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Home Sweet Sweatshop
gdbear writes "Found a very interesting article on digital corporations and the new work ethic of never leaving work. It's a bit disturbing.
" Reading was deja vu all over again-live in the place, work in the place. The 20 foot commute is a boon and a curse. The perks of the lifestyle sometimes cover up the huge suck of your life that jobs like this take.
Some people are working because they either have to or because they think that it is something they have to do. Generally these people marginally enjoy their jobs. A lucky few (Me included :) have jobs that are essentially just your hobby, only you're getting a pay check at the end of the month. I don't mind working long hours, and living at the office, I love what I do, the stress level is at a minimum, and there's plenty of free food.
I've worked brutal hours in the past at a startup and made out like a bandit (as in retirement before 30), so I can see some value in going like a bat out of hell for a few years.
On the other hand, I would never put in crazy hours at a place like Razorfish, where frankly the chances of getting filthy rich are probably limited.
The ultimate job perk that you could ask for is good management. At my job, it's the sloppiest management I've ever seen, which is surprising considering the 200% annual growth rate and 150 million bucks a year we're looking at. We (web design and creative persons) are all terribly underpaid and overworked, with nobody to clean up the mess. The jobs just roll in and we wish we could have someone to prioritize the work and stand by it... We just crunch until it's done and then wait for more. Honestly, sometimes Irvine feels like Taipei. Did I mention that we're all spineless wimps limping towards IPO day?
This is just the @home version of Tracy Kidder's
;-)
"The Soul of a New Machine." It is how corporations become more productive and more profitable: by getting more work and more time from employees, or contractors, for the same amount of money.
If programmers want a life, they may have to unionize (gasp!) and demand hourly wages, with overtime, not salaries. This is the only way to force corporations, who are really only interested in profit, after all, to revise their project management and personnel policies. If they want all of our lives (and in most cases they're getting all), then they should be paying a lot of overtime for them. You'd probably see a lot less for a 40 hour week, but with the current project mismanagement seen in virtually all software projects, you'd more than make up for it. You'd also have more time to contribute to Linux, Gnome, KDE, or whatever your favorite project is. Think about it
Yeah, we get soft frinks, cookies and I'll have to make a note to request peanut butter cookies - sure sound yum!
:)
But, I need to get away from that Microshit environment and come home to my UNIX den - nirvana, paradise. I like it here, everything set up just the way I want - no compromises
-t.
I notice that the days I work from home I'm generally "spookier" as well. I'm less likely to be showered, clothed properly, etc.
And lets cut to the obvious chase - I scan waaaaaay too much porn when I work from home.
I'm glad someone else has this attitude as well. I work to live, NOT live to work! There are things outside of computers that are interesting to me as well, and I refuse to have a job that requires my every waking moment.
If others want to totally subsume their entire existance to their overlords -- excuse me, I mean their bosses -- that's fine; but I won't be one of them.
I work in "the Industry" and telecommute from home (very small apartment on the 5th floor). I have 10+ people over me and a few below me, and I've never met any of them face to face -- I only know them by e-mail, though I work with them every day for 18+ hours, sleeping on a futon in between.
Pay is good, but it's very isolated -- no human contact at all, and I get very tired of staring at the same Netscape, Emacs, and shell windows all day, every day. I go through 150+ ounces of dew and coke every day, and there's nothing directly outside but traffic and other buildings. Time pressure is also fairly high. Everything must always be done "within 24 hours" because that's the way the Web works, I guess. I'm getting fairly tired of working this way.
If you're working at a hot property like Yahoo, Microsoft, Ebay, etc, or if you are part of a small company pre-IPO with generous stock and options, why not spend 2-3 years working like this?
Frankly, it's an investment, your risk, you're making a bet about your company that it will pay off big.
If you are working extra long hours for nothing more than salary than you're an idiot.
BTW, while it is true that anyone can go learn a few languages and get a job making $80k, in my experience, people without atleast *some* college experience (atleast they should have stayed 2 years before dropping out), have a much better handle on working with others, completing projects, and understanding algorithms.
I'm tired of seeing the lame Unix sysadmin shell-kids who think their hot shit (like they are so much better than VBScript kids) until you see them using bad home-made algorithms with not much thought to design. This is especially true when it comes to mathematical algorithms, computer graphics, language parsing, and compiler development.
BTW, if you are 40 years old, and still doing the same thing, you should be ashamed. Expand yourself. Stop specializing in computers. Learn some economics, some engineering, some management, or marketing, or writing.
At 40, people tend to look for different things in a person. A certain wisdom is dealing with things professionally, being able to communicate and deal with people, network, to manage, be dependable, a person who can bring a team together and make things happen.
if you're still acting like a kid at 40, and not a father, expect to be pushed aside by those who are not "just" programmers.
The other alternative route for old programmers is research/Academia/Labs.
Can any of the anonymous cowards donning red fedoras offer an opinion if Red Hat operates anything like this?
$70K, to start?
Well, if they've got the skills and attributes (discretion, maturity, teamwork, security clearance etc...) and it shows... sure.
But I suspect that those who take that route end up missing out on life. Probably almost as much as I'm missing out, going for a PhD.
I think he means: when the server crashes...
...either that, or he's using something w/o any remote management ability at all. Sane people wouldn't run Win9x as a server, 'tho...
>One forty-seven-year-old programmer that Matloff
>talked to was fluent in C++, Perl, Unix and a
>host of other languages, but when he went looking
>for a new job, he landed only two interviews in
>fifteen months of searching.
Where's this guy looking, Utica NY?? I'm over forty, just changed jobs, had no trouble getting interviews, and had my choice of offers. And I don't work with Perl and Unix.
Don't forget that a lot of this crap is "programmer machismo" -- "I coded all night," etc. I've seen the same thing among young investment bankers, etc.
Now here's the real question -- if you're a 30-something manager, how do you get all your 20-something wage slaves to work their asses off? You do it by remembering that 20-somethings are hugely susceptible to group motivation, group identity, etc. -- so if you maintain an environment that tells them that programmers and other smart people work on projects until all hours of the night -- guess what -- they'll do it!
Yes, and one of the reasons that have always hired people like you is that you will get the work done BECAUSE you want to see the wife and kids. So, you WILL get the work done by 17:00. I don't really want to live at work either. That is one definite benefit of hiring older people -- they work harder while they are there. Younger people screw around too much. I am talking more about not working "smart" than hard -- I don't put out doughnuts every morning because I get angry at people standing around and having doughnuts.
It's not that you're always explicitly forced to work overtime, but good programmers seem to be driven by pride and misguided corporate loyalty.
After the first few times the corporation royally screws you over, the false loyalty bit usually fades away. It's amazing how wonderful it can feel to look your boss right in the eye and say "We're not going to meet that deadline. Period." And then watch their little panic-dances, while trying to hold back a chuckle.
Seriously, after you realize that the company doesn't care if you work yourself to death, you'll stop worrying if the company meets some silly deadline made by some clueless PHB. Once you realize that your only loyalty should be to yourself (and your family if you have one), you can view your employment for the strictly business arrangement that it is. X amount of work for Y amount of dollars. If they want X + Z amount of work, make them shell out Y + Z amount of dollars. No more dollars, no more work.
Being willing to pack your stuff in 5 minutes and walk right out the door gives you more power than you'd ever believe possible.
Aren't many of these jobs paid by salary? If so, and you're working an 85-hour week, you're making less money for your time than an assistant manager at Wendy's. Sucks to be you. :)
Just because a group of people share a boundless enthusiasm for a project is no reason to expect them to do the same for everything all the time.
It's stupid.
Take your life back.
Anonymous Lazy
punkle@sPaM-THISswbell.net
Amen, brother. Your post should be engraved in stone and set above the entrance to every PhD-granting hovse in the land. And add that a PhD can shut doors as easily as it can open them.
If old programmers never die, what the heck DO they do? To keep the cash flowing in, I mean...
I'm 33, so I guess in two years or so I'll be looking for another career. I suppose I could manage a Radio Shack or something.
Anyone else out there know where old and/or burned out programmers go?
No, those old farts had a beef. It's not the age of your body, but the age of your attitude and education that matter. I know youngsters who can't get hired because they think they know Perl but don't know squat about references. Then there's my uncle, 55 and running strong, writing device drivers at his home in Yosemite (nice view!). Good coders with good attitudes, who constantly educate themselves and test their knowledge, have no problem finding work at any age, despite the mis-guided, short-sighted hiring practices of certain fad industries.
-jh * forgot my password
And over the past month, I sit in a chair probably 10 hours per day, and I must say I AM QUITE OUT OF SHAPE. This cannot continue.
Yea, but wouldn't you like to get some lovin' from your wife or girlfriend? I like work, but I like snapper better. Maybe that's what you use the Rice Crispy Treats for?
"or if you have some skills and no college degree, you can get a job as a consultant work 30-40 hour weeks get paid more than people with 4 year degrees... "
...and make a magnificent contribution to the Software Crisis.
I remember seeing a job posting at ibm.com where part of the description of their "desired employee" included something like this... "you can not have a social life if you take this position"
Working at home or the office is not the problem. The problem is at the company. I was injured on the job at MSI (now part of Mattel) and when I took time off to go to a hospital, they fired me. They even claim that a software engineer only uses the keyboard 20% of the time and stares at the screen for the remainder.
More information is at http://www.sorehands.com/injury
At a decent company, the will not do the sort of things that were done to me. It does not matter if you are at home, they will abuse you. It is only easier when you are at their office.
Being probably one of the few people here with a union background(worked has a kid, family predominantly union workers) I have to say that this would be the time to do something. Sooner or later #workers = #jobs and the pay and benefits will go down drastically. Think about making $12/hour for what you are currently doing. Don't think that this is possible? Look at any field that was booming 30 years and look at it today.
Example:union labor makes 14.40 per hour. There pay has been increased with every rise of inflation over the years. Minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation over the very same time period. All of our payrates are based on minimum wage(through economic forces). The payscale is much lower in the lower 25 states then in the upper 24. To much cheap labor. Sooner or later this will happen to the computer industry. We are living in a time where the middle class is shrinking, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Think about how powerful a strike would be against a 24/7 operation:)
Joe
What an absolutely excellent examination of Life. As someone thinking of going into CompSci, I found your views though-provoking.
But I have a question for anyone who might be listening. Although I, personally, think `power', in terms of being in an influential position, would be nice, I'm willing to remain a nobody so long as I am doing something fun, cool, and bleeding edge. How hard is it to find a job where you'll be allowed to work independently on something that interests you a great deal? I don't really *want* to be a VP, but in order to have control over what you want to produce, is it necessary?
I have a great fear of waking up one day and realizing that I have wasted my life producing accounting software* that is made obsolete by Microsoft Omni 2040. I really want to find a way to get a job related to my interests, such as cryptography, space flight, and biotech.
I'll appreciate any comments anyone has.
*Nothing wrong with accounting software- I just don't find it very interesting.
