He doesn't have to try to get loyal employees - both major political parties are assisting him and every other large company in getting workers on the cheap from some piss-poor 3rd world country to do our jobs for 1/10 the cost or less...whether by outsourcing or by moving the whole company there. *Those* folks will be loyal, because the alternative is to live in absolute squalor. The only jobs left in this country that you will be able to eke out a middle-class living or better will be lawyer, doctor, VPs, executives, and CxO. Everyone else will be in "service industry" job (you want fries with that?) or on welfare.
Welcome to globalism. It's all about the "staying competitive" strawman. I don't think even laissez-faire folks would have been on board with today's globalism. It fucks everyone over but board members, CxOs, and executives.
If said CEO does enough "globalism", he could make 100 million, and to hell with the country that actually affords him that opportunity.
Quit your whining.I'm not even working, thank you very much...I've been out of work for almost four months now. My unemployment "benefits" are going to run out soon, and you are worried about what you got for your Christmas bonus.
And I haven't gotten a Christmas bonus since 1994, and I've made my share of money for my bosses. It didn't chafe, though, because I was paid what I thought was a decent salary.
Be happy you are working - there are plenty of highly qualified people (like me) who are not.
I know you haven't! I think I spent 20% or more of my time over my career cleaning up after these people.
Unfortunately, if these people are good at kissing ass, they stay, and the good people go.
That was the situation at the last job, anyway. And the incompetent fool that was left behind only made slightly less than me...even if I was paid TWICE as much as that person, it still is going to cost them much more...maybe even if I was paid 5x as much as that "developer". I'm serious. We're talking about someone who didn't even know what Usenet or Google Groups search was. We're talking about someone who didn't know what "patterns" were - never even heard of them. We're talking about someone who doesn't comment code at all, and was constantly breaking others' code to try to "fix" something in their own. Someone who would constantly make UNDOCUMENTED changes to PRODUCTION database systems without using the database modeling tool, which archives changes. Someone who thought they were a "DBA" because they could point and click in SQL Server Admin. And that's the most recent example...I could delve into various people I've worked with in the past nine years, and not many people here would be surprised because they have been subjected to the same, I'm sure.
The next job I land, I will be spending MUCH more effort relaying the screwups of my "peers", and making HIGHLY visible my accomplishments. It's unfortunate, because it actually makes me less productive, but that's the way it has to go I guess, if *I* am to stay employed. It infuriates me no end when I can name a dozen or so in-DUH-viduals who are still employed and produce nothing of value, while I sit at home unemployed month after month. It's partly my fault for not making sure the bosses at those jobs KNEW who was doing the screwing up.
I'm through with being a "team player" if it means more of this. When there were plenty of jobs to go around, playing along was fine. The situation has changed, so out come the knives, I'm afraid. Lord knows I had to pull a few out of my back after the last layoff.
My PHB is like this. He insists we use Oracle because we need an "industrial strength database", for a db with 40,000 records. Argh! Oracle is freaking expensive...
I couldn't agree more, but I'd also like to expand this to MS SQL Server - it also is expensive (for the enterprise edition) and its PR is even more adept at brainwashing PHBs. For a relatively small DB, a PHB CTO at the last job suggested we continue to use MS SQL Server and give them even more money for a shitty DB, because he wanted to add another instance of the DB, and pay 15K or whatever for that license, too....we could easily do with Postgres (or MySQL for that matter) but he thought he was some sort of DBA....his other suggestions were to do all coding in the DB, too, using stored procedures (when you learn how to use a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail), but that's another whole story altogether. A freaking idiot, but now he's busy running that company into the ground, and I have no job.
Oracle or maybe DB2 should be used for the truly big databases, and Postgres for the midsize and maybe MySQL for smaller projects, IMHO. MS SQL Server is *so* frustrating because anyone who can point and click in that GUI admin tool thinks they are DBAs, and hence you have to deal with fuckups from the likes of these people - I have seen it *literally* dozens of times. These same dipshits will go and directly modify tables in this GUI instead of in the proper place: a modeling tool that has archives of changes. It's also frustrating because of the various misfeatures I've run into over the years.
