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Not Your Daddy's IT Force Anymore
Quill345 writes "The days of high-paying technology-based jobs right out of highschool are over. As writers for ACM report, the skill-sets required for jobs have grown over time. Academia has responded to the evolution with novel programs recruiting women and integrating IT into MBA programs. And as technology finds its way into every aspect of business life, the NSF is creating a grant program to fund service science, a blend of IT into other industries. Researchers at City University of NY are working on an NSF-funded project to infuse technology into Liberal Arts courses taken by students who are in primary tech-producer or tech-consumer majors. What are these crucial modern skills? Knowledge of laws like the DMCA? Interpersonal and group work skills? Experience with different technology platforms? The ability to discriminate between useful and useless information sources?"
So? What does this means??? Cheaper IT Jobs everywhere? http://perdichizzi.com.ar/
That would be a great course to offer "potental" managers.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
While technical skills are important, the ability to work in groups, follow orders, and eventually lead groups are what will advance a career. Communications skills are a key component as well. Unless you want to stay a programmer / admin forever, and always be at risk for being replaced by a newer / cheaper model as your skills decay (or are perceived to no longer be up with the latest or simply too expensive); people skills are what will advance your career.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It seems to me a way to get the MBSa and such integrated into the information age. They won't replace programmers or sys-admins but they may be ther new bosses of them (with just rnough knowledge to be dangerous).
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
All those guys that landed cushy, big-dolloar jobs out of high school often failed miserably. IT projects are notoriously risky. So many have failed, and many of them have failed spectacularly. As a result the IT community is now looking for seasoned techs. Guys that have some experience and wisdom in the fiels. Its a good thing. I know where I am, the easiest way to scare the hell out of management, is to tell them we are rolling out a new application. This is based on past experience.
An IT force with more robust backgrounds can only be a good thing. sweet hacker skills are of still relevant, but there needs to be more.
I wish they would move the moderation scores closer to the post topics.(And lose the 'fancy' colapsable menus). I think the new theme is kind a 60-70% hit, nothing spectacular...
NSF and IT jobs go hand in hand. At least that's what Wachovia keeps saying.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
The days of any hack with computer skills are welcomed to Fortune 500 is long gone, or at best is going away quite quickly.
Companies don't want people who can get the work done, they want people who can get the work done professionally. Well Documented designed to work with their buisness needs, not change their buisness requirements to fit the computer. There are a lot of Highly skilled and well trained college educated Technical Professionals out there. There is little reason to really hire an out of Highschool Techy guy just because he know how to program the buzz words.
A college degree at the very least shows a minum level of self control and professionalism. At least the person got up most every day to go to class and pass the exams. Vs. Out of High School who just went to school because they were required by law to go. Or a College drop out who just couldn't fit into an environment. Getting a Degree shows the company you are more then just what you want to do.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Actually, it is kinda making me feel somewhat nauseated. I don't like the skinny font and wide open spaces.
Surely it would be better to concentrate more on those students who are genuinely interested in ('boring',normal) IT, whatever their gender?
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
Women are pushed into the workforce instead of being pushed into the kitchen. Instead of breaking the cycle and pushing women to rationally choose what they want, based on comparative advantages and disadvantages, things have just shifted from one sexism to another.
I'd like to call academic feminists "useful idiots" in that respect, but that'd be letting them off the hook as they have often whole-heartedly promoted the idea that women have no legitimate right to choose a traditional housewife role.
We aren't much closer to a culture where women choose the lifestyle that fits them. The pendulum has just swung from one extreme to another.
Uhhm, aptitude tests in the first place? You want someone with 20 hours a week experience for three or four years while in high school.
What you don't want is someone who reads a 1" column in Money Magazine of the top growth fields by 2011 and just throws a dart.
I've seen where nearly 40% of the incompetent tech staff that I worked around in 2001 jumped right into the field of health sciences.
They shouldn't have been in IT, and the nursing profession (and patients) deserves better -- these folks never "heard their calling."
It really isn't just the Tech Industry that has raised its standard. Almost everyone has. The problem for most, however, isn't the lack of certifications or education, but the lack of experience pertinent to individual positions.
My girlfriend is a university graduate and holds a pharmacy technician certification and license. She got them (and about 500 hours of experience in a pharmacy) because she planned on going to pharmacy school. Then, considering she wasn't happy telling people, "Sorry Mr. Goldman, the insurance company doesn't feel as though your Alzheimer's is worth treating. You got $283.43 on ya?"
So she's on the job market again and has been for the last 2 months. Bachelor's degree, high quality experience in --AN-- industry and nothing. Why? Because companies and organizations no longer gauge the value of applicants by their credentials or educational degrees. All they want to see is hard experience directly working with the company database or "... at least 3+ years working knowledge of ".
Why? I dare say as an educator that it's because the market has been flooded with bachelor degrees and MS Certification, and this certification, etc.
How can we remedy this? Make it standard for companies to supply their applicant pool with training software. You want your applicant pool to be qualified and to integrate, achieving 85%+ productivity, within a week? Then you should really post downloadable software on the website from which you advertise jobs.
Bsck to my girlfriend, she's applied for many positions at same University at which I work. She's no longer looking for something that will "stimulate her mind" as she's willing to work in the payroll department-- "entry level". But, of course "Required: 3+ years of the *** payroll system including , , "
Save your time, with the education, guys. Graduate high school, get a couple certs just to make your resume a bit more full, and make a friend on the inside. Connections really do seem to be the only way to get a job today. =(
In my 8 years of experience in this industry, the most useful skills have been communication/interpersonal skills. It's strange, I leave a high paying job behind a bar (i make great money now, but made far more working Thurs, Fri and Sat nights in popular watering holes) where I develeped great communication/interpersonal skills. Problem is, most people I commuunicated during work were drunk and wanted something from me. Now I it is usually me wanting something from someone else all the while wishing I was drunk.
Seriously though, the communication/interpersonal skills are far more valuable. I have seen many people who have no talent or skill in anything technical make it very far while the person with the technical knowledge remains where they are.
PS. My skills learned from the bar make me a great conversationist, but not being a sycophant I am not afraid to say "NO!" to a manager who has no tech skills, but wishes to impress the client regardless the cost. This has made my career static and somewhat digressive.
As if geeks didnt have enough trouble getting chicks...Now we have to show crack at work?
Methinks that will not help matters at all!
"What are these crucial modern skills?"
Perhaps being able to tell the boss's pet, for the nth time, how to attach a file to email. That way they don't have to learn anything new, and can cruise towards retirement.
