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Top Coders Tell Agents, "Show Me the Money!"
theodp writes "So, you're a 10x developer or a 25x programmer, but not getting paid like one? Keep your chin up! BusinessWeek reports that Silicon Valley is going Hollywood and top software developers can now get their very own agent through 10x Management, which bills itself as 'the talent agency for the technology industry.'"
residuals on the software I write?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...10x unemployment line looking?
In all seriousness, working for someone else sometimes sucks. Being in management and already having to deal with headhunters on top of all of the bloated resumes sucks. Adding in another agent is just one more thing that those trying to hire doesn't need to deal with.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Good ole Zuckerberg is out there begging for immigration reform using one of the biggest soap boxes on the face of the planet. Top developers will be working for food money if he and Obama get their way and fuck the tax payers. The only thing standing in the way is a bunch of "racist hillbillies" who want the law to actually be enforced.
Developers who want to be paid really well should do what I did, go where the money is.
First step, learn the ropes.
Second step, use your knowledge of software to program your way to riches.
No?
Finding God in a Dog
...to sell my services as a professional Slashdot spam article submitter instead.
Developers and programmers are not rock stars.
Who the 10x developer or 25x programmer is is often highly context dependent. And it also tends to discount people who play supporting roles, who I think can often be even more valuable than your main developers.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
We need to stop pushing programming as something that can be taught in 24 hours and start valuing coders the way foreign language translators and interpreters are valued: precious assets of high quality that could cost you a lot if they do a poor quality job.
Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.
But I will do implied for union scale......
These guys take the same cut as hollywood or sports agents do: 15%
Say you're a top flight programmer with an expected $150K+ salary... that's over $25K a year to the agent. Not a bad deal at all for them.
15% is a very reasonable cut to do basic business management and cold calling for freelancers. It is much better than what a lot of "recruiters" (aka pimps) take as a cut for their "consulting agencies", which can be as high as 80% of the hourly rate. Even using something like TriNet to handle most of the business stuff still doesn't compare because you still have to either find someone with business contacts or do all the calling yourself on unpaid time (which you then need to charge for later as part of your bill rate, or starve).
I really hope this practice starts putting some downward pressure on the pimps and time wasters who populate the IT recruiting market to start doing better work for a more reasonable rate. Nobody deserves 80% of a developer's pay just because they made a few phone calls. I would definitely consider working for or with a group of freelancers if someone was handling the business side at 15%.
I am a programmer in Sydney, Australia, and for a few years I have had a contract management company handling all my sourcing and negotiations. They get 2% and I make the final decisions on accepting the work. The demand for non permanent programmers to tackle one-off projects is huge here, especially from the financial sector. Conversely the supply of decent people to fill it is low.
Oh, because the business representing them asserts that that is the case. I think an agent for freelancers is an interesting idea. but others are saying that's not new.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Did they patent the business method? I have been working through similar agencies for years, they charge $1-2 per hour to do the billing and get me new jobs. Nothing shocking here.
Probably the biggest problem today is separating the exceptional, dedicated employee from the ones who aren't. Hard working, results driven workers should be rewarded the same way. Sadly, it's very difficult to find good ones in our area.
10x or 20x should exist in every profession.
Basically looks like a recruiting company that has found a novel way to search for programmers.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
seriously. Can we? You're not a star. You're not special. You're a cog, and you will be replaced by an Indian or Malaysian or some other *-ian that makes less than you do because they don't have indoor plumbing and clean air/water.
If you want a good life you need to start protecting it. That means Unions + a strong Federal Gov't (states are too weak to stand up to corps).
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I would clearly deserve to be recognized as a Top Coder through representation by such an agent, if it weren't for those Dunning-Kruger assholes.
And that's supposed to be news?
Common practice for high-end/specialist freelancers here in northern europe at least.
I commonly work with one agent(who's also my lawyer), and sometimes with another agent, in a slightly different field. In fact, if you get a trustworthy agent, it's one of the best way to sort out the "grinders"(clients who try to pile on more and more work on a project), scammers and other undesirables.
