference is to "The Fifth Element."

McFly -- READ MY FAX!

[holt_rpi]

And who can forget the immortal words of Iko 'Jitz' Fujitsu: "Read my fax!"

Well, at least they didn't get it ALL wrong in Back to the Future II... the message was just delivered on cell phones instead of paper.

Where's my pizza rehydrator and hoverboard, anyway?

Re:McFly -- READ MY FAX!

[russianspy]

I don't know about the pizza, but the hoverboard is right here.

Re:McFly -- READ MY FAX!

[Buran]

Where are the flying cars!? I was promised flying cars!!

Hell, I'd spend $40K to get my 2000 VW Golf to start flying! Even though the car itself is sold new these days for less than half that much.

Why don't I see amy flying cars!? Why, why, why??

Tragic

[Bish.dk]

It's a tragedy for the people involved in the story.

I can't help but wonder if this story would have been posted under "It's funny. Laugh" if it had been an American company firing American workers.

Is it only funny because it is happening half a world away?

Re:Tragic

[LostCluster]

Most company busts are looked at as a tragic comedy in the end... these people went on strike fearing job cuts when they learned that their bankrupt company was about to be merged with a not bankrupt operation. It's hard to feel sympathy for a group that couldn't take their layoff gracefully when they're being told in an impersonal way.

Re:Tragic

[Razzak]

It'd still be funny, because quite honestly if I was running a business that dealt with that company I'd think twice about dealing with them again.

Any company that's willing to treat its own employees that way probably would screw over its partners just as easily.

Being rude and thoughtless is simply not good business.

Re:Tragic

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, if this was an american company firing ~160 workers, it wouldn't have made it here, it would have been lucky to have received small mention on www.fuckedcompany.com. This made it here on style alone.

teh msg

[pokka]

hi how r u? u gtg
u hv 4hr 2 get ur
stf out of ur dsk
hv a gr8 day cya

Re:teh msg

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT DOWN. UNFUNNY

11 years too early

[michaeltoe]

I suppose it makes up for the noticeable lack of flying cars...

Re:11 years too early

[holt_rpi]

Well, they were a little bit off in their prediction of the ubiquity of fax machines and stuff - nobody thought computers, email and wireless devices would be quite what they are now.

I guess they need 11 more years to finish up the flying cars and Mr. Fusion retrofit kits... they can keep the double neckties and other fashion faux pases (like the sunglasses - ugh!)

Re:11 years too early

[NanoGator]

"Well, they were a little bit off in their prediction of the ubiquity of fax machines and stuff - nobody thought computers, email and wireless devices would be quite what they are now."

We don't know that a new trend in technology won't be like the fax machine. Likely? Eh maybe not. But who knows? Maybe we'll go through a 'simple' phase in life where we only want the really really important stuff to be printed?

Sorry if that sounds a little crazy, but in light of how full my inbox is right now, I'd certainly love for my family to just fax me. Then I know it's important since they'd be using my personal phone #.

Re:11 years too early

[michaeltoe]

We get junk faxes at work... it's miserable. The fax machine is exactly like a mailbox, only it's slow, and murders trees.

Re:11 years too early

[Afrosheen]

Seeing how over the last 10 years we've been stuck in a 'what fashion period of the past can we recycle now?' phase, I doubt double neckties or those funky sunglasses will make it here.

My prediction for next year: the 50's! Greaser hairstyles, leather jackets with white t-shirts and dirty rolled up jeans, those awful poodle skirts, you name it. Mark my words. This year is white trash, fucked-up haircut, that-70's-show fashion, next year it's the 50's.

Re:11 years too early

[1u3hr]

We get junk faxes at work... it's miserable. The fax machine is exactly like a mailbox, only it's slow, and murders trees.

Set up an old PC with a modem to receive faxes. Just delete the spam from the preview without printing. You could set up some filtering rules using caller ID to catch at least some.

Reminds me...

[geekster]

a bit of that scene in Back to The Future 2... read my fax McFly!

Fired OR?

[Marvelicious]

I'm trying to figure out which is worse: getting fired by IM or getting dumped by IM.

I do have to hand it to then for sheer cold-blooded brutality. The little devil guy that pops up over my right shoulder really got a kick out of this one!

Re:Fired OR?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm trying to figure out which is worse: getting fired by IM or getting dumped by IM.

Getting dumped is worse. If you are unemployed there are job centres where you can go get a new job. I have yet to find a similar location for obtaining a significant other (assuming one ignores the bar-scene).

Re:Fired OR?

[Marvelicious' Girl]

I didn't want it to come to this, but... I'm breaking up with you, K?

It just wasn't working out; I just couldn't compete with this stupid, ugly green website.

I want my car back, too.

Don't bother trying to come crawling back, we're through.

Like this way of breaking up with you? It's Toni's idea. Savor the sweet, sweet irony.

Re:Fired OR?

[Chmcginn]

That's just beautiful.

Re:Fired OR?

[shadowbearer]

Damn, that'd be positively civilized compared to some of the breakups I've been thru. At least you can't throw things thru text messages.

SB

Re:Fired OR?

[Marvelicious]

Wow, I had a girlfriend? Boy I HAVE been drunk lately!

Re:Fired OR?

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't seen the worse. Here in Malaysia, you can get divorced by SMS.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3112151. st m

Then again, it was an Islamic marriage. That one, you can end by saying the word three times (to the wife).

Re:Fired OR?

[toast0]

heh.... maybe the 'just once more' sex will be worth the public humiliation of realizing while you were drunk you borrowed the car of a girlfriend you also aquired, and then she broke up with you

(and apparently created the account solely to post that... but hey)

Fearing Job Cuts

[yintercept]

Unionized workers, who make up nearly 90 percent of the firm's 662 staff, have been on strike since mid-December over a takeover by Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), fearing job cuts.

Just a sec, I need to jot this down in my notebook of things not to do: Item 694: Go on strike to prevent job cuts.

That done, Marjorie Kelly makes a good point in her work The Divine Right of Capital that employees are are the wrong side of the ledger. People are expenses not stake holders. This creates the negative feedback that as productivity increases wages go down...not up.

This strike and instant death messages shows that confrontational method of strikes does not work well in a market that is suffering from over capacity. What needs to happen is we need to figure out how to get more people from the expense side of the ledger into the stake holder side of the ledger.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[LostCluster]

These people also went on strike trying to get blood from a stone. The managers they were talking to were in charge of a division that was nearly bankrupt and about to get merged back into the mothership company... which means most of the people on the other side of the table also are likely to lose their jobs too.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

If you go with a socialist view, like mine, the only way to do that is to eliminate render the capitalist class obsolete. A way to do that is for employees to become employers. That is to say, every worker will be the owner of the company.

But there is a problem. Capitalism is an elitist system where a few hoarde huge wealth. This essentially means that the majority of the people will only own a minority of the wealth (and consequently the corporations). More Americans, for example, own companies than ever (if you count people investing in stock markets and employee share ownership plans), but unfortunately they only own a fraction.

To recap, the ideal solution is for employees to be employers (i.e. employees own the company). But that seems to have little impact under an elitist system like capitalism. So I'm not really sure hot to accomplish what is required...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Anonymous Coward]

40% of the american public own stock plus their state governments also own stock as well so its a little more then a fraction. Infact I believe a few companies have unions with majority shares of stock.