But what I've noticed is that the least qualified people are the ones who are the ones makes decisions on key things like these. I've also noticed they are apt to look to the dumbest programmers or "admins" in the staff to "help" them. So I'm sure that people will continue to use shitty products like MS SQL Server because it can enable low-paid bungling fuckups to be "productive".
If you aren't really trolling, and you really think it's worth paying for quality software, why would you pick a crappy RDBMS like MS SQL Server over something with a far better track record, like Oracle or DB2?
Coding is not an engineering discipline. Coding is typing.
This gets "informative"???!!!
Funny, I've never seen a certain amount of WPM asked for in a programming job description. Well, with that kind of attitude, I'm sure you'll be in management in no time...I wonder what you think a doctor or a lawyer does, then, with that kind of reductionist view: "doctoring is just cutting people open", or "law is just a lot of talk".
I'm sorry, but with your view of coding, you don't have any business doing it. People very well can (and have) died from bugs.
All your points are very good and valid ones. However, the only people who can seriously effect a positive change are the people doing the hiring, and doing the "managing". If these folks continue set the bar of excellence by "X years using Y tool/language/methodology", then they will continue to get shitty workers, because even an idiot can stumble along at various jobs doing Y until he reaches X, and it's no measure of his talent, skill or knowledge.
I've also noticed that people who have fallen backwards into coding are often rewarded for their skills at brown-nosing or the gift of gab (the meaningless how's-the-weather type of chit-chat), and those who are really good at what they do, and can and do help others around them do better, are not always justly rewarded - in fact, I've been reprimanded for helping team members - I was told I "talk too much". In fact, those that are NOT in M0 seem to be rewarded the most, even if most of the team-members really despise working with these types of folks, because of all the crap code they produce.
Why the hell would you be wasting your time even acknowledging a salesman. Not too mention letting one try to "manage" you. allowing such a thing demonstrates a total lack of confidence and assetiveness which adversely impacts ones employment in tough times. When the axe falls, the weak get cut off. You can be the best IT worker int eh world, in a corporation, you still have to demonstrate the traits which a corporation finds desirable in all workers.
Believe me, I try. I am an exemplary worker, and I can give employers outstanding referrals from former contracts and jobs I've had. I also have plenty of confidence in my skillset..but when your other option is not to work, or work in, say, retail, you will have to listen to even the biggest of idiots, especially if they are "in" with the company owner. Just because YOU have not been placed in this position (yet) does not mean it can't happen to you, and that situations like this aren't pretty common these days.
BTW: This sales guy was only managing for a short time, and it was a very small company. But he had to be tolerated because he was the buddy of the CEO. One of my co-workers was a complete nitwit, but she would go out of her way to kiss ass, while the rest of us would be actually getting things done, or cleaning up her mess. Guess who's still working, and who isn't?
Lastly, it's not the weak that *necessarily* get cut first. It would make the most sense in a free market economy if that were the truth, but reality isn't always that way. The brown-nosers stay to the last, I've noticed - the ones who play golf with the CEO/CTOs of the world, not the most competent. That's not to say that some chaff has not been done away at the beginning of this down market, but now it seems to me it's down to nepotists and brown-nosers who are keeping their jobs the most frequently.
I have worked with several competent people at contracts and I know the skill layouts at those places - the competent got cut, and less-than-able people were kept. It's not cost-cutting, it's more likely to be who is buddies with whom.
Your other comments also seem to assume that there isn't a sea change taking place. That sea change is globalism and the strength of the American dollar pushing companies to outsource to every Third World country they can find.
I would recommend to ANYONE still in college to steer clear of CS and engineering, too. I'd say go for something where you will have some kind of dignity. Maybe doctor or lawyer.
Even during the boom years, there was very little dignity given to CS folks. It was done only very begrudgingly, and if "dignity" only means high salaries (with looooong hours) and giving people Nerf guns but still putting them in cubes, then my definition of dignity is way off.
For the past 2 or so years of the down market (job market didn't *really* start sliding everywhere until late 2000, even though stock market took a serious dip in beginning of 2000), I was treated like a slave - I had SALES guys "managing" me, telling me that they could replace me tomorrow, etc. etc., and that's only when I was working. I have been out of work 6+ months in those 2+ years.
