I first saw it in a bar...everyone laughed out loud at the end, and some applauded.
That ad was absolutely effective. It worked on every level while intoxicated.
Most of the Hondas and Toyotas are assembled in Japan. The very reliable Tacoma and Corolla are assembled in the US with union labor.
VW and Audi's assembled in Germany are represented in large part by the IG Metall labor union.
American vehicles and the US auto industry collapsed because of poor management, particularly the choice to not raise vehicle costs to improve engineering for reliability, not because of US workers or labor unions. The only way they are able to compete in this market is to purchase brands like Mercedes and Jaguar and slap their logos on subpar vehicles. The joke is that the ML line of Mercedes, assembled in Alabama, stands for "Mercedes Labeled" or has been called the Chrysler Atlantica because the styling is like a squashed Chrysler Pacifica minivan. The Jaguar X-Types are little more than a Ford Taurus dressed up with plastic luxury. Sales has been poor, but the high profit margins kept these companies afloat until the US dollar tanked making the profit margins very low.
You are paying money out of your check so you are part of something larger and can collectively decide what to do and actually have the power to accomplish something. In a union, YOU are the union. If you don't choose to be a part then you've chosen to give up the power. You do give up some rights but you gain more through collective power. It is the same social contract theory of rights from Rousseau and Locke that western democracy is based upon. Your role in the union and your power depends upon how much work you are willing to do and how much of an interest you take in YOUR union. I put a damn lot of work in for my union, but in return I was elected Vice President [currently acting President in our Pres. absence] and have the power to help steer a powerful group. Unions are very democratic and not the pinko commie bastards the ignorant believe them to be.
Let me fix that -
1)Continue to be abused until you quit and go work somewhere else or your job is outsourced and you no longer have a choice
2)Continue to be abused until you unionize and have the collective power to work with your employer to fix the situation, minimize outsourcing and have the ability to be retrained or relocated at employer cost if employer finds it cheaper than outsourcing your position
The American car industry isn't hurting because of union practices. It is hurting because management didn't listen to the workers and produced horrible unreliable vehicles in an era when people are more willing to pay more for a much more reliable Japanese vehicle. It has nothing to do with the workers or the unions and everything to do with managements design decisions and constantly producing crap.
I've worked union and non-union IT jobs and I far prefer working in a union job. Yes seniority over skills can be a problem. But in every other job I've had skills and how hard you worked took a back seat to who was friends with management. I don't like seniority trumping all, but it isn't any worse than the alternative.
At my most recent previous job management delayed evaluations over and over. They said they would be objective based upon metrics. The metrics ended up being the managers subjectively picking a number and then an "objective" totaling of these numbers. If the supervisors really liked you, the top raise was 3% which was below inflation, compared to 10-15% raises management received. We had no retirement plan. We were huge so we had good health care benefits if you were willing to pay a significant amount for them. People were often fired without cause or fired for trivial mistakes. The head of the IT and Engineering departments [~300 people] had a degree in Biology and no formal IT training such as a degree and about a decade of experience. I have slightly over a decade of experience, although a large portion as an independent consultant, and am trying to finish up my last year of a bachelor's in CS while working.
Under my union position we have fully paid healthcare with almost nonexistant copays. We have a 15% 401k contribution (with no match required). I have a grievance procedure to ensure there is a process of progressive discipline rather than immediate firing for trivial things. When I was hired I was hired in to a lower level position than the work I was expected to do, and ended up also taking on even more work outside my job classification. Management was unwilling to voluntarily make adjustments to my position and salary. Through the bargaining process the other members of our union local wanted to ensure our IT department was compensated fairly and they chose to give up a percentage of their raises in order to have our salaries adjusted. The head of our tiny IT department has no college or certifications. He has a decade of experience in IT, but only at this organization except for a short stint helping with a college computer lab.
Forget gopher, I'd love to have the entire web on my phone as the ad claims. That would be plenty impressive for me. Why pay for data service once you have the entire web stored right there on the phone.
I never use the city of where I grew up or my mothers maiden name but something made-up or similar. For example, if I grew up in Minneapolis in my system I'd put Miniapple or something stupid that I could remember. Putting a city you wish you grew up in would work also. Something that is totally fake but that you will remember. For my mother's maiden name I use something similar to my grandmothers middle name. As I've been doing this consistently for years I feel relatively secure but unless I suddenly develop amnesia I can recover my forgotten passwords using this made up information. You could easily just say your mothers maiden name was "Banana" or something nonsensical so long as you used that all the time in order to remember you'd used it.
For many people the only way to settle these issues is through a trade association or union. When you have the power and collective funds of a large group you can afford lawyers. IT workers are quit often of a libertarian bent and against such things, but unions aren't the anachronism most people think they are. They have to operate far differently than they did in an industry based economy but have evolved with the times. Entry level and unskilled labor possibly has the most to gain, for example in the rising healthcare services industry, but technical workers still benefit greatly.