Also "capitalism" is not a sceme like socialism or the welfare state. It is the natural order that ISM's leech off of.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[yintercept]

I think anything ending with an "ist" or "ism" is a leach on the society. That includes the word "capitalism" (capitalism is not the same as the free market). Capitalism is a system where a small number people gain a disproportionate level of influence through market manipulations. The label "capitalism" was defined by people in the Marxist camp. The US was intended to be a free market.

For the free market to work, people have to have ownership of something. The game of selling your entire life to a company is a single transaction is not leading to optimal results. This game where the majority of people become 100% dependent on a single source of income is a farce. This episode of striking against a bankrupt firm and getting fired by text message can only be described as a comedy.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Bull999999]

As for employees owning the company, United Airlines tried that and ended up going bankrupt.

Here in colorado, it only takes $50 to incorporate, but most people would rather send that $50 on games, beer, pot, etc...

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[genmanath]

That done, Marjorie Kelly makes a good point in her work The Divine Right of Capital that employees are are the wrong side of the ledger. People are expenses not stake holders. This creates the negative feedback that as productivity increases wages go down...not up.

I think the validity of that statement varies when applied to different firms. For some firms, who consider the shareholders (or worse, the top executives) to be the primary or sole stakeholders, it's probably very true. However, there probably are some companies (Southwest Airlines was one of them, though it may not be now) who consider the employees to be among their major or primary stakeholders. It all depends on the culture of the firm in question. I think one can distinguish the employee-focused firms from the others by watching for layoffs during a downturn. Those which lay off workers before making other cut-backs probably taken the employee==expense view. However, without concrete, non-anecdotal proof, I can't make those statements any more strongly than I do.

To add another wrinkle, the employee as expense (or employee!=stakeholder) view might vary with the size of the firm in question. A small company, such as a partnership with employees, would probably be less likely to take the employee = expense view because in a small firm, there is a greater chance that everyone literally knows everyone else and that the CEO and VPs have a personal concern in the well-being of their employees. Was that last sentence a run on sentence, I wonder?

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

As for employees owning the company, United Airlines tried that and ended up going bankrupt.

If people owned only one company, it would definitely be risky. It also wouldn't solve anything in the long term. If you owned only your company and even if it did well, the problems will still exist. YOU will become wealthy but no one else will. We will end up with the same situation as now, with a few wealthy hoarding a lot--except you will belong to the wealthy class now.

The ideal solution would be for EVERYONE to own EVERYTHING. A simple case of this would be if everyone owned every stock in the stock market (basically own an index of all stocks). Then again, this might actually be socialism (except with modern financial markets). This might be anti-capitalist (and hence shunned by capitalists).

Here in colorado, it only takes $50 to incorporate, but most people would rather send that $50 on games, beer, pot, etc...

Owning your own corporation which is up to no good ;) does nothing. The problem is that you have to own a business that is successful in some sense. Having paper titles to a corporation does nothing! You have to partake in the wealth accrued by the economy!

Also, only a finite number of people (I would argue less than 25%) are capable of--or want to--run businesses. So the vast majority of people will not try starting businesses. This is just like how only 25% (probably) care about science--the majority doesn't care what goes on in science. Or how only 25% probably care about econopolitics (the real stuff; not the fake rhetoric and propaganda coming out of of governments).

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

What's an ISM?

Anyway, you didn't understand my point. I am talking about wealth disparancy. My point is this. Around 50% of Americans own corporations (via the stock market) yet they only control something like 20% of the corporations (in terms of wealth/ownership). The point here is that this will generally be always true under an elitist system like capitalism. So what's the point? If the majority of the population only controls 20%, it doesn't really make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

(Of course, YOU, as an individual, might become wealthy and be part of the 30% (or whatever) that controls 70% of the stock market. But I am talking about society as a whole. Whether YOU become wealthy or not is irrelevant to me. What I care about is what happens to society as a whole.)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Bull999999]

That's right, owning business has it's own risks. And wealth is a reward for taking risks as it could end up costing you dearly.

The problem is that there are people who are unwilling to take risks and wonder why certain people get rich.

Yourself stated that "You have to partake in the walth accured by the economy". I believe that answers your question of why minority of people control the majority of the wealth in this world.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Shajenko42]

The prosperity gap is worse than that, even. According to Lcurve.org :

The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation's wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[yintercept]

I think one can distinguish the employee-focused firms from the others by watching for layoffs during a downturn.

There is truth to this statement. However, in a situation where the employee truly is a stakeholder, you would see what employees receiving from the firm going up and down with the market. That means being idled in downturns. Employee owned firm can and should be just as aggressive in cutting back the dead wood and adjusting to market conditions. Employee owned firms that consider job security over all else have a decided disadvantage to companies that can adjust.

BTW, Southwest Airlines just closed two reservation centers. That does not mean they are not employee friendly...just that the internet made the jobs obsolete. Keeping the jobs would simply hurt the company.

One of our problems is that employee situation is really not tied to the fate of the company or to the economy.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[genmanath]

When I raised the question (doubt?) about SWA and its employee focus, I was thinking about some relatively recent labor difficulties with its flight attendants and their union, which usually suggests that there is "something rotten in the state of Denmark", as it were. I don't know the outcome of those negotiations, though, so I can't do more than raise questions. Thanks for the input.

Re:Fearing Job Cuts

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I think people understand that very well. I certainly do! So the problem is NOT what is causing the imbalance (we know the answer). The real issue is how to prevent it.

Capitalists, who are elitists, don't care about this discrepancy. Non-capitalists, like me, do care.

In life, the descriptions of events are often easy. One just needs to perform some observations. The difficulties are coming up with solutions. For instance, it is easy to explain why a tiny few controlled politics in, say, 1700's (the answer would basically include monarchy, aristocracy, elitism, and merchantilism). The real difficulty, at that time, was coming up with a way of rectifying the perceived problem. The final solution consisted of abolishing monarchy (replace with "democracy"), curbing merchantilism (ended up being replaced by a close relative of it: capitalism), and so forth.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

SMS

[Coderstop]

They were sacked by SMS not IM. Many children in the UK are much more dextrous with their thumbs than their parents, mainly due to sending SMS messages via their mobile phones.

Back To The Future X

[moojin]

This reminds me of that "Back to the Future ?" where Michael J Fox's character gets fired via fax in all of the rooms in his house.

At least they got paid when they worked.

[www.sorehands.com]

At least they didn't work for a psycho like Barry Lewis. He of course claimed he sent paychecks, but they never arrived, he finally admitted that there was no money.

The last I heard of him is that he was on his way to the probation department after his criminal conviction.

BUZZZ!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

foxy_lady_18: hi... a/s/l please....:)
BOB: B-) 32/M/_____-___.com
foxy_lady_18: how r u today...
BOB: gr8... how was ur day?
foxy_lady_18: gr8... So you're at work?
BOB: yup
foxy_lady_18: like to slip out and get some coffee?
BOB: Sure... my boss's supposed to be out playing golf today... sucker won't miss me...
foxy_lady_18: sounds like ur Boss's a prick...
BOB: can't find his own dick without a yahoo route map
BOB: sob can't do jacksh*t without me
foxy_lady_18: This is your Boss... You're fired!!
BOB: I hate ppl who say a/s/l

Does this mean...

[Strenoth]

That I get to keep my company cell phone?

Re:Does this mean...

[dsplat]

That I get to keep my company cell phone?

Yes, but if you go through the paperwork, you will notice that the contract is in your name. You are on the hook for the bill for the next 15 months. Have a nice day.

