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Outsourced IT Workers Ask Sen Feinstein For Help, Get Form Letter in Return (computerworld.com)

Posted by msmash on from the sad-realities dept.

Reader dcblogs writes: A University of California IT employee whose job is being outsourced to India recently wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for help. Feinstein's office sent back a letter addressing manufacturing job losses, not IT, and offered the worker no assistance. "I am being asked to do knowledge transfer to a foreigner so they can take over my job in February of 2017," the employee, wrote in part. The employee is part of a group of 50 IT workers and another 30 contractors facing layoffs after the university hired an offshore outsourcing firm. The firm, India-based HCL, won a contract to manage infrastructure services. Since the layoffs became public, the school has posted Labor Condition Applications (LCA) notices -- as required by federal law when H-1B workers are being placed. UCSF employees have seen these notices and made some available to Computerworld. They show that the jobs posted are for programmer analyst II and network administrator IV. For the existing UCSF employees, the notices were disheartening. "Many of us can easily fill the job. We are training them to replace us," said one employee who requested anonymity because he is still employed by the university.

50 of 813 comments (clear)

  1. Silly rabbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Democrats tagline about being the party for the little guy is every bit as truthful as Republicans ideas about being the party of fiscal responsibility. They're both so full of shit that they could make billions in the fertilizer business. Lets be clear - all politicians today are there for their own personal enrichment and power. If you ain't the one who paid their bribes, you ain't getting anything back except maybe a form letter.

  2. H-1B abuse and Trump by sinij · · Score: 4, Insightful

    H-1B abuse like this is one of many reasons why some people feel that their only choice is to vote for Trump's insanity. Desperate people do desperate things.

    1. Re:H-1B abuse and Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Trump is against H1B. He also knows the game.

      Hillary is in the pocket of big business. You don't get $1 mil for a 15 minute speech unless they want something else from you.

    2. Re:H-1B abuse and Trump by bgalbrecht · · Score: 5, Informative

      Trump says he's against H1B, but he brings in at least 1000 foreign workers under H2B for all his casinos, resorts and hotels. Actions speak louder than words, and in this case, it's clear that Trump is in favour of hiring cheap foreign workers instead of citizens.

    3. Re:H-1B abuse and Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's against tax loopholes like depreciation but has exploited them mercilessly in the past as well.

      He believes that every person has the right to act in their best interest in whatever rules framework exists. If the rules are shitty, that's the problem; you can't expect people to abide by the "spirit" of the rules against their own interest.

      The real problem is that the rules are shitty, and he _says_ he intends to fix the rules.

  3. Why Are You Training Replacements? by avgjoe62 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    H-1B Visas are meant to cover skills not readily available in this country. I would argue that if the current workers are training their replacements, then the skill set is readily available in this country. To quote Wiki :

    The regulations define a "specialty occupation" as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor[1] including but not limited to biotechnology, chemistry, architecture, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences, medicine and health, education, law, accounting, business specialties, theology, and the arts, and requiring the attainment of a bachelor's degree or its equivalent as a minimum[2] (with the exception of fashion models, who must be "of distinguished merit and ability").[3] Likewise, the foreign worker must possess at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent and state licensure, if required to practice in that field.

    Tell the university that you simply don't have the skill set required to train your replacement...

    --

    How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

  4. Good for India by RandomSurfer314 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People in India need to eat something, too, and most of them are piss poor in comparison to US standards anyway. It's hard to find a reason why they shouldn't deserve to get work on an international labor market. I bet I'm going to be downvoted for this, and fully understand the personal problems of the workers who get fired, of course, but there is also another side to these kind of stories.

    1. Re:Good for India by stabiesoft · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Probably because it is a country's duty to first support its own citizens. Otherwise, what is a country?

    2. Re:Good for India by harrkev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Probably because it is a country's duty to first support its own citizens. Otherwise, what is a country?

      What are you smoking? The current groupthink is to give full rights to non-citizens. Did you smuggle yourself into this country illegally? There are a lot of people who want to give you a driver's license, the right to vote, and free health insurance. Clearly, the job of the US government is to provide benefits to everybody, regardless of their citizenship status. The only qualifications are to either be born in the US, or be crafty enough to break the law and get yourself in.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    3. Re:Good for India by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The groupthink is to support a set of universal "human rights", with an emphasis on groups at the most disadvantaged end of the scale. This emphasis on universalism has removed any emphasis on the rights of local populations if their rights status is judged "higher" than other groups.

