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Gen Y Workers Reinventing IT for the Better
buzzardsbay writes "We all know the complaints about young employees. They depend too much on their parents' money, they need constant hand-holding, they have no job loyalty, they demand more than they're worth, they disrespect older employees, and they're naive about corporate culture. But despite this conventional wisdom, there's growing evidence that the different working styles of Gen Y workers might be causing fundamental — and beneficial — changes in the way enterprises run, especially when it comes to IT. For example, they may show better judgment when making tech purchases and are often better with green IT initiatives. This is a nice counterpoint to a previous story (and resulting incendiary comments) that dubbed young tech workers a risk to corporate networks."
Is it any wonder, with tens of thousands of layoffs every couple of years, why workers don't feel a strict loyalty to the companies that employ them? If the company isn't willing to maintain their educated, trained, experienced workforce through a minor downturn, then they should expect the employees to look for better opportunities.
These sorts of broad characterizations about the youngin's have been going on forever.
If you really want some insight into how generations interact in America, and how this interaction influences history, check out Strauss & Howe's Generations, a book published in 1991 that still offers many insights.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
- Fluff piece with no real content, just meaningless anecdotal sound bites? Check
- Article annoyingly spread across multiple pages? Check
- Me wondering why this crap make it to Slashdot? Check
- Zonk? Check!
Ask Bill Gates if there's anything wrong with having lots of backing when you need it. Getting time on computers in high school, going to college and having a backing were all very good for Microsoft. The same lessons and more apply today because there are far fewer "real" jobs to go around thanks to H1B stuff. Ignoring resources is harmful.
Mod this down, Very NSFW.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Just a heads-up as the domain is ID'd as yahoo.com.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
I think that may of us don't have any loyality to a company, because we know that most companies aren't going to have any loyality to us.
When you can be layed off to improve the bottom line, then you are going to take a better oppurtunity when one presents itself
This is a generation that's more savvy with computing than any other; they've not known an era in their lives without decent computing machines likely in the home. USB and GUIs and broadband speeds are first nature. G/Net, ARCNet, Token Ring, Phone-Net, and other schemes have never been seen by these people. BBS is an 18" tire rim, not a dial-up service. USB drives, not floppy disks, are temporary storage devices. This generation can't read paper tape and doesn't care if we used to record data on cassette tapes, in fact, cassette tapes are curiosities when you can hold the contents of hundreds, even thousands of them in a single MP3 player device.
And therefore, it's nihilistic to impose at least a portion of seemingly ancient platitudes on generations that have no context for them. I find young IT people endlessly fascinating because their boundaries are far different from my generation-- the generation that could do binary front panel program loads in assembler.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Company loyalty does not exist with respect to a company's 'loyalty' to an employee.
As an employee, my loyalty extends only to the next paycheck, and no further.
Want to assure my loyalty, treat me like a person, not a 'resource'.
Give me what I need to do my Job, and listen to how I could possibly do my job better.
Give me training, don't let the value of my skills decline.
Give me a mentor, don't just sit me at a cube and expect to learn EVERYTHING myself.
Many companies think they can just bully young employees into working long hours, for crappy pay, nope, not me. But then again, I'm in engineering, and NOT IT, so it's a bit different.
Yes, they have grown up with IT, so when they replace the previous IT manager who had moved there from accounting because he knew more about computers than the CEO, sure, they'll improve things.
But it doesn't mean they'll be better than a seasoned IT professional. Experience is still the best teacher. In a few years Gen Y will be bitching about these damn "Millinials" and whatever buzzword they tag on the next generation as well.
No job loyalty? Well, my employer will ditch me whenever it's convenient for them, so why shouldn't I treat them the same? My older co-workers do the same. This is a fact of the modern workplace and is generation neutral.
Demand more than we're worth? Ok... Well if I have a job offer for 20% more elsewhere, I'm worth 20% more... It's not my problem that you have "no budget for raises" three consecutive years. My value increased over those years even if your shitty business model didn't. Now if you want to tell me that I demand more than I'm worth to you, then we'll talk... Or if you want to revisit the loyalty issue, maybe I'll be willing to cut you some salary slack... Either way, I also don't think this is a generational issue since many of my older co-workers are significantly overpaid for their contribution level without even needing to ask. This leads into the third point.
No respect for older co-workers? Well I'll cop to this in a conditional fashion. I have tremendous respect for some of my older co-workers. The ones that pull their weight, keep up with required knowledge, and appreciate the value of a more junior contributor than themselves. The ones that a right all the time because of what their resume says, and not due to any critical thinking, and who contribute zero to an effort beyond their experience can go suck a nut. I can put an older co-worker into one of these buckets within a few technical conversations. If somebody disagrees with me on a technical issue and tells me why with a reasoned explanation, they go in the "earned my respect, and a mental note to learn as much from them as possible". If the same situation arises and the more senior co-worker explains that their right by quoting their resume to me they go in the "probably full of shit 90% of the time" bucket.
As easy as that. It's not easy to change a whole corporate culture, so in the end you have to break the rules to get more efficient.
For example - a friend told me that due to company policies, the SSL port was blocked by the company, so there was no way to securely communicate with the outside (or between the workers themselves, for example, by testing the network - a lot of them used MSN). What kind of policy is that? Just to keep information from leaking without being detected? How about emergencies? People then transferred files and information via open chat, where EVERYBODY could see it. Including non-loyal employees. Last thing I knew is that my friends' team ended up using http tunnelling. In the end, nothing was gained and the IT team spent more time than they should to just work around stupid company policies.
Another example: Forbidding non-default apps, I think this was discussed before. So you can't for example install software that will make your Windows safer, like Ad-aware or Firefox.
This is the problem about management. You just put an idiot in front of the department and have him send orders here and there. But programmers are hackers by nature, we find out how things work and find a way to make them more efficient - whether authorized or not. And the difference between younger and older people is that older people tend to play more by the rules - even when they know the rules are WRONG.
A "safe computing" seminar given by a security expert, could make things much more efficient at work, and educate employees to act smarter instead of having to babysit them with counterproductive policies.
Can this be serious? What a collection of garbage...I know quite a few of these younger generation types that can find their A** with both hands! Does this mean they all have that problem? Of course not.
Do the think tanks that come up with these names know something we don't? What happens after Generation Z?
Jack - you're back! God bless you Mr Keruoac.
I thought that last year but this year I changed my mind... Actually the problem with Gen-Y is the same for every generation getting in... They think they know it all but there is a lot of details that are not taught that goes on that is actually added up more important then say making sure the App is moved off FORTRAN and put onto Ruby on Rails.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I think the big difference is not anything they point out here.
1) Face it, computers are basically as intimidating as cash registers. They are tools. Nothing more, nothing less. There is a mind set in a lot of workers - of any age - to be intimidated by certain technologies. Younger workers are more likely to be less intimidated by computers as they are familiar with them. Stick a Gen-Y in front of the controls of a 747 and you get a different reaction. Basically, the Gen-Y's are being presented with a technology for which they have a framework to be able to approach the technology as a tool, not a roadblock.
Seriously.. in the IT field, we can tell who will be good at IT based upon how intimidated they are by the box coming in the door.
2) As to length of time at a job.. well, the days of going down and getting that job at the town mill/factory and working until retirement are gone. I recall my father working a couple years at one job, then moving to the next job, then the next trying to build up that resume so he could land a job at one of the major plants in the area. When you get down to it, I think a lot of the view of how-things-were is nothing more than mis-remembering how things were. Back then, the US was where the jobs were and the companies planned to stay around awhile and there were unions to act as a balance. Companies promoted from within. Usually.
Now? It was not the Gen-Y's who moved the garment industry to Central America and China in the 1970's. They weren't even born yet. They did not move the auto industry to Japan. They did not move the semi-conductor industry to Taiwan. They aren't the ones moving IT jobs to India now.
They are the ones who are going to have to deal with those moves. They are the ones who have to come up with a coping mechanism for the current state of business.