Only stupid people enslave themselves to technology.
A smart person knows how to make twice as much
money as s/he needs working half the time,
and spending the other half with family or hobbies.
At-home technology & businesses, day trading, etc.
should help people make more with less time.
Hopefully you will be able to cash in those options, and they will not be watered down to nothing by the time you can cash them out.
Startups generally need to post strong revenue numbers for stock prices to stay high over a period of several years. Pre and recent IPO shares can be worthless by the time employees can cash out due to the downward pressure caused by little or no earnings.
Best of luck to everyone who goes the IPO route. Personally I would never give a group of financiers and managers 4 years or more of my life. Chances are they are not going to tell me what's really going on, and the IPO system nowadays is set up to make the VCs and the people at the top rich. Why would they want to make the little people rich - especially when it's so easy to find young people that can be easily manipulated and then dropped when they are no longer needed? All they have to do is water the options down after they have got several years out of you.
I used to sleep under my desk and work until my back, neck, arms, and legs hurt and I would pass out with my head next to the keyboard. Now I do contracting. When someone "absolutely has to have it today", I just smile and think about what I will do next week when I am paid for the OT. It's a great way to live - no more being manipulated and abused by the industry standard practice of project management that creates crises and pressure in order to get free labor out of people.
If you are one of those FTs sleeping at your desk - you owe it to yourself to try contracting someday. I'll bet that for a lot of you once you are paid for EVERY hour you work, and you are working less and making more then you did as an FT, you will enjoy your career AND your personal life a lot more!
"The thanks I got for the above? A review that admitted I was an excellent worker, but criticized my perceived arrogance. Thanks for nothing."
I get that complaint at my High School all the time, and I find it highly irritating. It's as if, when someone tells me I did a good job on a project, I should bend over backwards thanking them for praising me.
Once I told a teacher of mine I didn't need her flattery because I *knew* I did a good job. She exploded, basically claiming that I didn't *really* do a good job if she didn't *think* I did a good job, and when I talked that way, I hadn't done good work.
I mean, fsck you. Unlike most of the sheep out there, I don't live for your compliments. I admit my mistakes and shortcomings. I know I can do good work when given a chance; leave me alone so I can do it.
Pant, pant, pant. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
I think you missed the point of my post in a HUGE way. But the odds are I probably wasn't clear.
I'm working my arse off now.. making lots of money.. in the hopes that when I turn 27 I wont have to work in a sweatshop. The way it is looking now, in about 10 months I'll be able to start that small mom & pop business where I only work 20 hours a week and play with my kids the rest of the time. (knock on formica)
Same Anon Coward that started this thread here:
Like I said in the original post. Educate yourself on IPO rules and the game before you try the IPO route. My company has a total of $0.00 in VC funding and is making good revenues. I've got no worries there.
I tried the contracting game.. hated that. No respect. Nothing remotely like job security. Just all the crap jobs with no chance of advancement that the real employees of the companies don't wanna do.. whoop.
Yeah, and if you play your cards right you will retire in about 4 yours... it's a great life living on the edge.
cheers.
I have a *great* IT job. I also only work 40 hours weeks (usually). The trade-off? I make about $20k less then I could someplace else. However, I get to play with my kids, I go rafting, biking, hang out with friends, read non-related work books, and still have time to study and keep my skills up.
Money can be a trap. Yeah, we all want to hit the big time and retire young, but how many of us sacrifice our lives, and that pay off never happens? How many projects did you pull all-nighters on two years ago still even see the light of day? I understand that work can be fun, but anything done to an extreme will harm you. I look back on my late 20's and regret I didn't spend more time outside, instead of glued to my computer learning now obsolete technologies.
And for you twenty-somethings who say that anyone over 35 "can't cut it" - Aging is a bitch my friend, and its going to happen to you... Think carefully about the standards you help create now, before they come back to bite you in the ass.
Damn straight. After having to get up at 6:00 am on several Saturdays to go out and hang conduit over live traffic, that four years was starting to look a lot better. Don't get me wrong, I loved working at MDOT, but I don't want to spend my life crawling through handholes and dodging cars.
Sorry, this is NOT REALITY!
If you want to be poor, get a couple of college degrees in Engineering or Science, work at NASA, and become an entrepreneur. Then try to get a job somewhere! Soon, nobody will hire you for anything because you're "overqualified."
http://www.os2hq.com/ for more details.
Did you work at NASA in Houston? You sound like the sort of people we hire for $90k a year. You sound like someone every oil company in Houston would hire. For that matter, how could you have missed the NASA revolving door to every other tech/oil/oil service company in Houston? You may not have been in Houston, I guess. If not, there are lots of jobs here for people with weird skills. Come on down, enjoy the place (cheap, no state income tax), and get a job that pays!
...
I have CE degree and I worked for the black helicopter folks, did a stint for Honeywell, and wound up back here. Worked at NASA, went to work for Exxon doing AIX for about $80k and then hopped to my present employer for a $40k raise to do DB2 work. As far as I can tell, it IS reality, at least in Houston.
Where are you located? People are coming here from all over. I have friends in San Jose who say the same thing. You don't need to work in a Taco Bell, dude. You sound like people talking about Austin
I can relate to you view, but I don't think the analysis completely holds true. There are several issues which differentiate many union professions from the current IT industry.
First, tech workers are generally well educated. Yes, there are unions of well-educated individuals, but on average, I think the difference between the number of tech types with a degree, compared to, say, steel workers with any bachelor's degree would be very large. I guess my point would be that there are many more people with physical ability than intellectual aptitude. There seem to be few professions that require the huge amount of ongoing learning than the tech industry. Programmers are routinely asked to evaluate products (compilers, IDE's, OSes, languages, hardware, etc.). It takes a good amount of intellectual aptitude to maintain current expertise.
Second, computer graduates require a large amount of math skills. Many people are not interested in this type of work. Result: declining numbers of CS grads. It's difficult to fake liking CS for very long. I've seen many fail.
So there are two supply-limiting factors which will help maintain higher than average salaries. An education and an interest shortage. Yes it's very glamorous to be a newly minted m/billionare, but I'm guessing that most of the non-Slashdot population does not daydream about participating in the Linux Kernel Developer's Mailing List.
So you became an HTML coder in three days. Big deal. With all due respect, I doubt seriously that you had much of a grasp on all the issues involved in using HTML (with its abundance of constraints) to produce a meaningful design - one that takes aesthetic, technical, useability issues into account.
ANYONE can tuck a [insert favorite web design periodical here] magazine under their arm and call themselves a "web designer." These people are a dime a dozen - and you get what you pay for. Far fewer are the people who have the skills to analyze the needs of a business, the available technology, existing data and systems, and distill everything into a web-based system that addresses all of these areas. Granted, many smaller businesses don't need all this, but having the background certainly doesn't hurt.
I remember an interview with a prospective customer, during which I asked, "What is your projected rate of growth?" I was asked why I might need to know this, since my role was that of a "web designer." I told him that it was necessary to assess bandwidth needs - both in terms of the connection to the net, and the type of server being used. What he said next left me amazed - he said that none of the other web development companies he had spoken with had asked anything about this - and a couple of them were larger ISPs.
In summary, it has very little to do with how FAST one "learns" HTML, and much more to do with how EFFECTIVELY it is used. Back to "coders" vs. "programmers".
Sorry to say, yeh. When I was out in private industry in the midwest, they had exactly the same expectation, but without the perks. Universities seem to expect their employees have lives outside of the job. Of course they pay a whole lot less.
I hate to disappoint you, but technical jobs are easy.
so, what war are protesting this time around?
try being a grad student.
get paid pennies for very highly skilled, technical, and generally difficult work. In the applied physics lab that I work in, I've had to do as diverse things as write high-performance linux device drivers, design and build distributed network computing applications, and come up with all kinds of obscure math to do simulations and modelling.
if you don't die and give up, then there is no IPO. there is _maybe_ a diploma, followed by more of the same, in the form of a postdoc, where you basically do the same work but for a little more. but only a little.
the hours? basically, I work when I'm awake. I spend 1/2 hr at the gym every other day. and I post bitter anecdotes to slashdot =) I have no friends, since I never have time to do anything with them. Or rather, I used to but our relationships dissolved since I had no time.
Ahh, but I love my work. I would do it for free if I had some way of subsisting on air. Just don't tell my professor that- he'll probably stop paying me.
So it seems like it takes having kids for people to "wake up" and quit the grind. What if you don't want kids?
You've got time for a wife/girlfriend?!?!?!?
Moderators...?
The Gospel, my friends, has been spoken (and with charm and grace, I might add).
I have lived for 30 years in the Middle Of Nowhere (Eastern Kentucky, on a 1000 acres of forest) and made a good income programming and maintaining networks. My life is a balance of rural, urban, wilderness and hi-tech. I have a few suggestions:
Belive in yourself and your abilities. Talent is precious. If you discover how to make money for your employers, they will gladly share it with you--if you position yourself right.
Do not lead with your gonads, do not have children you cannot afford--employers will fit you with a yoke and never look back.
Change employers often or have several at once-- they will accept your absence, cut you Slack, bid up your worth, and you can cheerfully dump any that don't meet your needs.
Job loyalty is antedeluvian, you will get the axe picoseconds after it becomes advantageous to your employer to hack you. If they tell you different, they are lying.
Always focus on your needs first. If you don't, no one will, and you will discover yourself one day, grey and bent, with a happy boss and little else.
Do NOT work at home. We workaholics _require_ the discipline of stopping work. Work is fun, but women mate with those they perceive as good nesters. Men have little tolerance for wives they never see. You will end up rich, wierd and alone.
Make yourself stop doing what comes naturally, obsessing and perfecting. It's a struggle to find your commonalities with the rest of us, but I promise that you can find them when you look. Happiness lies there.
You get one chance at this life (the reincarnate never have clear memories of their past...), don't fuck it up.
Au Contraire! In Lexington, Kentucky, the corner of Short and Mill has been the corner upon which to stand when seeking field work since it was the slave auction. To this day, men from Eastern Kentucky, the city of Lexington, and a few folks from around, all line up before sunrise. Farm employers cruise the "Meat Market" whenever they want to locate field hands. It is not a place to find illegal aliens.
The folks that wait there are young and inexperianced, ill-educated, or they just love working in the full sun cutting tobacco. They are not illegals.
The illegals are pimped out by a handler. You never see them on the corner.
I wonder how many people look back upon life and say, "I should have worked more hours... I shouldn't have had so much fun... I shouldn't have spent so much time with my family... I should have had fewer friends... I shouldn't have gone to all those concerts and plays and movies... I wasted too much time playing video games..."
I refuse any job which requires more than 40 hours a week. I refuse any job that requires a pager, beeper, or cell phone. This keeps me away from several "information technology" jobs, but the advantages make up for it. I may not be rich, but I am happy. And that's more than can be said for my hard-working friends.