Researchers at City University of NY are working on an NSF-funded project to infuse technology into Liberal Arts courses taken by students who are in primary tech-producer or tech-consumer majors.
Why don't they work on infusing more real world type projects into their comp sci majors instead?
As writers for ACM report, the skill-sets required for jobs have grown over time. Academia has responded to the evolution with novel programs recruiting women and integrating IT into MBA programs.
Is it just me, or is this quite the nonsequitur? I can see integrating IT into MBA programs as a potential solution, but how does recruiting women into IT adress the problem? Clicking on the "recruiting women" link leads to an article titled "CMU uses game maker's characters to interest girls in computer programming" which is one of the most condescending ideas I have ever come across.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
"More people will graduate in the United States in 2006 with sports-exercise degrees than electrical-engineering degrees, So, if we want to be the massage capital of the world, we're well on our way."
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE
I'd say that finding oneself a job where it's even *possible* to do these things is key. For example, I've worked as a computer technician before in jobs where it was taken for granted that I was going to be holed up in the "back room", doing my thing. I enjoyed it, because I was free of much of the "office politics" and could just concentrate on getting the work done. But ultimately, you don't advance that way. You're generally never given an opportunity to lead a group, because nobody in the company views you as suitable for that role. You might get a raise based on your performance, but that's only because they're treating you as a number. "How quickly are we getting broken PCs turned around with this guy working here? Do we have X percentage more capacity to take on additional repairs now?"
Even after you leave that type of work, it's rough finding something with more room for growth. Your resume says nothing about your potential ability to work with groups or lead one. Several buddies of mine tried to "get a foot in the door" of an I.T. career by starting out on a help-desk or as a PC tech. - and except in one case (the guy got a government job as some type of PC support person), I don't think it gave any of them much of an advantage. If they spent the time as a manager of a retail store, I suspect those skills would have worked just as well for them.
Researchers at City University of NY are working on an NSF-funded project to infuse technology into Liberal Arts courses
Well my experience in college was that many, though not all, liberal arts majors purposefully avoided technical subjects; they were incapable of functioning in that domain. It was like trying to teach a cat to play chess. The university policy though was that they should be educated on those subjects. The resulting compromise between the impossible and the ideal was that the university offered special dumbed-down courses on technical subjects. They taught physics without math. A waste of time for all involved.
It is the educators who need to get a clue here: stop trying to teach a subjects to the selection of students who can not learn it. Poets don't need to know computer programming, most of them are incapable of learning it, so stop wasting everyones time and the taxpayers money by insisting that they learn. A society where everyone is technical expert is an impossible fantasy. Identifying the group of people least willing and able to learn a subject and choosing to teach them that is the least-efficient plan. Naturally, that would be government funded.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
10+ years experience trumps every degree and cert that I have seen, unless the company has some made up rule about degrees and salary. There are just so many things that you can't learn in college and with a cert.
I've always heard that 80% of why you have and keep your job is people skills. I think that number is close to being true.
Also, somebody mentioned the people going into nursing and the medical field because US News and World Reports put it as a lucrative field. I think you need to have a passion for that field to really want to help others. I can't imagine a good healthcare provider who's in it just for the money.
That seems to be the first question I am asked in a technical interview. Why would an UNIX admin/manager need to know the 7 layers? 2 or 3 of them, sure but all 7?
/etc/inittab!"
/opt dir.
The truth is, The degree does not mean squat! Heck the experience does not even seem to mean anything. If it did (with my 15 years in the field) I would not be asked to name the 7 layers of the OSI model. The certs do not seem to mean anything. So what is left? HR people just call one of there technical people in and have them quiz the new applicant. The technical person seems to take the stance of "Lets prove I am smarter than the new guy" and add questions like "In Linux what is init level 3?" and does not accept "Anything you set it to when you edit the
More recently I was asked "Where is Apache installed on Solaris 9?" I responded with "The install is a compile time option, so it is where ever you set it to be." I was told I was wrong because the package they get from their packaging department always installs in the
The issue is that HR departments and hireling managers (non-tech) have no way to judge an individuals skills. They have found that the guys with degrees do not always know what to do, Resumes are faked or fudged, and certs can be made with a good laser printer. What is left? They start to look for people that have experience in just the apps and hardware they have then have there existing guys judge there skills. Is there a better way? I really do not know, although I would start by teaching the general IT people how to interview. It mite make it a little easier.
Ironic, since just a few months ago, I sat in a departmental meeting and argued about infusing technology in the SCIENCE department at one of the senior CUNY colleges. But before infusing anything into the Science Department, first the department has to justify to the higher-ups at CUNY why Science should not be taught laboratory-less=science-for-poets.
How is it possible for anyone to discuss this? The article requires an account on the ACM website. I would have been happy to read it, but both PDF and HTML are unavailable to anyone who doesn't have access. Anyone who has that would do a kindness to the rest of us by posting some of the relevant bits here, please.
The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal. (Mark Twain)
If "Interpersonal and group work skills" are so important, why aren't they taught? They are not really taught at school - the sports field is not the office environment (sports metaphors not withstanding) and where the environment is closest to the office (ie, classwork) working together can bring allegations of plagarism and cheating. They're not a part of any university classes I've seen either.
I think IT workers get unfairly lumped as people with "poor interpersonal and group work skills", simply because people with a more introverted dispostion are attracted to it than to other professions. A lot people assume that just because you're quiet, you lack interpersonal skills, completely ignoreing the fact that a lot of extroverts aren't actually that good when it comes to interpersonal skills - all that talking is assumed to be an example of "good interpersonal skills" when it's actually a lot of BS and politics (with a good amount of backstabbing). Most introverts where I know work really well with other people, while a lot of I know extroverts (and especially the ones I know at work) are great at blowing hot air but don't work at all well with other people.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
I think that the misconception in many of the comments is that this program is designed to turn the average college student into somewhat of a "quickie-techie". It is not.
The program is designed to supplement the courses that a technology-area major takes ordinarily. The idea is that your English, Speech, Health and other core College courses would be technology infused, thus showing you the connections between the theory of technology you're majoring in and applications to other fields. The hope is that by the end, students will know the breadth of career possibilities instead of getting pipelined directly into the average help desk career.
Besides the tech-infusion into typical courses, the program also concludes by having students create a simulated technology business in the classroom. They're asked to go through the process of coming up with an idea, business model, marketing plans, and then working to "sell" that product. This connects their technology knowledge with real world business practices, as well as forces them to read about the current state of the industry, all while imparting those critical communication, groupwork and other soft skills.