And, one of those realities is that there is no industry or company that there is a reasonable expectation of retirement in 30 years. Get a job in IT and, even if it looks good now, what will the new CEO do in 5 years?
While I think there is hope for the individuals that comprise Gen-Y and a lot of companies, I don't see too much overlap in their outlooks. Companies do *not* have much loyalty to their employees and will look at the bottom-line first. The employees need to do the same. Gen-Y seems to better adapted to this sort of reality as it is the one they grew up in.
The description is just flat out wrong.
/rant over.
Employees today (skilled employees, not "data input specialists") are OVER educated for their jobs. Think about how common it is for people to be in college these days. EVERYONE has a bachelor's degree in something. Schools are pumping out MBAs by the Auditorium load. The sad thing is that these people are UNDER paid.
Their bosses expectations are also WAY too high. People work 60+ hours a week for 30,000 a year. These are people with college degrees! These same people are given HUGE ammounts of responsibility, but very little authority to actually take care of their responsibilities without interaction from "higher-ups".
The pay scales need to change.
$30,000 a year might have been enough money to live on in 1990, but it isn't anymore. Try and rent an apartment in a major city in this country on a $30,000 a year salary. Now pay your power bill, your internet bill (so that you can work even while you're AT HOME), pay your car payment, your insurance, buy the clothes that meet your companies dress code, oh yeah, and maybe even buy food while you're at it. Don't even THINK about buying gas for that car too.
As far as disrespect towards older employees:
This is just ridiculous. Age should NOT be an issue related to making decisions. It should be based on experience, and knowledge. If I am more experience, and more knowledgeable about a topic then you are, you're damned right I'm going to tell you if you are forcing me to do something that is going to make ME look bad.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
It is the same old story, retold generation after generation. I wonder how much of this cycle is a part of natural life, and how much of it comes from ignorance? After all, you'd think people would clue in that when they were young they heard the same kinds of things they are now telling a new generation of young folks. This at least seems to be a tangible way to lesser the effects of such nonsense; because the young won't so strongly revile older generations without their antecedents being so intolerable to the change their own seeds have sown.
While change may be harder to accept the older you get, is it possible that this concept too is being challenged? It is one thing to be a farmer or an industrial worker all your life -- surely being intolerant of change is almost inevitable here. Yet, in such a dynamic economy, with jobs changing constantly, and information accessibility just beginning to reach extraordinary heights -- is it possible that tolerance of change will be ingrained in the coming generation? Imagine the kind of changes that would likely mean for society as a whole!
So far as I am aware, none of these guys grew up in a datacentre, with terabytes of enterprise storage, robotic backups, commercial quality databases or corporate security policies. To try and scale up from having a Nintendo as a child, to being able to instantly grasp the complexities of a mulitnational network infrastructure is a bit of a leap.
If people think that because they have always had a PC or a Mac, that qualifies them to have an opinion on "IT" (whatever that is) then there are going to be some rather big surprises coming.
However that could explain a lot of the more egregious IT problems in industry and commerce.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I think the Gen Y or Millenials or whatever they're called has their priorities in order. Basing your life on your career and job is idiotic and I think that's where my generation is clueless when it comes the Gen Y'ers attitude towards work. They mistake wanting a life with apathy towards their job. Jobs come and go and are easy to get; but people who really matter to you are hard to find.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
What matters and what will ALWAYS matter are the RESULTS.
This article is beyond stupid. It's littered with "may" and "could".
Realize that the 50 year olds of today were the kids of the 60's.
New techno-weenies have found clever ways to re-invent just about everything that has been done before. Not being able to read or understand history, they write the same programs over and over, come up with the same engineering principals that have been around since the 1800s, refuse to try to understand why things are the way they are in any environment, in all cases due to their short-sightedness, slapped in the back of the head by management or senior employees. "What the hell are you doing, use this, and this, it's done now, get it?"
Realize I didn't say all new graduates. Many times young people refuse to ask questions in a work environment. Exploring, doing things on your own, on your own time has always been around. This is not just a generation-? thing. Exploring is fine, but do it on your own time, when you have a sound solution let me hear it. Otherwise don't waste my time. Where new hires get in trouble will always be not asking questions, re-inventing the wheel, and trying to optimize something where they do not have available the why and how of the system they are trying to optimize.
I've been to parties in years past with young derivatives traders oh-so-impressed that they were of the generation that had removed all risk from our financial markets. Surely kids who have gotten tech degrees and jobs, but basically find tech boring and so mostly want the thrill (and money!) of a fast track to upper management can make the rest of our industries just as brilliant as it's turned out the financial sector is. Oh yeah. Let's bet the economy of the 2010's on this batch of clowns.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
my generation won't reinvent IT. we're too busy building super-poke and then wasting days of time using it on the job.
What's with the fuss? Every generation is like this.
The previous one thinks they're feckless and idle, the new one thinks they're god's gift. The previous one had radical and new ideas in their day, the new one has radical and new ideas of their own. So all this stuff about "different cos they grew up with technology" is nothing new. Every generation "grew up with technology" of their time, they're nothing special.
My bet is that in 30 years time we'll still be reading stuff about the latest generation "growing up with technology" and how this is overhauling the preconceptions of previous generations, whose own "growing up with technology" is apparently no longer good enough.
CEOs make more than they're worth. Young, entry level workers make a lot less than they're worth. Then again, who decides worth in north america? the market.
... it isn't a surprise that they make better tech decisions.
And gen-Y-ers are more tech savvy, so
I'm 24, my section manager is 37 and my department manager is 44.
When my department manager called design meetings on products he wanted to design, I frequently shot down his ideas.
Why?
Because they're so bad that a 24 year old with 2 years out of college can pick them up with just a spot check from looking at his ideas. I can't disclose the details for the usual reasons, but suffice it to say that the ideas ranged from "no one would buy it because no one could use it" to "you might get our customers arrested for trying to market a product that can evade European telecommunication laws."
Let me tell you, it's hard working someone who is nearly twice your age, makes probably 3 times more than you do, and you know has no freakin' idea about how to design a product and get it out there to the customer, especially when he originally came from a technical background. It's hard because of the fact that everytime you interact with them, you feel like you are in a twilight zone where competence varies directly with youth.
Here's a fact, that hopefully people will learn someday. There is little connection between age and wisdom. Age will in fact make those who lack wisdom even worse because it gives them time to compound their foolishness.
I have to laugh at some of these comments. I run a small high-tech company with a nice mix of old and young workers, and I see the differences in attitude every day, but somehow we all manage to get along. For the most part the young workers really are very good at keeping up with current technology and making good decisions on IT purchases. I usually just listen to their justifications briefly and then tell them to go ahead and do what they think is best. On the other hand, confirming some cliches, I can tell you that the older workers are the only ones who clean up around the office - the young workers wouldn't lift a finger to clean the common areas to save their lives without their mommy telling them to do it. :-)
I don't deny that Generation Y workers can provide value. The question is whether that value outweighs the detriments. The overwhelming sentiment among them is that "I won't be loyal to a company because it won't be loyal to me." or restated as "Me first." The problem I see with that attitude is that they project their own disloyalties onto the company. They're job hopping because they assume the company will dump them.
They can't understand that a company will actually be loyal to them because they don't stay long enough to enjoy having seniority. An entire career built around perpetually being "The New Guy". A good company will be loyal to you, especially for specialized skilled workers. The people who get screwed out of companies are (usually) middle management as their job functions often become blurred and overlaps with the administrative duties of top-tier production workers (For example, Project Leader vs. Lead Programmer). Engineers, developers, technicians, and any sort of production workers are usually the last ones to lose their job and that's only if the company is truly in dire straits.
Look at people like Andrew Koenig, Barbara E. Moo, Bjarne Stroustrup, and John Carmack. They've been loyal to their companies and the companies have rewarded them handsomely for it, allowing them to work with virtually any technology they want to. As a counter-example, look at John Romero. Brilliant guy, but his lack of loyalty and over-confidence in his abilities lead to failure. And that's where I see the majority of Generation Y workers headed, careers like John Romero's, except without ever hitting the high note. What a Generation Y worker "could" do or "might" bring to a company is meaningless if they're going to leave for a different company before any of it comes to fruition.