Obligatory

[crawdaddy]

In A.D. 2004

KEB was firing

Worker: What happen?

Cellphone: Somebody set up us the IM.

AIM: We get message.

Worker: What!

AIM: Main screen turn on.

Worker: It's you!!

HR: How are you gentlemen!!

HR: All your jobs are belong to us!

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly YOU don't get it. Everybody else gets the reference and it IS funny.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

get yourself a copy of the zero-wing rom from your local purveyor of abandonwarez and a suitable emulator, and you too can share in the joy of this essential piece of 90's cyberculture.

Re:Obligatory

[Monkelectric]

I don't have any mod points, but you just earned a friend :)

Re:Obligatory

[BigDumbSpaceApe]

It's about an old video game with really bad translations, so bad that they have a cult following. I think it was wing commander.You can see the famous part here :

All your base are belong to us.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a spoof of "all your base".

What are you, an idiot or a troll?

Re:Obligatory

[BigDumbSpaceApe]

Yeah one of the other posters was right, it was called Zero Wing. And there is a history of the rise to fame at the same site:

all your base history

Re:Obligatory

[Wolfier]

This is all I have to say

Re:Obligatory

[LittleBigLui]

HR: All your jobs are belong to us!

all your JOB! learn english, assmaster!

Huh?

[jpellino]

"The firm said it had no method for contacting striking staff other than using the short message service (SMS)."

Um, they had the cell phone number needed to send the sms - buck up and call them.

Re:Huh?

[psoriac]

Maybe the employees were refusing to answer the phones?

Gutless

[HangingChad]

But a lot of companies are using Email to fire people to avoid dealing with it face to face. I can understand it, but these people have invested 1/3 of their weekday lives working for your company. Time they can never get back. You'd think they'd at least be due the courtesy of hearing it directly. No outplacement assistance, nothing. Tossed aside like a used Kleenex.

I'd suggest start working on your own business. It's not that hard to do. And with companies pushing more of the grunt paperwork down on already over-worked people, you might find it's less work than some of you are doing now. The big expense for most people is health insurance.

Re:Gutless

[MrWa]

I can understand it, but these people have invested 1/3 of their weekday lives working for your company. Time they can never get back.

You are really taking a job too seriously. It is not time invested with no pay back: those people were getting paid for that time. Whether they were getting paid enough is an individual concern. Keep in mind that they were on strike, while the company had no money...

No outplacement assistance, nothing. Tossed aside like a used Kleenex.

In your attempt to paint this as the giant evil corporation using people like Kleenex you missed that there will be a seperation package. Getting laid off is not pleasant. Firing someone is not pleasant on the individual level, either. With no way to get in touch with someone because that person is not coming into work how do you prepose the company should have let people know they should start planning for their future instead of chanting with signs in front of the company?

Re:Gutless

[fishbonez]

In your attempt to paint this as the giant evil corporation using people like Kleenex you missed that there will be a seperation package.

Separation packages can suck. Mine was 1 week of pay after 4.5 years of service, which is substandard by any measure. It's little wonder you see ads from Software & Information Industry Association tech job sites encouraging you to report software piracy. SIIA understands that many companies are really treating IT workers like Kleenex.

How come no one

[geekoid]

is posting about the fax McFly gets in back to the future 2?

Re:Tragic - Obligatory Quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ot's funny because it's not me..." Homer J.

So...

[RoadkillBunny]

...if I don't have a mobile phone, I wouldn't get fired?

Re:So...

[JoshWurzel]

HAHAHAH! And /.-er's called me an asshole for not having a cell phone. Looks like I've got the last laugh!

Direct Link

[crashcheval]

The direct link to the Yahoo story is: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/ 20040227/od_nm/financial_korea_keb_dc_2 in case you don't want to have to do a search on Yahoo news

Maybe they're been watching......

[nighty5]

Back to the Future 2??????

It could of been a fax AND an MMS message.....

TheBoss has sent you a message!

[AvantLegion]

TheBoss: hi a/s/l?
TheBoss: whoops
TheBoss: sorry but ur fired
TheBoss: ill give u good reference tho
* TheBoss sets status to Sorry *
TheBoss: :(
TheBoss: srry ur mad at me gtg byebye
TheBoss has logged out

'Hey,

[Vexware]

was nice knowing you'

Milton

[blixel]

Hey, at least they got told, right? Afterall, they could have been like Milton.

That wouldn't be so bad. Milton continue getting paid for several months.

Instant Message != Text Message

[Aphrika]

Here in the UK, an instant message would be sent via AIM or MS Messenger. Phone to phone messaging is called text messaging. It's real name is SMS - simple message services - but no-one calls it that anymore.

I'd be much more impressed if someone was fired via an instant message:

Bob has signed in
Bob says: Morning Alex
Alex says: Hi Bob
Bob says: You're fired.
Bob has left the conversation

Re:Instant Message != Text Message

[Anonymous Coward]

AIM can be used on phones, and as far as functionality, SMS and IM are equivalent

Re:Instant Message != Text Message

[t_allardyce]

I think in other parts of the world its known as an instant message because it arrives at the other phone instantly, where-as here in the uk, o2 delivers it afew hours later because a 160 byte message is oh so traffic intensive.

Re:Instant Message != Text Message

[Anonymous Coward]

Short Message Service, actually.

Re:Instant Message != Text Message

[Anonymous Coward]

If its any consolation... The average Australian Joe (Or Jane) would know EXACTLY what you are talking about if you say SMS.

The abundant telecommunications advertising have at least used correct terminology in their advertising.

Re:Instant Message != Text Message

[Anonymous Coward]

In Finland it's also called text message.

hmmmm

[TechnologyX]

Maybe I shouldn't have deleted that "Sry u r laid of" spam mail..

Fired by text message? That's nothing!

[Anonymous Coward]

In Saudi Arabia and many other muslim countries, you can get divorced by text message!

To be fair, it's not text messaging that is the issue. In many muslim countries saying, "I divorce you" three times is enough for divorce. SMS is just the medium for carrying the divorce messages.

Re:Fired by text message? That's nothing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that get followed up by

Where's my alimony?
Where's my alimony?
Where's my alimony?

-jokerghost

Re:Fired by text message? That's nothing!

[/dev/trash]

Sadly, women have a tad bit fewer rights in Saudi Arabia, she'll be lucky if she's even allowed to have a new boyfriend.

Re:Fired by text message? That's nothing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just SA, anywhere where sharia is instituted. She can be turned out on the street without a dinar. And any children? Well, they are the property of the man...

Re:Fired by text message? That's nothing!

[wronskyMan]

In A.D. 2004 marriage was ending.
What happen?
Someone set up us the tent.
We get signal.
What!
Husband not turn on.
It's you!
How are you honey?
All your camels are belong to us.
You are on the way to your moms house.
What you say?
You have no chance to appeal make your time.
For great justice take off every 'burka.'

Re:Fired by text message? That's nothing!

[DarkHelmet]

In Saudi Arabia and many other muslim countries, you can get divorced by text message!

Hmmm. I wonder if you can get divorced by web page. I'd create a nice little dynamic script (Perl or PHP) that puts "I divorce you" 10000 times on the screen.

I'd then link each of my four wives at the time to the page. They'd be reading it while I'm on the plane back to America.

Whats next?

[zaunuz]

Job promotion via e-mail?