      And the calculus of judging rights status of groups is kind of weighted, which is why you see groups who at face seem oppressed (ie, white poor, unemployed Appalachian coal miners) judged as "privileged" by universalists who weight some criteria (like race) as privilege status above others (economic power).

      Regional disadvantages are disregarded because privilege and power are aggregated and its presumed that all regional members share these. If the US is a rich country, then all US citizens are presumed to actually possess these privileges, even if specific members of the US don't share any of these.

  5. She's 1/2 of the Valley's home senate team by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    She's 50% of Silicon Valley's home state senate team. Expecting her to take a position anywhere remotely opposed to H1B seems as likely as a NY Senator opposing Wall Street.

    It hits too close to home.

  6. Go on strike? by Vermonter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This may be a silly question since I've never been in this kind of situation, but why doesn't the IT staff all collectively refuse to train their outsourced replacements? Or go on strike? Even if they aren't unionized, they could go on strike (I assume). Am I just making some bad assumptions here?

    1. Re:Go on strike? by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No they wouldn't, the University can't afford to go half a year without IT.

  7. Worked with HCL before. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sorry for the AC posting, but...

    My company worked with HCL. Not a bad company in their own right. They took over our tech debt so we could, in theory, focus on building new things. Started off with a big seminar about how indian culture is different from american culture. Uhhh, OK, informative I guess.

    It lasted about 9 months before we dropped them. We had to wait a full year for the contract to run out. Their coding was decent, language was decent. Time was the real barrier here. They were working when we were asleep and vice versa. It's just not an ideal setup to try and have people submitting code and doing QA work in the middle of the night. Because if you have a question on why they did what they did, you send out an e-mail, wait a day, get a response, send it back. Everything just grinds to a halt.

    It might be cheaper on paper, but it's fucking stupid. It creates to much of a time barrier between you and the people doing the work.

    1. Re:Worked with HCL before. by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The cultural differences thing is real. I inherited a team of Indian H1Bs which we picked up as a favor to a VC who had over-extended himself. It took me almost a year to figure out how to manage across the cultural divide.

      While the first thing most Indians will tell you is that there isn't just one "Indian culture", it's fair to say that Indian business manners tend to be a lot more hierarchical than American manners. There are of course fire-breathing outliers; people are not cultural automatons, after all. But for the most part my Indian supervisees were much more reluctant than an American would be to do anything which might be construed as challenging my authority or competence in a public way.

      That took a lot of adjustment; as an American you feel free to speak your mind to power; and as a supervisor you implicitly rely on your people to tell you to your face when you're going off the rails. I found I had to manage in a different way with the Indians; it wasn't better or worse, it was just different. What worked for me was to really get to know each of them; to take them out to lunch or drinks after work. One on one, in a relaxed and informal atmosphere I could get their true opinion of things. In a meeting they'd take my spitballing suggestions as orders to go out and fall on their swords. At least at first. As we got to understand and trust each other more they became more assertive, but I had to make the first move.

      It was a rewarding experience, and I highly recommend it, but I really can't imagine navigating that divide with me in the US and the team in India. If your relationship was merely a matter of handing over specifications and reviewing finished code, maybe. You'd need to have a strict, well-thought out division of responsibilities that did not rely in any way on any kind of implicit communication.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  8. Protectionism by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Farm jobs, 1790, 90% of the labor force. Manufacturing took all our hard-working farm jobs.

    Dock and rail worker jobs, 1920. The shipping pallet cut 4 days work down to 4 hours.

    Manufacturing jobs, 1990. Globalization took away all our jobs.

    IT jobs, 2015. H1B foreigners are taking our jobs.

    Long-term result has been expansion of population, increase in per-capita GDP, increase in the buying power of the middle- and lower-class families, a stronger job market, people spending less on food and clothing and more on entertainment and HEALTHCARE of all things, and the development of things like IT jobs instead of just a bunch of factory workers and shit shovelers. The long-term result has ALSO been the creation of a lot of retail and service (fast food) jobs, and a lot of domestic shipping jobs.

    The short-term result has always been a displacement of workers. 40% of the U.S. workforce turns over every year (which is why there's always Help Wanted signs--no, folks, the 5% unemployed aren't lazy drug addicts abusing the welfare system; there are legitimately just not jobs for everyone), and some 1.5%-2% retire and get replaced by new workers (college graduates), which means a skill replacement rate of some 1%-2% is safe. Still, those displaced workers mean the rest of us get richer, and even they benefit in the long run; but 6 months from now is a distant thought when you've just lost your job.