Generation Y workers have the potential to bring valuable ideas and contributions to a company, but they need to temper those ideas with a traditional work ethic so some of that potential turns into real value.
No respect for older co-workers? Well I'll cop to this in a conditional fashion. I have tremendous respect for some of my older co-workers. The ones that pull their weight, keep up with required knowledge, and appreciate the value of a more junior contributor than themselves.
One common arrogance of youth is to presume one knows enough to adequately judge the qualities of the old. I'm not really old yet, but I've learned as I've left youth behind is that I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did, and that I didn't even recognize that I needed to learn much of what I've learned. In fact you should respect older co-workers, not give them a blank check of course, but respect them. You don't know what wisdom they may have.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
This article is a nice generalization, but in my situation it flies in the face of the reality. I'm a recent graduate, 2 years out of school, and as far as I can tell this doesn't describe myself or several of my classmates. Not to say that it doesn't describe some, however I'm sure that I could easily find several older individuals in the field that act the same way as these supposed "Generation Yers"
1. They have no job loyalty, they demand more than they're worth, they disrespect older employees,
I've been with the same company since a year before I graduated and have committed to that company for at least another couple years. As long as my boss treats me fairly in comparison to other emplioyers I'll stay with him as long as I can.
2. Demand more than we're worth.
I'm the lowest paid of all the older software developers in the company, even though I do as much or more than them. I chalk it up to the fact that they have more experience and have earned a slightly higher pay scale. If I was egregiously under paid I may have a problem but I don't have a problem with experience based pay provided we don't have any dead weight (see my next point).
3. No respect for older co-workers?
I've always started out my relationship with any older co-workers with an attitude of respect. I generally ask a lot of questions and make sure that I do my best to explain my decisions in a logical, technical manner so they can be judged on their merits alone.
The problem starts occurring when you find an older individual that has decided that because they've been around for 30 years that they can stop learning. For instance I had a contractor come to work for us that professed to have 30 years of experience and has build dozens of applications for hand helds (we contracted him to build a PPC application). He was given a fairly standard MVC design, written by myself, to implement. He then proceeded on to ignore everything in the design docs and do it his own way. There was SQL code in the presentation classes, no real mapping of the database to any sort of object model, exceptions disappeared into unhandled try catch blocks. He didn't really know SQL so he created a workaround to store long lists for searching in flat files instead of indexing the appropriate database tables.Basically he showed a complete lack of ignorance about what he was doing. I'm sure he would have been fine programming C on a Palm. But when it came to using a modern OO framework backed by a SQL database he was completely lost. And rather than admit that he doesn't know what's going on, when I've called him on several technical issues he invariably falls back on the argument of "I've been doing this for 30 years. What have you written?"
So if in the face of ignorance from an older individual at a certain point it's hard to be anything but disrespectful of a moron. However, on the other side of that coin I work with some older programmers who have sage like knowledge of the systems we work on. They understand design concepts and technologies stretching back to when I was a kid playing Duke Nukem on my parents PC. I listen to everything they say, I constantly find myself asking advice to about my decisions because the chances are they'll see something I missed. And any critisism that they offer is generally well founded and should be considered if not followed. To those sort of "Older" employees I have nothing but the utmost respect.
So as an individual who is being generalized by the article I think the autor should really understand that theirs all sorts of personality types out there that fit his descriptions. Age or your generation has less to do with these sorts of behaviors and attitudes than the person who holds them.
I think a big change between "Gen Y" and the older generation is probably going to be a rejection of enterprise software and hardware (particularly software). I mean, when it's appropriate, it makes sense to have larger-scale, fault-redundant storage and other hardware and software. But, quite a bit of the enterprise software just sounds like there's a nightmare to deploy, buggy, slow, and a general piece of crap. Then, after years and 100s of millions to "deploy" the app, it's out of date and the company should really be working to deploy the NEXT version. I think Gen Y will reject this unless these enterprise frameworks are improved significantly, instead deploying apps with other frameworks that are less buggy and less resource-intensive.
I am a CISSP, I guess that makes me a 'Security Expert' (personally I thing the cert is basically bullshit, except for the fact that it makes management types blindly believe whatever I say is the infosec gospel, and I do like that!)
There's a simple and evil reason why companies do wholesale blocking of SSL. We do not want you encrypting your traffic, because we are recording everything you do. Maybe not at *your* company, but that's what we're doing here, so that if we ever need it, we've got clear evidence to prosecute any soon-to-be-former-employees. And yes, we fire and prosecute without any warnings or 'internal disciplinary actions'. The last (former) employee to leak confidential data to an outside party is now sitting in a state prison cell for the next couple years, due to the seriousness of what she leaked. We act swiftly and like clockwork in these matters. There were immediately a dozen new candidates available to fill that vacant position too.
... the one that will be missed is the janitor ;-)
I don't think employees are more or less loyal today than they were X years ago. People (i.e. "basic human nature") haven't fundamentally changed in thousands of years - what changes are our expectations.
For example if you grew up in the middle of the great depression your expectations are much different than if you grew up in the middle of the "free love hippy culture," and if you grew up in the 80's and 90's your expectations will be much different than either of the former...
Loyalty/respect must be earned so it should be pointed out that a lot of the "loyalty" of past generations was from the top down, which of course resulted in loyalty from the employees (that reminds me of my favorite labor union bumper sticker - "Together we bargain, separately we beg" - for no particular reason)
The really scary thing is that (in times of "trouble") people are willing to give up a lot for "stability" (in all aspects of life).
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
Here's a nice example of why the current generation has no loyalty to its employers.
I work in the same place my father did. He's been working at the same company for 25 years. When he got there there was a clear expectation that it was a place where you could develop a carreer, and the company made efforts to retain employees. Good maternal/paternal leave, extended health benefits, country club, child care, discounts for many vacation places, gifts for employees' children for Christmas (I recall they were amazing gifts; I got a chemistry set and a bicycle on two of those years), a baby shower gift package for newborns with towels, diapers and food.
20 years later, and all of that has completely vanished. One generation later and none of that is to be seen, and I doubt if there's some corporation today that has such an extensive benefits package on what once were excellent benefits but were considered within the norm.And the thing is, some of those benefits didn't add up to that much monetarily, but they did at least give the impression that the company took extra steps to take care of you.
So, tell me again, why do these people deserve my loyalty now when it is clear that I could be laid off any minute without them looking back?
First of all, you certainly seem to be in the minority, judging from the figures I've seen over the past few years.
Second of all, I have to ask what you consider your "fair share", because if it's more than 300x what I made that year, I can tell you for certain it's not "fair".
Third, unless you're running a very small company (which is, of course, entirely possible), you are not personally responsible for procuring 100% of the business.
Now, don't get me wrong: unlike many slashdotters, I believe that someone with really good management skills can make a *huge* difference to a company or whatever fraction thereof he is given charge of. But you can't pretend that executive compensation in America, in general, is anything short of insane right now. Executives get brought in, proceed to take the company boldly into completely the wrong direction, lose it billions of dollars, and are sent packing with a "golden parachute" worth more money than my gross income combined over my entire lifespan.
You may very well be different. And, in all honesty, that might be the exception, and not the rule: I haven't done exhaustive research to come up with statistics on it. But I do know that the average executive salary is more than the average worker's salary by a greater percentage than (I believe) it ever has been in the past—including during the Gilded Age before there were any labour laws.
Don't even try to claim that this is the way it should be.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Who gives a fuck? Show up to work on time. Stop texting during 15 minutes meetings. Basically STFU and do your job well enough so that I trust you to make your own decisions. Stop questioning everything because at the end of the day your MySpace page experience is bullshit.
This
I'm a Gen Y worker and I have to disagree with a lot of what is in the article.
I'm 23 and a year out of school.
Firstly Mom and Dad give me $0. I haven't gotten any cash from them since Junior year of college. I save my money I have 15,000 in the bank from one year of work(Hence posting as AC).
