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NetSlaves
Finally. Amidst the ongoing tidal wave of Net hype, here's "NetSlaves," by Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin, which hits like a buck of ice water splashed in the face.
If you read newspapers, books, or follow Net-business coverage on TV, you might well think work on the Net is mostly about the billionaires who found Hotmail or Yahoo or Netscape, or the clean, benefit-laced, campus-like work environments they provide. You'd have no way of knowing the much more pervasive and unnerving reality: for every one of those there's a zillion companies that come into the world still-born, fail miserably, make and sell crummy stuff, and hire countless miserable, exploited, harassed and burned-out programmers, techies, geeks and nerds.
Baldwin and Lessard are combat veterans of the Net, both in terms of writing and personal experience. They are also long-standing Truth Tellers.
In addition to writing about computing for a number of magazines and websites, they also run the guerilla website NetSlaves, a running testimonial to real life for many in the hi-tech workplace.
"NetSlaves" is a terrific extension of the site, one of the few books to come off of a website that really works as a book. Lessard and Baldwin have a powerful story to tell, and they do it with a lot of punch. "NetSlaves" ought to be handed out to every graduate of every tech school, and given to every new employee of every Net company.
Baldwin and Lessard say their grand "pre-alpha" statement about the Nature of Net-Slavery is this:
"Technology has changed, but human nature hasn't. Whether it's the Gold Rush of 1849 or the Web Rush of l999, people are people. More often than not, they're miserable, nasty, selfish creatures, driven by vanity and greed, doing whatever they can to get ahead, even if it means stepping on the person next to them, crushing the weak, and destroying themselves in the process."
The authors don't have a particularly high regard for many forms of Net work, which they lambaste as the New Media Caste System, but they care about Net workers, and the book is curiously affectionate, even loving about them, as well as a hoot to read.
Both concede that one of their purposes in writing "NetSlaves" is to have the book serve as a quasi-historical, quasi-anthropological reflection of a particular moment in the culture.
Although the tone of "NetSlaves" is informal and funny, the point is pretty serious. "NetSlaves" has done what legions of reporters and authors have so far failed to do: paint a truthful picture of about the new nature of work in the techno-centered world.
For all of the media blabber about Net commerce and hi-tech startups, life in this fast lane can be brutal - insane hours, almost no employee-employer loyalty, greed and moral cowardice, help-desk geeks driven mad by enraged customers, back-stabbing, savage pressure, competiveness and the many resultant neuroses from all of the above.
Baldwin and Lessard make no pretense of objectivity. They write with almost ferocious authority and persuasiveness. They describe themselves as "two angry, cranky bastards out for blood" on behalf of their exhausted selves and the countless burnouts, geniuses, thieves, opportunists, workaholics and losers they've encountered along the way.
"NetSlaves" gives us a whole new language for the villains and back-stabbers who make up the hi-tech workplace. Particular venom is reserved for the "Fry Cooks," the "get it done at all costs" project people of the New Media Caste System. (There's also the "Garbagemen," the workers who have to get servers up and running when they crash).
My favorite chapter is about the "Cab Drivers," the haunted and hunted itinerant Web freelancers who design sites, followed closely by "Gold Diggers and Gigolos," a scathing portrait of the ambitious, night-crawling, hard-partying, butt-kissing movers and shakers and wannabees of hi-tech work world.
"Most Web sites are designed by itinerant, restless young people who have given up the constraints of working for one company in particular, in exchange for the self-determination of pursuing their own path. The rationale is that they can earn a higher hourly rate and pick and choose their projects.
"The reality, however," write Lessard and Baldwin, "is that these Cab Drivers have to constantly hustle for work and their passengers, or clients, who are also cash-crunched, are notorious for skipping out on their fares. Added to this is the lack of health benefits that Cab Drivers face - a plight which has forced many to simply neglect themselves." This is a world in which workers are terrified or despondent when forced to take a few weeks off, convinced they'll fall behind forever.
"NetSlaves" succeeds wonderfully in its goal to tell the truth about a particular culture at a critical juncture in time. It is, in fact one of the few telling looks inside the new kinds of workplaces springing up in the hi-tech, global economy. Workers beware.