I don't remember doctors or lawyers ever being run out of their chosen field. It seems to happen a lot in engineering and CS.
As for some folks who said that CS degree will give you that edge - well, out of the hundreds of resumes some of these jobs are getting, I guess I will be in the "top" portion of these - but I have no idea what that percentage is. Even if it's only 10%, that still puts me in with 30, 40, 50 other people competing for the same job. If you like those odds, go for it.
I used to have two house mates many years ago, and when watching something we were really interested in, two of us would hit "mute" when ad came on, and un-mute after it was over, and we'd usually gab about whatever during commercial, occasionally glancing to see if the show was back on. Commercials grate on the nerves.
The other asked us why we do that...we were both speechless for a heartbeat, and then we had to explain how irritating we find commercials - they are louder, they are demeaning to the intelligence, they are lying, etc...he still didn't get it.
When it was something we were only "marginally" interested in, we'd sometimes watch 3-4 shows...flipping back and forth, usually triggered by a commercial.
I've always watched TV in this manner. And then, I got Tivo.
I've spent most of my adult life not seeing (many) commercials on TV, and much of my childhood I didn't even HAVE A TV! Call me a criminal.
When people say, "Didja see that commercial where..." I'm that guy with the clueless look on his face...pure, blissful ignorance.
I find popups to be annoying, and over-use of flashing banners on the top, both sides, and at the bottom with 1x1 sq inch reserved for content. But casual use is tolerable, I suppose.
Here's one thing to be thankful for, though: I haven't seen any that use sound. [Diety] help us all if that happens...
There doesn't seem to be any way to get it into some companies' heads that I DO NOT WANT TO BE ADVERTISED TO...and I can't even pay to get them off my back, which I would gladly do. Think about it:
1. Magazines. 2. TV - even when PAYING (~$50 these days) for cable, I still see commercials. Why is that? 3. Tivo - even though I pay for the service, they still "sponsor" this and that. WTF? 4. Web browsing - few sites offer a "members-only" AD-FREE portion of the site. 5. Phones - now companies are suing to get the "rights" to sell my info? What about MY rights? That's my info you have there, Mr. Head of Company. 6. Then there's the hospitals...who give your info out to folks when, say, your family has a baby. 7. DVDs!!! 8. Movies at the theater!!! 9. It just goes on and on...
I'm not confused about the need to advertise in the free market, but not one of these offer me discounts to advertise to me(phone companies, for example), or else they don't give me the option to pay a bit more to not get spammed.
Uh, no. I saw similar logic applied a few years back when the opportunities were much better. A QA person was saying that "developers should be forced to stay and debug their work", because he was tired of the turnover that he thought resulted in a crappy product. That logic appears to be: our software is crap, so punish all developers. In that market, I don't know how you were going to MAKE anyone stay - it violates just about everything the free market is about, but anyway...
The correct conclusion should be: we should listen to our customers, and convey that message to our developers and testers, rather than trying to find new ways to make developers suffer. If developers (and testers) are treated civilly, they WILL STAY, and do a good job...there is usually a reason that people move on, and it's not always money, or working on "cool" stuff. Many/most times it's about poor leadership and poor working conditions (cubicle hell).
And I might remind managers out there that this applies even in a down market. Even in this market, some people are going to be able to and will work elsewhere, especially if you are being a raging idiot. And you lose that expertise. Turnover does cost, even if you have 500 resumes to choose from to fill a position.
My Dad, Mom, and Sister all run Windows 98. (I upgraded them from Win95 because it's pretty unstable).
I didn't know that there was a difference in stability in W95 vs. W98. I'm not being facetious, either. I ran 95 at one point at home, and at one point at work (?! Don't ask. Yes, it was a software shop. No, I can't explain it. Thankfully, that was a short-lived experience. Developing on W9x is EXTREMELY painful and frustrating what with the N reboots per hour.), and now I have a W98 box sitting off in the corner for the occasional random windoze task, but it is always crashing and hanging. I didn't perceive any more stability in this than when I ran W95, but to be fair, it's not the same hardware on the W98 as the box that was running W95.