To tell you the truth, I am not loyal. Why should I be? I have no delusions that the company is loyal to me when I see how they act. So why should I be loyal to them?
I am 23 and I am making key policy decisions for the directors of engineering and marketing. They make 4X what I do, yet I am making the big calls....
NSFW?!? Not safe, period!!!!
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
I think the issue is much more one of how corporate culture has changed over the decades. Companies of past decades invested in their employees, and provided career paths for them. Most engineering and IT jobs now basically have no career path, except for backstabbing your way to the top. Also, most companies had other benefits to make you want stay, for example they had these things called pensions. Of course now that the pension funds are going under, younger people want nothing to do with those, don't blame them, I don't either. At the time tough pensions were a huge incentive to stay at the same company.
Nowadays, there's really no incentive to stay at the same company, and most companies are willing to just work you until you drop and then replace with the next person standing in line.
I'll put aside the inaccuracy of 'the SSL port', and assume you meant http SSL and/or imap SSL, etc. This I cannot think of a defense for.
In terms of third-party applications, they do have good reason for blocking software. Namely, most all users are in the mindset of 'hey, it's free', without reviewing the details of the licensing. At my work, lawyers review licenses of popular 'freeware' and often reject it due to legal liabilities. One *extremely* common thread is that all this 'free' software is 'free (for non-commercial use)'. Particularly among Windows closed-source freeware, the software is intended to genuinely aid and/or advertise to the home user and recover the costs through commercial usage. These vendors love their ubiquitous home product driving people to defy policy and in the end, often the company buys a large license rather than fight the tide. My experience is that companies have an existing contract to cover that type of application, but they have chosen one that has fallen behind the curve in competitiveness, so users are frustrated. Said company doesn't want to jump ship (costly and annoying to users) unless it's overwhelmingly clear that the fundamental functionality of their chosen product can't do the job anymore. The problem is, despite being annoying, sluggish, etc, generally underneath it still gets the same job done, just more annoying to users.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You hate what you have to do, your business plan is struggling and you sometimes go without wages but because of all these negative things it's somehow your employees that are in the wrong, at fault and responsible for it?
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I'd suggest you take a very hard look at your life and your business because it's clearly not working out.
Indeed, this is the third posting I've seen today (second from this poster) which looks like a yahoo.com and ends up being members.on.nimp.org (REALLY NSWF, don't go there) which will randomly show some of the nastier web imagery.
Nasty stuff.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Where do you work? McDonald's?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You should judge everyone on their own merits as if you know nothing
about their background. The old geezers should be judged by the same
yardstick you would judge colleagues your own age. The geezers should
get no slack for merely being old and the kids should not get any
grief for merely being young.
On a purely technical level, there are plenty of jobs that will never
really allow you to develop your talents. Life in general can be like
that. Having "served time" doesn't necessarily mean you've gained any
wisdom or done anything that should have allowed you to.
Respectability will make itself apparent.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If such sweeping generalization were made about race, gender, or the physically challenged; the public would be absolutely outraged. But to make ignorant assumptions about individuals based solely on age is ok
If you love your work you will do well.
You do not have to love your employer to do your job well.
I.T. is not glamorous, 99.9% of us are not going to change the world.
You love the work you do because you love your work.
Your ego has no place in any of it.
Just do your job and do it well.
We are the machinists of the information age, please don't take yourself too seriously but do take your work seriously.
>No job loyalty? Well, my employer will ditch me whenever it's convenient for them,
>so why shouldn't I treat them the same? My older co-workers do the same. This is
>a fact of the modern workplace and is generation neutral.
Which is why you'll always be first in the layoffs list. Those of us with a clue make ourselves so useful that ditching us is unthinkable.
>Demand more than we're worth? Ok... Well if I have a job offer for 20% more elsewhere,
>I'm worth 20% more...
Then take it. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
You might have conned someone else that you are worth more, but we've seen your work, and we don't want to pay a 20% premium for more of the same.
That's why we aren't loyal to you. You're over-valuing your worth to us.
>It's not my problem that you have "no budget for raises" three
>consecutive years. My value increased over those years even if your shitty business
>model didn't.
Sure it's your problem. It sounds like you didn't add much value to the business model at all, did you? Shame on you for waiting 3 year to figure that out. As I said, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
>Now if you want to tell me that I demand more than I'm worth to you,
>then we'll talk... Or if you want to revisit the loyalty issue, maybe I'll be willing
>to cut you some salary slack... Either way, I also don't think this is a generational
>issue since many of my older co-workers are significantly overpaid for their
>contribution level without even needing to ask. This leads into the third point.
Again with the attitude. You're not as important as you think you are. Especially if you're still wet behind the ears.
>No respect for older co-workers? Well I'll cop to this in a conditional fashion.
>I have tremendous respect for some of my older co-workers. The ones that pull
>their weight, keep up with required knowledge, and appreciate the value of a
>more junior contributor than themselves.
You're not much of a team player, are you. Pull their own weight? How would you even know what value they have to the company? Do they report to you? No. You aren't in a position to judge their worth vs their pay.
>The ones that a right all the time
>because of what their resume says, and not due to any critical thinking, and
>who contribute zero to an effort beyond their experience can go suck a nut.
Experience is powerful, especially in the right hands. I see little kids wasting hours of work on something I can do in one command. I have experience and know what I'm doing. You don't. Working on it is part of your learning experience, assuming I can tolerate it.
>I can put an older co-worker into one of these buckets within a few technical conversations.
There's your problem. You're setup to judge people, not do the job.
>If somebody disagrees with me on a technical issue and tells me why with a reasoned
>explanation, they go in the "earned my respect, and a mental note to learn as much
>from them as possible". If the same situation arises and the more senior co-worker
>explains that their right by quoting their resume to me they go in the "probably
>full of shit 90% of the time" bucket.
OK. But why have you been here three years without a raise? Are you really that slow of a learner?
Again, don't the door hit you on the way out, Generation Whiner.
> To tell you the truth, I am not loyal. Why should I be? I have no delusions that the company is loyal to me when I see how they act.
I was laid off last month because my entire department was offshored.
How in bloody hell does pointing out that the link is going to members.on.nimp.org constitute flamebait? Hell, read the posting history for Lord Haw Haw.
Or, should I assume the trolls posting this crap somehow have gotten themselves mod points??
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'm an old fart who's been in this industry for a quarter century. About a year ago I started working at a company with a lot of young'uns just a few years out of school. I have never worked with a smarter, more creative group of people in my career. Sure, they don't feel much job loyalty, but who can blame them, given corporate behavior in recent years. These people are hard-working and dedicated, and they give me hope for the future.
No sig? Sigh...
Guh. Should have previewed. It's they're, not their.... I want to wring my own neck over that crap....
It is clear to anyone that the up and coming Generation Y crowd are in many ways tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble up their food, and tyrannize their elders and teachers.
Or so said Socrates, 2400 years ago.
On the other hand, to go to sleep peacefully with the above quote in mind would be to implicitly assume and assert that children never could end up as bad as it may appears earlier.
On the remaining hand, the person who 2400 years ago took the world briefly after the second hand, might have pointed out that a simplistic focus on children "turning out good" or "not turning out good" ignores everything that can make them turn out "very differently", including lifelong psychological effects from whatever unique living conditions apply that have never applied before.
I'm 22 right now and this is my 2nd to last week at my current employer, I spent about a year here. I'm part of the Systems Engineering team while I'm the youngest member of this team (2nd youngest person is 30 years old).
All of my peers and colleagues that are in this field usually did something before getting into IT. My boss and my peers never had the opportunity to get a B.S. degree in Information Technology (within the SE group, none of them even have a Bachelors degree, including my boss). I was raised in a household where I lived and breathed computers and taught myself the basics and gained experience by moving up. With this said, I have a lot of respect for my boss and most of my peers who've worked their selves up the ladder without really any formal education and have different fundamentals than I do.