The real question here is what skills need to be infused into the Liberal Arts courses so that in their final course they are able to and feel confident in starting their own tech-based business.
- Page loads are faster for very large articles that have hundreds of responses
- The indentation is a bit harder to make out for threading, but I imagine that comes with the benefit that deeply nested conversations won't be so squeezed
- The default font is much smaller on my display than the origianl (I'll have to look at overlaying my own CSS to fix that, since most sites are fine)
- Getting the moderation scores away from the subject, IMHO, will lead to less emphasis on their meaning. I filter to a 3, and beyond that, I'd rather just read without the score being a major factor.
Overall, I like it. Congrats to the winner!Never underestimate the laziness of the American Public :)
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Re: "infusing technology into Liberal Arts courses", I'm all for any educational initiative that helps show students that to be "technical" and to be "creative" are not mututally exclusive.
/.ers, but in my work (interactive videos for bb use) I constantly meet graduates of Liberal Arts courses who ask if I'm technical or creative; to which of course the ideal answer is "yes"...
Indeed, in a medium which is rapidly changing (e.g. the web) to be truly creative you must have some technical knowledge.
Will seem obvious to most
The more they mix computer science with other areas, the more watered down computer science seems to get. What they should be doing is making computer science more like a science. Teaching computer skills is fine, but this sounds like trying to make people outside of the computer science field think they know as much as people inside the computer science field.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
"The days of high-paying technology-based jobs right out of highschool are over."
Those days never existed and for christ's sake I wish IT-types would stop perpetuating the myth. Yeah, sure, there were excesses during the dot-com boom-bust cycle, but rarely, VERY rarely were those excesses bestowed upon 17 year-olds. It was bad enough when people were insinuating that every CompSci graduate in 1997 was getting a 135K/year job with a free Mercedes. Stupid shit like that happened, but the psychology is akin to one Amway triple-diamond sales manager pulling up in his new Maserati, causing the 300 people in his "downline" running around telling all their friends that they're getting Maseratis too. Then, when the whole thing falls apart, they don't have the Maserati, and everyone gets into a big schadenfreude orgy watching the giant fall...from a height he never attained.
The other aspect of this that is maddening is the implication that utterly normal salaries for middle-of-the-road positions are "high." Take a garden variety IT job that pays about $65-70k today. Well, in 1995 dollars that's $49-52K -- and that WASN'T a great deal of money in 1995 for a skilled occupation. Constantly screaming out this mantra of "high IT salaries" communicates to people that they are unjustified. Go to the BLS and pull up similarly skilled occupations. You'll find that by and large, IT salaries are--and have been for some time--totally in line with, say, being an electrician or a telco engineer... or a PLUMBER for christ's sake.
The bubble was a five-year abberation that has been over for five years. Get over it and please stop perpetuating and exacerbating what is largely urban myth based on what are at best statistical outliers. In short, shut-the-fuck-up already.
I am not a number, I am a free NaN.
Getting a degree just really shows you got a degree. Just like getting a perfect score on a test does not show your a genius no matter some less capable people believe, it just shows you know what was on the particular test.
I long for the times when you did not need a college degree for every single white collar job out there. Now you have to go through four years of schooling and you are still not even guranteed a job after school. Back when not everyone went to college companies actually trained people for white collar jobs. Now you have to partially train yourself by going to college and then you have to learn on the job as well because academia is artifical and does not prepare one for the real world as well as the professors like to pretend. The whole college boom is great for colleges and corporations for the rest of the population it only makes life worse.
I've been planning on going into the IT field in one way or another. (Actually I'm going to double major in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) My problem is, I'm reading through these posts and I see a lot of "Without 3+ years of experiecne.." and "..can't find a job because.." Am I just misunderstanding something, because I know I saw more positive comments in the topics about whether or not IT is a safe profession to go into.
Things will only get worse for compaines untill they realize that they can't get something for nothing.
I have been out of work for 6 months, this is an example "Help Wanted" that I recently read:
Minimum MUST HAVE requirements:
5 Years Oracle
5+ Years Windows System Admin
5 years Help Desk
5 years Citrix
7 Years C++, VB, (and a few others)
Salary Range: $20,000 - $25,000/year (Canadian)
They are trying to fill 4 jobs with 1 person who would work for $10/hour!
Computers are my passion, but with many places pulling shit like this I think I'll keep it as my hobby and go look for another career.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I think you've hit on something very insightful. I'd probably add that many women have gone down the "I want a career!" route in pursuit of "accomplishing something worthwhile" - only to become disillusioned when they find out that it's a longer, harder road than they expected, and there's not always very much rewarding stuff to accomplish along the way.
Obviously, individual situations vary, but I've certainly observed cases where women seemed to complain bitterly about "glass ceilings" and inequality in the workplace, yet they *really* seemed to be saying "I expected a good, rewarding management type job at this place, and instead, they're making me kiss some manager's butt who I don't even like or respect!" Do they not realize that guys go through the same process?
Perhaps one key difference is, guys are more likely to feel like they're in a "rewarding" job if it's one that lets them bring home enough money (and even benefits) so they can accomplish things with that money. Women, by contrast, seem to crave jobs that make them feel "needed" and important. They could get paid $100K a year to work as a receptionist, and after 6 months of it, I think many would complain about how boring and unrewarding it was, and/or that it didn't give them enough free time to spend at home with the family.
I agree, my ex-wife is faced with the same problem. She used to make more than me, was earning $65K in 1992 when I moved to Seattle, and now she makes $12 an hour even though she has more education than I do.
But, I earn about the same, as I transitioned from standard Senior Systems Analyst/Programmer over to Medical (with databases), worked on Medical interfaces, went into Bioinformatics (DNA/RNA databases), and now am a Data Manager in Medical Genetics.
The demand - in our aging, increasily sick, population - is on the medical side - not the traditional tech side.
Go with the flow. Don't fight the river, swim with the current, grab a flat log, and surf down the whitewater to a sandy beach.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"The days of high-paying technology-based jobs right out of highschool are over."
Those days never existed and for christ's sake I wish IT-types would stop perpetuating the myth.
Actually, they did exist.
My first job, in 1980-1982, was as a Power Engineer for Tek Cominco (back then Cominco), and it paid $12 when I started as an Assitant and I was making $22 within a year. Back then, that was more than a wealthy white collar worker made, and even CEOs only made about $40 an hour then.