Either that or I'm lazy in addition to being an Anonymous Coward...
Dropped out of science for a warm-body major...... check.
Loudly proclaims he's a slacker...... check.
Does others' odd jobs with a simpering grin..... check.
Don't pick out the trim on that BMW just yet, Sparky. No, no, but next year's models look like they'll be worth waiting for. And, say, could you stay after for a few hours a day, just this week?
The only thing dumber than buying from a company with a foot-thick file at the local Better Business Bureau is taking a job with a company with a foot-thick, etc.
Kind of makes you wonder, though. "Fsck Yahoo and eBay - what's *these* idiots' secret? Crap service, crap products, former customers and employees raising hell and the owners drive Ferraris - give me some of *that*!"
Please believe me, this isn't a big secret, what you're saying. 20-year-olds who can't SPELL know the score, I mean it's pretty obvious, isn't it? At least Carl Coder can lie to himself about his upcoming IPO. At best, you're setting yourself up for this crap for the rest of your LIFE!
As for Ph.D. candidates, forget it, I have more sympathy for child molesters who get sent to prison.
>I wonder how many people look back upon life and >say, "I should have worked more hours... I
>shouldn't have had so much fun... I shouldn't >have spent so much time with my family... I >should have had fewer friends... I shouldn't have
>gone to all those concerts and plays and >movies... I wasted too much time playing video
>games..."
I've heard this several times, actually. Maybe not the "fewer friends" bit, and more of the "I wish I didn't spend so much of my 20's blitzed out of my gourd on every drug known to man", but the sentiment is similar, if not the same.
first of all, I never claimed that this was "secret". It was not clear from your post just what this has to do with anything, however.
Yes, I also realize that I will probably do this forever, for cheap- how does not lying to myself help this?
And what the fuck do you mean by that last part? More sympathy for child molestors? So fine, dick. Just stop using everything that these Phd candidates have produced. that means no printers, no computers, etc. etc. Or, at least admit you are a hypocritical prick. What do YOU do?
You have lots of good points and I hate to point this out, but the line:
we both came from money
speaks VOLUMES! Never having to decide whether your next paycheck goes to eating out or groceries for the weekend, or how to juggle a mortagage and college for the kids makes a huge difference in life. When you have little financial worries it really allows you to take many more risks and have a much flippant attitude (which you express)and be at ease with the world.
You may disagree, which would be typical. I have never found a person from a moneyed family who can understand this. My own personal opinion is that since they had money all their lives it is so ingrained in them that they cannot ever imagine not haveing money
Yes, but he also points out that he would have been fine because he didn't spend much. I grew up in the Valley in Texas. The Valley is poor. Real poor. I didn't have running water and indoor plumbing except at public school (where we had rats so big the teachers would shoot them with .22s after school was out) until I went to college on a full scholarship because I liked computers (we had one Apple II and I spent a lot of time on it). I came out of the Valley with a couple of things: I understood manual labor and why I wasn't crazy about it and I understood the value of a dollar, and I mean ONE dollar, as well as lots of them. I got out of UT in 1987 and got a job in Dallas. Dallas wasn't doing that well then and people were getting fired easily. I kept my mouth shut -- I wanted the jobs I got. I got experience and when I got my CNE I moved from job to job (my father called me a migrant engineer and got a lot of humor out of it), always making more money each time. Each time I got my paycheck, I sent some to my mom and dad and I put some in the bank. When I had $20,000 (August of 1992), I went to Merill Lynch and got a CMA and started putting away money in computer companies (which I knew). I moved to Houston for a few years, then back to Dallas when the economy there started coming back. I meanwhile met and married a nice lady (also from the Valley). At no time did I ever stop saving and at no time did she ever stop saving. Both of us came out with the same attitude as the Bastard Skinflint Boss From Hell (and if he is who I think he is, he is really a character -- oil companies don't have a lot of weird people there and I thought that they were a lot less easy-going than I liked because you had to wear a suit and tie in the data centers in most of the oil companies in Houston, but a friend who works at a the place where I think that this guy works was coding late and hard a couple of years ago and got up for coffee and found the BSBFH skinning deer on the data center floor with some friends, drunk as a skunk, at 4 AM and no, it wasn't deer season). We will always be OK because we will both pick tomatoes or pump gas if we can't do anything else and neither one of us will ever make a committment we cannot support (like kids) without the money to back up our decisions. We still don't have kids, but we should have the house paid off in four more years and enough money to retire in one year more, so then we can afford kids. I think that some people may come from poorer places than me and here, but you would have to be from the Amazon or someplace like that, so I know that I didn't come from money but I understood everything he said. If you watch your money (which you should anyway), you will not have to worry after a few years. And if you have kids, they get to come from money, which I think will be pretty damned cool -- I didn't learn a damned thing picking grapefruit and I don't want my kids doing it. I got that flippant attitude too. Maybe he can't lose because he "came from money", but I had nothing to lose (literally), and we came out the same, attitude-wise. I think that he would have pumped gas if he had to too.
My dad always said "If you watch you cash, you are watching your ass, and you better cause no one else will." Think about it.
APC or some similar company makes a power strip with a serial port control of the power.
Somehow I doubt that the 'coder' who took 3 weeks to learn HTML really learned all the intricacies of design in that time period. I suspect he just learned the tags (most of them), that is all.
The reason all this people are are willing to sit and work 75 - 80 hour weeks, IMHO, is the promise of things to come. They hope that they will get good experience so they can grow their careers. They hope they can cultivate new skills. They have the dream of being in on the ground floor of a yahoo/excite/askjeeves.com while holding lots of stock options.
Is far as i can tell there's only one reason to work more then 60 hours of week for a fortune 500, to achieve the first of these goals. I worked my arse off for a fortune 500 my per hour wage was under $8 per hour. Not not good for a fresh college graduate. But i got good experience, and a promotion to a department where i could grow new skills. Sure alot of people say that you could leave at 5 and grow thoose skills at home but there nothing like real world experience in a new area to make it etch in your soul. My next job had even more challenges for me and an incredibly higher salary.. with the hours i put in... about $17 per hour. I had a small string of jobs after that whilst I looked for my "ground floor" oppurtunity.
I think I've finally found it. Sure I know lots of people are stuck in a dead end job clutching worthless stock options. This happens to lots of people. The only thing you can do to fight that is to educate yourself on IPO's and the people that are trying to make your companies deal. So when you CFO says he thinks this s-1 thing that he is doing is the hardest document he's ever had to write or when the CEO is bringing in "brokers" for you to meet and a little digging into their past shows them as being penny stock shorters etc., then you will know that it is time to run. I've run from several "start-ups" chasing the dream of valuable options. I'm a developer at a small company that decided it would actually go public and now my options are worth actually money.
lets see.. I average 75 hours a week.. * 52 weeks.. and with my stock option i'm making about $620 per hour (as of trading friday) now.
I know that would not have happened if i would have punched a clock and left work everyday at 5:05 like so many of my slackers workmates.
cc the greedy little boy
It looks like the programmers profiled in this article are posers and not hardcore programmers. The one guy quotes that it took him 3 weeks to learn HTML, come on I learned that in maybe 3 days! These people sound like communications students that could not find a job have no programming experience and are being used because there are so many of them for such cheep wages. The statement that there are so many programmers available they can be picked up and thrown away seems suspect. When I combined this statement with the one where the person said he was hired without ever writing one line of code and was expect to learn it on the job, I get one result from the logical math, the man is a code poser. Working at McDonalds is never easy and you never do more then make fries and burgers and thus you are paid less then a chef in a five star restaurant in NY. I think these programmers (dare anyone really call them programmers) are just fry-guy-coders pumping out cholesterol laden code which is cool because very few people care what the code is like except that it sort of does what the original specs were. I think this article shows the life of anyone that has a poor education and or mental abilities that thinks they can strike it rich at new-media and when they don't and they burn out they like to whine. I have never see a hardcore programmer in a situation like this!
I'd rather have a life than a living.
How about the war against the American consumer? We are swiftly becoming a country run "by business, for business", and to hell with the consumer. Legislation everywhere is removing consumer's rights to sue corporations who defraud them (see http://www.gemhound.com for an example of such a corporation), while removing regulatory oversight over those very same corporations. Take the moving industry, for example. Since the Interstate Commerce Commission (which regulated it) was abolished in 1995, movers have had a field day, blatantly violating the law in full knowledge that for the most part it's more expensive to sue them for that fraudulent $3,000 that they held your furniture hostage for, than it is to pay the $3,000 in the first place.
It's like the claims that we have full employment. I drive down main street Guadalupe at 7am in the morning and see the Hispanic men standing on the streetcorners, hoping someone will stop and hire them to work in the fields. Tell these men that we have full employment. Yeah, right. The government uses fraudulent statistics (those men aren't unemployed, because they aren't registered at the unemployment office!) in order to keep the populance fat and happy and unconcerned... and gosh, you know what? It's working!
Big business got the shit scared out of them in the 60's, and bought up all major media sources in response so that we will never get balanced reporting again. Think of that, next time you see talk about the "worker shortage" and "historic low unemployment". Think about those men standing on the street corner, and how the government and the big-business-owned media has rendered them invisible.
--E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Nice work, if you can get it. To be fair you should also note that contracting has its downsides -- you have to be a little more socially aware than the typical hacker (the old word of mouth biz for getting your next contract, as well as being able to interact with essentially a new set of strangers every few months), there is typically some downtime between contracts (with resulting stress), there are no benefits (for true contract work, as vs. being an employee of a contracting firm), and the tax stuff is murder.
Which isn't to say that contracting is not great, just that roses have thorns too.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Rules for when to leave:
1) Your boss is an ex-used-car salesman who believes that anything can be fixed if he only yells and verbally abuses people a little harder.
2) You can no longer give status reports to your boss because he is always "in a meeting" or "has other appointments".
3) Because of the above, your boss has no idea what you do.
4) Paycheck bounces. (I have always made it clear that if my paycheck bounces, that is the end of my employement with that company).
5) Your co-workers are all worthless syncophants who were hired because they were college buddies of your boss, and you end up doing their work because they are incompetent. (I have had a co-worker like this, but both myself and my other co-workers who had to cover for him when deadline came and he disappeared raised hell and got him canned -- note that this only works when the top technical people are working together as a team and can gang up on the boss).
Basically, my no-nos are: verbal abuse (I don't do it, I don't tolerate it, if you have a problem tell me but I don't accept yelling or abusive language), lack of communication (if I have a problem I expect to be able to talk with my co-workers and manager about it, and vice-versa, don't give me any of this talking-behind-my-back bullshit), and of course not being paid! I've had good luck for the past four years in that my managers have been pretty cool (well, Will a couple of years back was a stubborn old bull and we fussed at each other a lot, but we damn well respected each other -- in fact, we're going out to lunch tomorrow afternoon).