I also one of the things people don't mention is that the older generation usually have a family to worry about. This is a huge responsibility on their shoulders and they need to make sure any new opportunities are solid and concrete. For me, I have my wife and myself. Relatively speaking, I can take more of a risk that one of my peers with a family.
With that said, I think my generation does not put up shit and realizes that companies are usually doing it for one thing - their profit margins. My generation usually keeps an open mind and always looking for better opportunity. Personally, one of the reasons I'm leaving is that I'm done being the garbageman and doing support. In a few weeks, I'll be working for a consulting company as a Sr. Consultant which opens some new doors and beats to a different drum. Again, different strokes for different folks, this is only my experience. I have friends who bitch about support, but wouldn't job hop to save their lives.
BTW, I agree with you 100%. But it's not going to change as most people are too afraid of jeopardizing their job to do what is necessary to bring income disparity back to a sane level. Part of this can be blamed on union-busting (as well as the questionable efficacy of some unions), part of it can be blamed on the cabal of execs/large stockholders who appoint eachother to high-paying positions.
We'll see what happens as the US economy sits in the shitter for a few years -- it's possible that workers may be able to reclaim some of the losses of the past two decades... but I doubt it. The people calling the shots are nearly untouchable, as they control the corporations, the media, the government, and the banking system. (Note that I'm not a conspiracy theorist... "the people" I refer to are a diverse group and not some backroom org). The class divide in the US is real, and it's not going anywhere.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
No wonder Gen Y is cynical about salaries.
Gen Y??? I thought they were called Millennials???
Seriously, stop changing the names, you young whippersnappers! Us Gen-Xers can't keep up.
One of you guys/gals at Slashdot might consider writing some Perl
or Python to check posted links for GNAA troll links tacked onto redirects,
or some variation on that theme.
Good Luck...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I think that my default position outlined in my initial post is one of respect. I go into interactions with more senior engineers than myself with an attitude of respect. The assumption is that they are competent, and have insight from their experience. However in a working relationship it quickly becomes apparent to even the inexperienced that somebody is either unskilled in their field of experience or unwilling to share that knowledge in a productive way. Unless those people provide some level of manual labor (they won't) such people are equally as useless.
In many companies, titles and salary levels are based on years of experience, not quality or level of knowledge and work. Hence the need for an independent judgment for each person.
I don't know enough to say whether this is specific to my generation, as I wasn't around to see how those older than me treated the people above them when they were young.
Looks like they have.
Moderation +1
60% Informative
20% Offtopic
20% Flamebait
There is a war going on for your mind.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I really question the usefulness of this type of article. One can no more make accurate blanket statements about an age demographic than one could about an ethnic demographic. We don't see articles about what types of risks Latino workers pose to an IT infrastructure. No one would touch that with a ten foot pole. If anyone asked me to make such an assessment, I'd point out that people are all individuals, and I could easily point to good and bad examples from any given group. People should be assessed on their own merits, and not prejudged before they even act based on membership in some arbitrary category.
But while anything that could be perceived as bashing a gender or ethnic group is off limits, the age demographics are still fair game apparently. Why? What useful information is to be gained by collecting anecdotal evidence, and then posting this type of "kids these days..." article? Should IT people treat workers differently based on age? Certainly not! Should hiring practices be informed by this type of article? I think that would be a mistake.
I can't wait for the article that tells me not to hire Caucasian lesbians between the ages of 30 and 45, because they spend all day downloading episodes of The L Word on Bit Torrent.
I'd prefer that I be judged on what I do or don't do, rather than someone's perception of my "group"... whatever that is.
Those of us who are Gen X were once described as the lost generation. It's interesting that this seems still to be true - especially of corporate culture.
The babyboomers we so rightly despised as teenagers, built the corporations based on naked greed. Yet, now it seems Gen Y -- the gimmegimme generation -- will be far more selfish and despicable than the babyboomers ever were. It's really hard to understand how Gen X, knowing the evils of their parents, didn't instill sort sort of values -- any sort of values at all -- into Gen Y. It seems not to have happened. Gen Y is mostly amoral and self-serving to the bone.
I still feel lost. Rock / hard place. I still feel I must be on the wrong damn planet.
Pray that Gen Z is a vast improvement. Assuming Gen Y doesn't nuke us all into oblivion.
by gstoddart (321705) on Thursday March 20, @10:32AM (#22807760) Homepage Mod this down, Very NSFW. Indeed, this is the third posting I've seen today (second from this poster) which looks like a yahoo.com and ends up being members.on.nimp.org (REALLY NSWF, don't go there) which will randomly show some of the nastier web imagery.
Nasty stuff.
Cheers Gentlemen, start your modding (hopefully the parent up, rather than this one up or down)...
As I said regarding a previous story:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=467516&cid=22577490
It is not specific to your generation. Youth of all generations fail to appreciate the benefits of experience and to fail to appreciate that not all a person does or has done to deserve respect is readily apparent. Some generations are worse in this regard than others, but so far I haven't seen any indications that Gen Y is one of those worse generations. In fact my impression has been the opposite, that Gen Y is more respectful than some of the other recent generations.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Can't find fault with that. As an oldtimer with over 25 years in the industry I have no loyalty towards my employer, either. Why should I? Companies have no loyalty towards me and would just as soon ship my job to India to save a few bucks. Screw 'em. The result of NAFTA is proof-positive loyalty to and from US companies is a thing of the past - as it should be.
When was this and were you a student? If it was many years ago then maybe, if not and you were a student then you are not counting a lot of expenses that were being paid by your school.
I live in a bigish city (1.25M), the public transportation is pretty good here but it is 1.50/each way or 45/month. Rent for a place cheaper than mine in a saveish neighborhood is 600/month. You need to eat so that is 200/month assuming you eat top ramen and little else. Now assuming you are heathy but want to be insured if you get hit by a car walking to the bus stop or find out you have cancer that is going to be another 150/month. So add that up and it is 990/month in bills. BUT, you don't have a phone, you don't pay for utilities, and you cannot do your laundry, and you will be having a visit from the IRS when they find out you are not paying your taxes. And hey you have only 10/month (on your 12k/year salary) to do all that and anything social with.
Yeah I think your budget is out of date at very best or a just a lie.
It sounds like you are probably comparable to my age; I don't know. But I've been shedding my youthful arrogance in the following way:
I am better able to distinguish "wisdom" from "business know-how." In this sense, I have accumulated many "wise" older acquaintances at work who really don't know much, business-wise, beyond what they specifically do. Therefore, their wisdom doesn't necessarily earn them my respect as a co-worker, though I may gain some wisdom about interpersonal or social relationships.
There are others whom I respect greatly because they have business know-how. Maybe they're "wise" or maybe not, but they tend to get straight to the point and ask questions if they don't understand something (rather than assume that, if they don't understand, it must not be important). But the key component of business know-how in my mind is the understanding that one is never, at any time, working in a vacuum; and if one knows how to leverage the knowledge and skills of the team around him effectively, good things happen.
When I perceive that someone has both the wisdom gained with lots of experience, and business know-how, then they have my full respect.
I think that sums up quite well why the title to my initial post is what it is.
So you quote one young hotshot who thinks he's God's gift, and generalizes from his own feelings to assume that everyone in my generation feels the same way, and use that as "proof" that civilization will collapse when we've been running things for a while?
Well, as a member of this generation of doom, I'll tell you this; at least I know how to avoid ridiculous logical fallacies like that. Yes, there may be a higher percentage of people in my generation that need to be coddled, that have the attention span of a gnat on speed, and that think they're entitled to be handed the world on a silver platter, but you know what? I bet it's a) not high enough to cause "civilisation to break down", and b) probably not that significantly higher than the percentage of such children of privilege in most previous generations.
I don't expect anyone to hand me anything; I work for what I get. I like variety in my job, but I've been working in the same position, for the same company, for going on 4 years (since right after I graduated college, basically), and I still rather enjoy it. I don't "want to be a leader;" I just want to be taken seriously (and, because I pretty obviously know what I'm talking about, and shut up when I don't, I am).
