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Dot-Com Work Culture Making a Comeback?
jeebus writes "This week a Deloitte study has shown that high on the agenda of CEOs around the world is the shortage of tech talent. Is a shortage of talented geeks in the market seeing a return of the dot-com culture with foosball tables, beanbags, and inflated salaries used to entice talented workers? Welcome to Web 2.0 work culture, the future of yesterday. 'Global recruitment companies were telling prospecting employees that they were no longer going to be employed just because they were a technical guru. They were going to have to learn to dress, communicate, and adapt all the traditional corporate ideals that IT has been exempt from during the dot-com boom. Fast forward to Web 2.0 and while workplaces aren't as cheesy with their decor as they were were in the late '90s, and developers aren't getting paid $100K for being HTML and JavaScript jockeys, geeks just aren't chuffed with corporate culture.'"
I really haven't seen any hard evidence that all that many 'web jockeys' were getting some $100k salary, unless they lived in the valley, where cost of living is so bad that 100k is practically minimum wage unless you take the bus 2 hours to work. Does anyone have any stats to back up what the average dot-com era 'web jockey' salary was compared with today?
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You see this kind of thing happen whenever demand for IT professionals goes up because of the common perception that IT people are 'geeks/nerds' who are willing to take compensation in the form of casual wear and beanbag chairs instead of in salary... Given that the company is interested in its own bottom line, which is cheaper, a pinball machine or giving everyone a raise?
I worked at a DOT BURSTER in 2000, in big wide open space in the burbs, and they had free pizza every Fridays, everyone could wear jeans, I could roll in more or less whenever I wanted, and we all had potentially millions of dollars in soon to be worthless stock options. When hired they asked me if I wanted Linux, or Windows, or both. All of our servers were named after Transformers.
Now, I have a little cubicle, a company issued notebook running Windows XP, and no stock options. All of our servers are named based on an established IBM numbering system. I get to work from home a bit more but that's only because I commute 4 hours a day.
Sure, this gig pays more, but the work environment is not nearly the same. There's no heady optimism about the future, and that, really, when you think about it, the collapse of the dot net boom and worse, the later ruling about expensing stock options, and then the war, this decade has been utterly depressing.
This is my sig.
With the relaxed atmosphere we're very productive because people are just happy to work here.
The reason there is a shortage is that those who were burned the first time wont go back and those that haven't been burned yet have been forewarned by those that have. Very few outside the upper echelons of the .com companies of the 90's saw any real benefit from the .com era the vast majority got hosed. Empty promises, foosball and free juice worked the first time but I can't see many falling for it again. Everyone I worked with in my two experiences with the .com era have moved out of the corporate world and are either with small companies or working as consultants, a few have left the field entirely.
I recently received a call from the Recruiter that hired me on to my last corporate job. I was told the company I was laid off from was looking to hire me back. I told me the whole dog and pony show was starting back up, that the culture had changed and this time would be different and this time it wouldn't be a complete waste of five years of my life. I thought about it for five seconds and told her that I would just as soon bathe in hot lava than go back. She sounded a little upset, and proceeded to tell me that so far she was 0-12 in trying to lure back the folks I worked with. Guess I wasn't alone.
More like those little engineering companies that do various odd jobs for whoever pays them. I used to work at one of those - long before I was an IT person; blue collar & jeans, roll-up cigarettes and smelling of the soldering iron, paint, welding and metal greese. Sorry, but I stacked a prepared batch of whatever-they-do-boxes on your desk today. Got a few bits of electronic wire sticking out of a breast pocket somewhere. Got calender girls on the wall. Only men work here.
Contrast with today, as an IT person, I work for an all out IT company, only men, blue collar, jeans. Cigarettes have been outlawed, but somebody is still using that soldering iron. And a compressor. Got a USB stick hanging around me somewhere. Got transformer logos on the wall. Only men work here. We work for whoever pays us. What's changed ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
While I agree with most of your list and mostly agree with the above statement (the in place of raises part). I can't agree that titles are useless (even they they should be). Turns out when I was called a Senior Network Administrator, I could not get people to return my calls. Once they started calling me the Network Services Manager (same pay, same job...) I started being able to get information and sales people would respond with yes sir this and yes sir that.