When I moved to Seattle, shortly after the tech boom hit, and many people were getting four or five job offers at 100K+ if they left work in one place, in the late 1990s. I remember having a job end, going on vacation to go surf in Santa Barbara, and getting two job offers the week I was surfing, starting work the day after I got back.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The parent post is too true to be funny.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
I was raised by my grandfather to think that the "man works himself to death while the woman stays home to cook." I was born in 1980. This was terrible advice, even then.
Today, both my fiance and I work full time. We do not have children yet, so we also work overtime and other jobs (freelance/consulting) to earn more money. We are both comitted to saving up enough cash so that one of us (the better cook) can stay home once the time comes to squeeze out a few pups.
Turns out...the better cook is me. Better still, thanks to her last promotion, she is earning a good chunk more than me. And ya know what? The longer I work, the happier I am with that.
Point is: things HAVE changed. Not in the way I thought they would, but in the end, in an even better way. I never really got a dad growing up, so the idea of being super-dad, especially with a super-mom able to pull in enough bacon- heck, I don't see how I could dare complain.
OK. One complaint. Freelancers don't get a full lunch hour round here...gotta run ;)
barack to the future?
I have been reading your commentaries on various posts on this thread and while I don't disagree with the core logic of your content, I do think there is some other factors to consider in this argument.
One of them is two chemicals that the human body produces called estrogen and testosterone (yes, I realize there are others also). Last time I checked, science has dicated that while the various quantities produced in a particular gender can vary, the general rule is the female gender produced more estorgen and the male gender more testosterone. And while we may not like it, those chemicals have an effect on how a human being feels emotionally, reacts to certain situations, and even "thinks" in general. Which leads me to my point. Estrogen can be linked to one having more of a "nuturing" attitude, while testosterone can be linked to having more of an "agressive" and/or "go getter" attitude. And while any gender can adapt and even enjoy the "house" caretaker and childrearing role, nature itself tells us that children and especially babies need more "nuturing" in the formative early years. It is even displyed in the animal kingdom to an extent. More females in the animal species nurture and make nesting provisions then the male in their species (and yes, before you go site and example to the contrary, I do realize that there are certainlly exceptions). So maybe nature itself explains why more women seem to gravitate towards "housemaker" roles than men and we as humans think we are smarter than nature at times and want to "buck" the chemical and physiological system we didn't even set up in the first place. Deny it all we want, but that still doesn't change it at all and that is something we don't have all that much control over unless we do something artificial to enduce it. But I also concede that cultures in general do have and have had an influence on the traditional roles that each gender takes in society.
The whole wave of off-shoring shows the first phase of this maturation process. If you can spec it you can out source it. If you can our source it then someone can generalize it. Once it is generalized then IT as an internal service goes away. In the not so distant future, IT functions will be turned over to the facilities department and the maintenance folks - same as heat, water, electricity, phones, etc.
Researchers at City University of NY are working on an NSF-funded project to infuse technology into Liberal Arts courses Yet I've never heard of a university attempting to infuse the Liberal Arts into technical coursework. I was a Comp Sci major... At my university, we were required to take 2 semesters of Theology and Philosophy, as well as Ethics. I was also a Theatre minor. I think the key to this problem is creating well-rounded students. Too many times "undeclared" majors get away with not taking in the full breadth and depth of coursework, and therefore the job market.
The law does not require you to finish high school. Check the drop out rates.
As for the college degree. I may also show that the person is a severe procrastinator and took the opportunity to put off getting a real job for another four years.
Don't get me wrong. Learning is cool, and colleges have vast reasources to learn from, but getting a college degree does not show competence, and certainly does not show that a person is will to stick to things.
As time progresses, an experienced and skilled programmer/it person often sees their salary increase. In addition as you approach an age where you begin to be able to draw even partial retirement, this is seen as a potnetial future cash liability.
About 20 years ago Lockheed, IIRC, was sued for laying off everyone in technical and engineering areas just as they were approaching the age of partial retirement. There was a settlement but not before a large number of people suffered severe financial damage. And because the company had dragged out the litigation for such a long time, the settlement was much smaller than what the workers had lost.
Welcome to the technology industry....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Women in the CS program at Carnegie Mellon were interviewed in depth. They were enthusiastic about the field but kept dropping out anyway after being confronted over and over with a message of "you don't belong here".
>We will become plumbers.
I own a house. I can do safe wiring and basic carpentry. Plumbing I've given up on. It takes too much skill.
Honorable job, too: over the last couple of thousand years, who's saved more lives, doctors or plumbers?
>say it doesn't really matter re: the CONTENT of your message
Doesn't code with lots of syntax errors turn out to have more bugs once it finally compiles? Why wouldn't the same be true for human language? The stupidest ideas and the worst grammar do seem to occur together.
I fing myself working on so many different technologies each and every day. Windows, Unix, TSO/Mainframe, SQL, proprietary applications and the list goes on. I hope that the new people who are breaking into the tech field are suffering some sort of internship or part time job while attending university. If you are not, you will be sorry. My brother-in-law has an MIS degree with experience in making beer can pyramids in his Frat house's lobby. He is now a general laborer for a construction company trying to get a job in a market that looks at experience first. Having the people skills and the business sense is key also, but if you don't have the ammo in the tech realm, shmoozing skills and business process/project skills may push you elsewhere for a career until you can swing back.
...because this day and age you really instead should also become an Attorney in addition to a Computer Professional to be able to both succeed at the career plus keep yourself out of legal trouble *AND* be able to have the knowledge and skills to litigate against your enemies when necessary. With that Doctor of Jurisprudence degree will also come sufficient beancounting education equivalent to the skill level of that MBA.
"These are hard and fast MBA rules to live by. Teaching them to actually listen to the engineers and tech people? are you mad?"
Just one small problem IT nor CS are engineering disciplines.
Yet studies show that most spreadsheets have critical errors in one percent of their cells, well beyond a permissible level.
Here are some news stories about spreadsheet errors.
Spreadsheets won't protect a firm from liability when they are audited and spreadsheet errors found: Spreadsheets are not secure, provide no audit trail and won't pass HIPAA or Sarbanes-Oxley auditing.
How is one person's anecdote (arguably, a prime example of the statistical outliers mentioned by the grandparent poster) of how their career has progressed worthy of modding +4, informative?
Consider being a plumber, it pays well, it is a skilled profession, and there are about 90% dumb asses in the profession, so if you are any good you can charge top dollar and do wery well.