And my high school and college friends that I keep in touch with seem, by and large, to have similar attitudes. Of course, this is a suburban/rural public school, not some ridiculously high-priced private school in Westchester, so maybe we're not cool enough for Mr. Healy.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Because people often point out links that they have posted themselves to karma whore. This is the second time today that Jaysyn has posted a warning to an anonymous troll post. Not accusing him of anything, maybe he's just being extra helpful. But I think it would be better to ignore troll posts and mod them down or post an anonymous warning.
Really? I hate the silver spoon assholes myself. Then again, I'm a Gen-Y who had to work my way up and had a job at age 14.
they need constant hand-holding,
Try not hiring stupid silver spoon assholes.
Hate to break it to you, but silver spoon assholes make up a larger-than-normal proportion of your generation (esp. college-educated). They've grown up during the most prosperous period in the history of our nation, and many of them were raised by baby boomers who want to be their kid's friends more than they want to their kid's parents. I work with many Gen Y's that work hard and generally have a clue about real life, but I also get a lot of resumes from your peers who clearly have no idea how to function in the real world.
"Do you realize the massive amount of work required to run a company? "
;).
Of course, that's why I'm not running a company.
"Do you understand the job security you have as an employee of a company?"
Yes. It's in the contract.
"I have to be multi-talented, multi-disciplined, multi-tasking, and multi-personality"
Multipersonality? You should avoid that term - I read that as either two-faced or crazy
"don't tell me that I don't deserve it"
If you are actually an owner you take more risk, so yes you should get more reward.
But if you are one of those slash and burn CEOs, sorry, I don't really see the "value add" to the company.
They are the reason why there is no job loyalty anymore, why there is disrespect and cynicism, and why people demand more than they worth (those CEOs set the example - they damage a company and earn millions for it).
Basically I don't have loyalty to companies. I have loyalty to _people_ (bosses, colleagues, friends etc) who have earned my loyalty.
If there's a new boss, I don't see why I should automatically be loyal to the new one, just because it's allegedly the "same company".
And, sure sales is hard. But "trump you anyday"? Hey, if you were such a good sales person where you really are 100% "responsible for procuring 100% of the business" then why don't you sack everyone else and keep 100% of the money from sales?
Nowadays with so many bosses like you who "trump" employees any day, it makes little sense for employees to be willing to do a massive amount of work for the company for just the usual paycheck.
After all it is clear that it's YOUR company, not theirs. Maybe in the good old days it was their company too, but times have definitely changed.
A fair day's work for a fair day's wage. You take the extra risk, so you get the "trump" money. There's no good reason why employees should be _expected_ to put in _extra_ hours and work _every_ day. A few times a year sure - stuff happens and all that. But not all the time. Otherwise it just means management is _lying_ about the working hours as per the job _contract_. If 72 hour weeks are required to compete against China etc, put those working hours in the contract and job description. If those working hours are illegal, go figure.
Perhaps if people were working for a cooperative and not a company then things could be different. Cooperatives don't make bosses a lot of money (and so they don't tend to spring into existence as often), but many cooperatives actually do quite well. Makes me wonder how much money "professional" CEOs should really be paid when it isn't their money invested in the company.
if god forbid you have a chronic or congenital condition - heart murmur, asthma, family history of anything at all, severe allergy to something or other.
Really. From experience: private health insurance isn't worth the paper it's written on, and your rates will screw you if there is anything that they can call a risk... or worse yet, you get "coverage" and then they claim that everything under the sun is "related to a pre-existing condition" and force you to go into court to try to get them to pay, knowing they can run the clock for fucking years before having to present you with your check and hoping that you'll give up after the umpteenth appeal their army of shysters^H^H^H^H^H demonic assholes^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers file.
Shop around for doctors like you do anything else
It's the emergency stuff I most worry about. There's nothing worse than sitting in the emergency room and being told by the nurse that you have to talk to the insurance company's lawyer to get approval while you're coughing blood. And when it's an emergency, "shop around" doesn't apply.
That and the fact that you can't "shop around" for insurance. Every time you apply for insurance and get rejected, they stick it in the file and it's a black mark against you for future applications because the other companies go "hey, company X rejected, let's find out why using triplicate forms and make sure it takes longer than they're willing to spend time on to even apply for ours."
A couple thoughts:
1. I like your HSA idea. I really do. I have a full time salaried position right now, but the health insurance benefits are costly and just aren't worthwhile for me. Therefore, I opted out of their program and buy my own health insurance plan. It's better, but not by a whole lot. I'll have to see how cheap I can get a high-deductible plan for, and if the cost savings is sufficient, I think that and the HSA might be a better deal for me.
2. While the days of "company job for life" probably are pretty much over, the idea of company loyalty isn't completely dead yet. What I've found is, it still lives on in smaller businesses. When you get employed at the larger firms, your "job security" is pretty much only defined by the level of name recognition the company has. And increasingly, we're seeing that's just a false sense of security with all the mega-mergers, securities fraud, buyouts, etc. Even IF it pretty well ensures the COMPANY will be around for many more years, it doesn't mean they see YOU as part of that picture. At least with the smaller companies, there is often still a measure of loyalty in both directions. As one of a far smaller number of employees, it's easy for everyone to see how your job fits in the big picture of the company's needs/requirements. If you do your job well, instead of some mid-level dept. manager being the last one who realizes it, it maybe the CEO himself who realizes it.
3. The independent contracting work is often a good way to go, but I decided against it myself. For one thing, I'm raising a kid. When it's just me, I feel like I can take a few calculated risks and find a way to "get by" if I'm stuck between contracts for a little while. But I don't want to be in that situation with a kid. A regular salary means I have a much longer stretch between dealing with those stresses of finding the next person to sign my paychecks.
That could be much better restated as "you get what you give." "Me first" would be "I won't be loyal to the company, but I still expect it to be loyal to me."
There isn't much assuming required. There has been very little company loyalty to employees over the past 20 years. I've heard it from people of all ages, and seen the hard evidence of it. It's certainly not universally true (very little is), but it's true of a great many large companies.
As I said, the evidence does not bear you out, with companies outsourcing many technical functions to India and other countries where the cost of living, and thus the price of an employee's wage, is a small fraction of what it is in the US.
I don't immediately recognize all those names, but the ones I do are people you would have to be clinically insane to fire unless they had actually broken the law, for the bad PR alone. You can't name luminaries in their fields, and say, "Look, these people kept their jobs because they were loyal!" No; they kept their jobs because they were good at them. They may also have been loyal, but that's not why they weren't fired.
I know, I know; IHBT. IHL. IWHAND.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
mod parent up! I usually end up getting mod points on Sunday, otherwise I'd have!
Thanks for the time you put into each of your posts regarding this, and for being helpful in general...
1) You are male.
2) You are tall.
3) At one time, at least, you were good at sports. This helped with #6.
4) You are attractive, likely dark and handsome, or, slightly less likely, fair and blue-eyed, look good in a suit. Your hair does not grow straight, exactly, but you are not bald (either from genetics or surgery).
5) You can easily make someone like you if you want -- you learned how to do this long ago, completely oblivious to your natural physical traits that also help with this; you have charisma, a few well rehearsed expressions, and a pliable moral center -- you know how to lie well, to make things sound better than they are, i.e. you are good at marketing and self-promotion.
6) You truly believe you are better than most people; you exude confidence. You are never wrong.
[probably also follows, though this has no bearing on your job or paycheck]
[7) You treat women badly, regardless, they seem to love you. To you they are possesions, trophies. You are a misogynist.]
[8) You smoke cigars occasionally, but only expensive ones.]
[9) You don't return phone calls unless you are lonely, which you never are. To you it seems someone always wants something from you.]
First of all, I am not a manager, I'm a grunt just like most people. I sit in my cube and get told what I'm supposed to be working on. I'll probably get modded down for this considering the overwhelming number of whiners on slashdot, but I really feel like I need to say something when people come to the table whining rather than valid arguments.