#1) Do not take options in place of pay.
Worked for Microsoft employees in the 80's. It's a gamble. Consider how promising their business plan appears to be. The 80's was a fast growth time for software with clear income source (selling copies of software). The income source for the dotcoms was less obvious.
#6) Do not work more than 55 hours a week unless they are paying overtime.
I'd say it's more a case of don't make a habit of working over 40 hours.
Apart from those, that's all good advice.
The idea of someone being "good" with HTML is hilariously outdated.
I disagree. Someone truly skilled at XHTML/CSS can make a lot of money even today. I know multiple people who are doing just that. Faster rendering, easier maintainability, and protection from vendor lock-in are very compelling reasons for having a skilled XHTML/CSS developer do the work. It's not programming, but it can be extremely important. Just ask one of the many Fortune 500 companies that are still hamstrung by reliance on WYSIWYG tools that generate table-driven layouts and spaghetti code.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
i wonder why web 2.0 hype comes up in every piece of crap about IT.
let me tell you what i see that creates the talented tech shortage - internet is a freeing medium - it has given much opportunity to anyone.
almost all programmers, developers, techies go set up their own small, even home-based shops and work from there for themselves, after getting screwed in a corporate environment for 5-10 years and getting fed up with it. the newcomers are just taking the example of their older peers, and directly going to self-employment after short stints.
and also theres the booming internet business - everyone is wanting some internet store, some tailored cms, some web presence and stuff. it is on the increase, and even in l.a.m.p. scene where there are many 3rd world country located developers doing work for $3 hourly rates, the tech supply can barely meet the demand. more developers coming into the scene, yet more work is coming. so its not 'web 2.0' or whatever crap that is involved in making web pages more widgety and doohickeyish - its a silent, people's boom in business in contrast to company/startup boom of the 90s, which was more traditional business than the small business boom that is on the net nowadays.
no sir, the reason thats creating the shortage is in internet business is booming, and what is booming is small businesses. small businesses do not put any restraints on the contracted or full time developers they work with or employ. hence people are escaping the clutches of stuffing, stressful corporate structure and setting up their shops.
and this is going to be like this increasingly, unless the corporations understand the need to reform and change the corporate philosophy to a more human oriented one rather than a "man in black suits" / "welcome to the world of career bitches" one.
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Don't get me wrong. I dress nicely for my job, but I would dress more casually if I had to be around the building a lot. I certainly would dress more casually if I were in IT and were digging around under desks, in wiring closets, or above ceiling tiles on a regular basis.
Of course the world works in certain ways, but I think the dot com boom created quite a stir. There were people getting things done efficiently and effectively, they were happy, and they were getting paid. Suits and ties weren't the norm, neither were working 80 hour weeks with no overtime pay. There were parties every week or two.
If a team of 5 programmers working 40 hours or less a week can do more than 10 programmers working 80 hours a week, then the industry is fucked up. Those 10 programmers are probably stressed and unhappy, while their managers and/or sales department is living it up in making unreasonable promises and making unclear requests.
"Wow, that guy can program really well and he's not even wearing a suit and tie."
My parents actually warned me from wearing jeans on casual Friday at one point because they said it makes me look like I'm not doing anything and would probably get fired. The concept of being able to work without being reminded that your collar is cutting off your circulation was foreign to them.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Clients I can see dressing up for, but I don't see how making myself uncomfortable in formal clothing is showing respect to my employer and coworkers. Especially when doing so encourages them to dress the same and makes them uncomfortable. I prefer to show my employer and coworkers respect by not expecting them to dress in any particular manner at all, and I expect the same respect from them.
I don't know about most geeks, but I don't care to compete on foosball -- I'm a loner (now a Defender box, that's another story).
I've been working from my home for three years now for a software firm 600 miles away... and I'm not just a code-hacker (in fact, I'm supposed to start weaning myself from coding all together), I'm a product manager and direct the product management group and set strategy for the company.
First off, dress code: the HQ office is reasonably casual (although they've had an anti-jeans-and-sneaks backlash lately, it doesn't get enforced), but hey it's 10:30AM and I'm wearing my bathrobe. If there wasn't a nice cool breeze and I want the windows open, I might not be wearing that (don't want to scare the neighbors).