We have such as guy in our neighborhood. I pay him about the same as I charge as a senior sysadmin - he's like me, a perfectionist, charges a premium, takes a little extra time, and doesn't leave a job fucked up of half-hone.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
They are trying to fill 4 jobs with 1 person who would work for $10/hour!
Obviously they are wanting to hire a foreigner.
I fing myself working on so many different technologies each and every day.
I've worked with technology every day for many years and I haven't finged myself yet. You should really try to be a bit more careful with your work!
well, when the root poster parent of the thread claimed that such high-paying tech jobs didn't exist, a claim by someone that such things did - in fact - exist, makes it informative.
just as if you posted AC trying to bring up a statistical correlation aspect, given a non-randomized group, where a supposed outlier was claimed not to be informative, even though you posted no links nor data nor verifiable track record of reliable posts to back up your insinuation that it was:
a. an outlier
b. an anecdote (in economics, anecdotes are frequently data)
c. an outsize mod (especially since you were unwilling to risk mod points by replying with your actual account, but posted AC).
Does that clarify the situation?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You can actually argue that the entire management science grew from engineering.
From where do you think business processes, case-tools, flow charts, "plan-do-check-act" etc. concepts came?
Management IS Engineering taken beyond technology. Management uses proven engineering practices to create a systems approach to planning, scheduling and controlling.
In any solid management plan "Expert Opinion" is an input for almost every business process.
Doesn't code with lots of syntax errors turn out to have more bugs once it finally compiles? Why wouldn't the same be true for human language?
By all rights, engineers - people trained to work w/in system constraints or else - should be excellent writers. Rules of grammar and the like are conceptually no different than those of any engineering discipline. Prose is just another system.
Why this is so rarely the case I've never understood.
More clear evidence that the moderation system doesnt work as intended. Just set your view of slashot to show you everything and filter out the crap manually as you read it.
Ive often noticed that as soon as you post something that most people here disagree with, whoever has some mod points instantly mods the post down rather than post a comment breaking down why they disagree.
Maybe they should just change the mod system so that the ratings go from strongly disagree to strongly agree, that seems to be how it's used anyway.
I dont read
It's like the classic argument for dropping out of high school/college... "Bill Gates is a drop out and now he's a bajillionaire!" Now, many drop outs want to believe that, as does a former high school friend of mine that dropped out of A Prestigous Technical College in 2000 because he was just too talented for school and now makes $12 an hour as "head of security."
Besides, read affleck's history... the dude's full of crap anyways. He's somewhere between 30 and 50 or maybe he's both, claims stock ownership in a company and then the weekend passes and he'll talk about how many mistakes were in the company "back when I owned the stock!" He's a TV star, politician, writer, former army field engineer and currently has THE (not just A) cure for cancer on his laptop.
Critical thinking.
Doesn't matter if you're in IT or going to be a consumer of IT services. The ability to perform an analysis, apply logical problem-solving steps, and then adjust behavior based on the outcome is key. If you're in IT, it's key because helpdesk jobs where you read the on-screen prompts don't have a future. If you're an IT service consumer, it will help you provide an intelligent description of the problem and what steps you taken to resolve it, making your experience with IT much more pleasant.
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Let's look at it this way. What if you said, "Black people usually like to be led"? Sure, there are plenty of examples that follow that would seem to "prove" your case. Black people were slaves in this country for many years. There are only four black Fortune 500 CEOs. Heck, you may even personally know of a black woman or man with whom you worked who preferred to have direct instructions given instead of thinking creatively and out of the box. But if you said something like that as a general stereotype, most people would be offended and would definitely consider you racist. Why is it not okay to say that about 12.3% of the population of the U.S., but it is okay to say that about 50.9% of the population of the U.S.?
Do you see my point? Even though you may consider this valid based on interactions you've had, it is not valid for a large population of women. (So large, in fact, that I doubt you'd even find that most women in the U.S. would agree with that statement.) Furthermore, even the women I know who choose to be mothers instead of traveling a career path would be offended by that statement... much as most black people would be offended by the statement if you applied it to them.
"Women usually like to be led" is not only not a fact (it's an opinion you have based on your experience with two women), but it is a stereotype that is denigrating and offensive to a lot of women. Since you mention that your wife is raising children, I certainly hope that this conversation will help you raise your daughter to know that she can be anything that she wants to be in this world, or raise your son to treat women as equals and respect their choices (whatever those choices may be -- motherhood, a career, or both!)
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... very much needed
http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html
Probably for the same reason people write such horrendus HTML, but more so. The interpreter (other people) is very forgiving. So if you can get 95+% of your meaning across 99% of the time, you may not even notice the little bit lost "in translation" so to speak.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
If the US business sector really cared about communication skills it wouldn't be hiring as many workers as possible from outside the country.
Most of the errors you point out would not be detected in a business meeting, and would not be a problem in any "diversified" company. Any skill has its purpose, but now more than ever professionals need to focus their training/discipline on an area that will keep them useful.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
"Concept" of what IT does and how it works that is becoming more flawed. Having worked for a contract company (of which I'll omit the name) doing contractor work for Intel, in the IT department, a lot of managers, HR, who ever else is being given the opportunity to make decesions... quite frankly sucked ass. Either their idea of how the department should be run from budget, to work done, to documentation to hours worked.... it's a mess. You've got 3 things going against the IT field right now that you didn't have 5 years ago: 1 ) Outsourcing 2) Learning Curve 3) Experience Outsourcing in general to places like India or China (I'm not trying to be racist here... but you guys/gals really suck at english...) are getting jobs that could be paid maybe $25k here for basic phone support but most companies (thanks to bottom line thinking... *Coughs*.... *Intel* *Coughs*) see it as a "cost saver" to outsource. I'm a firm believer that by the year 2020, the emergence of the "emerging markets" will finally have peeked and you'll start to see companies wanting that "personal" touch to their tech support. Quite frankly I hang up and call back if I get Ignuish or Quan Jin or maybe even Frank in Manatoba, Canada.... regardless, the outsourcing is holding the IT field back. 2nd, the learning curve. In most places (I'm generalizing here) it takes a good 6-18 months to get a grasp of what the business practice is, and just exactly what the hell you do on a day to day basis. Setting up appointments, drop-off's, pick up's, using the "IT Standard" XP Build, data migrating, BKM's on how to do things, proper documentation, escalation paths.... it's a LOT of busy work that you forget about if you've been in the field for more than 2-5 years, it's just part of it and we as seasoned vets know this. The new guys however don't and expect the quick and easy buck ($$$) but unfortunately, you get these asshole grads from either HS or College with an Assoc. or a BS in Computer Science that think they're God's great gift to IT. Sadly they're not and get canned rather quickly. Right now grads of '06 expecting to go out and get an IT job and make $40,000+ is smoking crack. Hell, even getting a job 5 years ago @ that pay rate for no experience is still a slipperly slope, however, the main problem is most companies does not fully reconize what it needs as a whole. Lastly, experience. If you do not have 2+ years in the IT field.... sorry, you're not going to be making above $30k a year... it just doesn't work that way. I've been in the field now for 3+ years and I'm still a noob in a sense that I've worked now in two major different IT environments but it's the exposure and the learning that is what makes you valuable to a company. Everything isn't easy and it takes determination to stick in the industry and push for a management job that can maybe make you $45-60k (maybe). The industry is in a sad state to the say the least.... and I hope it breaks out of the funk soon. Readers Digest version: - If you just graduated, congrats, you should've interned somewhere and you'll be making less than $11 bucks an hour at your first IT job - If you interned somewhere, great for resume, maybe you'll make $11 bucks an hour or more depending on the company - If you've stayed a job for 1-2 years + you are the new breed of IT worker that once the field gets out of the funk, you'll be making $50k+.