"I've been thinking of promoting you from toilet-cleaner to my secretary. You will earn 10 times more than you do now, while working only 30 minutes per day. Reply to this if you are interested. Do not reply if you're not.
-Boss

...blocked by spam-filter.

Re:Whats next?

[Anonymous Coward]

put your boss and anyone you care about on your white list. any dummy would have already done this. obvious you have not even thought of it.

Perhaps that explains the "You're Fired!" spam...

[Ron Bennett]

Sure others received similar spam awhile back titled "You're Fired". While I realize SMS is different, and more secure...I still wonder about the security...

What's to stop some spoofer/hacker/etc from sending out bogus, legit looking "You're Fired!" SMS - say from a stolen/borrowed/hacked cellphone or computer, etc of the company.

Even if it later is revealed the "You're Fired!" SMS were bogus, the damage is already done...

Ron

Dear Employee

[rock_climbing_guy]

We are sorry to inform you, but your services are no longer necessary to the company. Effective immediately, upon receipt of this message, your remote access to company resources has be&*#A%rE [NO CARRIER]

Back in '78

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I was working field service for a minicomputer company. I was beeped on my pager then when I called in, I was told I was laid off.

I guess...

[rampant mac]

I guess the next step will be my boss following up on one of my /. posts...

+5 Informative - You've been canned.

Re:I guess...

[LostCluster]

Nah... such a post would usually get modded as offtopic and flamebait despite being informative. It could never reach +5 and keep it for very long.

Re:I guess...

[Mononoke]

No, it would be:

-1 Redundant - Your responsibilities duplicate those of someone we like better.

Re:I guess...

[/dev/trash]

I'm waiting for a certain someone's wife to make a +5 Redundant, Yer Fired. Post.

another one..

[Anonymous Coward]

there was a company that did this in the UK ( a small claims company, i forget the name now ) over the next day all the employees stole all the laptops, desktops, servers, chairs, cell phones, tables, doors and lights.

the Boss guy was later photographed lying on a boat in the sun.

well it was 4 years ago

[stud9920]

n/t

Oh the irony

[t_allardyce]

Fired by crappest, most rip-off messaging system known to man with a 160 character limit, phone companies that think its fine to charge you extortionate fees to route something the size of the meta data thats sent when you initiate a call (for free) and then dont bother to deliver it for 3 hours on occaision and the most annoying input method ever invented.

Re:Oh the irony

[otis wildflower]

Fired by crappest, most rip-off messaging system known to man with a 160 character limit

All you need is 6 characters...

urfyrd

How is SCO ....

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

going to fire they workers when they go bankrupt ... ... vi talk? :)

The joke would've been on them

[rune2]

If someone had a phone/beeper that didn't work and thus didn't get the message. Although I think that person would probably have found out it would really suck to walk into work one day and find none of your coworkers there. Surprise! Sounds like a nasty way to play a joke on someone though... just send out a text message telling them that they've been fired!

And their response:

[infinite9]

What you say?!??

Re:And their response:

[after]

In A.D. 2101
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's You !!
Cats: How are you gentlemen !!
Cats: All your base are belong to us.
Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Cats: HA HA HA HA ....
Captain: Take off every 'zig' !!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'zig'.
Captain: For great justice.

Re:And their response:

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

"U R HEDED 4 UNMPLOI ! MAK UR TIEM!" rar... stupid lameness filter.

Re:And their response:

[SoTuA]

How Are You Gentelmen,

all your job are belong to us.

You have no chance to re-hire make your desk.

HA HA HA!

(I know, I know)

Legal strength ?

[lkratz]

I don't know what are the job laws in South-Korea. But in most of European countries, theses SMS have probably no legal binding between employer and employees. The company still have to send some kind of registered letter "snail mail". Even if people are in strike and difficult to reach, I see no company advantage to send SMS to warn employees they are fired, they still need to send letters. And there effective dismissal starts when they receive there registered letter.

There's also an issue about SMS authentication, do you think these 161 recipients know their HR manager GSM number and are able to verify the author of the message ? Could be anyone sending you that message : "you are fired. signed J.M. KEB Credit Service HR Manager"

Coming soon to your linux desktop

[Mixel]

"You have IM!" *ding* SCO has joined the conversation *ding* DeptOfJustice has joined the conversation

butbutbutbut...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is my first feeling when I read stuff like this too... but there are SO MANY companies and CEOs that act inhuman, stupid, ignorant, etc.. (read FuckedCompany) who the hell is left to deal with?

We, as a country, are waist deep in the corporate idiocy crap. How the hell can we avoid it? It's all around....

Could be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

At a PPOE, we came in one day to find out about 1/3 of the office
couldn't get e-mail. Since corporate HQ was in another time zone, we
had to wait a couple of hours until the IT guys got in. The IT guys
passed the buck for a while until finally we were told that the folks who
couldn't get their e-mail were laid off.

Happened in the UK too last year

[Alan Cox]

Admittedly since the company were "personal injury lawyers" nobody could decide whether to feel outraged over the method used or happy that the people lost their jobs...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2949578.stm

Re:Happened in the UK too last year

[AardvarkOfFnords]

One of the branches (Birmingham) was in the same building as the one I work in. Many (all?) of the people were already owed wages, and guessed something was happening. The offices were looted for laptops etc.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/29 52194.stm

Re:Happened in the UK too last year

[ozric99]

My favourite quote from that piece:

Speaking from his 3m mansion in North Rode, Cheshire, he said: "I'm absolutely devastated"

Why does slashdot not recognise Pound signs? Sigh...

Re:Perhaps that explains the "You're Fired!" spam.

[jesterzog]

Sure others received similar spam awhile back titled "You're Fired". While I realize SMS is different, and more secure...I still wonder about the security...

What's to stop some spoofer/hacker/etc from sending out bogus, legit looking "You're Fired!" SMS - say from a stolen/borrowed/hacked cellphone or computer, etc of the company.

Whatever the security is like, I certainly hope the company involved did not consider this "official notification". SMS messages are relatively unreliable, and under normal circumstances there's no way to verify that they were received or read.

If they'd wanted to press the matter, the union workers could probably get away with refusing to admit that they'd received any notification, and the company would have had a difficult time proving otherwise -- at least on an individual basis.

HURRY!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone patent firing people via IM and SMS... we'll sue their ass and make a lot of $$$$!!!!

The obligatory arcade joke...

[hlygrail]

The text message probably went something like this:

All yer paycheck R belong 2 us! -PHB

Sorry, I had to do it...

Too bad

[IshanCaspian]

If a company's workers would rather go hungry than go to work, it doesn't deserve to be in business.

The AC is a Manager

[Winkhorst]

The AC is obviously someone who either owns a business or is a professional who sees himself as part of management rather than as part of the work force. I'm reminded of Howard Stern, who was a fan of George W Bush until George's FCC chairman got him knocked off the air in six markets. Sorry for the bluntness but it has to be said: Being an ass-kisser doesn't guarantee you won't be dumped on. It just makes it taste worse.

Re:The AC is a Manager

[Penguinshit]

depends on whether you use tongue or not...

Re:The AC is a Manager

[Anonymous Coward]

But actually, if you're an ass-kisser, you can often feel the pre-dumpage straining and/or see the turd on its way out. Therefore you have advance warning of the impending dumpage, and can get out of the way before getting hit by the bombing run. Staying close to your boss can help you figure out where you need to be.

Re:The AC is a Manager

[Anonymous Coward]

> But actually, if you're an ass-kisser, you can often ... see the turd on its way out.