In fact, those two agents and those of us who use their services have formed a guild of sorts, blacklisting bad clients, blacklisting devs who negatively impact the reputation of freelancers by being scammers or just failures, helping each other out in case of sickness, or just the need for a vacation, yet we still compete with each other in bids for projects etc, so yes, it requires blacklisting out the sociopaths that can't cooperate.
Might not work quite as well in the US though, US geeks seeming content with being exploited and seeing banding together in mutual defense as anathema......
I used a few
I agree totally! In the meantime, all the wage stagnation and the technology becoming dirt cheap is awesome! Why having cheap tech is great compensation for medical costs becoming too expensive, education becoming too expensive, and needed things like food and transportaton taking a larger and larger cut out of one's pay. It'll be wonderful to have that cheap computer while I have that budding colon cancer eating me away because I couldn't afford the $500 copay for that colonoscopy. I'll surf the web on that iPad - no wait! Can't afford that. Nevermind.
OH Yeah, and those crappy programmers who can't get jobs! They should stop their whining! really! I mean, just because your older and a company prefers younger people or an H1-B because of this mistaken beleif that they are more productive is totally your fault! Or that they think you'll demand more money - your fault!
And keeping up with new technology and keeping your skills up is very important! Why back in the 90s when there was new technology coming out everyday, it was up to me to keep up with it and spend the thousands and thousands of dollars on books, education and hardware.
I spent all that money on Palm development and look where it is now! And when the iOS stuf came out, I should have known - everybody can predict the future after all and what technology is going to take off! - that it would be a HUGE hit!
And then those poor poor saps who are STILL developing with VB.NET - that's what? Over 15 years old?! Those people's skills are out of date!! Obviously all of those stick in the mud .NET developers are all unemployed!
You should spend every waking moment learning new things and all of your disposable income learning all the "new" technology that comes out. Why back in the late 90s, Microsoft constantly had new technology and all you had to do was upgrade your development tools at several hundred dollars a pop!
Of course, learning on your own and reading books isn't enough. Employers demand that you have on the job experience for anything. Just having a class or doing it as a hobby doesn't count. You need to find a way to work it into your current job - if you want an iOS dev job and you're on a COBOL mainframe; well, it's up to you to work that into your job! Show some inititiative! Dump the COBOL and just program the mainframe in Obj-C!
I tell you the whiners here!
the top 1% get 99% of the money. basketball ex: if you are the one-and-only LeBron, get you some. if you are the starting forward for Fordham...good luck with that.
Let me guess, their first client is Ian Restil (same level of credibility on this and Stephen Glass' story).
Headhunters with staggering levels of pretense have been around the software industry for as long as I can remember. These guys decided to try out a new label. Big deal.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm a 1X programmer, but when it comes to writing user manuals, I can crank out a rough draft in a few hours and a polished version in a day. (The downside is putting out a gorgeous, finished user manual, only to have the front end guy change around the menus and graphics the next day. Doh!)
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
is called "Smith"...
First post a story about how difficult is to get a well paid job in the IT field because of the inmigration policies, and then post an obvious advertisement that starts with the phrase "So, you're a 10x developer or a 25x programmer, but not getting paid like one?".
Am I being paranoid?
I have a no nudity clause in my contract.
But I will do implied for union scale......
What an amazing coincidence! As your employer, we also have a no-nudity clause in your contract....
I had this same idea back in 1999. Why shouldn't top software programmer/developer/engineers have agents similar to sports agents or hollywood agents. They would be constantly looking out for a better position or your next position if you are coming off of a contract. They would also negotiate the best contract for you. They would know the market rates for your skills and would tell you how to be more marketable. They work for you and that they get 10% of you salary. Companies would love them because they don't have to pay the placement agency the finder's fee or the higher bill rate for contract positions. Programmers would love them because they get better jobs at better salaries or a higher percentage of the bill rate. Agents could have many programmer clients so they could earn a decent living too.. A win, win, win situation.
You are probably thinking that is what recruiters today do. WRONG. Recruiters act as the middlemen and only get paid if you take the position they have available. They don't work for you. I am talking mostly about contract positions here. Consider what a recruiter will say, if you desire a higher rate then what the company is offering. They will try and talk down your rate. If you don't take the position, they make nothing, if you take a reduced rate, they at least make something. Also, consider if you want a higher rate after being on contract a while. A recruiter will never tell you to leave the job and find another position. They don't work for you.