IBM has their own unit within the Communications Workers of America and a lot of their power in settling this issues came from the strength in numbers. http://www.allianceibm.org/
Thankfully there are emulators as none of the new ones compare to the original.
www.virtualapple.org has Oregon Trail as well as many others you can play online. IIRC it uses ActiveX and only runs in IE but I believe works fine with IETab in Firefox.
I didn't get the joke. Anything newer than 15 years is crap. It was all down hill after it took more than whacking the space bar to shoot things in Oregon Trail. Now get off my lawn.
No wonder corporations are having such an easy time replacing government in sovereign nations. Consumers don't even have enough self-respect to expect the most basic value from a product (or service). This has got to be related to the reason people vote Republican, even faced with incontrovertible evidence that it is against their own best interests.
If you believe you have some kind of "employment contract", you are wrong. Ever single document I have seen from an employer since around 1980 states specifically that "this is not a contract for employment".
This is why even high-tech industries benefit from collective bargaining agreements. They won't keep you from being fired if you're a horrible worker, but typically will keep you from being fired because your nose isn't firmly planted in your bosses backside and the boss has it in for you.
I've seen people that have slipped up and done something incredibly stupid that they should be let go for, but because it was a single lapse in judgment they were able to negotiate a "resign and purge" and not have a single stupid mistake hanging over them the rest of their career.
I didn't RFTA, but doesn't sound like you can't just carry your laptop in a reused cheap plastic grocery bag to security and then once you are past security slip it in to a Targus/Timbuk2/Crumpler/Chrome/whatever laptop bag with zippers, pockets and everything else.
pagan relics stored beneath the Vatican... I would think that the Catholic church could at least (as a sign of good faith) return these to their descendants
the Bible clearly not only says there should be churches but gives some loose guidelines as to how they should function.
And also commands that your churches should not have stairs, as someone below could look up your robe and see your scrotum.
It's in there somewhere but I don't have my copy of Ken's Guide to the Bible on me to check where.
Here comes Fox News to sue you for slandering Fox News.
The law only works when there is plenty of room for common sense. Unfortunately since there either isn't room or someone drives a truck full of stupid through that open door, the law in this country [the USofA-holes] often doesn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
I first saw it in a bar...everyone laughed out loud at the end, and some applauded. That ad was absolutely effective. It worked on every level while intoxicated.
And I bet you think that Bertrand Russel also thought there was really a teapot orbiting the sun between the Earth and Mars.
Most of the Hondas and Toyotas are assembled in Japan. The very reliable Tacoma and Corolla are assembled in the US with union labor.
VW and Audi's assembled in Germany are represented in large part by the IG Metall labor union.
American vehicles and the US auto industry collapsed because of poor management, particularly the choice to not raise vehicle costs to improve engineering for reliability, not because of US workers or labor unions. The only way they are able to compete in this market is to purchase brands like Mercedes and Jaguar and slap their logos on subpar vehicles. The joke is that the ML line of Mercedes, assembled in Alabama, stands for "Mercedes Labeled" or has been called the Chrysler Atlantica because the styling is like a squashed Chrysler Pacifica minivan. The Jaguar X-Types are little more than a Ford Taurus dressed up with plastic luxury. Sales has been poor, but the high profit margins kept these companies afloat until the US dollar tanked making the profit margins very low.
You are paying money out of your check so you are part of something larger and can collectively decide what to do and actually have the power to accomplish something. In a union, YOU are the union. If you don't choose to be a part then you've chosen to give up the power. You do give up some rights but you gain more through collective power. It is the same social contract theory of rights from Rousseau and Locke that western democracy is based upon. Your role in the union and your power depends upon how much work you are willing to do and how much of an interest you take in YOUR union. I put a damn lot of work in for my union, but in return I was elected Vice President [currently acting President in our Pres. absence] and have the power to help steer a powerful group. Unions are very democratic and not the pinko commie bastards the ignorant believe them to be.
Let me fix that - 1)Continue to be abused until you quit and go work somewhere else or your job is outsourced and you no longer have a choice 2)Continue to be abused until you unionize and have the collective power to work with your employer to fix the situation, minimize outsourcing and have the ability to be retrained or relocated at employer cost if employer finds it cheaper than outsourcing your position
The American car industry isn't hurting because of union practices. It is hurting because management didn't listen to the workers and produced horrible unreliable vehicles in an era when people are more willing to pay more for a much more reliable Japanese vehicle. It has nothing to do with the workers or the unions and everything to do with managements design decisions and constantly producing crap.
I've worked union and non-union IT jobs and I far prefer working in a union job. Yes seniority over skills can be a problem. But in every other job I've had skills and how hard you worked took a back seat to who was friends with management. I don't like seniority trumping all, but it isn't any worse than the alternative.
At my most recent previous job management delayed evaluations over and over. They said they would be objective based upon metrics. The metrics ended up being the managers subjectively picking a number and then an "objective" totaling of these numbers. If the supervisors really liked you, the top raise was 3% which was below inflation, compared to 10-15% raises management received. We had no retirement plan. We were huge so we had good health care benefits if you were willing to pay a significant amount for them. People were often fired without cause or fired for trivial mistakes. The head of the IT and Engineering departments [~300 people] had a degree in Biology and no formal IT training such as a degree and about a decade of experience. I have slightly over a decade of experience, although a large portion as an independent consultant, and am trying to finish up my last year of a bachelor's in CS while working.