Anyhow. There are good employers and managers who at least are supportive out there (may not agree with you, but they at least don't try to cut you down). It's a hard search, but worthwhile when you find it. And a note to employers -- that's how you keep me (or any good hacker) around for a while too. I was being seriously underpaid in one job that I worked for three years, but I kept working there because I liked the people I was working with, the working environment was hectic but the people I worked with were great people, and I liked the respect that I had from my co-workers and from the company's clients. If I had to deal with people verbally abusing me all day long, toady employees with nothing better to do than back-stab, and enforced long hours, I would have walked out the door within a month, not after three years.
Oh -- the BRU guys are great too (grin). It's great to be back programming neat stuff.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Can you get that 'first job' if you take that last vacation in college? If I look at the ads in the newspaper, or look at what recruiters post to the USENET, all of the ads say "experience required". Can you get a job in today's computer industry if you're not a 4.0 student (hackers rarely are, too much time programming neat hacks late at nite!) and you haven't taken internships or otherwise worked during your "vacations"?
Open Source offers another avenue -- work on a cool project, get a reputation, get money thrown at you. Still, it doesn't seem to me that college kids can be too sanguine about getting a job if they're going to "slack" during the summers the way our parents did.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Posted by Mary CW:
Whether you think it's great to spend all your time at work depends on your stage in life, ie what else you have going on. If you're young, healthy, single, with no other hobbies/ commitments/interests - go for it. Companies are only too happy to let you sacrifice everything else in your life for a job. But watch out or you'll end up like some people here in Silicon Valley: getting older, no family, few friends, OK money but not rich yet, and no perspective on how to have a life outside the rat race.
Posted by CanSmegWillSmeg:
There is a company in Houston called Universial Computer Systems( AKA U. C.heap S.hits). They have about an 200-300% turnover every 6-9 months. Most employees there make less than 20k a year & put in 60-80 Hours a weeks. All This without any perks.
Be Warned!!!!! STAR AWAY!!!!!
I'm not sure what some folks are defining as rich but I'm skeptical of their claims of becoming weathy enough to retire at 40. A few of the hundreds of engineers and programmers I've worked with have become wealthy enough that they no longer had to work and were able to maintain a fairly opulent lifestyle.
Stock options tend to be a soggy deal for most. Taxes on capital gains and lump sum bonuses eat up a mighty big chunk.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Do jobs on the left/right coast all go this way? I'm wondering.....what do you all know about it?
Werd.
I must admit though, for those of us with a slightly higher intelegence, it sure is nice to have all you mindless worker ants making the world a better place for us.
Interesting spelling of intelligence, given the claim it is used in...
The problem is, as long as there are those who are willing to put in outrageous hours for next-to-nothing, that's what employers are going to expect and look for. Older, wiser people with responsibilities and common sense -- often the same people who in years past were the worker bees -- will find it harder to get employment.
One of my neighbors was asking me if I knew any programmers as her company was looking to hire. Then later she said it wasn't that they couldn't find anyone, it's just that the people they could find were so expensive. (Funny, I don't go in to my doctor's or lawyer's office and say "you do good work, but couldn't you do it for $35,000 a year?")
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
My favorite aspect of my job is that 8.5 hours afyer I walk in the door (the 30 minute luch break is my own doing, I'd rather leave a bit erlier than spend 60 minutes in the lunch room) I get to GO HOME.
Yes, my hobbies do overlap my work a bit (they both involve computers) but at home my computers are MINE, they are more powerful than what my office has (save the HP mini), the Net connection is faster and best of all, my wife lives at my house.
I _LIKE_ going home and being able to do what I want. I like leaving the office and leaving work behind.
I never did like dorm life.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
> This story certainly makes one wonder about long
> term job security. Sure one can get that
> first job, but later?
Stay current and you will be even more marketable at 40 then you are now. It is the 40-yr-olds who have the same skillset they did when they were 20 that are in trouble.
Find a part of the industry that you enjoy, and get good at it. If you like your work, staying current should be the most fun part of your job.
--
Well, sign me up as a hippie as well....
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
The article reads like a description of work here - all except the free beer, no way the boss'd do that. The cost would be astronomical. Basically, though, the time you put in here is up to you. If a project is due, yeah, you stay late and hump, but if not, no one passes out if you leave at 5 or 6 peem. Verrry flexible. Nice people, decent projects, now if I could only get rid of the nt servers......heh.
BTW, I'm 45 and still learning. So, some of the stuff the article mentions is a bit generalized.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
I can't believe people do this. Work is not life, it's just a means to having one. People that turn their jobs into the most important aspect of their life aren't looking at the big picture. Maybe they're hiding from life, personal pains, whatever.
I went into consulting to have 40 hr weeks, (or if longer I get overtime). I like coming home to my girlfriend, working out, reading, or playing on *MY* computer.
Jobs, like computers and even Linus, are not gods. Don't worship them. It's a waste of time.
This is one of the most insightful comments I've seen in a while. We need three more moderators to bump it up :)
:) ]
:( They cry. You cry.
My father considered a Ph.D. many years ago (he already had an M.A.). It interested him, but I was 5 or six by then, and he didn't want to miss all of my growing up. He stayed a high school teacher, made a lot less, but left around 6:30 so that he could be home by 3:30 or so. We also had summers for family vacations.
As burnout got worse in my law practice, I realized that it was "now or never"--my oldest was 3, and the next was 2. I took the plunge, and defend a week from monday. [btw, anyonw need an attorney/economist/statistician with impressive programming skills for the next year
Teaching with the occasional antitrust case certainly will pay less than other options that I have and had, but there's no way in H*** that I'm not going to be around for my kids growing up. And if I take a year-round research job for the next couple of years, it's going to be with the understanding that I can take off additional unpaid time in addition to regular vacation. The job just pays the bills; family is what's important.
While I'm at it, I did work at home for a few months as I closed down my practice. The hardest part is that two year olds just can't understand that just because daddy's in the house doesn't mean he can play
hawk, esq., soon to be Ph.D., who's going nuts because his family's on the other side of the country due to an illness
Your next full night's sleep won't happen until you retire. In this economy if you expect to do anything with only a four year degree, let alone become an executive assistant, you're going to work 24/7.
Especially with the current economy. People who aren't in demad need unions because they are easily replaced. People with high tech skills are so in demand that if you want something the only thing stopping you is asking. I'm sure none of these companies force their workers to be there 24 hours a day. They do so because they either like what they do, or it's got so many benefits they don't want to go anywhere else.
The company I work for right now is pretty much based upon the business theory that you should hire people primarily for learning capacity & speed - not necessarily skills & experience.
"Traditional" classroom training can be slow - especially when you have people that don't learn well in that sort of an environment. There are many different techniques to training: one-on-one, group, individual study, workshops, seminars, etc. Different topics are suited to different types of training, and different people are better suited to different types of training.
For instance, I'm a big believer that programming is an intense one-on-one experience. Once you feel what it's like to "pair program", it's hard to go back to the "lone hacker" paradigm.
-Stu
Yeah.. that kind of lifestyle could work well, granted that your family is flexibile enough to understand why you do it.
-Stu
A-men, brother.
I'm getting tired of 80+ hour weeks... I'd like to enjoy my life while I still have one!
InThane
That's B.S.!
A union would do nothing but make things worse. There are an enormous number of open positions in IT-related fields all over the country. If you don't like working in that sort of an environment, don't take the job!
Take something else. There are pleanty of people who love working in that sort of a creative, energetic environment. If your choice of employer doesn't fit your chosen lifestyle, its your choice of employer that's the problem, not the employer's way of doing business. This isn't the same as being a assembly line worker in a one-industry town where you have no choices.
If the pace of change and expectations of working environments in the IT industry don't mesh with anyone's ideas, they should rethink the field they're going into, or find a place that works for them. Don't expect the industry to change. The fact that there are so many jobs paying six figures to people too young to even rent a car is attributable to the fact that there is just energy and committment among those people. You can have the cooshy fourty hour a week job, or the fast-paced six figure job where you do nearly everything under the sun at any given point. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I think, if anything, the greater problem is the number of companies that DON'T provide that sort of a working environment, and wonder why they can't hire people. There's been a lot of bitching this year here in Connecticut about "brain drain" and why companies here in state can't find technical workers. A local rag had an article this week saying that companies weren't looking in the right places, using highschool students and inner city kids as examples of untapped skill markets. They were completely off base though. Its a piece of cake to find a worker, but companies that don't realize the level of benefits that they need to give to their employees won't keep them.
When a worker slaves 40-50 hours a week at a mediocre pay sees that they could be working 60 hours a week, for more money in an environment where blowing off steam is expected through vicious games of parking-lot street hockey, pinball, beers in the fridge, or rides on the company yacht, there's not much reason for them to stay, particularly given the fact that the most easily available people for those positions are typically young men and women without families and a lot of ability to pick up and move.
A union won't change that. A union would slow the pace of innovation, hurt the pay scales (since unions have a tendancy to even out pay scales -- you'll no longer be payed $40k more than your next door cube mate on account of your greater skills...), and hurt the ability for companies to change and move quickly in the market.
Unions are a plague in this country... they've served no useful purpose since work environments stopped being dangerous, and in most industries where they exist, they serve to line the pockets of the union leaders and keep underqualified and incompetant workers employed.
If you're in IT, you don't need a union to protect your rights, you just need your feet. Walk out the door, the place across the street will probably give you 20% more anyway. The only workers unions will help will be the ones who overstate their qualifications and experience anyway.
In ways, I agree with your assessment of Unions. However, you're looking at it from a capitalist stance. You might want to take a look
at it from an anarchist (libertarian socialist) viewpoint:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secJ5
The problems with trade unions are heirarchial, just as almost all problems are. You can't trust your boss because he is in a position of power over you. How can you trust a union leader?
A highly democratic, non-heirarchial union would be a different story, however. Maybe programmers (being the most anarchistic and meritocratic, especially in Linux community) would be the best ones to try out a new system such as this?
--
Michael Chisari
dominion@beyondtheweb.com
I found myself wondering about this when I stayed late to do some paperwork and avoid the hectic commute. Why bother going home? Even with a typical 8 hour workday, and two hours of commuting, It's just a place to commute to, sleep in, cook in, and do laundry in. What's the point?
If you're single, there is little need for a 'home'.
Also, there are some other factors that go into this. While almost unequivocally, i, like everyone else in the wide world would like a "better deal" i've had reality driven home to me recently. I graduated w/a technical theatre degree. (I love theatre, and computers. In an ideal, or just future, depending on which happens first... world i'll help integrate the two. ) I currently work in the computer industry (expensive things those student loans). I make an average amount for the industry (around 40+K/yr). This is over double what most of my contemporarys from college are currently making. Do i work any harder? I don't think i can say yes. Do i work less? again, i don't think i can agree. Differently, sure. Would we all like to work 40 hours a week and then go home? Certainly. But only 2 years out of college, that isn't an option if i wish to pay my bills. Same for all of my other friends who graduated the same time. Part of it is that there are always replacements. No matter how good you are, there is always someone better. You are not irreplacable. The world doesn't work like that. So, in order to make a big enough impression, you have to compete, and in this case that means the mega work weeks, the willingness to come in at any and all hours. For a while. And that's the trick. To realize that you are not required to do this the rest of your life. Promethian flaw demands that we play with fire, but common sense eventually teaches us that ovens can hurt.