Don't even try to claim that this is the way it should be.A little bitter are we? Executive compensation follows the rules of supply and demand. That is, if you can go out and find me a CEO that has the experience to lead a company with tens of thousands of employees decently over 5 years and he'll be willing to leave his current company for yours, then your argument would hold. But unless you can convince Eric Schmidt to leave Google, you'll probably fail every time.
Furthermore, if you truly believe that CEOs are overpriced, then why is there such a short supply of qualified CEOs? Oh yeah, that's right, because everyone else is too chicken to take on the risk. (And I'm one of those chickens, at least for now.)
I agree that some CEOs are over compensated and that a majority (if not all) of executive management's compensation should be tied to the price of the stock. That is just basic corporate finance logic. But the problem many companies have is that they need to replace their CEO for whatever reason and finding a replacement is hard. If that's the case, the only option may very well be to offer a valid candidate CEO more compensation to get him to make the switch.
I'll tell you what I tell other people that like to sit around and whine about the current situation: if you think you have what it takes and you can do a better job than management, then get off your ass and do it. If management isn't your thing, then go find another job where you can accept management's compensation and interaction. Until then, shut up, because all you are doing is wasting everyone's time by whining and hoping the world will magically change to accommodate your ideals. You decided to accept your current job and work for your boss so obviously you're ok with it.
In fact, if I were as condescending as the old people who write these books, I would say all our problems is the result of the boomer generation, those that railed and connived to get out of their duty, but has no problem sending other people children into the same fight. Fortunately, I am not so simplistic.
To which books are you referring? Strauss and Howe never characterized the Boomers as shirkers. In fact, they stay away from normative judgments.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
market, not "fairness" determines compensation. if you think youre not being paid "fairly", then seek other opportunities. this pay me whats fair nonsense is borderline socialist. we have a federal minimum wage, be happy to get anything more than that.
nobody cares what anyone else makes in the organization relative to you. its comparing apples and oranges. high paid execs often have high priced student loans theyre still paying off and access to the valuable social networks that comes with spending so many years in school and clubs. its unlikely that your super sekret cmdline skills compare to the value of their contact network.
not to mention experience. the talent to define, align, and implement enterprise strategies across functional units is 300x harder than setting up a jboss cluster fronted by apache and supported by db2. no community forum will tell you in step by step fashion or on a wiki how to align your business process, people, and technology.
if you want to make more, learn more. you know how to make 300x more than youre making now, become an exec. im sure you wont be bitching about fairness then.
like the previous poster said, its scarcity of a resource that determines market price.. engineers and grunts are simply more abundant and therefore less valuable (in terms of $$) than their educated, experienced, and well-connected pointy hairs.
Ascribing experience to age automatically is simply wrong. Dumb people outnumber smart people irrespective of age.
My Fortune 50 tech company have transformed massively in the past decade. The average tenure of employees has dropped from 15 years to 3. Most of the employees are young. As a result we get a lot of new fairly good product research and development out of them. The downside is that we get too many overlapping tools and products. How many java based chat clients do you need? 7? 10? How many Netmeeting type tools do you need? 5? 6? How many different VoIP type plugins can you really use? 100? 200? With the enthusiasm comes a stark lack of management. I don't know if it's a good thing or not.
We all know the complaints about young employees. They depend too much on their parents' money, they need constant hand-holding, they have no job loyalty, they demand more than they're worth, they disrespect older employees, and they're naive about corporate culture. I'm 24 and in the demographic that is being targeted by this and here are my thoughts on this statement: I make enough money to support myself, so I don't know where this dependence on parental money quip is coming from. Yeah, they helped me pay for school, but given the price of a university education these days, it's either that or resign yourself to indentured servitude through student loans. I've paid my parents back, so it's not like I've been given a free ride or anything. Require hand-holding? Please. If anyone requires hand holding, it's the poor saps who never used a computer before the "dot-com" bubble. No job loyalty? Damn right. My services, not my loyalty, are for sale. Anyone who has loyalty to a company that goes beyond doing their job the best they can is a sucker. Unless it is a company you have started and have vested interest in, why should you have any loyalty when you amount to a replaceable resource? Everyone is a mercenary these days... I'm not interested in helping John Q. CEO realize his vision of creating a grand corporate empire. I'm only interested in his company as far his interests overlap my interests. As soon as my interests are better served elsewhere, it's time we part ways. Just because I don't sell my loyalty doesn't mean I believe in burning bridges... I do my best to make sure every departure is amiable, and so far I am still on friendly terms with every boss I've ever had. I'm not out to screw anyone over, I'm just looking out for #1. Demand more than I'm worth? That's a perspective thing. How much is it worth to you to be able to hire someone and know that whatever you task them to do within their skill set, it's not only going to get done, but it's going to get done well? Everyone loves a car analogy, so... if you need to get somewhere, a Geo Metro is enough. It ain't pretty, but it's cheap and it gets the job done. Alternatively, you can buy a Mercedes which performs the same task, but does so with another level of sophistication and brings with it an assurance of quality. So when you pay someone to do a job, you're not just paying for their ability to do something, you're also paying for their reputation. I paid my dues straight out of college as a grunt with a low salary and I climbed the ladder quickly by showing I do quality work. My reputation speaks quality, and if you want quality, you're going to pay. Some people have an over-inflated view of their abilities, and maybe they do demand more than they're worth... but being young and having certain salary expectations that some people might view as too much does not necessarily mean that they are demanding more than they are worth. I don't disrespect anyone, regardless of age, which is more than I can say of many older employees. Because I'm young and look young, I never hear the end of condescending remarks from the "wise and learned" elders. I acknowledge I don't know everything, but I won't tolerate being underestimated or treated disrespectfully by someone just because they are older or have more "experience". As far as culture goes... the only real culture of corporations is profit. Strip away the friendly veneer of casual Fridays, team-building bowling events, or employee birthday celebrations and all that remains of corporate culture is using quid pro quo to do things outside the normal boundaries of your business processes. My problem is not being naive, it's being jaded.
from TFA:
They'll have an inherent understanding of where technology makes sense in an enterprise and implementing it.
Sure they do. $gaming_console and $web_20_site taught them all about the role of technology in the enterprise.
CIO: Which enterprise server software do you suggest?
GEN-Y employee: The one with the cool avatars!
The Turing test cuts both ways
"I agree 100%. I like my work, and will work my butt off, but, I will not work for free."
Damn! Open source loses another one.
Perl? Not a chance... they're way too 133t for that. Slashdot has gotta be RoR, all the way.
Right? Or wait... are they not gen Y'ers?
My Senior in the last company I worked for is around about 55 right now. He's one of the best programmers I've every worked with. Humorous, patient, respectfull to me (ca. 15 years younger, his subordinate), allways helpfull and an absolute wizbang when it comes to picking up new technology. And allthough me made no secret of it that he thought I am not as good a programmer as I might be a key account manager or consultant, he allways had a good word for my coding and my ideas. Some of which were better than his which he never denied. I introduced him to Linux, Python and OSS Webkits (he had like 20 years of Pascal & Delphi under his belt :-) ) and he was way ahead of me 6 months later.
... He actually *can* programm a few lines of PHP (also because I help him along) - but *everyone* should be able to do that in a PL of his choice - remember the C64 days? What an upside it is to know what computers were built for, no? ... On it goes: He's at least as slow and detailed in his work and as easyly distracted as I am, but that's no problem. Because when he's moderating our talk with the Boss, explaining our custom CRM to end-customers, staying calm when I get all agitated over some issue or just plain doing the template/testing grunt-work it just feels great to have him around.
The Project Manager I'm now working with as contract Lead Programmer is a 22 years old Media Designer Trainee. He's 16 years younger than me. In his spare time (nights and weekends) he's the founder, Project Lead and lead modeler of Star Wars - The New Era, a Half-Life 2 Total Conversion Mod that allready has raised some brows of Lucas Arts Execs. The man (boy?) is a fucking genius. He sucks at programming but that's not his job.