Second, commute: I haven't calculated the carbon footprint change, but I'm sure driving less than I did three years ago. I'm sleeping later than I did at the previous job, and spending more time with my family.
Third, health: No flickering flourescents, no cube noise, I've had fewer headaches and I'm more productive. I've managed to not gain weight even with a pantry full of gourmet food downstairs. I'm also getting mid-day exercise and don't care if I come back needing a shower -- there's one right over there!
Yeah, I miss out on picnics and friday pizza (somebody's got to get on that Wonkavision stuff, or at least a pizza-capable fax -- no wait, that must be what Domino's uses already, I could skip that)
Design for Use, not Construction!
Yup, that what it seems like. They have already taken the state for about 200-300 million dollars and produced a bug riddled and clumsy interface that is not ready for use. I have been asked to help consult on making it usable...but then starting over is not an option :(
I know I am ranting here, but this story goes much deeper than it appears...politics, money and kickbacks are certainly part of the issue.
To say that any given thing was 'the' problem with the dot com bust is doomed to be wrong and accomplishes little more than letting everyone know what your particular gripe is when it comes to business in general.
There was plenty of pointless excess to go around. From the people who generated the ideas to the people who funded them to the marginally skilled grads who took the $100k jobs ($50k of that is going to be in the form of stock options.....which could be make us all billionaires BTW!) Ask ESR, who publicly counted the money he didn't have. Or Commander "What kind of car does a wealthy young geek drive" Taco.
Plenty to go around.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Having worked at companies in/dedicated to/related to IT ranging from 60 employees to over 7,000 employees, I just have to firmly say that the size of the company is completely irrelevant in what sort of environment you're getting.
I've been at a 'big' company with 6k employees that was extremely casual--jeans, t-shirts, even for senior management. I've been at a 60 man outfit that actually had a mandatory shirt and tie requirement for people who did IT drudge work. They even sent someone HOME one day for not being up to dress code snuff. I kid you not. The point is that the size doesn't matter; only the desired tone and ideals pushed down from management matter.
In other words, if you work for dick heads, you'll have a shitty, miserable atmosphere. Work for nice and caring people, you'll have a nice, caring, and happy atmosphere. In twelves years of IT employment, that's the most important lesson I've learned: dickheadism is bad.
I'm in a dev team that does C. I'm pretty well versed in Perl and PHP as well, but my colleagues aren't. So, should I say something snobby like:
"Yes, C developers are quite talented. But C developers are rarely well versed in PHP or Perl."
Of course not. It implies one is better than the other. And it's NOT.
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I am one of those types, as well. After being in IT for a while (CS, UT-Austin), I finally decided that getting my MBA was the way to have the most flexibility in my career. I have coded, I have team lead, I have project managed, and I have program managed -- all things near and dear to the IT world.
But as I have said before, IT is one of those jobs that has all of the responsibility and none of the authority. This makes it a crappy career path unless you are absolutely 100% devoted to IT and computers -- and if you are one of those people, you are probably not all that concerned with getting to the top of the food chain anyway. Just for fun, go out and google how many CIO's become CEO's vs. other C-level offices. You will find that CIO is an exceptionally bad way to "get to the top".
Simply put, IT is just a bad career path if you want to eventually come up through the ranks and have an executive position of somekind. Most companies only have a few, if any, executive level IT jobs. And even if you were to get one of those, you would - once again - be the low man on the totem pole (compared to CFO, CEO, Chief of HR, etc), fighting for ever-decreasing resources so your division can get it's work done.
I finally said screw it and went into an entirely different industry. I am still in a technical industry (so it's interesting) and that was the best decision I might have ever made in my life. I make more money. I work less. And I have lots of free time to do stuff on computers that I actually want to do.
It's a hard pill to swallow but the truth of the matter is that business just doesn't value IT all that much. Certainly not as much as it is truly worth. Maybe that will change in the future but for most companies, IT is a means to an end only -- and it is treated as such.
With the cost of living (COL) increases, unless s/w developers are making 140K+, the dotcom culture IS NOT coming back. My raise this year was actually less than the COL in my area -- and I work the usual 50+. Those were the days...