    I get it, really. I don't want to lose my job. You don't want to lose your job. I also don't want to live in 1990 forever. You see all these cell phones, high-speed Internet, and all the cheap food? The sheer buying power of the middle-class, the increase in available health care, and the massive amount of shit like video games and tablets and audiobooks we buy? Netflix, the entire IT industry (which only exists because it can sell things like Netflix), the like? That's the result of people losing their jobs for a little while along the way. What brought us from 1990 to 2016 is this kind of shit.

    Yes, it's irritating. It's sad. It's unfair. It's ALL unfair. We either kick a few good people out on the street and wait for the economy to cycle around and get them (or a proportional number of others who were facing terminal unemployment) back into new jobs to enjoy the new economy; or we protect their jobs and make *everyone* suffer a stagnant, decaying economy until, 50 years from now, we look like North Korea. Which is fair?

    I keep pushing for a Universal Social Security. No tax increase required. Remediates the welfare system completely. Gives everyone an absolute share of technical progress--the savings these steps forward bring us, the new wealth, has a fraction cleaved off and distributed equally to all Americans. The poorest benefit most; the richest aren't taxed anything more for it; everyone else kind of scales.

    It's a contemporary fix. If we did it in 1950, everyone from the lower-middle-class up would have to give up nearly *all* their money and receive the standard stipend; the richest of rich would be barely more wealthy than the poorest-of-poor, and we'd collapse like the USSR. Since 2013, it's been doable without cutting the rich down, and without substantially narrowing the income distribution. This creates a firm, stable basis for the poorest-of-poor and, importantly, for the people who lose their jobs to these things.

    No, it's not fair. The system I propose is better than today, doesn't cut into anyone, lowers business taxes, reduces the cost of paying employees (read: more jobs, cheaper products), and lessens the financial damage done to an individual who loses his job. It's still not fair, because that guy is still (temporarily) the sacrificial lamb that takes us all into a better future. It's less-bad, and more-optimal. That happens to be important.

    Yes, I found a way to at least give the child of Omelas better food without destroying society, even if we still have to keep him locked up in the basement.

    --
    Support my political activism on Patreon.
    1. Re:Protectionism by ooloorie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I keep pushing for a Universal Social Security [wordpress.com]. No tax increase required. Remediates the welfare system completely.

      Simply shoving money into people's hands doesn't seem to work very well. The US could adopt the European welfare model, which is generally a simple, limited cash payment combined with strict government supervision of the job search.

      Alternatively, the US could adopt a model in which local and state governments act as an employer-of-last-resort; that is, if you can't find any other employment, you can always work for the government, but you basically have to do whatever job they give you. Payment would have to be below other entry-level jobs, and some payment might be in-kind (housing, food, basic healthcare, education/training).

    2. Re:Protectionism by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Farm jobs, 1790, 90% of the labor force. Manufacturing took all our hard-working farm jobs. <-- technological improvement
      Dock and rail worker jobs, 1920. The shipping pallet cut 4 days work down to 4 hours. <-- technological improvement
      Manufacturing jobs, 1990. Globalization took away all our jobs. <-- moving jobs
      IT jobs, 2015. H1B foreigners are taking our jobs. <-- moving jobs

      There seems to be a problem with your comparison. Frankly, I don't think moving all our manufacturing to China was a good move and the H1B program is a disaster.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  9. Re:Been there. Not fun. by guruevi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would you then train him at all? You got your 4 weeks notice, go to work, throw them a manual and let them figure it out. If they complain, say "he doesn't understand me very well".

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  10. Re:Been there. Not fun. by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At this point it's better to actively sabotage the effort while you look for other employment and then quit. I've fought this battle in a different field, it didn't do anyone any favors to go along with it, including the corporate masters who thought they were saving money. The best policy is subtle sabotage: make enemies, say vague things, give wrong directions when someone talks to you without a paper trail then deny or dissemble. The government has sold you out, unions won't work here, so at this point misbehaving and taking their money for as long as it lasts is the best policy.

  11. Re:really? by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Easy to say, not so easy to do when it happens to you.

    For starters, having a job makes it much, much easier to find a new one. Telling your employer to go pound sand has a way of leading to unemployment in short order.

    Second, very few Americans have any sort of massive bank of accrued leave; meaning unless they keep working, two weeks from now, they stop getting paid.