If I had 10 Million Euros to found the kind of IT company I have in mind, these two would be the first I'd call. They are more than 30 years apart. And I somehow can't shake the feeling they both would get along with each other wonderfully aswell.
Bottom line: Generation & gender issues are mostly hysteria. If you've got the right people it nearly matters squat what age they are, if they are a man or a woman, if they are a Granny/Grandpa or barely out of school. And if they are the right people, they all will get along perfectly. That's my experience anyway.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
...Actually, if you define "The US" as "The World" then you might be right. But executive compensation *in the US* is positively insane compared to all other countries that are ostensibly our peers.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2006/05/perks_of_privilege.html
Fooling yourself into thinking this is a rational and efficient free market reminiscent of the one described by Smith is a naive and charming fairy tale, as well as an impressive feat of self delusion. The real problem is that this not a free market, but mostly one of good ol' boys clubs and cronies who also have the influence and power to rewrite the rules of the game in their favor.
I'm just wondering if the dead cell phones/crack berries that everyone is using is really making it better for everyone ? How many have you gone through already ?
and this is why im not worried about gen y.
-a gen x engineer
Nice!
O,Slashdot, ye cruel mistress!
:P
I just got mod points this evening
Funny you say that; I'm from the other direction! I'm a programmer, and I started riding a motorcycle; I'm still a software development major in college, but I find that I work on my bike in much the same way I work on my computer. Although, I don't love working on my bike as much as I love working on my computer or software, either.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
...can also be a figurative thing when you're told 'do this or you're going to the unemployment line' and there aren't necessarily any alternatives in the foreseeable future. In case you haven't noticed the job market is not what it used to be. Not all of us are exactly voluntarily working these sixty to eighty hour weeks when they're dropped with no notice and an ultimatum.
Your full of selfrighteous BS. It doesn't matter how much more mclearn earns than the employees. That person has risked their own money to create a company that creates jobs and employs people. That person has not only taken on enormous financial liability but also legal liability. The people that are being employed have the same opportunity to take risk everything they have and use all the skills they have. They have chosen security of a regular paycheck, something owners of companies don't always have. They have also chosen to work at that company. You do have the option of working for who you want to, or did your current employer grab you off the street, throw a bag over your head, and throw you into a van before you somehow found yourself chained to your desk? What, finding a job isn't that easy? Then upgrade your skills. Most employees are employees because they don't want to take the risks or additional responsibilities of being an employer. I recently had a conversation with a friend that has a manufacturing company. Yes they still exist in America. His company lost money last quarter. Guess who's not getting paid, or should I say paid his company for the privilege of working. As with mclearn, he'll take his fair share when there are profits. We also talked about compensation issues and he mentioned that when they went through a compensation restructuring a few years ago the employees were polled as to which they would prefer: a pay raise or a bonus plan that would offer them the potential of making 6x the raise. The vote was overwhelmingly for the raise. They wanted the security of guaranteed money, which was one reason why they choose to be employees. And yes, he pays very well, treats his employees well, offers great health insurance because he self insures and he usually delegates the stuff that doesn't demand his attention to the people who he hired to do the work. It's his money, if he wants to pay someone to do some of his work so he has more time with the family, what's so wrong with that? He is also so stressed that he can't sleep because of the economy while his employees don't worry about their next paycheck.
PIMF, sorry about the block of text.
I keep forgetting that I need to add tags instead of the good ol' crlf.
The only job loyalty there is is the loyalty the company creates with its employees by not treating empolyees like machines, being open to new ideas, not pressuring empolyees to think a certain way, setting an example by the people in power taking responsibility for their own actions, sharing in the responsibility for company mistakes, treating employees with honesty and integrity, being generous with company time, not overworking employees, being generous and flexible (not treating people like machines) being compassionate to people that are having a hard time fitting in, working on goals that everyone can equally participate in, and not playing favorites.
Dont hire people you cant afford. Quit whining about candidates asking for money that they think their worth and start treating them like their worth it or don't hire them.
Respect is a two way street. You get respect by giving it. being older doesn't give you a god given right to have respect, especially when you treat younger people as if their not as smart as you, or haven't figured a thing out or two, no matter how long you have lived or work a x company.
Corporate culture isn't in our reality. Its a social construct to attempt to herd people around like sheep and make them do what people on the top think is best for the company using social pressure based on egoic ideologies. The new generation is about, compassion, understanding, love and acceptance of who people are as they are and what they are capable of by leaving them alone to approach solutions using their own way of thinking, not the group mind set that breeds weakness and suffering. The sooner corporations come to terms with this, the better.
When your actions show that you are unable to understand and accept an unexpected shift in the ideas and values of your society/organization/company/home, its time to either alter your perception of the situation or pass the decision making on to the next generation.
-trinsic
The company was owned by a a Taiwan company, but was operated by local American staff. I had a very good relationship with the IT manager and the management. They were not very happy about the length of my hair, but I always showed up on time and problems got solved very quickly. I got a reputation for being one step ahead because I thought things out in advance. Eventually Infortrend opened an office in Silicon Valley and someone from Taiwan moved there to manage the office. A struggle ensued about who should manage the Internet presence. The Sonoma County branch that had done a great job, or the Silicon Valley office.
The day came that my contact in Sonoma County demanded that I replace the highly reliable FreeBSD server with a copy of Windows NT and start using Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server. I had two reasons to resist. The first reason was that the open source solutions had worked for years with approximately 99.9% uptime. The second reason was that I was unqualified to install or administer these Microsoft products. I had never learned them because they were notorious for being troublesome. When I refused to install and support the Microsoft solution, my manager turned against me. He said I was disloyal to him personally. He refused to give me a good reference after years of excellent service. I had invested many hours of unpaid work to assure the trouble free operation and redundant failover of their critical services . What I was depending on in return was that reference. Needless to say, the loyalty to my manager and the company did not pay off in the end, and all I can do at this point is pray for their karma to come to them. I do own the feeling of having done an excellent job for them, and their subsequent success is due in some part to their Internet presence which I had a hand in.
Another client lost to Microsoft I guess. There is no denying which way the wind blows. I still believe in open software solutions supported by paid consultants.
I had the misfortune of coming out of college in the late 90s, running right into the dot-bomb era, getting laid off, outsourced, bought out, you name it. I can't hold a job more than a couple years if I WANTED to, due to the crappy job market here in Ohio.
Company loyalty is a relic that died out decades ago. Get with the times.
--
How convenient; My confirm-you're-not-a-script image is "debunk." Ha!
Zig? Zig Ziglar? Is that you? Maybe Tony Robbins? Who's typing this in for you?
"Sales is hard?" Stop it, stop it, you're killing me. Sales is about spreading enough booze and hookers to get former frat boys to sign up. It might be stressful, but it's not "hard."
Real people -- engineers, scientists, technicians, mechanics, doctors, truck drivers -- create, fix or move stuff. Hell, even writers make books.
Bullshit people -- politicians, public relations, marketing, SALESMEN -- make nothing. Bullshit people live as parasites on real people. You're like a tapeworm in Alan Turing's gut claiming credit for creation of the computer.
We don't need you. We don't want you. We can happily create code and data networks even better without you. The fact that you've got your hooked teeth and claws embedded in our intestines doesn't mean you can take credit for our creations. You sound like a casting director saying he should get the Actress's Oscar just because he made her fuck him before he gave her the part.
See, deep down the parasite knows this, and deep down they feel unworthy and inadequate. So, what do they do? They give seminars to themselves talking about how "Nothing happens until somebody makes a sale!" They bribe Universities into creating chairs about nonsense disciplines so they can show up show up and rub shoulders with actual scholars. They pretend as hard as they can that they matter.
In the meantime, real people keep laying the bricks, performing the surgeries and doing the math that pushes Civilization a little further down the road. One day we'll find a sulphur pill to take that will clean you skeevy little worms out of our guts.
In the meantime, we'll just have to filter your posts out of our slashdot views.
No, I just click on most links that are (supposed to be) relevant to the article. And sometimes I pay the price.
There is a war going on for your mind.