Tied into that, there is the simple theory of Moore's law. Everyone expects it. In EVERY field now. You can no longer take the time to do it slowly and right, because the audience demands it NOW. It is a cultural thing. We are taught to be so self driven and in some ways that only re-inforces our tendencies to be self centered. Which only feeds the vicious circle. And those who are at the top survived, so now they feel that we ought to "do our time". We, as a species are caught up in how 'much' we accomplished. Quantity not quality. This has been reflected in our life styles by and large for years. Are we truly to be surprised when it becomes de facto standard for our work environments?
All this is why I am no longer a comp-sci major, but a communications major..
Fuck 8am till forever.. Marketing does 10am till 5pm, and usually takes a 2 hour lunch..
Not to mention the freebie and travel perks.
And, as the only unix ninja in the marketing camp, half the time my job boils down to doing little computer things IT should be doing.. Who wants to fill out paperwork when the guy in the next cube can do in 30 seconds? Not to mention, "You an't fire/transfer him, he unscrews up my laptop when it goes nuts.."
My advice for young people.. Learn to make PCs work on your own time, take something marketing friendly in school.. The starting pay isn't as good, but the stress and personal commitment is *so* much lower, and advancement is easier to comeby if your into it.. Then again, I'm 23..
I've worked at home for most of this year, due to a car accident.
I have to tell you, it's NOT all wine and roses. I actually have serval friends (all GA/Designers) that have done it for years...it nearly drove one crazy and broke p another's marriage almost.
The problem is 'your job is not your life' unless you live alone.
And 'getting out' becaomes the highlight of what you do.
If you work at home, you *will* work more unpaid hours than if you were in the office...and smart companies know this.
You see, since its more uncommon than common in most markets, telecommuters work harder and extra so as not to 'ruin' it...for themselves, or others.
Conversely, these 'work-at-home-like' offices (motely fool's webdev is set up like this) has a dark side too...someone *else* decides when 'playtime' is over, and I've know more than a couple of folks that have been sent packing over these kinds of...misunderstabndings.
What I think is needed is a bit more balance...maybe 2 days at the office, 3 days offsite.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Well, I've been living in an apartment above my business, an ISP. I've *got* to get out more.... :(
I'm Lame!
but honestly, this is something distrubing, and all the people who just say, "Find a new job", well, it ain't always just that easy, cuz you're afraid to loose the things you love about the job you've got.
-Ben
bensmith@biz1.net
My job is pretty cool, though I am stuck in a cubical all day, it's still like collecting a check at the end of the week for doing what I love. Granted, I still make time to go out, and I never work past 6 as a rule, but I always get here at 8 in the morning and work the whole day through, eating lunch at my desk, but I don't even mind it, the stress is low, I get all the soda and juice I can drink, and I can run linux on my box, and noone cares. Sure there are deadlines, but I (and most geeks I think) strive under them.
Now, I know some people are maybe more dedicated, and have a more fun office environment, so they're more likely to stick around for the long hours, and that may burn them out, and ya, maybe someday unions will be the answer (especially in the large corporate environments), but now, there's enough demand that we can take our talent and walk, that is, if we're in a city with enough jobs in our field.
-Ben
bensmith@biz1.net
Can't you do telnet reboots, or am I just ignorant?
-Ben
bensmith@biz1.net
Nice way to reply to someone voicing an honest emotional opinion.
-Ben
bensmith@biz1.net
I'm pretty sure I have enough respect for those of you out there who prefer this {life || work)style. After all, I'm primarily an end user, so I mostly enjoy the fruits of your labor--using software, surfing the web pages you make, using the dialup connection you maintain, etc.
:-)
And it seems that most of you are into it this way because you choose to, which is of the utmost importance. Bravo, I say, because you really need to do what you enjoy. If the majority were being forced into this against their will, it would be a problem.
The 12-14 hour days are not for me. In the two or three career paths I see for myself, only one of them has the possibility of non-traditional workdays. I enjoy computers, but could never spend that much time with them. Come 4:30 or 5:00, I want to leave work behind and enjoy time with a wife, kids, nature, a good book and a beer, watching the news, etc.
It must be terribly difficult to be socially active with an extra long day. You could argue that you can still be social online, but I would counter that by saying that time with "real" people and friends is much more fun. Hmm, chat rooms or a night out with your best buddies for drinks and live blues? Online Quake or an evening hike? I appreciate my friends for wanting to include me in things rather than seeing me while away my free time in front of a computer.
I could easily see problems with marital relations, families, stress-related health issues, etc. if this became the norm. But it seems to be mostly in the realm of the single 20 and 30-somethings. Perhaps it's best that way, and people will transition out of that sort of thing as they get older and start families.
Oh, and cubicles do suck, as a previous poster alluded to.
I think it was funny. Not too often does something make me laugh out loud when I read it. Ok, chuckle out loud.
Besides, his comment actually made me read the "hippy" comment, instead of skipping it.
What time warped hippie bus did you just get off of?
F /...
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
You are a fucking hippie.
F /...
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
The problem I ran into comes from the fact that I really enjoy what I do for a living. I constantly found myself putting in these insanely long days... often 14+ hours in front of a computer. It didn't seem so long or so bad because here I was at home... my music on, relaxed, snacking, etc... The problem is that suddenly this huge void of time has passed. Days quickly turned into weeks into... you get the idea. The longer you do it the more you find yourself looking for excuses to get out of the house 'cuz you *never* leave. This isn't just computer people either. Anyone who works at home exclusively suffers from this (writers/artists/etc...).
F /...
With that said however, I do prefer to work at home occasionally. I think a 3 or 4 day work week at the office is great. It lets you interact face to face with other real people and limit your time and exposure to the work enviroment. Forces you out of your safe comfortable home and keeps you in touch with how lame the real world can be sometimes.
The company I work for has mostly bought into the work equals home concept. Free snacks, very relaxed atmosphere... they buy your dinner if you stay past 7. But I am too wise and cynical now to fall for the sell my life to the company for a free meal deal. Lots of people who haven't worked at home before here think all this free stuph and this home/work atmosphere is the best thing ever. I just try and remind them its a company and not your family.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
I pretty much get paid to do what I'd be doing at home anyway....why leave? It's air conditioned here and they have machines stocked with Mountain Dew and Rice Crispie Treats. (the peanut butter kind even...yum)
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
people are willing to stay in the same job for several years. And once a tech worker gets to a certain skill level, if your boss or job pisses you off, it's easier to get another job at better (or at least equal) pay than it is to organize.
Especially since the minute management gets wind of what you're doing, they will be out to get rid of you, or make your life a living hell -- or both.
Most IT jobs tend to be bearable enough that people aren't going to organize. Those that aren't -- e.g. end user support in a sweatshop like Stream -- have tremendous turnover & will never get the necessary signatures to bring a union in. And as long as other businesses can recruit people out of phone support hells, that turnover will continue to be tremendous.
If this equation ever changes, though . . .
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
If you're doing this for the money, YOU WILL BURN OUT. Fast. People who get CS degrees with dollar signs in their eyes don't last long. They're also generally really bad programmers (see point 1).
THIS is why free/open source is winning. The ones who care about doing it right so bad it hurts are the ones who start and run all these projects because it has to be done RIGHT, darn it! The hordes of wannabes and apathetic check cashers send us complaints about it not working right, and if we're lucky they're good enough to spot the bug. Ocasionally, they pick up enough as they go along to become real hackers.
You can't hire that, because money isn't what motivates it. "I can do better" ego and a raging sence of injustice that some idiot was getting paid for doing it wrong in the first place started Richard Stallman with the GNU project. Yearning for a decent intellectual challenge (a specialized kind of boredom), and that nasty urge to take the refrigerator apart and see how it works prodded Torvalds to complete it with the Linux kernel. Apache was just a bunch of people tinkering with a defective tool they used regularly and a "wow, cool, can I borrow that" attitude, who were lazy enough to want to make things easier on themselves by sharing the work.
Then pride, fan mail, and a general sense of accomplishment kick in and look out, 200+% annual growth.
And if we can all make money off of this kind of thing, even do it as a day job, well that's a bonus.
Rob
If you've ever had to say "no, not like that" to somebody, you understand open source.
I agree completely. I couldn't have said it better myself. All through school, I kept promising myself nothing longer than 8hrs (plus 1/2 hour lunch) at work.
It is nice to forget everything at work when you leave and have a mental break. Do hobbies and relax at home.
Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way for me. I am beginning next week 24/7 hardware testing (I work in the aerospace industry) for three weeks. It is rewarding since it is a change in pace, but least it's only temporary.
I could not work at home (or bring work home) or work 40+ hours a week for anything longer than a few weeks.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
I'm going to be a senoir in High School (Lewisburg PA, whoppie!) with the intention of going into Computer Engineering (CE). CE has little to do with "New Media", so I'm asking all the CE's in the world for help. Email me. I'm on my 5th college course (I also take College CS courses while in HS).
My email is intern_boy_chris@yahoo.com
Let me know how the market is like. I'm too confused by all these comments!
I'm only 23 and I've already gone through the full circle. I started working at 14, went into CE, Went to collage three years, fell in love and dropped out, worked to death, burned out, and now I'm preparing go back and finish college.
I went from living on computers, to living on love, to living on work, to not living, and now back to computers again.
Only this time I've learned something: Balance.
I'm just glad I figured it out while there still is time. Sounds like these people need some lessons in living 101.
I'd have to blame the computer for all of this. Instant gratification is such an evil thing especially when its propagated to a large degree. For example: you press a button, the computer comes on, you and click, and you're downloading porn. Take this grossly over-simplified example and apply it to management and the people who make decisions and you get people who want their databases and online pc banking right now because "I'm sure it can be done. You know computers right?".
In addition, everything computer-related seems easier to deal with after hours when "normal" people have gone home and the resources arefreed up and no one is bothering you to change their screensaver. Late hours are the best work hours.
Late hours however are not equal to long hours. Its my opinion that 50 hour + work weeks for the computer-related fields will continue simply because they're accepted norms. Accepted by the people that work them and accepted by the people that make you work them. Perhaps there does need to be a high tech union on a nationwide scale.
Working in an atmosphere like the ones described in the article can be the most invigorating as well as the most destructive way to work. There are times when I love putting in hours of work, give me some techno and caffeine, i'll rock all over a project with almost no sleep. But there are times when i just need a break and I won't work more than 8 hours. It's a way of life, some people thrive on it, my favorite part is the parties after a group of us have worked crazy hours for a week or two. I must say that having computers as a job and a hobby certainly contribute to being able to put my body and mind through this though....