    And finally, companies often make these situations too good to turn down - Train your replacement, and we'll give you a bonus of six+ months' salary, but only if you stay until they tell you to.

    Sure, we may all feel morally indignant about these situations, but how many of us would really choose "unemployment" over a check for $80k? I'd dare say not very many.

  12. Re:Been there. Not fun. by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Usually they make your severance dependent upon it.

    Haven't been in exactly the same situation, but was given three months notice when the US branch of a UK company decided it was time to shut down the US branch and have the development be centralized at the UK offices. I had to train my UK counterparts during that three months, or else not get severance.

    In my case the situation was understandable (which is not to say I agreed with it), and we went our separate ways on good terms. I can't imagine how horrible the workers described above felt, and Diane Feinstein is up there with DWS as one of the worst Democrats ever.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  13. Re:Epic tone deafness by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I wonder how much Feinstein gets from various pro-offshoring groups to be completely tone-deaf to her own constituents.

    Nah, it's just most staffer send boilerplate replies without looking at what was asked. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by sloth or stupidity.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  14. Re:You mean Trump's webmaster by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    Trump's clarification of that question. Why you gotta lie and make it seem like he was talking about H1-Bs? This is why Trump is winning. All his opponents can do is be OUTRAGED but can't argue the issues without lying about his positions. People notice and then they hate you and support Trump. Making your own monsters, kid.

    "Megyn Kelly asked about highly-skilled immigration. The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions."

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  15. Re:While this is a very tacky response... by bigwheel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Getting to see or talk to a senator is dang near impossible. (Unless of course, you've donated large sums of money to the campaign or money-laundering foundation.)

    I know this first-hand from when I was starting a company and trying to get support for a particular program. It took us several weeks of trying, and the best we could do was fly to D.C. to meet with a mid-level staffer for 20 minutes.

    I'm sure that senators are busy people. Listening to their constituents ranks right up with answering robo calls.

  16. Re:Been there. Not fun. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

    You probably had grounds to force the payment of the severance anyway, in your case, as its a UK company and under British rules severance is not contingent on anything - the company makes you redundant and pays your severance, they cannot put strings on it. You would probably have had to file in a UK court, but thats not much of an issue.

    That is why you don't hear of these horror stories of "I had to train my replacement" in the UK - we simply don't have to do that.

  17. Maximum yield by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Scott Adams (who writes Dilbert) is on vacation in Switzerland, and his recent blog post had this snippet, which got me really angry:

    [...] I also asked the Swiss man what kind of problems they have in Switzerland. He laughed again. The answer is “none.” Literally.
    Good economy.
    Plenty of jobs.
    No racial strife.
    Low crime rate.
    Highest standard of living.
    No real pollution.
    No litter.
    No homeless that I could see.

    The reason it angered me is that here's a country where the government tries to give the citizens a good life. They have fixed all of the major problems and are just letting their citizens live in quiet enjoyment.

    The Swiss government is considering implementing a guaranteed minimum income.

    Over here in the US, our infrastructure is crumbling, our healthcare is at 3rd world level, jobs are scarce (and we're outsourcing more and more), and two thirds of the people are on the brink of poverty, and the government spies on and opresses everyone.

    It's as if the government sees the people as some sort of harvest-able crop whose purpose is to provide taxes, where their only efforts are towards maximum yield.

    1. Re:Maximum yield by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's where my wife is from. They are very strict about secure borders, control of the money supply, and having the government live within its means. Unlike European countries (Switzerland is totally autonomous and not part of the union) it is not importing refugees.

    2. Re:Maximum yield by Kokuyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeeeahhh... That Swiss dude? He was lying.
      Regards from Switzerland.

    3. Re:Maximum yield by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Switzerland... is not importing refugees.

      That's one way to go through life: there are people in desperate need of help and a country with a rich citizenery is not lifting a finger to help. I'm only alove because the UK accepted my great grandparents as refugees. I'd rather have a lower standard of living and not be a total douchebag than try to squeeze every last penny out of life.

      Plus you know, it's better to fight evil than to hoard it's ill-gotten gold.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Maximum yield by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So I take it your guest room is filled with Syrians at the moment. It probably won't be for long, but make sure you double up on the groceries on your next shopping trip, dude.

    5. Re:Maximum yield by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh get the fuck off your moral high horse.

      Importing a third world country that holds that exact opposite ideologies as your own is fucking suicide which is so incredibly evident all across Europe. There are numerous Islamic countries that are very well off that aren't 'lifting a finger' to help their fellow Muslims.