ROFL

Re:The AC is a Manager

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that Powell was appointed by clinton.

Re:The AC is a Manager

[Winkhorst]

But he obviously knows how to lick his finger and stick in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

Instant??? What's instant about an SMS?

[canavan]

I'm really wondering who had the audacity of naming Short Messages "instant messages" - there's nothing instant about them at all. They can (and really do) take up to 7 days to get delivered, even if one's phone has good reception for almost all the time.

Re:Instant??? What's instant about an SMS?

[void warranty()]

Uhm, you're supposed to send SMS via the GSM net, not type it into your phone, put a stamp on it and send it via snail mail. Faster and cheaper.

Re:Instant??? What's instant about an SMS?

[Renegade Lisp]

They can (and really do) take up to 7 days to get delivered, even if one's phone has good reception for almost all the time.

Are you from the US? Here in Europe, delivery lags are pretty much a non-issue by now. I haven't had an SMS delayed by any significant amount of time (i.e. more than a few seconds) in years.

(Unless it's New Year's Eve, that is.)

I only know this for those messages to which I got immediate replies of course, but that is probably the majority of my messages.

Re:Instant??? What's instant about an SMS?

[Anonymous Coward]

What country are you in? In Australia, SMS messages are truly instant, they always have been. That's why they are so useful. I don't think I've had a delayed one for years, and even then they are only delayed maybe a few minutes in times of extreme network traffic.

Monday morning:

[cs02rm0]

Joe Worker: Hi Boss, good weekend?
Boss: Err...
Joe Worker: My work mobile (cell) seems to have died this weekend, any chance of a new one?
...

/.ing & (Ir)Responsbility - OT

[minusthink]

Listen: It's one thing to (allow) link to a major site to report a story without warning or a cache (though I don't buy the reasons they give in the FAQ, but that's another rant), it's another thing to link to a site for that has no relation to story.

Practically everyone on /. knows who milton is, there was no need to link to this poor guy's site at all.

I'm just asking for a little consideration from the moderators not a linking policy.

minus

(and no, I didn't go to this guy's site)

It could have been worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the equivalent of the following joke:

The master sergent in Delta Company was a rough, grizzled, nail-biting manly man. He pulled no punches. One day at early morning formation, following his announcements for the day, he added, "By the way, Kelly! Your mother died yesterday."

Poor Kelly just crumbled and had to be carried back to the barracks. The company commander chewed out the MSGT for his lack of tact and for his insensitivity and told him that the next time he had to announce a family death, he had better do it with more subtlety.

The occasion arose about two weeks later. At the end of his morning announcements, he said, "Everyone whose mother is still alive, take one step forward. NOT SO FAST, MILLER!"

swingline now makes this stapler

[way2trivial]

due to demand post movie.

http://www.swingline.com/html/1695.html

U p the Revolution: The Red Stapler! Staple and be heard! WHAM-cubicles! WHAM-dress code! WHAMWHAMWHAM! By popular demand, were offering this desk stapler in screaming, gleaming red. Use with caution (unless youre the boss).

Reason for being fired

[Anonymous Coward]

At least their reason for being fired was not using Linux an OpenOffice instead of the SOE.

Why has no one posted a reply to your comment?

[PetoskeyGuy]

Godel Loes you

The Slashdot Troll way of firing someone.

[Stonent1]

UAF Yhl HAND

UAF="You Are Fired"

Re:The Slashdot Troll way of firing someone.

[NeoSkandranon]

Pardon my lack of knowlege but "Yhl" ??

Re:The Slashdot Troll way of firing someone.

[ActiveSX]

You Have Lost

Re:The Slashdot Troll way of firing someone.

[Anonymous Coward]

its normally "you have been trolled. you have lost. have a nice day"

Just running an errand...

[mac os ken]

thx 4 teh msg
i jst at teh
GUNS n AMMO
STOR i am stndin
in lobby now l8tr

This I don't get.

[Natestradamus]

Why do people bag on capitalism so hard? America was built on capitalism, and is now the most powerful, prosperous country in the world. Say what you like about capitalism, it works. (Go ahead, I can feel the troll mods homing in as I type...)

Re:This I don't get.

[Anonymous Coward]

It works, but not perfectly. It's like a genetic algorithm. Basically, with genetic algorithms you have to define the conditions very carefully or you'll end up with the algorithm "cheating." In an unrestricted capitalist economy this will happen too. We must make sure that we establish the proper conditions to ensure that companies that make good products and individuals who do well in their field are rewarded.

The view of many libertarians is that the market always knows best. This viewpoint is naive since there are always some people looking for shortcuts.

Re:This I don't get.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Nobody is "bagging" on capitalism, that's the way capitalism is supposed to work. Capitalist employers try to minimize costs at the expense of workers, and capitalist workers try to maximize wages and benefits at the expense of employers. This conflict of interest results in an equilibrium point where neither side can force a change in their favor. That's the "fair market value." Of course, if one side has too much power relative to the other, the fair market value will result in that side being completely screwed. But artificial restrictions to prevent that would be socialistic. The US is where it is because it found a balance between capitalism and socialism (tilted decidedly towards capitalism) that works pretty well.

Re:This I don't get.

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

USA did not become wealthy because of capitalism (although it helped it.) If what you are saying were true, then Europe (at least the parts that are largely capitalist like Britain) would have kept pace. Also, Latin America, which followed US-style capitalism, would be wealthy, yet it is worse off now than ever.

USA became wealthy for the following reasons:

1. Trade: The number one reason countries, or civilizations, become wealthy is due to trade. USA largely accumulated its wealth in the 1800's (not 1900's as many think). This was mostly due to trade. By late 1800's, USA was the most prosperous country and had the largest GDP in the world. Civilizations like India and China (circa 100 BCE to 200CE) became wealthy for similar reasons.
2. War (or lack thereof): USA was founded on non-interventionist principles. It has stuck with that principle for the most part (until it switched to imperialism in the 1940's of course). War was a massive drain on resources (not to mention the fact that it destroys everything) and USA somehow managed to avoid many of them. All throughout the 1700's and 1800's, USA avoided getting entangled in the European wars. This essentially enabled them to be more prosperous than their wealtheir European counterparts.
3. Freedom: Since USA was founded by liberals and libertarians who valued freedoms (American Founding Fathers are called classical liberals for a reason), USA was better off than Europe which wasn't as free with their monarchies, imperialists, colonialists, and authoratarians. This particularly led to the rapid increase of science, at the expensive of religion--which was a good thing. Scientific advances can immensely help a civilization/country.

Those are the main reasons for the prosperity of USA. Capitalists always love to claim that capitalism is the driver but that is false. What capitalists use as minimum criteria for capitalism was probably not even present until the 1900's. USA wasn't very capitalist in the 1700's or 1800's.

Any country that can leverage the three factors I described can be prosperous. History has shown this. Right from India and China, down to USA, that has been the recipe for sucess. Sure, you can become wealthy via imperialism and colonialism too but that is not very stable. So it doesn't matter what system you practice; the key things are: freedom, trade, and non-intervention (avoidance of wars).

To further strenthen my argument, let me make a prediction. Any country that deviates from those three factors will decline. Present day USA is not doing anything it did in the past. USA switched to imperialism and "total war for total peace" ideology in the 1900's (definitely after WWII). It also is weakening its freedoms due to the rise in conservatism and imperialism (imperialists generally curb freedom at home). The present path of USA will lead to its collapse within 70 years. Yes, I just became Nostradamus (take that Nate ;) ).