Without a doubt, the Net will continue to grow and prosper. But if you even think about working there, read this book first.
Pick this book at fatbrain.
That's disturbing. I happen to agree somewhat with their position, and in fact distrusting corporate America is one thing I actually see eye to eye with Katz on, but that's _bad_. It lowers the tone of an argument that desperately needs to be made properly.
In particular, what jumped out in your words were 'trap of stock options'- I strongly agree, as this is a major abuse in many many ways- it's an accounting loophole tantamount to fraud, it's a means of paying employees in vapor, and most insidiously it's a means of getting employees to have a vested personal interest in destroying competition and capitalism, because valuation will inevitably be _lower_ in a healthy economic situation with actual choice available. It's a potent bribe to get people to do anything up to and including breaking the law in efforts to make their company eradicate all competition, and it doesn't reward honest effort disproportionately to dishonest exploits. And these book-writing clowns have not even thought of this?
As for collective bargaining, in a sense that's what the GPL is. "We'll benefit you _if_ you keep to the bargain." If they don't know about this stuff they are very ill suited to writing a book on any form of labor abuse...
*sigh* I think I'm turning into a small business libertarian, operative words 'small business'. There are just SO MANY mechanisms in the current state of the economy that assume a mystical trickle-down theory that fscking doesn't work, didn't in the 80s and didn't in the 90s and still doesn't. This 'prosperity' people talk of happens to be one with unemployment levels comparable to those of the Great Depression. Entire categories of Americans are simply thrown away, don't count. And guess what? The reason companies are beginning to choke and starve and savage each other is because of a lack of trickle-UP... starving homeless people _CAN'T!_ buy consumer products. They can maybe steal them, and that's even worse for the economy. The trickle has to go both ways or nothing works- you can't either give everything to the rich and expect anything to work, or give everything to the poor either. You've got to balance it out, and I see America still doing some of that, since as far back as 'New Deal' social reform, and I see idiot college randite kids arguing like mad that even that should be stopped.
Well, with luck the judge will release findings of fact today. Here's hoping that he slams MS, and be ready to sell every stock you've got on Monday, because MS now is built into every major stock index, and you're looking at a crash that will take your head clean off. The fantasy is over, reality is coming to call, and the rich can now share in some of the Great Depression that they are currently ignoring completely because it only happened to the poor.
I've had to stand in a bread line. In my town, storefronts are going up for rent like it was property leprosy, and nobody is renting them, either. What is the figure, something like 20% of city minority groups unemployed? While I grew up, the employment rates for _my_ age group consistently were worse than those of the Great Depression my grandparents lived through.
THIS IS the Depression. Suck it up and deal. And think again about quitting or coding less than 60 hours a week >:) in fact, hadn't you better up it to 80? If you don't there are about 600 starving people who would love to replace you >:)
I would love to [refuse to work less], but if I don't, the company will find some schmuck that will. And quite likely, some schmuck that will do it for less money. That is the way of the world.
As long as you believe that is true, it is true. Don't want to risk getting fired this way? Job hunt on the side on the sly, and make sure any potential new employers aren't demanding ridiculous hours. You may find that they'll pay you more to work less than you are now.
I've worked in IT for 6 years and never worked much beyond 40 hours a week. And I don't plan to start. Ok, I am a C++ guru, but even so...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
An interview with these two poseurs on the radio revealed them to be incredibly naïve about labor, industry and the goals of the current underclass.
They were incapable of speaking intelligently about current legislation, modern unions, collective bargainting, high pay as compensation for long hours, the risks of IPOs, the trap of stock options, the benefits of loose working environments, marketability of skills, easy job mobility and dozens of other things. They were incoherent when they tried.
Instead, they reverted to "as we say in our book" and then they'd offer useless anecdotes of very little relevance.
Their voices were smirking, self-interested and self-indulgent. Their word choices and terminology were clichéd, hackneyed, borrowed. Overall, their tone was, "I can't believe a good fortune! I thought people would have found us out before now!" You could hear it all in their voices: pathetic, whiny, voices of spoiled children arguing from a position of supposed superiority.