They think that because they work 18 hours a day, neglect their home life, end up divorced, have kids that don't know them, and few real friends, they are "Heros". They gave their all, 110%. Guess what, for that 110%, you will get a watch and maybe a small pention when you retire. You will dye alone, and no one that ever worked with you will care. There is so much more to life than the grind. People who overwork themselves aren't heros, they are idiots. I must admit though, for those of us with a slightly higher intelegence, it sure is nice to have all you mindless worker ants making the world a better place for us. In fact, tonight, I am going to go home, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. I'll be sure to dream a dream for you, while I rest assured in my bed tonight. Onward my little worker ants :)
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
Hey when a large number of people live together and are around eachother all the time, good ideas happen. It is almost like a college environment, where everyone has common intrests and goals. I bet that performance is increased and that most people enjoy their job much more.
This article certainly gives food for thought. I really don't want to be 'eased out' when I am 35 years old, and I do want some sort of life outside work. (Actually, I work at a university, so I think that we don't get exploited as much as in the corporate world ... though, allegedly, we don't get paid as much as those in the corporate world, either!) I have forwarded the URL to several friends who are also working in New Media/IT.
However, this isn't the only career with these sorts of problems. Before becoming a programmer, I was a graduate student in micro/molecular biology. As a graduate student I was expected to work far more than 40 hours a week on a stipend of approx 15K/yr (at the University I attended - this will vary depending on the institution, city, etc.) This included my lab work and teaching. What happens when you finish your doctorate? Why, you continue with post-doctorate work (or training). Post-docs tend to be 1-5 year positions, usually salaried between 20-35 K/year, few benefits, if any. And once you have finished one or two post-docs, THEN you can apply for a permanent job! The good ones are apparently hard to get - with cutbacks in education, many professorial jobs are being eliminated. Industry jobs are often less than secure in biotechnology. Most of these jobs are not lucrative, either (with the odd exception, of course!), and there is sometimes a bias against older applicants, or people with gaps in publication records. (If you are a female scientist, wanting to have a family, you will likely be creating those dreaded publication gaps.) Life is expected to revolve around your science, and from what I have seen, young scientists spend more time in the lab than programmers in the office around here!
Anyhow, it is tough to be an educated professional these days, in several fields. I enjoy what I am doing at the moment, and it pays reasonably well. Someday, I may have to switch careers again (when I am eased out at 35, perhaps?), but I know I won't be the only person in this boat. I don't see any immediate solutions to the overall problems in the industry, so it is probably up to each individual to keep their own options open, and decide the order of priorities in their lives.
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
There is a hidden bias in this article towards
legitimizing the dubious technical expertise
of the coders in the "new media" industry.
While I admit that the article is an insightful
look into that segment of the booming technical
industry, I think any conclusions which may be
drawn from the article are hardly far reaching.
The "new media" world provides and organizes
content primarily for corporations via the
creation of websites. While some of these
sites do require novel features and serious
programming on the back end, I would venture
a(n unsupported) claim that most sites produced
require more artwork than technical work.
HTML is not a programming language. An HTML
coder is not a programmer. Even knowing
javascript, ASP, and some SQL or VBA does
not qualify one as much of a programmer.
I have been in college, graduate school, in
various segments of the industry, in the market,
and own my own over the past few years. I am
a programmer (as are many of the readers of
this site) and see no indication that it is
an employers' market for programmers. While
there is widespread overworking of truly
technical people it has been my direct experience
that this is essentially due to the scarcity
and expense of good programmers.
I don't believe this contradicts what the article
is saying, just points out that what the "new
media" bunch considers "technical work" is
generally little more than technical grunt work.
The fact that a guy can come in from being a
sword swallower at Coney Island to being one
of their "programmers" should be sufficient
evidence...
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
I am fascinated by molecular biology, but when I sat down and had a serious talk with one of my profs, I decided to drop out of the bio graduate program. She had informed me that it would take, at least, 9 years to get a doctorate and a position, and told me about what kind of work I could expect to be doing.
:)
I switched to a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction, not anymore money or job opportunities, but I figured I might as well try to do something I enjoy, is meaningful, and I can do now, not in 9 years
Shh! Our managers might be reading.
:-)
I totally understand what you're saying with that. Who I am is made up largely of what I do, and since I'm working full-time, a big portion of that is what I do while I'm at work. So I'm getting paid for it, that's just because it's valuable to someone. I'm not renting myself, I'm exchanging my services for money.
I believe that we should avoid treating work as "something we do outside of who we are". Your influence on the world while at work is often more powerful than when you are not working, so you should live your work even if you just work to live. This means supporting what your company is doing, too.
>... all the people who just say, "Find a new
> job", well, it ain't always just that easy, cuz
> you're afraid to loose the things you love
> about the job you've got.
Okay, _first_ of all, it's "FIRST POST, D))D!" not "first reply". Sheesh, some people.
Second of all.. afraid is no way to live your life. Go out on a limb now and then. If you do, you might learn something (hopefully not the hard way). If you don't, you're bound to regret it.
At least where I work comapnies are falling over themselves to hire programmers, and there aren't nearly enough to go around. Maybe its different in the hip "new media" world but for regular business that need coders, its a great time to be coder. Of course this means writing for windoze/NT and doing unhip projects but the money is good & i leave the office by 5 so I have time to do what i want even if that is writing more code (for BeOS)
It may suck, but for those of us who still have to "suit up", act corporately attentive in meetings, and generally drone away - and still often pull those sorts of hours, companies that let you take some of your life with you when you work don't look all that bad. A case of "the grass is always greener..." perhaps?
This stuff seems to be a little extreme, but it does illustrate a part of the society we live in (albeit by hyperbole). Your job goes a *long* way to describing who you are.
If someone walks up to you and asks "So what do you do?", you don't say "Well, I work about 9 hours a day, then I go home and be the most sensitive, caring father I can be." Instead you say "I'm a computer engineer." Even if that isn't the image of yourself you would prefer to give, the pieces of exactly who you are tend to fall into place *behind* your job.
--Mid
The really scary part is that this is a modern American occurance. European workers have something like 4-6 weeks paid vacation. If we compare the hours worked to those of people in the past like serfs or hunter/gathers they worked even less than we did(something like 130 days/year for serfs and 18-24 hours a week for hunter/gathers).
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Unfortunately thats not the case. If virtually every company in the industry requires 60+ hours a week than you have no choice but to work those hours (changing careers to another field often isn't a choice). Although working for 12 hours straight has an heroic aspect to it, the simple fact is that when companies had their workers work less than 40 hours a week, the increase in productivity more than made up for the fewer working hours. I think that would probably be the case in tech fields.
In a lot of cases unions are effective and do perform useful actions. Without unions to provide a check on employers, companies can often force their employees to accept conditions that they don't wish becuase of the power disparity between the two.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
110 hour workweeks? 72 hour project rosters? 24x7 callouts? Abusive working conditions? Continuous and expensive professional retraining?
These are some of the actual realities of life that medical interns had to suffer to achieve mastery of their speciality (and the rights to their 4 day golfing weekend). However, there is a big big difference in skill levels between a top-notch heart surgeon and a herbal dispensor with matching salary scales.
The big problem that I see is that there is no high level professional accreditation process for software development. Anyone can code, but it is harder to put together cost-effective solutions to solve a problem. The Microsoft/Cisco/etc certifications are mere first-aid certificates in comparison with the amount of training doctors insist on for their professional qualifications. And just like any high-level profession, not everybody has the tolerance of stress or the right qualities to be a super-achiever.
There are a few professional IT bodies evolving, the System Administrator's Guide (SAGE) is one example. In this frontier environment, it might be profitable peddling silicon snake oil to the ignorant masses but it does not instil long-term confidence in the customer. Unfortunately there is no easy way of separating out the good from the bad and I suspect the whole IT industry is just too immature at this stage (plus too many contentious political in-fighting for the spoils) to formalise any discipline specific review processes (much less decide on disciplines).
The alternative is to foster a culture that encourages the right long-term behaviour and allow talent to rise to the top. Much like the Hippocratic Oath defines the medical profession, I would suggest that we need an equivalent Hacker's "Code of Conduct" to decisively shift OpenSource from fighting proprietary silicon snake oil to being a peer reviewed professional quality service.
LL
But is it really the only thing that interests you in life? I enjoy work a lot, but there are also other things that are important to me. I like to go SCUBA diving, and I like to go camping, and I like reading a good book every once in a while.
Work can be very enjoyable, but it shouldn't occupy all of your life. If it does, then you are missing out on a whole lot more.
Of course, if you don't feel like you are missing anything, then there isn't anything that is missing. I guess it all comes down to who you are...
I don't think so. I am an intern at a very large Information company. Over 6,000 people work at this instalation alone. There is also an office complex where I work. There is also a factory, with many union workers. Union workers can make good money. But are they free? Can they go to their job and request a raise? Is every factory worker here required to be apart of that union? Yes, closed shop. It is really sad someone would want this for Software profesionals. Unions really sicken me.
This story is completely true. They do the same thing where I work, free pop, free beer, wear what you want, lots of little perks. It's all done to keep you at work longer, and it works. I usually work until 8 every night. But I like my job, and without those little perks which tend to keep me here for 11-12 hours at a time, I would probably not enjoy my job as much. I'm sure I would be only spending 8 hours here and be very eager to leave by mid-afternoon.
Yeah, for many companies, it's a ploy to make you work longer, but I think I'd rather work a little longer than have to wear a suit, drink shitty coffee, and live in a cubicle field for 8 hours a day.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
What I wouldn't give to be making the kind of money you've made, all from home where I could spend time with my kids whenever I felt the urge.
Instead I commute 100 miles a day to some mudhole in the middle of nowhere so I can make $40-$50K if I bust my butt, work in the dusty heat or snowy cold. Sometimes I'm out there more than 18 hours and drive back on slick roads in my sleep.
Do I bitch and whine? No. Not until I hear someone who works from home complain about the commute.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
WTF is a Futuresplash and if it's so good why isn't there a Linux version.
In criticizing those who choose to put in obnoxious hours, it's easy to forget that other professionals are often in the same spot. Young attorneys, for example, often start out in positions where they have to bill 40 hours per week. You can only "bill" an hour (or a six minute increment, more accurately) if you've spent that time doing work directly attributable to a client (which doesn't include lunch, coffee breaks, required legal education, strategy meetings, and other assorted stuff you have to do for the firm). Sometimes the partners can cut your hours down if they think they are "unreasonable" (as in "it shouldn't have taken you x to do that"). Of course to bill 40, particularly as a new attorney, you're going to have to put in at least 60, maybe more, and with a relatively small firm, you might get paid as little as $30,000. (No kidding, I've seen the offer.) Factoring in law school loans, it's only a few steps above indentured servitude, with the hope of maybe making partner in seven or eight years. And the newbie attorneys, I might add, aren't getting free snacks and sodas. Definitely not for me.