I stated VERY VERY clearly that those things DID exist. What I said was that those cases were OUTLIERS. That is, for those woefully and insistently ignorant of statistics, that THEY ARE NOT GENERALIZABLE ACROSS THE POPULATION.
I remember the boom-bust cycle. I remember most of the industry looked upon these sketchy-ass venture-capital awash paper tigers as bullshit. I remember the rank and file making damned good -- but not exhorbitant -- money looking at those who jumped ship for the big, shiny carrots as, basically, the money-grubbing day-trading traitors that they were -- and wouldn't hire them back if you paid THEM.
The whole period of time in question was itself an outlier and those who profited from it were very, very rare. THAT was the point.
Sociological and Economic research happens to be my academic field, sport. As I mentioned in my original post, all one has to do to get a NON-anecdotal P.O.V. on the subject is to look at the BLS statistics for the last fifteen years. Apparently, you haven't even attempted that. So, before you attack someone for "not having the relevant degree," do make sure you exhibit the accoutrement of one who does, certainly when addressing someone who does, ass.
IME, people who write terrible HTML don't write HTML at all. They never touch the stuff. They write the ASP and leave the design work to FrontPage or another evil tool. I've had to correct pages with 7 heads because of that app. 7! I felt like Hercules!
Have you ever wondered why you never ever hear of men complaining about how they hate that the male gender is stereotyped as "preferring to lead" or "better at hard physical labor" or "insensitive" or "more likely to commit crime" or "not as good with kids" or "better at technical things"? The list of male stereotypes is 5 times as long as the one for women. But why don't we complain?
The entire male gender gets dumped on, misrepresented, and maligned all the time. But we just brush it off and get on with our lives. We do not try to change the world's mind to realize that each man is unique. Men ignore and work around these stereotypes. Maybe women should give that a try. Talking and discussing and educating hasn't gotten women where they want to be. "Things haven't really changed where it counts." Time for a fresh approach. Don't ya think?
Have you ever wondered why you never ever hear of men complaining about how they hate that the male gender is stereotyped as "preferring to lead" or "better at hard physical labor" or "insensitive" or "more likely to commit crime" or "not as good with kids" or "better at technical things"? The list of male stereotypes is 5 times as long as the one for women. But why don't we complain?
:)
Many of the stereotypes about men are positive. They're stronger, better leaders, smarter, better with technology, and they don't have to change dirty diapers. The positive stereotypes well outweigh the few negative ones.
Stereotypes about women are terrible. We need men to take care of us, manage our finances, move heavy things, fix our computers, fix our houses, and fix just about everything else in our lives. We're incomprehensible, flighty, irresponsible, and stupid. Our good qualities? We're nice. And pretty. Unless we're not nice and pretty, then we're worthless.
You really wonder why women are the ones who complain about stereotypes?
We do not try to change the world's mind to realize that each man is unique. Men ignore and work around these stereotypes. Maybe women should give that a try. Talking and discussing and educating hasn't gotten women where they want to be.
You're missing the point. I don't want you to just just say women are unique. I want women to be able to whatever they uniquely want to do, whether it's be a CEO, programmer, artist, or yes, even a stay-at-home mom, but only if she chooses it, not if she lands in it by default. I'd say that "talking and discussing and educating" and everything else we've done has gotten us pretty damn far.
"Things haven't really changed where it counts." Time for a fresh approach. Don't ya think?
Things have changed where it counts. Women have made huge strides since the '50s or even the '70s or any other time you'd like to measure from. In the '50s (and many periods before that) women were expected to surpress themselves and live through their husband and children. My grandmother was a housewife in the '50s, and she nearly killed herself because her personality was too strong to repress. Even housewives today don't have it that bad, because their work is finally viewed as *important* because of the work of the feminists of the '50s and '60s. Before then, it was just viewed as women's work, and vastely underrated.
Feminism hasn't been the perfect path to utopia. It changed the social structure and many people, raised with the idea of society in a certain way, had no idea how to exist with the new norms. My mother screwed up her career and her finances into a complete mess because she was raised thinking she'd have a man to take care of everything and didn't know what to do when she didn't. Other women burned themselves out, thinking they could have the perfect career and be perfect supermoms. Many men have had problems adjusting to doing more housework, or their wives making more than them or circumstances requiring him to be the stay-at-home parent while she's the breadwinner. However, my generation has less of those problems and the generation after us will have less. We've seen the mistakes of our parents, and will learn from them as we recreate societal rules based on equality, not tradition.
So no, I don't think it's time for a fresh approach. I think this approach is working just fine.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Frankly, men were always glad that the women took care of things at home. Guys appreciate that. If there was ever a time when "woman's work" became an underrated thing it was the women who made it that way. Women got sick of what they did. Then they started going around telling all the other women that they shouldn't be happy doing "woman's work". Next thing you know you've got all these feminists going around trying to make girls feel bad if they wanted to get married and raise kids. I can't tell you how many girls who are seniors in college have told me the following sentance when talking about what they really want in life and why they are starting a career instead. "Well you can't just spend $40,000 on a college education and not have start professional career."