What's the point if most managers want to control where you are in meatspace - most don't want you to telecommute, and some hit the roof if they can't find you during *lunchtime*, for Pete's sake...why would they pay for something that lets their workers roam?
You seem to be missing my original point, but regarding the suit: okay, people who are taking 10, 20, 25, and as high as 50% paycuts are now expected to maintain a high-cost, high-maintenance wardrobe, only because some upper-level management or HR folks want to exact some revenge?
Regarding doctors, lawyers, politicians, realtors, detectives and bankers: how many of these people face having their jobs outsourced overseas? Do YOU know what those code grinders in India/Pakistan/Singapore are wearing? Do you care? People don't treat me like a professional, even if I dress like one, so what's the point? I am and have been treated little better than a common ditch-digger. Also: I have never seen a doctor in a suit, and I have seen very few recruiters in suits. These people are different in any case: they are constantly immersed in clients/customers/PR, programmers like myself are constantly trying to get into what Peopleware calls "flow". Programmers are closer to scientists or, yes, artists, than they are to bankers, lawyers, or doctors, and so that implies a creative element to it. I'm not saying that programmers cannot wear suits for this reason, but there is little ROI for them or the company for them to be forced to do so - in fact, it may impair the performance of both. It certainly will increase turnover in the long term.
Regarding the nice suit, I know what a nice suit is like, trust me. But it's hard to justify the expense in this down market, other than for some HR person's revenge, and that was my point: HR people out for blood will come to no good end. Does your idea of being "professional" include revenge? If so, I want nothing to do with your brand of "professionalism".
Professional to ME means doing what you say you'll do, on time, under budget, showing up on time, being courteous, speaking standard English, and yes, some good grooming. I don't think that the grooming part necessitates a suit, especially if in the environment, you will never see a customer. I have worked places where I barely saw managers, for Pete's sake. Why on Earth would I waste all that money on good suits, even if it made me feel good? I wouldn't feel good about the non-tax-deductible expense I was incurring for no good reason. Plus, other coders wouldn't respect me if I was wearing a tie and/or suit....they'd think I was trying to compensate for a deficiency in my thought processes.
Bah. Obviously with you the arrogant dotcom attitude persists.
I don't think it does. I'm a humble person, I just expect some basic human decency when it comes to the workplace. Is that so wrong? I don't want people kissing my ass or anything, and I was never overpaid for what I provided. When HR at some companies are now making people dress up just to come in and sit at a computer all day, that's just vengeance, and it's not doing anyone any good. Not only that, but programmers that pissed off HR in the past aren't necessarily the ones that they are trying to punish now. Personally, I think HR is frantically trying to justify their own jobs, as are some lame-ass recruiters.
Anyway, I started working in development before the dot-com hysteria. I think the arrogance of some folks was due to either being young, and thus a sense of entitlement, or else as a direct reaction to the silliness of HR in the past. Unless HR wants people to act even more petulant in the future, I would say they shouldn't be ignorant at this time.
In any case, I agree that some of these "developers" need to be run out of the industry. I personally railed against them in other comments of mine on this article. I suggest you read those - you and I are in complete agreement on this point.
The downside to what'd I call a train wreck is that I now have to compete with the incompetents who were rightly cut from other jobs...and that's harder than it sounds. Some of these jagoffs may interview well if they get a "soft"* interview, while I might not do so great on those. Better than most, but still...
The bummer is that the dot-bomb didn't work out quite the way I thought it might - I thought the poseurs would be sought out quickly and canned, or the poseurs would get the message if they did get canned, and LEAVE and go back to whatever basketweaving background they had. But no, those folks aren't getting the message, and I have to compete with them just to get my resume even looked over at this point.
I just hope people start conducting better interviews. I did recently talk to a recruiter that's happy that other "car-dealer" type recruiters are getting run out of the industry, and the ones that actually know what the industry consists of (people like himself, he was good, and had many years of experience to boot) were the ones left standing. So maybe it is finally happening. I can only hope so. I have built my career on trying to do the right thing and to build a solid foundation, and to work side-by-side with incompetent jackasses or not working at all, while I personally know of a handful of people who are, but shouldn't be, is excruciatingly painful.