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:This I don't get.

[espo812]

Does capitalism (as opposed to socialism or communism) not maxamize freedom and trade? Freedom to work where you want to, to employ who you want to, in whatever you want to do. Trade with anyone while you're at it. As opposed to communism, work only for who you are told to work for, do only what you're told to do, trade only with who you are told to trade with. Socialism artifically changes the markets, so companies are forced to react (not free to react).

Re:This I don't get.

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

The system that MAXIMIZES freedom and trade would be anarchism. So it definitely isn't capitalism.

Capitalism has little to do with freedom. If you don't think so, you haven't looked around hard enough. Nazism, which is more capitalist than socialist, is totalitarian. Kuwait, which is arguably more capitalist than Canada, provides very few freedoms to anyone (unless you are a foreigner or part of the monarchy establishment of course). Singapore, which some claim is more capitalist than even USA, is a totalitarian country.

Having said that, capitalism DOES promote trade. Although, it can be argued that the type of trade promoted by capitalism is not what benefits countries. Don't forget: the type of trade matters. Colonialism (which is nothing more than looting resources from some country) involved a lot of trade but it didn't benefit much of humanity. Many argue that modern day globalization (trade in the name of capitalism) is not benefitting many countries (only the wealthy owners of the corporations and a few rich countries benefit).

Socialism artifically changes the markets, so companies are forced to react (not free to react).

By freedom, I'm mainly talking about politics (not economics). Freedom to me involves things like freedom of speech, press, and things like that. I don't really consider economic issues to be free. Any restriction on the market, under socialist-type systems, is supposed to be in the interest of society. If a government restricts business by erecting environmental regulations, or worker regulations, or whatever, it is supposed to benefit society. I do NOT consider such things as taking away from freedoms. Obviously, capitalists would disagree (they would consider market intervention to be taking away freedoms). So, market intervention has little to do with freedoms* IMO.

NOTES:
* There are a couple points to be made about this. Clearly, market intervention CAN take away freedoms. For example, if I became Vice-President of USA and started handing out billion dollar contracts to my friends ;) or if I banned certain corporations from conducting business because I want my allies to benefit, that is definitely abuse of freedoms. However, this has more to do with corruption and is not reflective of market intervention...
The second point I wanted to make was to justify my thinking of why market intervention is not taking away freedoms. There is no such thing as absolute freedom. Freedom with no limitations makes no sense whatsoever. Freedom only makes sense within the context of society and how society benefits (including individuals/minorities**). For example, consider your freedom to do whatever you want. Such freedom makes no sense without some context of society. If you had the freedom to do whatever you want, you may come and kill me. Is that really freedom? For you, yes; but not for me. You have the freedom to do whatever you want but I end up being killed. Society as a whole must have some say. In this case, the view of most societies is that people can do whatever but not kill others. Governments actually pass laws saying that you cannot kill me, and I cannot kill you, and so on. I do NOT consider such laws to be taking away freedoms. It is done in the interest of society so it has nothing to do with weakening freedom. That is a similar argument to market intervention. I am perfectly ok with governments manipulating the market in the interest of society. Such action does not take away freedom any more than passing a law banning murder takes away your freedom to live.

** One should not just consider society as a whole but the individuals as well. Otherwise it would not be consistent with liberalism (eg. majority may oppress minority, as with slavery)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Bush Corp.

[Doc Ruby]

Doesn't Bush Sr. run the Carlyle Group, which owns KEB?

Re:Bush Corp.

[Doc Ruby]

Slashdot bug killing URLs tonight: rtsp://streams2.omroep.nl/tv/vpro/tegenlicht/bb.20 040125.rm .

New Cell Ringtone

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... you know, Trump can make a lot of money if he would allow his favorit phrase in his new reality show: "YOU ARE FIRED!" be the new ringtone.

So...Higher fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yours would have been skywritten.

Worse ways of getting fired...

[identity0]

At least they weren't fired in a Slashdot post. Other humiliating geek ways of being fired:

Your employer uploads pinkslip.txt to the CVS tree of the free software project you've been spending all your time on.

Your boss cracks your home machine and leaves the message "J00 ar3 n07 1337. F10R3D!!!!11!1!"

Boss takes you to a fancy Indian restaurant. When the waiter comes, he says "Yes, we're ready to order - by the way, Bob, Mahel here will be replacing you in two days."

They FedEx you a cell phone while you work, a la the Matrix. It rings, and when you answer, a mysterious deep voice tells you, "Look at the hall by the elevator. They're coming for you, Neo". You look, and you see a group of HR people coming to fire your sorry ass, being directed towards your cubicle. Being a geek, you immediately re-enact the scene where the agents(HR people) are trying to hunt Neo(you) while he talks to Morpheus(the mysterious stranger).

You think, "This is it. The thing I have been waiting for all my life - confirmation that I AM the One! Haha, I'm not a loser, suckers!" However all your hopes come crashing to an end when the guy on the phone says "Oh what the hell. You're fired anyway whether they find you or not. I've been leading you on for my own amusement, but now it's gotten boring. Clever hack, eh? btw, you're not The One, you'll never touch Trinity, and you're still just a loser without a job." In desperation you fling yourself out the 10th-floor window to confirm you have super powers or die trying. You die trying. However you prove the hacker wrong on one point when you DO touch Carrie-Anne Moss at the last moment of your life, crushing her to death between you and her motorcycle.

This has happened to me

[welshsocialist]

Five years ago, I was a member of a music honor society (I was in High School at the time). One Friday, I decided to skip a meeting of the group because I was tired. That afternoon, I got an email from a member of the honor society telling me that I was put on probation due to the fact I had missed one meeting (I had attended every one before that). I later tried to reason with them, but it failed. They never contacted me again. I have assumed since then that I ended up being fired in their own special way.

Nothing to lose but your jobs

[Doc Ruby]

So with just 750 employees, S. Korea's 3rd biggest credit card company has to lay them off, rather than get this apparently extremely productive workforce more work, to scale up the business? What is this, some kind of capitalist purge?

Re:Nothing to lose but your jobs

[Bull999999]

Striking workers are really productive.

Re:Nothing to lose but your jobs

[Doc Ruby]

While striking they're obviously not productive, nor is the (mis)management which also failed to negotiate the continuous production, or anyone else in the system while they're actually striking. But workers whose careers include strike as a negotiating tool, complementing management's hiring/firing powers in that process, are the most productive, because their balance in their compensation negotiations allows agreement on a deal that actually can seem fair to both competing parties. Witness the vastly superior productivity of the highly organized workers in the US, as well as everywhere else, compared to workers with no option to organize or strike.

As for these KEB workers, as I pointed out, they're S. Korea's 3rd biggest credit card company with just 750 workers. That sounds productive to me. But greed is often its own worst enemy.

Catbert strikes again...

[gooman]

"Can you hear me now?"
"Good."

Its funny... laugh

[Kelz]

S'cuse me?
...
S'cuse me?
...
I'll burn the building down...

Donald Trump

[$exyNerdie]

Donald Trump of Apprentice fame could use some such tricks in the next Apprentice Show coming this fall.....

Always look on the bright side?

[euxneks]

Hey, at least they got told, right? Afterall, they could have been like Milton.

Yeah well, everything always looks good when you compare it so something worse...