The interesting pattern is that they work for about 3 years and then you fast forward their life about 20 years and they are in the same position making roughly the same pay. Why? Because nobody will promote them because they are female? No. But because they aren't geared to be ambitious and competitive. They don't even want a promotion because it means more stress.
This is how most women are. Most don't want the stress of fierce business competition. They don't like risky moves. They enjoy being settled.
Obviously you aren't like most women. But don't try to say that most women are the way they are because they haven't realized how oppressed they've been trained to be. They like their lives. Can't you be okay with that?
It seems like people like you just don't stop till you've changed everybody. Till you've convinced all women that there's a better option. Don't you realize that a huge number of girls don't want a life like you have? Not that it's a bad life or somehow wrong or less than ideal. No. It's just not what they want for themself. Honestly, they like the life their mom had. They want to be a family person. They want to load the kids up and take them to the pool or to karate. They like picking the kids up from school and going out to lunch with their girlfriends and shopping for kids clothes.
They would hate it if their husband wanted them to find a job and go back to work.
Look kindly upon these women. Don't consider them products of a destructive 50's mentality. Smile when they teach their daughters to find good deals at the supermarket. Praise them that they teach their young sons to hold a door open for a girl. Wtf is wrong with that? It's okay that they don't care to learn Visual Basic. Be happy for them that they don't work. Because after all, they don't even want to.
I guess what you would say is, "I just think women should be encouraged to do what they want. Not just what their parents think they should want or what society thinks that they should want." Well, what if my wife wants to show her daughters how being a housewife is very fun and fulfilling? What if she wants to make sure that they understand that they don't have to work and that they should try to find a husband that believes the same way. Can't you respect that and believe that it's okay for them teach their kids that if they want to?
I've never disrepected women who want to be housewives or said anything about what they should teach their children. I'm not sure how you got that from my previous posts. I've repeatedly said that if women want to be housewives that's great as long as they aren't forced to be. I guess you've suddenly confused me for some feminist stereotype you have, or maybe you're confusing me with SlashChick or someone. Kill your stereotypes about feminists and women, seperate out what other posters have said, and then reread my posts thinking of me as an individual and not some feminist archetype, because we can't debate if you're speaking to a stereotype or another poster instead of me.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
I've made up a quick fix for firefox as a user stylesheet if you're interested. It messes up the title a bit with the fancy graphics, but it's still perfectly readable. Paste the following in the userContent.css file in your firefox profile directory:
r ome
div.commentTop div.title h4 {
display: inline !important;
}
div.commentTop div.title span.score {
position: relative !important;
right: 0 !important;
top: 0 !important;
}
In firefox on windows, this lives in this directory on my machine:
C:\Documents and Settings\James Booker\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\4l4cjs9q.default\ch
If the file doesn't exist (which it probably won't if you've not defined other user styles) you can create it. The fix should work in IE/Opera too I guess, although I haven't tried it.
Very funny scotty, now beam down my clothes
Um . . . Did you not say the following?
Things have changed where it counts. Women have made huge strides since the '50s or even the '70s or any other time you'd like to measure from. In the '50s (and many periods before that) women were expected to surpress themselves and live through their husband and children. My grandmother was a housewife in the '50s, and she nearly killed herself because her personality was too strong to repress. Even housewives today don't have it that bad, because their work is finally viewed as *important* because of the work of the feminists of the '50s and '60s. Before then, it was just viewed as women's work, and vastely underrated.
My post was pointing out how there was nothing wrong with the choices women made in the '50s and the home-based mentality they enjoyed. My post also pointed out that it was the feminist/discontented/strong-personality types that were vocal and convinced other women that they shouldn't feel okay about letting the men have all the fun in the corporate world. In fact, please read my post again. Feminists have succeeded at making feminism okay. Now they should enjoy that and stop trying to "enlighten" all of the other women that enjoy traditional roles.
The reason I'm lumping you in with these people (feminists) is because you jump all over people like me in forums and such. Can't you respect the way I enjoy looking at life? It's a dead solid fact that most women enjoy more traditional roles. Most. Most. Most. It's a fact that men enjoy what they've typically done for 500 years. Things worked pretty well this way. Unless you're a '50s grandmother with a strong personality. People like that almost always find a way to ruffle feathers (rock the boat, etc.).
Strong personalities are wonderful though. My personality is strong. I am ruffling feathers just talking about how feminists need tto also convey a message of respect for traditional roles. They often run roughshod over that. Leaving traditional mother types feeling like they are old-fashioned and un-enlightened. Making mothers feel like they should put their kids in daycare and get a real job is shameful.
You get all proud when you reply to a post that says, "Woman usually like to be led". You're hoping that I never thought to consider what I believe. I have thought very much about it. I have listened to many women about the topic. It is absolutely true that "Women usually like to be led."
And the whole fact that I used the word "usually" totally cancels out the possiblity of me making a stereotype. I specifically allowed for the fact that some women prefer to lead when I used the word "usually". I would agree with you that it is a generalization. But it is impossible for a statement to be a stereotype when the person qualifies with the word "usually."
Stereotype == "Blonds are dumb." Generalization == "Blonds tend to seem dumb." Stereotype == "Women can't handle the stresses of corporate work." Generalization == "Some Women can't handle the stresses of corporate work." Stereotype == "Women like to be led." Generalization == "Women usually like to be led." Stereotype == "Women were opressed in the '50s." Generalization == "Some women felt oppressed in the '50s."
My statement was not a stereotype.
I've also got to mention that I am not a Republican and I am not from the south (I'm from PA). I don't even go to church. I'd be willing to bet that you had me stereotyped as a Baptist southern boy. I think with my own brain. I don't just go along with what is currently trendy. Feminism has a lot of problems and is the reason for many of the problems women face today.
My post was pointing out how there was nothing wrong with the choices women made in the '50s and the home-based mentality they enjoyed.
The problem was they DIDN'T CHOOSE IT. After WWII, women were literally fired from their jobs to make room for the men coming home from war. The few that tried to stay in the workforce were faced with BLATANT discrimination. Single mothers who were passed on for promotions and raises were told "He needs it more because he has a family". Newspapers divided up the job listings by "male" and "female" and guess which section they put the good jobs in? Remember the slogan "Equal Pay for Equal Work? You ever wonder why that came around? It came because companies actually had different pay scales for men and women. My grandma didn't try to kill herself because she wanted to "ruffle feathers"; she tried because there wasn't a place in the world for her.