* By "soft", I mean those stupid interviews where they only ask number of years with a certain skilll, what kind of fish would you be, and other dumb questions, rather than putting you in front of someone you'd be working with or for, directly, and getting to the meat of things. Number of years of experience, with, say, EJB or some other tiny slice of this field doesn't tell anyone very much...someone may have been lucky enough or kissed enough ass to fall into doing, say, EJB, really early and has just done it (badly) ever since. Telling someone what kind of fish you'd be makes for great psych major fodder, but it's not very useful in the hard sciences, people. Some of these interviewers and recruiters and HR folks REALLY need a copy of Peopleware.
they dumped some wheat, and they dumped some chaffe.
Well, at the layoffs I went through, they dumped a lot of wheat, and kept a LOT of chaffe. But chaffe that kissed ass, and that explains much. It's NOT just a cost-cutting measure, it's a way to settle any old scores with people who didn't suck up enough to CEOs and CTOs who are megalomaniacs. Those who just kept working instead of going out of their way (except to occassionally point out their accomplishments) to kiss up were let go.
Some of this chaffe spent several HOURS a day kissing CTO or CEO ass. I'm serious. Now, that's some real productivity, but, hell, if the CTO/CEO feels like a rock star because of it, then it's all worthwhile!!!
The downsizings weren't that rational, from what I've seen. I dearly wish more of the deadwood had been cut, but I keep running into it.
Well, from what I've seen, it's not so much just the deadwood that WAS cut...from what I see, it was the asskissers who were left behind, and competent people who didn't play golf with the boss, or always tell him/her how "smart" they were, etc., were the ones who were cut. At the last job I had, I brought many skills to the table, and I was cheap, to boot. But they cut me and another developer who was equally, if not more qualified than me, and left an individual who was one of those Johnny-come-latelys with no business in this field - the kind that we saw so much of in the boom, but this one was spending copious time and effort kissing the ass of their superior.
So anyone who might have been thought of as "arrogant" or dangerous(read: knows what they are doing) to people like project managers/CTOs/CEOs that don't know what they were doing were cut. They'd rather have easily malleable idiots than brilliant people who might question them, even if what they are questioning is legitimate discussion, and not just being difficult.
Believe me, I know what you mean. In fact, the entire time I was at that job, I was constantly covering for that lame excuse for a developer, or else fixing their jumbled mess of code. No database design skills, no sense of the rich history of programming, no idea of what OO is, didn't know half the jargon....and lastly, and this is the best one, DIDN'T EVEN HEAR OF USENET until told about just a few weeks before I was laid off.
Oh well, those that surround themselves with incompetent yes-men and yes-women are doomed to failure, and they'll get what they so rightly deserve. When are people going to learn? When you start a company, or you move up in the company, it SHOULD be about making the company succeed, and making money, not feeling like a rock star because you manage a few people. Asskissers might make you feel like a rock star, but they WILL NOT tell you what you need to know to succeed, and they most certainly aren't doing what the company needs to succeed if they are spending so much time and energy kissing your ass. They'll "yes, sir" you right over the cliff, and ride your backside all the way down.
Companies chipping away at any sense of dignity in this field right now + any future turnaround = massive quitting in the future. Job jumping, etc. will be even more than it was in the late 90's.
And you HR/recruiters trying to get "revenge" on developers....shame on you. You'll pay for this in the future, so I wouldn't be so petty right now.
If you're older, this isn't an option, but if you are young enough (or young at heart enough), I'd say go back to school.
Pick a profession that won't be gone in a few years...if you think IT (this includes software development, too, BTW) will be a "profession" much longer, I think you are deluding yourself. Personally, I think programmers will rank up there with welders as far as job security goes. Maybe even lower. At least welders were smart enough to get some unions going, and there isn't rampant ageism in that field, either. As long as industries can send work to third-world countries like India, then this trend of joblessness will continue. There will be no dignity when you are "lucky" enough to be employed, either.
I see. Pointing out some facts is "sucking myself off". And I'm not Right Wing, thank you very much. And who said I'm a knee jerk U.S. cheerleader? I just choose NOT to play up the bad asspects, and de-emphasize the good.