I'm convinced that these two are the kind of people speak with their eyes closed, a psychological indicator that the conversation is all about the speaker, not the recipient.
Jon Katz's review does the book too much of a favor. These two dolts not only do not deserve space on Slashdot, they probably do not warrant space on your bookshelf.
This is not a troll. I believe these guys are in it for the money. They know zip about the high-tech working poor or other mistreated entities; they just thought they could make a killing on a book.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Computer geeks may be the latest thing to be... but there's a huge gaping chasm between what you see on TV and what your job really is. System admins are the janitors of e-business.. they clean up the messes from the PHBs, work long, late hours. It's a thankless job.. and it isn't the only one. Programmers are put under incredible stress to meet that next deadline... I'm suprised most of them aren't more neurotic from sleep deprivation. These poor souls literally live or die by whether or not somebody brought in the folgers this morning. Then you have the helpdesk. Need I say more? Technical support feels more like psychological support. Having been there myself, I can personally attest to this - I've had callers in the middle of domestics (you know - husband goes whacko) and had to step them through configuring their DUN because they were getting "Error -691... the computer you are dialling.."
Let's face it people, life in the computer field can suck. What we do at work is hell. What we do at home is heaven. Don't go for the long hours, the promise of IPO, or the lure of money. Ignore it all - if you wish for it you may just get it. Pursue your personal interests. Work a regular workday. Tell your boss to fsck off if he wants you to put in overtime without compensation. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS AS AN EMPLOYEE.. and don't be afraid to use them. We're geeks.. but we're also professionals.. and we are deserving of the respect other professions receive.
Working with the fancy hardware is no excuse for them paying you nothing to work 60 hour weeks. Stand up - take the power back. Or unplug the server if you're the introverted type. =)
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Seems odd for the other fellow to count this as an off-topic post - it clearly relates to the topic.
need to be first = long hours in an ability to make an impossible deadline.
But it might be added that I'm not sure being first is necessarily that powerful.
Bill Gates didn't create the first personal computer operating system.
VHS was not the first consumer video format.
What people actually need is a compelling reason to switch. If you give them that, they will. The trick is finding out what that is, and executing well.
The advantages I see are pretty interesting.
Bill Gates leveraged the potent IBM brand to create the PC standard that we're still stuck with today. He also took advantage of the complacent nature of Lotus and WordPerfect when he brought out Excel and Word.
Panasonic/JVC realized peoplen needed longer recording times, and provided that in VHS.
Seems like a little more thought put into original product designs (in the case of VHS, anyway) might really help. Perhaps that's another lesson to the startup.
D
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I was recently discussing with a friend the fact that many times in my life, people have described me as "lazy". She said she didn't regard me as lazy. Then when I thought about it a little harder, I saw that each person who called me lazy was actually trying to get me to do something for them, to put aside my own agenda and help them with theirs. You need to be careful about that. Sometimes such people can be very convincing, and sometimes it can be difficult to sort out what will best serve your own interests.
Cooperation is possible, and it's good, and capitalism facilitates it, and capitalism is good. But capitalism expects each person to look out for his or her own interest; your employer is not motivated to do so.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Katz is such a hack. I can envision him right now, holding up a blade of grass trying to determine which way the geek wind is going to blow tomorrow. The moment he detects a movement, he proclaims it as his own. When the direction changes, he jumps the bandwagon yet again, hoping no one is the wiser....
I, and many others, tire of Katz and his routine. I suspect the powers that be on slashdot know this, yet they realize that his inflamatory trash generate increased traffic (look at how many comments he averages). It is a free country, and he does have the right to hear it. I don't blame slashdot for posting his articles. However, one thing they should be aware of is that it detracts from the site. Though I may occasionally click on his articles, there is only so many of these i'll tolerate. I suspect others share my view, maybe even enough to bite into their profits. I can hope, can't I?