It all depends on your attitudes about work though. Personally, I'd much prefer to have a life. But many of my friends who work insane hours, including some who are in the 12+ hours/day category, say their work is their life, and they like it that way. Isn't it all about what you personally like better? So who am I to judge??
...of a short "essay" I came across awhile back. I can't remember if it was posted on Slashdot or not....
http://www.base.com/gordoni/found/job-suck.htmlThis is certainly true where I work already. Generic coders are far less valuable than programmers who have "Subject Matter Expertise" in our particular speciality (Wireless Communications).
Its hard enough to find talented programmers, its hard to find people with specialized knowledge (business analyst, project managers), but it is next to impossible to get both in one person. Our only hope is to bring in a coder early on and hope that they stick around long enough to pick up the industry knowledge. Not much of what we do around here is straight coding, more high-level requirements analysis and design that ends up being coded at some point.
You might believe that Kelly et al. are right and we're in a guaranteed "Long Boom" - in which case, it might not be hard to stay well-employed enough to warrant working preposterous hours, unless there's enough Schumpeterian destruction that all the money starts flowing away from computers and into, oh, materials science.
Or, of course, the Wired crew could be as right about the economy as they were about Push and their own IPO. Are you pulling enough out of your programming job to tide you over if the stockmarket panics on 9/9/99? Enough money, enough totally-other-economy skills, enough friends with some of the above? Enough current happiness to not mind if it all blows west?
I did that as soon as I started coding for a living. Before that, I was coding to relieve stress from my real job. Now, my wife likes to say that the only way she can tell if I'm working or playing is whether I have a beer or not (I s'pose the voices from CivCTP are probably a clue, too)
I _like_ the people I work with, which is a benefit like no other. I like the work I do, so it's no surprise if I occasionally work a weekend, or work late, or work at home.
Damn that 'techno loop' references in the article would be a nice change from the pop radio crap we've got going on here right now.
Let's see.... there was the ultra-hip software company where the owners provided free soft drinks, coffee, and snacks. The snacks stopped when the company president realized just how many PowerBars a 200-pound powerlifter could eat -- oops.
:)
Then there was the up-and-coming ISP with a habit of telling my team about urgent projects two days before they were due. They used the "you'll get stock when we go public" tactic. After too many 12-hour shifts and 3:00 am drive-to-the-office server reboots, I used the "I'll end up divorced if I stay here" resignation.
Overall, though, it's been a fun ride so far. I wonder what's next.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
This stuff sickens a bit. I like computers and all, but I've got a LIFE.
Scenes like this are why I'm not directly in CS. With a wife and kids, I'll put in a good 40 hour week, thanks, and then GO HOME.
My aunt complains of deafness from too much loud music 20 years ago. I wonder what not enough sleep will do to these folks in the long run.
------ Nope, Not me, you can't prove I said that!
I did my first workterm doing process automation with embedded controllers (Z180). In fact, I was the only employee for much of that term. I really like working for small companies. The ones I've worked for don't care how you dress, wear your hair (I have long hair), and most importantly what tools you use. I try to use Cygwin32 for win development as much as possible (unless I have to use a 3rd party lib, like NiDAQ, etc). I use an editor of my choosing (In win, Programmer's File Editor, PFE. I was impressed to find that Microchip's MPLAB IDE was based on it, it's funny using an embedded controller dev system for windows that has TeX support) and I get to decide which controllers and tools the company buys. I brought Protel into my last job and showed the guy that hired me, and he loved it. I also tended to bring my own hand tools, soldering iron, DMM, etc..
With unions, these jobs will be harder to find because I know that techs will be all over them to avoid being unionised (my brother was a courier who quit when the Teamsters took over).
On my first WT I worked on a project for Magna International (a piece of robotic factory machinery) and I spent a lot of time at a factory. They're completely non-union. The unions have tried, and failed, to come in. The workers are treated very well. All of the managers and high-up positions are filled by people who started on the factory floor. They give out $100 prizes to the person who submits the best entry in the suggestion box, which guarantees that workers' voices are heard and that they aren't afraid to make suggestions. The food in the (beautiful-looking) cafeteria is really good. Workers and their families can go on company vacations to various places (DisneyWorld, etc) for cheap. There's a whole lot more, but the most important thing is, it works.
And without greedy unions, which only serve to alienate workers and managers.
Your career is yours. You build it, you cultivate it. When you go somewhere, your career goes with you.
Your JOB is not yours. It belongs to the company you work for. At best it's on lease.
Don't get attached to a job. DO get attached to building a career.
I've been a professional software engineer now for over 20 years, and for much of that time, I've worked in companies where I was expected to give up much of my life in exchange for stock options and free drinks and snacks. I just turned 40, and rather than being eased (or pushed) out, I'm still in demand. But I don't plan to ever take a permanent job again, since it seems that all of the greater silicon valley area (i.e. including san francisco) is full of companies that are all trying to convince their employees to make their work their life. I've had enough of that.
Now I work as a contractor. Many companies here are so desperate for warm bodies that there are lots of contract positions available. The nice thing about many of these positions is that the hourly pay is so good that the companies don't want you to work much more than 40 hours a week (and if they do, you get paid for those extra hours). So now I make more money than I ever did as a permanent employee while working less hours.
By the way, I see no evidence to believe that companies looking for contractors have any bias against people who are past their 20s and early 30s. My current contract requires that I program in two languages (perl and verilog) that I've never programmed in before. Nobody assumed that just because I was 40 that I'd have a hard time picking up new skills.
I'm living pretty much the life, though less of an extreme. I work 9 to 11 hours of day and I honestly have no problem with it. I work for a great boss and have a ball doing things.
I can give advice to those out there, and it's simple advice. Find work you like doing. I am a systems monkey. That's why I like being a systems admin. It's fun to me. Find things you like to do.
Leave things at work. Do not let your personal and work life get to bother each other. It'll kill you fast. It's not worth killing yourself over.
I have been a summer intern for since my junior year of highschool. I currently just completed my freshman year of college.
I think the value of knowing that you are productive as an intern is very rewarding. I recently quit my summer internship at one company because my boss was too busy to help me learn and assign me meaningful tasks. He was a great guy but he was working 50+ hours a week.
In my new job I am very productive and working very hard, 50+ hours a week. This is for a small business enjoy your job ? This is a yes or no question, there is no inbetween.
...son, that is Kentucky Sourmash Bourbon, the elixar of the GODS!
"A brand of whiskey" my ass...damn kids...
I spent five years on a PhD, and then another four years doing postdoctoral research. I then left that field and started coding. Although those nine years might seem wasted, I thoroughly enjoyed that time of my life. I think that it's a mistake to think about advanced education strictly in terms of future earning potential.
Professional basketball players play golf when they are in the off season; they own dance clubs and other businesses. They do anything but dedicate that free time to their sport (they still work out and practice a litte, but not near like during the season).
I'm a college student at a summer internship as an engineer. I like the freedom of school and all, but the best thing about working full time during the summer is that after 5pm I don't have to worry about work. I can go live a completely different life and not have any pressure on me that I don't put upon myself voluntarily.
IANAL, but I play one on
=)
The only thing I can think of is that a)the company doesn't have enough staff or b)they take on more work than they can handle.
I have the opposite kind of job.Put in 22 hours a week to keep up my insurance.Make as much on slot machine at casino as in this bore.At 57,Icould care less.At home I work on Line and do investments.Next thing to retirement.
icey
I totally agree with your feelings. If pursuing your dream job happens to make you powerful and famous, then that's a side bonus, AFAIC- but not what's important. I would have to admit that I'm in a stepping stone job to position me skill-wise so I can eventually pursue something closer to my heart, like space technology, fuel-cell power generation, AI, robotics...
I think it's ok to "compromise" your beliefs by taking an non-ideal job, as long as it propels you towards your ultimate goal.. AND you don't get too comfortable, complacent and scared to make a change when you know in your heart that it's time to do it.
Kind of related to this subject... A while back the topic came up with a group of friends on the subject "what would you do if you had a virtually infinite amount of money". Not a lot of response from the crowd... I got what seemed to be blank stares when they heard my answer of "I would start my own space program". I suppose being in this position is highly unlikely, but what you can realize in this is that in many cases, you can make decisions (job-wise and personal) in your life that can make a fantasy like this much more of a reality than you'd initially realize.
Chase your dream, and don't compromise!!
"It's like the claims that we have full employment. I drive down main street Guadalupe at 7am in the morning and see the Hispanic men standing on the street corners, hoping someone will stop and hire them to work in the fields."
Do you want to know why you see workers standing on the corner looking for day jobs rather than working on a picking crew or being hired directly by farmers? Because, usually, day laborers are not documented workers ("illegal aliens"). While I have nothing against illegal aliens (they're just trying to make an honest buck like anyone else), because of laws which crack down on employers trying to hire them, they must work in a day-to-day manner, getting paid under the table. The fact that they are standing on the street corners is not because there are no jobs, but that there are no jobs that they can legally work at.
Think about it: If there were no jobs, then why would these guys be standing around looking to be hired? If you see hookers standing around on a street, does that mean that nobody is hiring them?
Unionization is also the reason many in the production side of the entertainment industry have lost their jobs to cheaper foreign competition(mainly to Canada, which subsidizes film production via a loophole in the NAFTA agreement, hiding it as a tax break).
And I'm not just talking about Gaffers, Lighting specialists, or other behind the scenes people. I'm also talking about highly qualified/computer savy 3D/2D artists and programmers. People who have spent years perfecting their craft and learning using the latest software.
The only people getting well paid are the actors , directors and producers.
To quote from "Real Programmers Don't Eat Quiche" (circa 1984): "Real Programmers don't work 9 to 5. If any programmers are around at 9 AM it is because they were up all night."
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
How true is this? Although hanging out with ppl that share my interests is one thing, being eased out at 35 is quite another.
I'm 31 now. By the time I have the skills needed for this, I'll be too old to get a job.
I have a beautiful wife who would like to operate a home daycare, not a corporate childcare center. And the reason I married her was so that I could spend time with her.
Suddenly, the chicken parts plant in Arkansas is looking good...
If I had known that this is what I would be getting myself into when I brought our old 386 in to be upgraded, the tech said "$1,000.00" and I said "screw you, I'll do it", I'd have just given him the damn money and gone into retail.
I'd be making more anyway.
Anyway, should I even bother?
Will that be my contribution to the world: "He solved a head count problem"? - Asok, 'Dilbert'
No mention in the article of the perks of being employed by such "creative" folks...Wild Turkey and beer ain't the only substances inspiring Alley net workers.
[CEO of Pseudo,] Josh Harris's parties are not to be missed! Raving with your co-workers, like the long hours, doesn't work for everybody.
Yes, you're always free to go somewhere else. No need for unions in NY, not while anyone who can run a Unix server can make more than the average U.S. family of four. (Getting an apartment in NY is another matter.)