There are...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. lots of reasons for having a minimum wage.
I'm a 20 year old, working my butt off for a dollar over minimum wage, and I really can't afford to live on my own even though I work fulltime, and I'm the assistant manager at my store. I'm also a full-time university student. I started school when I was in my late teens (17-18), and I depended on minimum wage to get me through school, and when I was in school, to feed, clothe, and shelter me.
Without a minimum wage it wouldn't be possible for me to get post-secondary education, because I'd be getting paid even worse. Yes, I do retail. And even though I don't want it to be my career, I need to be able to make enough to support myself.

No login, sorry about the AC

Re:There are...

[jadavis]

Education is expensive, it doesn't particularly surprise me that it's difficult for you to work hard enough to pay for your living expenses and your education, all in the time you have after school.

But, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Why should the retailer be unable to hire you at a low wage because of your personal circumstances? Should we say that they have to pay you more than someone with fewer responsibilities? And furthermore, it's not uncommon, nor is it particularly heart-wrenching, for a 20 year old to be living with his parents as he attends college. Many of my friends do that.

Some people's parents save for their kids' college years precisely because of the difficult situation you're talking about, so they can support you living at home or pay for you to live elsewhere.

Everyone is in a different situation. If you feel that it's necessary to help others in your position, perhaps legislators could institute some means tests and social aid. Why should we pretend that minimum wage solves the problem? Many people who don't need it are helped under that policy, and many that desperately need it are not (because of fewer available job positions due to higher labor prices).

Social aid should be used to help those who find themselves in a difficult financial state. We should not implement policies like "minimum wage" (a misnomer if I've ever heard one; the minimum wage is always precisely zero and can't be any higher no matter how many congressmen you know) and "universal health care" and call them social aid, because they're not social aid. They are efforts to expand the powers of government. Often a politician starts talking about a bad situation with which we can all empathize, then starts talking about social aid (and most of us are still in agreement), and then all of a sudden he starts talking about a "right" to a high wage or a "right" to health care for everyone. What that really means is that we are no longer talking about providing assistance to exceptional cases, but are now talking about changing the system for everyone.

Most would consider me a strong conservative, but I really don't mind allowing the government to confiscate a moderate amount of money to help those in need. What I mind is when they invent a new "right" and then socialize entire industries (medicine, retirement, and the labor market). If you need help we help you and move on. We don't try to continuously rewrite the rules in the middle of the game for every person on the planet.

This is beyond tacky!

[Newer Guy]

This is beyond tacky...In fact it's SO beyond tacky that I question whether it actually happened. I mean think about it...if true it re-defines insensitivity.

Notified via ICQ

[monkeymanbob]

In my dotcom job (only 4 people), I had recommended a close friend for the 3rd position. Person #1 notified me, person #2, on Friday morning of the company closing down. I assumed he would notify person #3 also on Friday. On Monday morning, I asked person #3 (via ICQ) if he had gotten the news, which he hadn't. Put me in the awkward position of telling him (via ICQ) to expect a phone call.

Person #1 was a total asshole. Not for letting me go, but for putting off person #3 like that and not telling me.

Penguinshit

[fluxrad]

Change your tag to reflect your favorite team's status, eh?

Although OT, you notice that a lot of the teams this year are dealing some of their most valuable players away for draft picks in '05.

It's too bad, really. Guys like Forsberg, Blake, Francis, Messier, Lemieux, and Yzerman probably won't be around after this year.

Re:Penguinshit

[Penguinshit]

Good (if obvious) call. However, the "Penguin" refers to good old Tux, not Pittsburgh. I'm actually a Sharks fan, and have been long enough to have co-created "The Chomp" (at least I remember being the only one doing that during their 2nd ever pre-season game back in the Palais du Boef days before San Jose Arena was built).

Messier shouldn't have been around after 4 years ago, but it's hard to kill a Moose... Lemieux never really returned. Stevie Y will be carried out on his stick after he dies trying to crawl across the blue line on a breakaway.

I could personally care less about Colorado because their fans, having inherited a Cup contending team, seem to have a lousy sense of entitlement; I can't wait to see them drop like flies when the 'Lanche become "just another team" (except I must say I do dig Granato.. I liked him as a Shark).

Re:Penguinshit

[fluxrad]

Lol. Careful what you say about Colorado. I'm a native and ironically, the playoffs in '02 got me in to actually *playing*.

That being said, I understand where you're coming from. Most people I know in town could give a flying fuck about hockey. They just show up to the playoffs when the Avs make it (as usual). But you have to give credit where credit is due. 9 (hopefully 10) consecutive NW division championships isn't just a result of inheriting a cup team - that's a result of wanting your team to win.

Alas...when the lockout happens in '04 I expect that the avs will lose the likes of Forsberg and possibly Sakic or Blake. With those guys gone for the '05 season, I think you'll get your wish, and the Avs will be an average team for the first time since moving to Colorado. My position on that? I hope it drops ticket prices enough to where $70 or $80 will get you a seat in the lower level. I'll still be at as many games as I can get to ;-)

BTW - this year it's going to be a Vancouver/Tampa Bay Cup. You heard it here first.

Re:sir

[Anonymous Coward]

It's totally whack. Somebody beat that page down with the ugly stick.

sorry

[moondo]

well, i must apologize... i never knew this would become such a big thing.

guys guys guys...

the boss(mr. kim) was on his lunch break, but he left his cellphone on the desk. i was wondering what could be a practical joke to play on my fellow colleagues and, well, ended sending these you've been fired messages. sorry if i scared the fuckin shit out of you.

i'll see you on monday at work.

R:"Y'v Gt Vctn!"

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

but at least you'd get formal(/angry/justified) talks or letters. In South Korea, 161 workers just recieved:

ur frd. No jb 4u
n e mor. no $ in
bnk, cnt get cred,
cnt mk chex. Thnx,
sorry, Gd luck!!!!
-----
This SMS service
is provided by KEB
Credit Service

Re:R:"Y'v Gt Vctn!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't paint the company that way. They were on strike, and that's an important detail to report. I don't blaim a business for firing striking workers when it can get away with it. Cause hey, it's a nasty working world out there and when your employees stop working because they believe they are mistreated that is one thing; but when people rush to replace them it's a good sign that the working conditions were at least RELATIVELY acceptable.
When people strike they should understand the likelihood that they will lose their job. If they don't consider this that's their own fault. You cam't blaim to company for defending it's own right to decide who does and does not work for it. They aren't black listing, they're firing people who aren't working.
And hey, it does beat just removing them from payroll.

"Check your Email"

[Burnsy3071]

I knew one guy who got fired over email. His boss called him up and just said "Check your email" and then hung up. In his email was a message that he was fired. The guy did then call his boss and make him explain it though.

To this day, the phrase "Check your email" has had a whole new meaning to me and others who worked there.

Wouldn't it be cheaper...McCareer

[Anonymous Coward]

"The thing about minimum wage is that you're assuming that it's a career position"

For those who've been outsourced, downsized, or simply bamboozled (Enron, Worldcom, Mutual Funds, Retirement Fraud)? Minimumn wage (or darn near after taxes) is a career position.

Re:Wouldn't it be cheaper...McCareer

[jadavis]

"Darn near" is still above minimum wage, and last I checked, those earning minimum wage are taxed as well.

Not only that, for those who are in trouble, you provide real solutions, not free lunch solutions that just muscle out other people into a position of the REAL minimum wage: zero.