Top programmers (100K+) should have agents. The 10% you paid the agent would be worth it just to negotiate better starting contracts and raises. This does not count the value of their services of always being on the lookout for that ideal job. How many of us spent time looking for a better jobs when we are employed?
I'm suspicious that this is just an fancy marketing gimmick by the agency. but I like the idea. Over the years I've worked with many programmers and I've noticed a huge range in talent. It's interesting because that range rarely occurs within a single company. Instead some companies attract very good talent and some attract mostly mediocre.
I've seen small companies with just a few excellent programmers produce systems where larger companies with many more mediocre programmers have struggled.
The question is, how can you tell the difference? It's extremely hard to pick them. Merely listing some nice projects on their CV doesn't help, because the IT industry hides it failures. We have all seen projects that were a disaster but everyone smiled nervously and declared an outstanding success. Technical interviews by interviewers without a chip on their shoulder help, but only when you work with someone for about a year on a hard project do you really get to see how they perform. Mates referrals don't help, because mates look after mates no matter how shit they are.
I like the idea, but I'm yet to see an agency who could consistently deliver good programmers. The *best* idea I saw was at a big company who only hired people who were the top of their class.
IT apprenticeship seem better then a BA/BS or more in CS for helpdesk / desktop / networking.
A mixed tech school / apprenticeship will be good for tech / IT work and it will take less time / lower cost then college
Exactly what constitutes a Top, Best or Ultimate programmer?
Is there a list somewhere I missed?
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I am happy at my company, but when I get C++ jobs that want to pay 50-60k I always email back and let them know that is a 125k job! do it.
when you're employed at will. And the billionaires will never stop gunning for what you have. No matter how little it is. That level of greed knows no bounds. Heck, it's what they do. They've got nothing else.
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you're the arrogant twit who thinks he's not about to get replaced. But nice try. Good enough is always good enough. Microsoft proved that. And desperation is an excellent substitute for passion and pride.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It's a case of the Golden Child vs. the Goat. I've seen this stupidity in action for decades.
Take two coders of roughly the same skill. One has flash and a high reputation, the other is plain spoken and just says what works and what doesn't. Management gives them both a task that has an unexpected issue and delivery is delayed. When the Golden Child has trouble management goes "that was much harder then we thought, lucky we had our ace working on it, or things would have have been much worse." When The Goat is late it's "so-and-so is just average, it's not a surprise they can't get the job done in time."
Now add in the cost and visibility of the 10x or 25x parachute in super coder who is so extra special they have an agent!!! No matter what happen management is going to conclude that they made a good investment in the high priced person. If they say otherwise then it would reflect badly on them. Any internal dissent by existing staff will be seen as sour grapes/incompetence. If there is a failure it will be laid at the feet of anyone but the Golden Child. No manager is ever going to admit they made that kind of mistake.
I wish I had understood this better earlier in my career. I could be sitting on my yacht right now if I had understood how much you can get for the right kind of hype.
Why is Snark Required?
You want a meritocratic, agile, decentralized Union that represents a Hacker/techno-utopian ethos, with blackjack and hookers and bitcoin micropayments? Then make that union!
Well, that would take about pi microseconds to collapse from the metastable state you describe into one of the binary stable states of either a "mediocracy tyranny" or Lord of the Flies.
Because if you give the unionized team the ability to choose who to hire and fire (hey, this is a meritocracy, right?) then the floors of many cubicle halls will run red with the blood of the unpopular developers. Even in a purely democratic collective, witch hunts leading to termination will become commonplace. I know, because I have witnessed developers "marked for death" in standard corporate environments where it's typically hard to convince the management to cull those considered "dead weight".
When management finally gave in, it led to a Reign of Terror akin to the French Revolution. There were multiple terminations on the "hit list" that were executed, before the purge finally turned inward and culminated in the termination of the highly-skilled developer who acted the part of Robespierre in organizing the terminations of the unworthy. He was eventually devoured by his own purge that had grown out of control, as it were.