Under my union position we have fully paid healthcare with almost nonexistant copays. We have a 15% 401k contribution (with no match required). I have a grievance procedure to ensure there is a process of progressive discipline rather than immediate firing for trivial things. When I was hired I was hired in to a lower level position than the work I was expected to do, and ended up also taking on even more work outside my job classification. Management was unwilling to voluntarily make adjustments to my position and salary. Through the bargaining process the other members of our union local wanted to ensure our IT department was compensated fairly and they chose to give up a percentage of their raises in order to have our salaries adjusted. The head of our tiny IT department has no college or certifications. He has a decade of experience in IT, but only at this organization except for a short stint helping with a college computer lab.
Forget gopher, I'd love to have the entire web on my phone as the ad claims. That would be plenty impressive for me. Why pay for data service once you have the entire web stored right there on the phone.
That would be great! Some day they will have actors as NPCs.
Don't forget to keep your stick on the ice.
* If you don't know what LCD stands for in this context, you should turn in your geek card. Assuming you had one to begin with...
Can we move the geek elitism from the main /. to idle.slashdot also?
I never use the city of where I grew up or my mothers maiden name but something made-up or similar. For example, if I grew up in Minneapolis in my system I'd put Miniapple or something stupid that I could remember. Putting a city you wish you grew up in would work also. Something that is totally fake but that you will remember. For my mother's maiden name I use something similar to my grandmothers middle name. As I've been doing this consistently for years I feel relatively secure but unless I suddenly develop amnesia I can recover my forgotten passwords using this made up information. You could easily just say your mothers maiden name was "Banana" or something nonsensical so long as you used that all the time in order to remember you'd used it.
For many people the only way to settle these issues is through a trade association or union. When you have the power and collective funds of a large group you can afford lawyers. IT workers are quit often of a libertarian bent and against such things, but unions aren't the anachronism most people think they are. They have to operate far differently than they did in an industry based economy but have evolved with the times. Entry level and unskilled labor possibly has the most to gain, for example in the rising healthcare services industry, but technical workers still benefit greatly.
IBM has their own unit within the Communications Workers of America and a lot of their power in settling this issues came from the strength in numbers.
http://www.allianceibm.org/
IBM Alliance itself is part of Washtech.
http://www.washtech.org/
Disclaimer: I'm a systems analyst and since Aug 1st a VP of a CWA unit.
Thankfully there are emulators as none of the new ones compare to the original. www.virtualapple.org has Oregon Trail as well as many others you can play online. IIRC it uses ActiveX and only runs in IE but I believe works fine with IETab in Firefox.
I didn't get the joke. Anything newer than 15 years is crap. It was all down hill after it took more than whacking the space bar to shoot things in Oregon Trail. Now get off my lawn.
No wonder corporations are having such an easy time replacing government in sovereign nations. Consumers don't even have enough self-respect to expect the most basic value from a product (or service). This has got to be related to the reason people vote Republican, even faced with incontrovertible evidence that it is against their own best interests.
I blame Kansas
Trouble is the list of suspected terrorists is quite large, and includes such deadly threats as Nelson Mandela, Cat Stevens, and Ted Kennedy.
They already handled Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, and JFK. Why change their modus operandi now? Stick with what you know.
If you believe you have some kind of "employment contract", you are wrong. Ever single document I have seen from an employer since around 1980 states specifically that "this is not a contract for employment".
This is why even high-tech industries benefit from collective bargaining agreements. They won't keep you from being fired if you're a horrible worker, but typically will keep you from being fired because your nose isn't firmly planted in your bosses backside and the boss has it in for you.
I've seen people that have slipped up and done something incredibly stupid that they should be let go for, but because it was a single lapse in judgment they were able to negotiate a "resign and purge" and not have a single stupid mistake hanging over them the rest of their career.
I didn't RTFA either.
I didn't RFTA, but doesn't sound like you can't just carry your laptop in a reused cheap plastic grocery bag to security and then once you are past security slip it in to a Targus/Timbuk2/Crumpler/Chrome/whatever laptop bag with zippers, pockets and everything else.
indiscriminately sucking off
More than just a slip
pagan relics stored beneath the Vatican... I would think that the Catholic church could at least (as a sign of good faith) return these to their descendants
The most important 'relic' the Vatican had has been moved to a hot dog stand in Washington
the Bible clearly not only says there should be churches but gives some loose guidelines as to how they should function.
And also commands that your churches should not have stairs, as someone below could look up your robe and see your scrotum. It's in there somewhere but I don't have my copy of Ken's Guide to the Bible on me to check where.
Here comes Fox News to sue you for slandering Fox News.
The law only works when there is plenty of room for common sense. Unfortunately since there either isn't room or someone drives a truck full of stupid through that open door, the law in this country [the USofA-holes] often doesn't work.
Internet in 1984 surprises me less than that there was ever a time when Slashdot wasn't full of Apple fan bois.