A real solution is to pick out the "bamboozled" people and provide them with aid. For many in need, the small boost will get them back on their feet. Raising minimum wage helps many who don't need it (HS kids living with their parents in affluent communities), and hurts many who desperately do need the aid.

Remember, the REAL minimum wage is zero, and nobody can change that. In a down economy or when things just go wrong for someone (because of Enron, et al), raising the minimum wage is a fake solution. There is no free lunch.

Economists know it's much more cost effective to just provide aid to people than to try to manipulate the economy favoring those who you think need it.

Happened in the UK too last year-Strike back.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why does slashdot not recognise Pound signs? "

Because we would all be hitting on each other.*

*You guys make this too easy. :)

Re:Perhaps that explains the "You're Fired!" spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that was just you... why do you keep showing up at work?

A nice personal touch

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to what they have in Malaysia:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/311215 1.stm

At this very moment...

[stephanruby]

At this very moment, I can imagine all the HR departments throughout the World redesigning their employment forms and sending off memos so they collect their employees SMS addresses.

Re:Attention Mods: Refernce Explained

[Anonymous Coward]

The character's name in the above referenced movie is Korben Dallas. Major Korben Dallas.

nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

i like how when 3 days ago i linked to that exact same milton thing (re; pen pc) it got deleted, but now some jackass stole the idea for his front page thing. welcome to /. n00b

Could of been worse..

[Anonymous Coward]

If your reading this, your fired.

The Management.
(Your been fired on /., make your peace)

Re:Perhaps that explains the "You're Fired!" spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps there is no way to verify that the messages have been read, but on my cell phone there's an option which will send me a message as soon as the message has been delivered to the other phone. (It probably has to be supported by the network, but I have yet to see a network which doesn't support that.)

Re:Perhaps that explains the "You're Fired!" spam.

[Nick_dm]

In the UK at least, a phone will come up with the number if it is unrecognized and the person's name if you have entered them in your phone book. However it is possible to send a name header that will take priority over the number if it is not recognised. This is used by businesses of cellphone related nature (eg. sending free SMS from the web, new ringtones, or being contacted from your network provider) to make sure people know who they are dealing with.

While you can't do this on most phones afaik, there are websites that allow you to change this data when sending SMS from a web link-up. You would need to know what is on someone's phonebook (eg. I spotted one when my friend was messing about, he sent one from "Katie" but I only have a "Katie L" on my phone) but it is easily possible to trick people like this.

Long weekend!

[GQuon]

This reminds me of a Simpsons episode:

Some guy: "If you don't come in Friday, don't bother comming in Monday."
Homer: "Woohoo! Long weekend!"

Re:Long weekend!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the Fifth Element version, where they fire a million. "Well at least I got a free lunch."

Hey, who knows maybe the Koreans think that Hollywood really has a better way to do things.

Now that would be really funny.

n/a

[Anonymous Coward]

that's pretty funny- regardless of what country it takes place in...if it was someplace in America, i would STILL think that was hilarious.........UNTIL it happened to me

Would that even be legal in the US?

[Rich Klein]

I hate the idea of being "in touch" all the time. If I had a cell phone I'd keep it shut off whenever possible and would thus possibly miss such a text message.

FUNNY?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

moderators are on crack!

I wouldn't be too hard on folks

[hey!]

It's gallows humor. Some things are so pathetic the only thing you can do is laugh; it's probably healthy, unless you identify the manager doing the layoffs.

The thing about a joke is, its not funny unless you understand. Unfortunately, almost all of us can understand what it's like to have a manager who swaggers around like a business lion but is, deep down, a coward. Any manager who would let his people go this way doesn't have the balls to be in business. It takes courage to give people bad news to their face. Especially a layoff, which pretty much indicates a management screw up.

"I projected wrong, and unfortunately as a result you don't have a job any more. I still have a job, and I realize this is not fair, so I will do what I can to help you."

A real leader would take the time to say somethign like this to each person's face. This does several things. One, it doesn't burn bridges. You never know when somebody you screw will be in a position to pay you, or your company back. The onther thing is that it keeps your remaining employees on board. How do you think the people who are left at this company feel? You think they have any respect for the managers who did this? Would anybody who has any ability have any loyalty to them?

Layoffs are an unfortuante part of business, but in the end, trust be, the joke is on the managers who did this.

Re:I wouldn't be too hard on folks

[1u3hr]

It's gallows humor. Some things are so pathetic the only thing you can do is laugh

Gallows humour is sympathetic; identifying with the victim. There is a very distinct vindictiveness of most of the "jokes" here, and no sympathy at all. Many seem threatened by Asian IT workers now, any story about Asia brings up a lot of negative comments.

DELETED

[kyw]

I suppose its what you call progress.

This reminds me of a new trend in Europe: TV reality shows, and sending SMS to eliminate a candidate.
A group of usually 16 selected people spend time together in a loft, a singing school, an island, a place full of obstacles whatever, and are filmed. Every week, a nominee is eliminated by the public,
Those channels make millions of Euros just collecting SMS'ses.
YOU are eliminated.
Tragic.
Use this method a few times in US, with about 200 million SMSes? each time, after many polls the debt may be slightly reduced.

Wondering Would W be.....SMSed ????

Re:Instant??? What's instant about a SM?

[canavan]

I'm from Europe, Germany to be specific. Funny that you should mention New Year's Eve, because that's when the one best example of Short-Message-Lag I've ever encountered happened: On 2001-12-31 at around 22:30 I have received a short message whishing me a merry christmas. At first I thought that was a joke, as the sender would probably do such things, but this particular message was actually sent on 2001-12-24 (evident from the "sent" date of the message itsself). And please don't tell me that things have improved since then, as I still see lags of multiple hours within the network of one provider, and up to multiple days between providers. I'm not saying that such delays are normal, they aren't uncommon. I receive status/error messages as short messages from the bb4 system at work, and they all come with a timestamp when they have sent, so I really know what I'm talking about.

And please don't get me started on the braindead 160-character limit, which results in a larger overhead than useful data.

The entire Corean credit industry is in trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

S Corea's (that's how they want it spelled) largest credit company barely just avoided bankruptcy. Their entire society is just barely learning about personal finance and it has caused a lot of problems since their credit corporations have been giving everyone and their pet a credit card.

Well...

[Nukenbar2]

At least they got to keep the phones.

Re:Instant??? What's instant about a SM?

[Renegade Lisp]

I'm from Europe, Germany to be specific. [...] And please don't tell me that things have improved since then, as I still see lags of multiple hours within the network of one provider, and up to multiple days between providers.

Sounds like a case of YMMV, since I'm from Germany too. Maybe we'd have to talk providers here. I'm on O2, and these folks had to try hard to survive against the big providers, which might explain why their system finally became quite good by comparison (not that it didn't take them years to get there!).

And maybe we should also talk cities. I'm in Berlin, which is arguably the best-covered GSM area in Germany.

So the bottom line seems to be that there's nothing inherent in the technology that would make it less-than-instant, it's just a matter of experience and commitment on the part of the providers.

And please don't get me started on the braindead 160-character limit, which results in a larger overhead than useful data.

It's arbitrary, and the cost of an SMS is completely unrelated to the actual amount of text in it, so there's no technical reason why it couldn't be different. Nonetheless, I find it extremely interesting how this arbitrary 160-character-limit affects the nature of communication. (If only because it shuts up those who would otherwise flood you with endless "short messages".)