Or, like I said, it could devolve into mediocracy where union developers threaten to file a grievance if someone in management makes their own Excel spreadsheet without a union "brother" developer involved. And no one gets fired, ever, except due to layoffs and then only in reverse seniority order. This is outwardly a very tranquil, boring, stable state, but that is merely the velvet glove over the iron fist of mediocrity that crushes developers' souls.
So, a union could start out like you describe, but ultimately I don't believe it is a stable state. But damn, maybe I'm just jaded by experience. Feel free to prove me wrong by setting up an awesome union like you describe and be sure to publicly mark the anniversaries of it running smoothly (in order to get the word out). It would be awesome to be wrong about human nature in this regard—I'm fairly certain I'm correct, though...
I have never worked 40+ hour weeks for extended periods in my whole career, as an employee, freelance contractor/consultant, or running my own "real business". I think I can honestly say that my contribution was still valued everywhere I've ever worked, I've never suffered for not putting in a bunch of unpaid overtime on a regular basis just to be seen, and the businesses I started are doing OK so far. Of course, I was also lucky in the sense that the guys I worked for and with as an employee were all decent people and more interested in getting a good job done than stereotypical poor middle management.
Then again, if you're any good as a coder then you can choose not to work for silly people, at least not for long. It's just a shame how many professionals in the field don't realise that and allow themselves to be exploited for years until hopefully they learn better. Listening to an enthusiastic 25-year-old talking about how great it is that he works 60 hour weeks writing code because his employer brings in pizza if they're still there at 19:30 and buys lunch as well on weekends is like listening to a documentary about Stockholm syndrome.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
All you have to do is found a company and get a successful product on the streets.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
:>)
No, I think the invasion is from Canada. There's a geographically defined region called the TMZ, or Thirty-Mile-Zone = Studio Zone around Hollywood. More about it after a word from our fine friends up to our north.
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Psych and Monk and quite a few shows are produced and filmed in Canada, despite being set in Santa Barbara, CA (as in California CA, not Canada CA), and San Francisco. You see quite a few canadians on american shows, but every now and then, the canadian shows are even cooler: ReGenesis
DaVinci's Inquest
Made in Canada
Even more rarely, there are Canadian TV shows that actually play up their canadian-ness rather than hiding their location as being a non-descript USA-ian city like Los Angeles:
Rookie BlueDaVinci's Inquest
Don't forget about the statutory (well, actually "contractual" rather than statutory) TMZ, or Thirty-Mile-Zone = Studio Zone around Hollywood :
Entertainment industry unions currently use this area to determine rates and work rules for union workers. The zone also largely determined the location and success of the original movie ranches in or near Hollywood.So yes, unions do play a strong role in Hollywood productions by setting the costs for doing production within a particular region. They keep the prices up to a reasonable level that accomodates the pay desires of the teamsters, actors, and other guild and union members.
What union represents computer programmers? There were some weird fights here in La Jolla as to which union (or even whether any union at all) ought to represent the graduate-student-teachers (also known as TAs = graduate teaching assistants). The final result is at the UCSD website and is that the graduate students are members of the United Auto Workers union: Graduate students appointed as teaching assistants, associates, readers or tutors (ASE'S) are represented by the Association of Student Employees/UAW under a collective bargaining agreement with the university. All salary payments under these titles are subject to a deduction of 1.15 percent for union membership dues or a 0.92 percent agency fee deduction for students who choose not to become members of the union. The university/UAW Agreement can be retrieved electronically at http://ogsr.ucsd.edu/ase.htm
Because with actors, management doesn't have the option of replacing one George Clooney with a dozen nobodies from Hyderabad. And customers don't pay for the reputation or image of the 'star' creator (actor, director, etc.). So that becomes a commodity.
Or, using a sporting analogy, you can't replace one 350 pound linebacker with six 110 pound Chinese guys.
Have gnu, will travel.
To many, coders are programmers
They aren't
Programmers program - from the inception phase all the way to the completion
Coders, on the other hand, only code, as instructed
That 10X management agency can't even differentiate the two
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The legendary 1000x programmer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_I65LA4sns#t=208s
What can a 1000x programmer do?