    6. Re:Maximum yield by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 3, Informative

      Comparing the US to the Swiss is a false equivalency. IMHO, the biggest is that many of the Swiss are distantly related to each other, unlike the US. When half the country is part of your extended biological family, you feel far different towards them than the "melting pot" situation here in the US. I'm not condoning the US's attitude, but it's just a very basic and probably pre-human part of our evolution. All animals are more helpful to fellow family / tribe members.

    7. Re:Maximum yield by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There are numerous Islamic countries that are very well off that aren't 'lifting a finger' to help their fellow Muslims.

      Of course not. They're the wrong kind of Muslims.

    8. Re:Maximum yield by Miamicanes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Florida has some of the country's best roads, and way too many of the country's worst roads. Roads that have gotten demolished and rebuilt from scratch within the past 15 years are generally pretty good. Roads that haven't been touched since they opened to traffic as interstate highways back in the 60s and 70s are awful.

      On the other hand, Texas has roads I'd classify as the gold standard of kick-ass excellence (the Dallas Central Expressway south of 635 is borderline erotic), while California seems to have the most uniformly good & adequate roads (individually, not quite as over the top as the best Texan roads, but almost universally adequate and generally quite well-maintained).

      From what I recall growing up, Ohio's roads were generally good, except they got beaten up so badly every winter by ice, Ohio spent literally a third of the year scrambling to fix the previous winter's damage before the next one. I also remember that driving from Ohio into Pennsylvania was kind of like driving from Alabama into Florida... one minute, you're on a wide, freshly-paved road... 3 minutes later, the shoulders are gone, the asphalt is a half step above compacted gravel, there are potholes big enough to trash a lifted monster truck, and the road itself looks like it hasn't been improved since the 1950s.

    9. Re:Maximum yield by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      sorry we don't live in a world of unlimited resources, people have an obligation to take care of their own.

      Its My family -> my friends -> my nation -> everyone else in that order. Its not "I have mine, fuck you" its I have obligations to these people all ready and i have to meet them first, before I can help others.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    10. Re:Maximum yield by evilviper · · Score: 4, Informative

      Importing a third world country that holds that exact opposite ideologies as your own is fucking suicide

      Yeah, it sure destroyed the USA.

      There are numerous Islamic countries that are very well off that aren't 'lifting a finger' to help their fellow Muslims.

      That's completely wrong.

      Turkey is taking responsibility for fully HALF of Syrian refugees, at great expense. Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt are home to nearly all the rest. The number going to Europe is miniscule by comparison:

      "In three days in September 2014, Turkey received some 130,000 refugees from Syria â" more than the entire European Union had in the past three years"
      http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/11/20/amnesty-international-85-percent-syrian-refugees-in-turkey-living-outside.html

      Successful Muslim (Gulf) countries like Saudi Arabia are JUST AS DISTANT from Syria as the EU is. Those same distant Muslim countries ARE now contributing significant amounts of money to support the current crop of Syrian refugees (though it certainly took them quite a while, and they could reasonably be doing more). They have some peculiar issues with taking in more refugees, which seem quite strange to someone in a western country:

      "these countries are already overloaded with foreigners. For example, 88 percent of the population of the United Arab Emirates are foreigners. For Qatar, it's 85 and Kuwait 70 percent." http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-03/what-are-gulf-countries-doing-help-syrian-refugee-crisis

      Lots more useful information is available here:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    11. Re:Maximum yield by Kokuyo · · Score: 4, Informative

      High suicide rate.
      Traffic is a humongous problem.
      As in any western country, our cost of living is growing more rapidly than our salaries.
      We're heading straight for American economics, so all the nice social nets we have are eroding by the year.
      We are experiencing as much of a conservative tipping of the scales as the US is headed for.
      Our academic inflation is following the US's nicely.
      With such a strong currency, our export suffers. How long do you think we can buy nice things, when we have trouble selling our products?
      I don't want to imagine what happens if the EU ever gets fed up with our attitude.

  18. Re:Been there. Not fun. by stealth_finger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That is why you don't hear of these horror stories of "I had to train my replacement" in the UK - we simply don't have to do that.

    Also our companies for the most part aren't farming out work to cheap foreign labour on the basis that locals can't do the work even though they are doing it and have to train the people that are apparently more capable of said work, all while having to pay them the same anyway because that makes no fucking sense. As I understand it that's pretty much the h1b situation. If I'm wrong please correct me.