Agreed, though the point I'm trying to make is that, perhaps, being a corporate entity, their wallets might not be best served by this behavior. Though in the short run, it would appear to generate increased revenues, can this hold out? I don't think this is so obvious. I suppose it comes down to knowing the readership. Are the kids (yes, a generalization) and those who get caught up in Katz content (for lack of a better word) representive of the general readership? What happens when those with real insight and knowledge leave? Are the kids' comment traffic self-perpetuating? In other words, when the more substancial content has totally left slashdot, will these kids still be drawn to Katzian debates?....etc etc etc
Funny; I used to work with one of the authors at a Silicon Alley startup. He was a complete non-techie, a "Webmaster" who produced neither HTML nor English for the site, but instead concentrated on the "overall architecture" of the site. Whatever that meant.
He's probably angry and bitter his experience there didn't make him rich. On the other hand, he didn't stay around long enough to vest any of his options. On the third hand, I never noticed him working particularly long hours.
He feels sorry for the guys who kept the servers going? That would be a couple of 23-year-old college dropouts (and one Columbia grad), who rarely showed up before 11 a.m. but often stayed past midnight, got paged at 3 a.m., and worked a lot of weekends. I'm glad the authors feel sorry for them ... but at least one of them doesn't know a thing about that life.
(Since you're probably wondering: I was a lead developer, then "Manager, Content Acquisition Software," for a team of five Unix/Perl programmers and one NT/C++ guy. I didn't work very long hours, unless you counted the productive four hours every day on the train. I stayed around long enough to vest about a third of my ten-cent-a-share options. But when the company laid off most of the technical staff, I saw the writing on the wall. I found a job closer to home, and let my options expire. The company's doing okay, with twenty employees instead of the hundred and twenty it had when I was there. I don't think it'll ever IPO. Bottom line: I'm not rich, either. And, yes, when the sysadmins weren't around, I was one of the other guys who kept the servers up.)
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Many times they "outsource" the network duties to contracting firms so that they do not have to hire and pay their own employees to do the work. This saves the megacorp lots of money.
It can, but there are other reasons why this happens - it's not as callous and cruel as it sounds.
Consider: contract employees don't get much in the way of benefits (not from the widget company anyway - the contracting firms sometimes have good bennies, as it helps them keep qualified people) but they often cost more, on an hourly basis, than WidgeTron's own employees. 'Cause the contracting firm has to take their cut, and still pay the "netslave" enough that s/he will stay on. It's a tradeoff. And for many companies, what swings the balance is that they want (to borrow a Dilbertism) to "concentrate on their core business". For a widget manufacturer that means manufacturing widgets, not being a cutting-edge IT firm. But they need cutting-edge IT people, so they contract for them from a company whose core business is cutting-edge IT.
It's not good; it's not evil. It just is.
Maybe they're just trying to be polite.
Maybe they really do envy you.
Think about it. You're stressed, your bosses expect the impossible, and the deadline was yesterday. Their job is just the same! Only they probably don't have a valuable skill like yours. They don't get to feel superior to their incompetent bosses, or to the morons who call with questions or complaints.
People think it'd be great if only they could get a high-tech job like yours? Pity them. Think how dreadful their job must be.
Yes a number of professtions (big law firms?) make the young pups do all the crap for a a year or two before they realize how much they are doing is worth, once you have that figured out you can reach a more equitable arrangement.
+&x
> People seem to envision us as:
> Smart people who can sit back and relax most of the day while getting paid nicely for it.
Damn! That's the description of my job. In fact, I put in a request to my boss to change my title from "Sys Tech Anyl V" (production systems adminstrator with UNIX boxes) to "Web Surfer V". Trust me... it just boring on the other end of the spectrum. I go crazy trying to find something to do with my time.
But I realize that I don't that much room to complain. There are people who would KILL for my job. Too bad it won't be this way for much longer... EDS is taking the shop over, and I'm out the door before the poopies start flying.
Is there anything unique to the computer industry that creates this situation or is it simply the fast pace and large size of the market? I tend to think that any other industry, booming on the same scale and schedule of our computer industries would show similar characteristics.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
or is this a new company thing?