- Max out the input capacities of six keyboards simultaneously
- Hack lighthouses, power grids and satellites in realtime
- Produce code so beautiful it makes female programmers wet
"10x" and "25x" programmers sound just as ludicrous to me...
Protip: Productivity can NOT be measured in lines of code...
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bad form to reply to myself (?) but the next paragraph at the UCSD link ( http://registrar.ucsd.edu/catalog/01-02/GradStud.htm )is quite a shocker for two reasons: All graduate students who are U.S. citizenatent agreement is harder to find. On purpose?s and appointed as teaching assistants or graduate student researchers or are employed by the university in other positions are required by the California Constitution to sign the State Oath of Allegiance. In addition, all graduate student appointees and employees are required by university policy to sign the university's Patent Agreement. Copies of both documents may be obtained from the student's academic department. [emphasis mine!!!!] [text from ucsd link above]
Note that while the United Auto Worker's agreement with the UCSD system is easily found by following the given URL link, the Patent Agreement has no given URL link and can only be gotten from the various departments at UCSD. How fucked up is that? It's like they don't really want you to be able to review the patent agreement wording before you have to sign it!
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And what's with the weird "State Oath of Allegiance" thing?? That's the first and only place I've ever heard about that!
The irony here is that the software engineer/screen-writer who originally created/coined the line "Show me the money!" was never paid for it.
If you're really a bad-ass programmer, why not just get a job in finance. Hedge funds and other investment groups pay insane amounts of money to recruit the very best guys. These jobs have long hours and don't have the longevity of other types of employment but the $$ compensates for that.
I'd never participated, but I knew it was a coding contest site, and I was pretty sure they gave out prize money (wikipedia indicates I'm right). If they'd just been like, "we promised you money, but nope, we're not giving it", that would have been pretty news-like. But nope. Nothing like that.
This sounds pretty dumb. Like having headhunters bug you, only you're also giving them money.
I knew a guy who could do in 20 hours what most people do in 40.
He was on salary.
The "problem" was that except for "crunch time" when everyone was working to the max, he spent half of the week doing things that didn't benefit the company directly and provided only minor indirect benefits. So he wasn't on the list for promotions or big pay raises and other recognition he could have gotten if he'd actually "put in 40 hours" with the company.
If only he'd gone to his boss and said "I'm bored, can you give me more work" he could've worked a 9-5 day and been at the head of the line for plum assignments and promotions.
On the other hand, he was okay with this on a personal level. He wasn't an ambitious person and didn't mind not getting the golden eggs.
Hmm, come to think of it, I've known more than one such person. To a lesser degree I'm that way myself and I and my current employer are okay with that.
Until the only jobs I can get don't pay a living wage or are so physically or emotionally hazardous that either regulation or unionizing is the best way to stop it, I do NOT want to work in a union shop.
Unions are great to keep employers from treating people as less than human. They are great if employers are making you sacrifice your family. They are great if employers are paying you $7.25/hour and think you should be grateful your job isn't outsourced to $OTHER_COUNTRY.
But that's not the world I live in.
As a person with a technical background in a metro area that isn't deep in recession, I have options. I can CHOOSE to work for a startup 24/7 and sacrifice my family and personal life for stock options that might never be worth anything. I can CHOOSE to freelance and actually make a survivable wage. I can CHOOSE to work for another company knowing that any full-time job I get will earn me several times the US federal poverty level for 1 person and enough to maintain a middle-class lifestyle for a family of 4.
As long as I and others in the industry have those choices, I don't see the benefits of unionizing outweighing the downsides.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What, exactly is the "it" in the above statement?
If "it" is my job, then maybe you're right: I should use extortion against my employer.
If "it" is a good life then using extortion is totally incompatible with that. I don't think I could ever be happy as an evil person.
If the programming market gets too competitive, it seems to me that the smartest thing to do, to retain a good life, is to get into a different market. I love programming but if I had to back to being an amateur at that, getting paychecks for something else, that doesn't seem so bad. I just have no clue what the "something else" might be. Oh, the horror: I might have to learn something new! Oh wait, there is that "good life" concept again.