Why DON'T you take your own advice? I've left two companies so far, when the management got absolutely intolerable--when the 'con' list got longer than the 'pro' list.
Two truths I've learned in my first two internet jobs (since '94, when I graduated university):
- Once you lose absolutely all respect for managment because of their incompetance, there is no way they can earn it back. It's time to leave.
- When nobody in your chain of command knows what you do and how... when it's "assholes all the way up," it's time to leave.
You sound like you're at this point.
I'm consulting now. Perhaps not as much money as I could make, but I've got everything I need. No commute to the city, a little land in the country from those stock options from hell-job #2, and a little time to go visit it without my pager and lay in the hammock underneath the rustling birch leaves. (Did I mention splashing around in the 15-foot-wide brook to relax?) Someday, I'll be working and living from up there all summer. Now, I'm saving up to build a small building of some sort. I've 'paid for it' emotionally already, and will again, I'm sure--when the situtaion is right, 24-hour days CAN be bearable, even rewarding.
You just have to have a tranquil place to go to restore your sanity--under your desk doesn't count!
I'm a senior at college working towards my BS/MS in Computer Engineering/Computer Science. Alot of people that started the world of college when I did graduated this past year. Most of them had interviews and offers flung at them as if they were beads at Mardi Gras.
One trend I notice to be very disturbing is the amount of overtime in the tech industry, observed from friends and internships. I can think of two reasons this is, and I don't know which is the greater cause. One is the obvious lack of workers.
But second, and what frightens me more, is the thinking that since college students coming out of college have alot of energy and no life, they can work 60, 70, 80+ hours a week and not miss a beat. There are companies that were hiring straight from college at my university this past year, and they just wanted the overachievers. It wasn't unheard of to be up 24-7 during training, and put in ungodly hours once they got out of that as well. The average time one was with that company was only 3 years. I suspect burnout.
I'm also currently working in an internship where if you're here after 5PM, something is terribly wrong. The environment here is very 8-5, suit, meeting driven, etc. etc. And I don't feel fulfilled. It's like I don't feel productive.
Yet at the same time, I don't want to go somewhere I can't back out of. I know that in a few years, I'm going to want to start a family. I want to come home every night and kiss my wife. I'm starting to wonder if there has to be a trade off.
But from the patterns I've seen, most companies like the out-of-college type because they can be overworked. And I don't want that. That scares me.
Maybe I should just go get my MBA and become a management drone. -sigh-
Texodore
I've never understood the people who divide their lives up into "work" and "everything else".
For me, what I do *is* who I am. There isn't any distinction between work and play, because work is play, except it has the advantage of paying me.
Looking at this article, I was happy to hear that other people see things the same way - I don't understand all the angst about it.
This is certainly quite a change from the standard view. When I mention to people that I am a college student working towards a CS degree they immediately mention that there are many job opportunities. Everywhere I turn people are looking for experienced programmers. This story certainly makes one wonder about long term job security. Sure one can get that first job, but later? The example of the 40 year old with knowledge of multiple languages and OS's without a decent job was a bit scary...
This sounds like a college art studio or even a dorm, especially the free beer part. I speculate that this is how this "company" got started. A bunch of friends from college and random aquaintences got together to start a "new media" company. Creativity and productivity abound, but don't expect it to last when the employees reach 30.
Spyky
With the tech industry booming, there is a large new group of workers that have no representation but themselves.
Sure, techies are in high demand, but what is the point of making a high salary if you break it down to dollar per hour and it is not very high? Not to mention compensation for stress, health problems, loss of quality of life. All that needs to be compensated for. Also, pensions, health insurance, vacations, etc.
There needs to be a United Techology Workers (UTW) union or something similar that has a nationwide membership, and has the influence to deal with the big, fast-moving tech corps of today.
I believe the purpose of life is to raise a family, not to work for a company. The purpose of a company should be to provide decent jobs for people so they can raise families, and have a good life.
Soon the excitement of working in a tech job will fade, but the time to unionize is now, ASAP. Unions are a good thing, even though they do not have the influence they have had in the past. A union is meant to be there to back you up if you are getting screwed by your employer, no matter the circumstances. A union will get you better pay, benefits, and job security.
Its the only way to secure yourself from the whims of corporate management.
EverCode
To those of you putting in 80 hour weeks for "a better future," I think you're missing the boat. You are missing out on living! When you come to the end of that tunnel, there might be no kids/wife/ girlfriend/family/buddies to spend all that time with.
Your kids don't want a new Lexus SUV- they want you to fly a kite with them at the park. Your wife might like a diamond tennis bracelet, but a weekend in the country is a lot more memorable. And what do you think your girlfriend does when she's waiting for you to call all night? She's going to give up and move on to someone else if you don't pay attention to her. And your pals? They've all gotten a life while you've been best friends with your old buddy, Code.
The payoffs you're seeing for the future may not be there in the end. Better to be making enough and living life than rich and alone.
Yeah, the Ph.D. is a big mistake. All the fellow students in the program I attended realized this at about the time when it seemed that we had too much invested (in time and effort) to quit. I guess some Ph.D. programs are better than others, but 95% of the grads I know (more than a few) agree that it was more trouble than it's worth (unless you plan on teaching at the university level where it's generally a requirement).
Good Luck
"I believe the children are our future: nasty, brutish and short."
ummmmm......or not
or if you have some skills and no college degree, you can get a job as a consultant work 30-40 hour
weeks get paid more than people with 4 year degrees...
or maybe thats just me
CrAzYjOn -Master Of Digital Chicanery
amen!!!!!!!!!
after a nice 35 hour week finxing peoples nt system Its nice to go home work with linux
and write soem techno
god bless the IT field
CrAzYjOn -Master Of Digital Chicanery
I'm teaching Internet Publishing at a summer school program, and it seems like I'm always in my classroom, either working on curriculm material, fighting CGI scripts, or fixing computers that have died. (The latter largely because we run 'doze9x for workstations here...ugh.) Of course, it also means I get to keep my domain running on the school LAN (w/T1 connection), read /. during lulls in class, and eat at the dining hall. It's a near-24/7 job, but I enjoy it. I'm also living in the dorm (as a faculty member), and I get to use the athletic facilities if I get any free time. Unfortuantely, my broken wrist and the fiberglass cast on my arm is kind of putting a damper on athletics right now.
Read it more carefully. There is a huge shortage of cheap recent college graduates. That is what these employers want, not the run-of-the-mill coder.
Statistics show that there is no shortage of workers, only a shortage of cheap workers, peons.
I hold to this belief, thus I plan on at least a doctorate, with signifigant research into tasks and subareas of computer science that are likely to become mainstream in a decade or two, not now. (formal methods and formal verification)
I am making sure that I will not be a peon, because peon's are cheap, easy to replace, and not highly trained. How many of the other people here do not have signifigant expenditure into learning? Medical Doctors, Ph D's, and similar occupations have the property that those with the knowledge are not peon's, they cannot be easily and cheaply replaced, and any sudden demand takes 4-8 years to fill.
Would any of you want to go into a job that many HS students with a year or two of college education, or even no education past HS, can compete with for a job? Thus you are easily replaced, therefore the salary is cheap, and working conditions atrocious.
When you say skills, what do you mean? Do you really mean skills (like knowing OO, knowing how to perform formal verification, knowing the design of an job-event loop? How a 3d renderer works? The nature of a relational database), or just knowing a particular tool like Java, C++, VC++, VB, Win32s, ORACLE?
Give us an example of what 'skills' you need. Or is it that you don't give much of a damn about 'skills', but just people who know a particular assortment of tools. Tools evolve at breakneck speed, skills change slowly,
OO is a skill, Java/C++/Objective C/VC/EGCS are just tools.
Database programming is a skill, Oracle/Developer/Db2/Informix are just tools.
CGI programming is a skill, Perl/ASP/Php3 are just tools.
(even-driven/threaded/message-driven) GUI programming is a skill, Win32s, X windows, Mac, those are just tools.
Do you really want skills, or do you just want people who know a few specific tools?
My business at Carnegie Mellon University is to learn skills, not to learn tools.
Whom do you want? Someone who understands the skills, or someone who just knows how to use some particular tools, tools that will be obsoleted in 2 years?
i never planned on making money coding. it's just what i know i love to do... ever have, since the first Compute! adventure game I keyed into a timex-sinclair 1000 when i was a kid. high school pissed me off, as i had to listen to 'guidance counselors' that insisted that i needed calculus to code... despite the fact that i'd already been hacking for 4 years... i decided that college wasn't for me, as i already knew how to code. so i joined the USAF, and worked with COBOL for four years. this is where i learned some of the things that you never learn froma book or a class- how to deal with irate users, how to balance a quality product with time requirements- but most importantly, the very simple lesson of 'Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing'. your life, family, and happiness are key, and no job is worth spending 16hrs a day (ok, ok, i've pulled my share of long days, but i'm not talking about the occaisonal all-nighter here), typing your fingers to stubs, killing your eyesight, and packing on 20 pounds from the crap in the vending machine. i have friends who took positions as contractors coming out of the air force, and they email me all the time and tell me how miserable they are... i took a job that paid less, but was... 'better'. you know what i mean. i value working with quality people, who are good coders & also functional human beings much more than an extra $15 an hour.
sorry for all the rambling, but someone who gets into coding just for the cash is going to fuck everything up. if you don't love it, please stop.
my karma ran over your dogma
Where I work, programmers have couches that turn into beds in their offices. We also have showers, ping pong, pool table, pinball, tv's -- a nice big kitchen and a basketball net outside. If that's not set up for living space, I don't know what is.
:)
:)
@home in redwood city also has a lot of that stuff, but they also have a fun slide too
Programmers sleeping under desks no more
What I think is sad is that most of us have so much already, but we just demand more. Perhaps people should stop measuring what they don't have all the time, and start thinking about others.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
I worked as a devmanager for a new media company. I resented putting in all of the extra hours because the reason you have to wrok late is because of bad management.
I enjoy working hard on meaningful projects. But most of the time the pressure to get things done comes from screwed up schedules and poor client expectation management.
I quit that job and now I make 2.5 times as much money working 40 hours/wk as an independent contractor.
There is no reason for techies to work so hard for someone. Usually you are not getting paid enough. And many times the reason you have to work so hard is that some project manager did not listen to you in the first place.
Techies rule so we should start acting like it. And not get so damn excited about free cokes.
I say f*ck'em. Since I have been contracting I have taken up Scuba diving, sailing, I have time for the kid's little league games, nightly BBQ's etc. And I have time to work on my own side projects.
StreetShark
in Seattle
Tell me about it.
;)
I'm living the life at www.chapters.ca... and some days it ain't pretty.
You have to take control of your life though... and make time for the things that are important to you... I'm not quite there myself... yet... but I'm making progress, while working at a job that is both fun and rewarding.
Now I just have to hire a few more people that are willing to live that life... and I can take some time off...
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BlackNova Traders
...my wife works in the same sweatshop...
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BlackNova Traders