I've done my share of tech work, and it wasn't much like net.slaves. Of course, most of my tech work is for a fortune 50 company, in the most computer oriented section of it.
I worked a Tech support hotline, the calls were long, tough and frequent, but it was rare that I did more than 42 hours a week, and when I did I got overtime (neat trick for a salaried employee).
Now I'm a liaison between the hotline and the software engineers, and the hours are still reasonable. My managers respect me,I get to play with neat computers, all in all, a good life.
Our SA's are subcontracted, but they don't seem too stressed.
Of course, I do geek stuff at home, mostly writing about geek stuff, but it's at home, at mostly my pace (except when we have a deadline to meet), and about things I like.
So are slashdotters in bigger, established companies away from the Valley seeing this much? Maybe it's just related to people willing to kill themselves on hopes that they're gonna get in on the next amazon.
George
... however you are in control of your own destiny.
I have walked in and right back out on companies during a interview. What reasons?
1. They used (put in crappy brand name computers) across the board (Compaq=Windoze everywhere). This one particular company I had to tell off that their equipment stinks. They kept calling me afterwards wanting me to work for them. They were supporting 95 workstations while the tech people where on NT 3.1.
2. You are almost guarentee to walk through the work area on the way to the office. If not, ask for a small tour. Ignore the faces of the manager and supervisors, look around for the techs and sysadmins. If they look like they are in a pissed off mood, do not work for them. Chances are, that is not a place to work.
3. Finally, ask the manager "do we have free roam on our computers?" i.e. "Are we treated like the power users that we are or do we get our machines locked down so much we cannot even change the time".
The third point is happening at my job as we speak. Of course, on NT workstation, they can lock your machine down. Unless you know the admin passwords and edit your account or even better: if logging into a NT server gives you the heebee geebees, log into the domain of the workstation. Simple simple.
We also had a situation where we had a programmer working on Linux (hey Alan). Moving over to a new building, he was informed that he will be moving over to a NT workstation (applied to all programmers moving over). He said that he would quit (naturally). Not letting that happening, I put up the fight that they should not transfer over to NT. Of the couple weeks of battling that included the CEO, we finally won.
I am just a tech, only a tech. I have lost a lot of battles but that was the one that really matter. My managers cannot still understand that the fact that a programmer couldn't use the OS he wanted that he was going to quit.
The point is that you need to take control of your environment. I know everyone needs a job but what holds true for relationships holds true for a job "you are only truly happy if you are really picky."
ChozSun [e-mail]
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
you better believe it - this life rules.
as a software developer and young entrepreneur, I can tell you honestly that this is the best time I can possibly think of to be alive. the employment landscape is heavily sloped in my favor, salaries are completely ridiculous, opportunities are everywhere. if youre bitching about workign too many hours and being too stressed, youre a chump and I have no sympathy for you. go find a job that you enjoy with good hours and acceptable pay, because there are more than enough of them out there unless youre ridiculously unqualified.
The authors of that book had horror stories to tell. So do a lot of other people. But I gotta wonder; why all the angst?
Seriously, how many of you had a gun to your head when you took that job as a 'netslave'? Come on, you know you have a choice! We all do. If you don't like it then move on! If you can't find another job in the industry more to your liking then start selling shoes for a living!
Real slaves never had a choice and it is a great wrong to claim your priveliged lives have any relationship with their hardship and plight!
I like what I do. In many ways my job is the brightest spot in my life. Coding is fun! Sometimes it seems like a scam that I get paid to do it. And I have plenty of experience outside the industry; there was a time in my life when I thought I would be a mechanic for a living.
Sure I have had to deal with PHB's and unrealistic deadlines and flawed specifications and unqualified co-workers. But that comes with the territory. In my case I did it for a while and then opted out (I am currently working a non-net related business systems job with more realistic hours). But I also took a 20 grand a year pay cut. It was my choice. I live my life and work where I want to because, as a highly qualified programming geek, I have more choice than ninety percent of the poor bastards out there. If I don't like things I vote with my feet. I don't whine about it...
Jack
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