If you wanted to advocate unions, you never should have brought up the idea of a good life. That can only undermine your argument. My SO was in a union and everything about it was negative. All it seems to do is keep incompetent and lazy people there, which only frustrates the people who care, and makes things more expensive. This is all I heard about when she got home, every fucking day. (Until she finally got promoted to a nominal-but-not-really management position, and they kicked her out of the union. Result: happiness.)
I think what really gets me about the pro-union folks, is that they talk about being underbid on a job as a bad thing, a catastrophe and there-but-for-the-grace-of-Knuth-go-I. People who feel entitled to win bidding wars, are the same people who would tell me I have to buy the $184 drive instead of the $159 one.
I just realized what I really hated about your statement. It wasn't the ambiguous "it" ; it was "protect." You aren't using that word the way most people would. We protect ourselves from things happening to us. We don't protect ourselves from losing a contest. That's just not the right word. But using the wrong word, you evoke weird connotations to confuse peoples' ethics.
I once worked for a company where you had to put in years in the industry (and usually the company) before you got to the upper echelons of the "technical" (non-management) career chain.
Yes, you might get some shortcuts if your boss thought you were a "golden child" but before you made your way to the upper decks, you had to prove yourself over and over again with a lot higher of a success ratio than a "normal" person would have.
This pretty much stalled the careers of those whose gold was just a thin veneer before they hit the highest ranks.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
.. and you need to perform according to the hype
A century of propaganda against Unions plus a few organized crime stories have made the word Union as bad or worse than Socialist in the USA.
Agents are individualized Union reps. Much more costly, wasteful, and powerless - they only with high demand individuals; who have some power.
"I'm an individual" each sheep cries as they move towards the cave... blinded by overconfidence unable to actually question the presented reality the wolf presents. That is the USA today. Growing up in the culture it is difficult for them to realize and foreigners can't be trusted, they just resent our freedom... we're #1. we're #1...
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Top coders have their own Project. If the agent is a lawyer too... I think no coder is so good to need an agent to be hired (as opposed to agency job posts) because if he is what he needs is a startup to launch... the project that qualifies him as a TOP CODER.
You must run a company or fellate someone who does.
You are trying to pass off the way unions were "back in the day" as how they are ran today. They don't work like that anymore. Ever heard of a right to work state? That sort of thing negates everything you claimed in your last paragraph. I know, I went to work at a place like that for 9 years and never joined their union. I am a member now though after I was unceremoniously shitcanned after that loyal 9 years. Loyalty gets you nothing these days especially from dickwad manager-types like you (though I doubt you're even good enough to be a manager). You wanna work 29 years for a company such as Pratt & Whitney who allow you to retire at 30 but for some reason they always get rid of folks at 29? I personally know 6 who had that happen to them. That shit isn't the kind of entitlement that you want to equate to someone sucking up a welfare check every month. That is EARNED entitlement. Don't act like you don't expect something if you produce something. You don't work for free and neither do I. But those people just looking at the next quarter will want free over time, to provide no benefits, use you up and then discard you at the first sign of trouble. You were one of the cogs in the machine that made them great but instead of fixing the machine they just throw it away and get a cheaper one, preferably made in China. This whole throw away society we have now is one of several reasons we are no longer the great nation that people remember as the golden years. It would be a shame if that were to happen to you wouldn't?
As for no ability, you get dumbasses in every company and the common retort to that is "well at least we can fire them" but the reality is you probably can't. Guess why that dumbfuck who's your new middle manager got that promotion? There's a good chance that they couldn't do thier job worth a shit but due to fears of being sued for one reason or another they get passed off to another department. This happens all the time. Union workers aren't as immune to being fired as people believe. I've seen many fired. And I've seen and been part of big layoffs. You just don't know what the hell you are talking about and are just trolling. Luckily for you I'm a nice guy and feed you trolls cause otherwise you'd starve.
The people I hear screaming the most about how useless union and/or gov workers are fall in 3 categories: Greedy (the companies), Jealous (like you), or Ignorant (like fresh college grads). Once life slaps you around a few times, you'll come to your senses if you survive at all.