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  19. Re:really? by JustNiz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >> If you are losing your job, you at leasy want to get some money to survive.

    Thats why you need to never take on debt unless absolutely necessary, then pay it off ASAP and save while you are working.
    My biggest life rule is to ensure I always have an emergency fund that is a minimum of 6 months (ideally a year) of pay (after tax/deductions), I maintain a minimal lifestyle (no "toys" or luxuries) until I have that in the bank, and I never touch it for ANY reason other than to absolute emergencies to keep myself alive/fed/housed/clothed.
    A side-effect of doing that is that you become free to live like a man, with some self-respect, not a corporate slave/sheep.

  20. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  21. Re:Two sides to Free Trade by npslider · · Score: 3

    “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."

  22. Re:Been there. Not fun. by Maritz · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not like India.

    Oh... Give it a few years.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  23. Re:Been there. Not fun. by Maritz · · Score: 3, Funny

    And if they need it in English, translate it back.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  24. The Swiss Regulate the Crap Out of People by Kagato · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What he doesn't know about the Swiss is they regulate the crap out of everyone. Health Insurance must be not for profit and the Gov't have price controls on the fees doctors and hospitals can charge insurance. The Swiss are the most capitalistic lot in Europe and even they recognize when you're injured or hurt you're in no position to negotiate. I don't see conservatives (or Scott Adams) lining up behind gov't mandated price controls.

  25. Re:Been there. Not fun. by XXongo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .... If they illegally refuse to pay you what was agreed upon, go file a judgment against the company.

    Having had several friends go through filing lawsuits for restitution against actions that were clearly, obviously, and evidently illegal... I'd say your advice is idiotic.

    A friend of mine once explained how a lawsuit works. Your lawyer and the opposition lawyer have a stack of hundred-dollar bills in front of them, and each is given a lighter. They take turns flaring off the hundreds in front of the judge. The one whose pile runs out first looses.

    Most companies won't try to fight you in court, they'll just pay you off to get rid of you.

    Most companies will fight just on general principles, and because they figure you will fold, and in any case won't have the resources to take it all the way to trial. They have in-house lawyers who are being paid anyway.

  26. Re:While this is a very tacky response... by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I find that consistently being a thorn in their side gets good results. My soon to be former congress critter John Kline suffered from this. I was invited to one of his constituent town halls once and he was on a tear about bringing out troops home from Obama's wars and I asked him when we would be bringing all of our troops home. He blathered on about how he agreed with this and that we should bring troops home from Obama's wars as soon as possible. I responded that I was referring to bring all of our troops home that we also have stationed in Europe and Asia as Europe are big boys and that China, Japan, Korea, and India need to step up and take care of their parts of the world and that we don't need to play world police. I never got invited back to one of his town halls but he has called me personally twice since then when I have written him and after the first call has always responded to my letters personally. The first time he called me was about my letter on the USA FREEDOM act where he disagreed with my assessment of what it would do and said that the law didn't say that. My response that he was either retarded or willfully ignorant and then I read him the part of the proposed law that said exactly what I was complaining about. I pointed out that I would be informing everyone I know about this and working diligently to show that he is unfit for office. The thing is that you have to keep after them and follow through otherwise they forget and I usually send about one letter a week to my US elected officials. I feel that I am somewhat responsible for his decision to not run again and the world may be a better place, but neither Angie Craig, or Jason Lewis seem all that great either but at least Lewis has taken a stance on things instead of offering platitudes.

    --
    Time to offend someone
  27. Re:Been there. Not fun. by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's kinda funny too - as I've had to train my Indian replacements (at Adobe). I heard from the layoff survivors that not a single one of them had any clue what I was talking about or showing them.

    In other words - its a pointless waste of time. You simply can't uproot a whole office and replace everyone and expect smooth sailing.

  28. Re:Especially you University workers by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 3, Informative

    In California, you can vote for another primary candidate. They now have a top-2 system, where the two candidates with the most votes from the primary, regardless of party, face off in the general election. California actually has two democrats on the ballot for Senate in November - Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. This is a relatively new change, that hopefully should help be a moderating influence (at least in theory).

  29. Re:Been there. Not fun. by yuriklastalov · · Score: 5, Funny

    But in my MBA courses they said workers are interchangeable cogs to be moved about as the enlightened management sees fit! Modern management theory couldn't possibly be complete bullshit, could it??