I want there to be a place in the world for every woman (and man). That's what I'm arguing, and that's what your ignoring while bitching that some other feminists (who I also disagree with) make stay-at-home moms feel bad. Have I bitched at you that some other men in favor of traditional roles think it should be ok to beat women? No, because you haven't argued that. So why do you insist on arguing points that I don't believe in and didn't bring up?
I've also got to mention that I am not a Republican and I am not from the south (I'm from PA). I don't even go to church. I'd be willing to bet that you had me stereotyped as a Baptist southern boy.
I never assumed anything about you. I take everything you've said independantly of anything else I might have heard from anyone else, and all I ask is that you do that for me. I have nothing against religious people (of any religion) or southerners or Republicans. Some members of my family are southern Republicans and I love them very much, and I teach Sunday School so I obviously have nothing against churchgoers. I would never confuse you for my family members or the other people in my church.
Feminism has a lot of problems and is the reason for many of the problems women face today.
Nothing is perfect, but I believe feminism has fixed a lot of problems for women. Many people don't realize what gains feminism has given the women, even the housewives. As I said before, the work housewives did wasn't considered important, or even actually work. Read some articles and books that talk about women and housewives written before the '60s. I bet you can't find one not written by a feminist that gives the housewife role anywhere near the respect that you do, though today you can find many people who share your opinion that being a housewife is a very important calling. Feminism has made social changes that help all women, from being able to vote and have credit cards to making rape cases realisticly prosecutable. Feminism let women into college, whether they want the education to be a doctor or whether they want it so they can teach their children biology. Feminism has done a lot for women, and I personally am glad that I was born after feminism had done a lot work. Women who want to be housewives can do so today, but women who don't couldn't yesterday.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
You are tenacious! I like that. I respect your views and agree with many of your points. And I'm glad we're not discussing my original statement by the term of stereotype anymore. It's been fun.
Actually i HAVE heard of men complaining about male stereotypes. I've lived my whole life seeing what damage male stereotypes do. My father was stay at home dad, a very active stay at home dad, who "gasp" wasnt divorced, wasnt a widower... My mother worked, my father took care of us. Whenever he would come to school functions, as the ONLY 'room dad", (the phrase used was ALWAYS "room mother" not room parent, at my elementary school) people would actually ASSUME my mother had run out on us, or was dead. One teacher actually pulled my dad aside to say how wonderful she thought it was that a man would step up to try and raise kids after the death of his wife. My dad faced this kind of crap the whole time we were growing up, and STILL does today when carpooling my little sister back and forth to softball games and band practice. He was one of TWO dads that volunteered to be chaperones on a marching band trip to florida, out of like thirty chaperones. This kind of stereotyping has not only made life hard for my father, it made things hard for us kids, and even my mother. My mother works in the science industry, relatively high on that "corporate ladder" that keeps gettting mentioned. As a matter of fact she's the only woman in her department, that isnt a secretary. She works twice as hard as anyone in her department, and is the one that everyone in her company comes to when there is a problem, yet makes less money. Because of the idiot attitudes of people, my mother, who works harder than anyone i know, actually feels GUILTY, not because she'd "rather be home nurturing" but because other people look down on her for not being a stay at home mom. My father, also, feels guilty, despite the fact he has loved the chance to be a stay at home parent, despite it wasnt his original plan. Circumstances presented it as the best option, and over the years, quite frankly, hes done an overwhelmingly great job at it. The reality is, my mother hasthe ability to make twice as much money as my father, it wouldnt even begin to make sense to reverse their roles, and frankly, my father is better at dealing with taking care ofthe kids. He's raised two daughters and one son who is severely mentally handicapped, a task which most people (male or female) wouldnt be able to handle. He's helped with homework, carpooled, arranged doctor's appointments, and bandaged up hurt knees with the best of him. Yet society tells him on a daily basis that that is wrong, that by doing so he is a "poor money manager", lazy, or not supporting his family as he should. And yes, my father has tried to educate people about these stereotypes. Especially starting with his daughters. (And his own family, who have never quite understood his choices) My dad has raised us to realise we can choose any lifestyle that is best for us and that that is okay. If i chose a career, or if i chose to be a housewife, my father would support either choice, as long asit was the best choice for myself and my family.
You kind of miss the point she made. In general housewives in the 50's did NOT make the choice to be housewives, it was the only option presented to them. Their fathers told them what to do with their lives. And then they got married and their husbands told them what to do with their lives. Women had little to no control over their own lives. In fact, it was not legal for a woman to file rape charges against her husband, beccause legally, a woman wasnt ALLOWED to say no to her husband. A husband could have his wife locked up in a psych ward basically for being "different"... (Half the women in psych wards in the fifties were there because they didn't quite fit into societies' role for them, thought differently, and thus were "mentally ill deviants"...) A woman could only go to college if her family allowed it.
Thanks, it has been fun.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
The thing I find funny is how women look at being employed. They are envious of the fact that men have the choice to do this. Who in the heck want's to work in a coal mine? Really. Do little boys and girls grow up saying, "Mommy I'm gonna be a coal miner when I grow up?" Or, "Mommy can I be on a road paving crew when I grow up?" Heck no. Think about the myriad of other thankless, tiring, low paying and dirty jobs that men do. Do they do this because this is their dream and they are glad they have the right to chase their dreams? No. They get up in the morning and put a hammer in their hand because it is their duty to provide for their family.
Feminists aren't clamoring for the right to work. They are complaining because they can't get the cushy jobs. They want the jobs that you have to get past the "glass ceiling" to have. Let's face it, there are millions of guys that would like those jobs too.
Women worked in the homes because they were better suited for that role. Men worked on the railroad because they were better suited for that. It's not this big conspiracy that men have built. It's just common sense.
Let's face it if a woman is the best candidate for a job she will get it. In the IT department of the company I work for the help-desk manager is a woman. And guess what gender all 4 employees she hired was? Right, female. My point is that guys feel that they work better with other guys and women work better with other women. It's natural. It's common sense that that will happen. It is not a crime that genders work better within their gender. If guys are guilty of this than women are guilty also.
A woman can get a job anywhere she wants to if she's qualified in 2006. So it's time for the feminists to realize that they've succeeded. In fact it's a well known fact that there have been more female college grads than men for several years now.
So why are the feminists still acting like sore losers? You've won. You can even gloat if you want to. But for crying out loud, it's just plain senselessly deviant and evil to try to create a problem where there is none. So stop.
Thanks,
A little messed up graphics, but now the comment scores are where they used to be
Sorry, but it totally does work. Funkatoshi or whatever is a fucking imbecile, the larval form of a PHB.