Lastly, I think dissent that is reasoned out has merit, and it must be part of a free republic. On that we agree. However, many professors,* for example, think everything that the U.S. does is bad, and therefore knee-jerk Chomsky-style at every action taken by the U.S....that's not reasoned dissent by any stretch of the imagination.
* I don't think "demonizing" education, institutions, or intelligent people is necessary, either. But I find it interesting that you want me to practice dissent when it comes to government, but then it's "hands off" when it comes to education. And today's campuses need some examination and some overhauling. And if you don't think so, you are either so steeped in newthink that you can't reason anymore, or you aren't paying attention.
You probably enjoy Boortz and Hannity on the radio/web, yes?
Hey, I'm Libertarian, too! Actually, I listen to Quinn at http://www.warroom.com a lot. When I had cable, I did enjoy the program that Hannity was on: Hannity and Colmes (sp?). I also enjoyed O'Reilly. Both programs, H&C in particular, really seemed to promote and engage in a free and open debate, I think. Fox has a rap as being some tool of the Right, but I tend to disagree. O'Reilly and H&C regularly have people from the Left. When you are retaining someone like Ferraro (and I saw her on a lot), how biased to the right can you be? If Geraldo is on the payroll, etc...?
NPR has the same rep for the Left, but if you listen for a long enough time, they *usually* report fairly, I think.
Even if I don't like the other potential drivel the courts might spout, I'll gladly take an "interpretation" that provides a precedent for a right to reasonable privacy.
Yes, well, same here, in all honesty. But it sets (or rather, would be continuing) a bad precedent, IMHO. I'd much rather have it through something ratified by Congress...another amendment, or somesuch. "Reasonable" is very hard to define, though.:)
I'm not totally against writing stored procedures and such into the DB, but I am against doing it indiscriminately across the board, especially when it is dictated from "on high" by some poseur who knows vastly less than you do about maintaining a project or managing dependencies across development, QA, and production environments.
At the last job I had (laid off due to the schemings of the same dumbfuck I'm about to describe), some new whiz comes in as the CTO and a totally pro-MS guy and tells the Java programmers, myself included, to just "as we go along, move all logic into DB."
This was solely because HE DIDN'T KNOW JAVA. He thought it was because we didn't know RDBMS that we dug our heels in a bit - one of the co-workers who is too stupid and inexperienced to know better had been told to "always do stored procedures" by someone she worked with in the past, so she just started doing it, making us look like the ones who were not "team players", when in fact, we just wanted to avoid a maintenance nightmare or engaging in busywork so that a CTO can understand the codebase, all of which supplied no benefit. We gave the arguments in a rational manner - the CTO would go, "well, that sounds good, but do it, anyway", giving no argument for his side. Of course, the co-worker thought we didn't know how to do it, so she gave us a "lesson" in how to write stored procedures. I just about walked out of work that day - I have written stored procedures in at least five different types of databases, and called them from five different languages, and my junior is telling me how to do it. It got worse - because of this Benedict Arnold on our "team", we also had naming standards handed to us -- when we already HAD 170+ TABLES and a naming standard on those. But the new CTO could not perceive that we had naming conventions already, and by God, we were going to have to put those in, and "convert tables as we move forward, when we are in that code". Yes, there really are people that stupid out there running things, folks. It's not just in Dilbert strips. I was struck almost speechless by the depths of his stupidity. Unfortunately, the market doesn't always oust folks like this even in down markets, as much as they deserve it.
Well, the rest of the programming team was canned by this jackass CTO who was a wanna-be DBA. And he is still there, still making my ex co-worker move logic into the DB for NO BENEFIT!!! Nothing is faster because of this, unless you know what you are doing - I know, I spent 2.5 years doing a lot of serious PL/SQL coding and tuning, and I know T-SQL pretty well, too. And neither of these people know what they are doing, trust me.
I was glad when I got canned. Even in this economy, I'd rather look for something else than to work with and for ignorant dumbfucks who are posing as knowledgeable, and somehow respected by even dumber CEOs. Call me cynical. [Shrug]. Actually, I have a very good work attitude and ethic, but this was beyond the pale.
But I will have marshmallows handy when they go down in flames for decisions and for hiring incompetent asskissers who can talk a good line to clueless CEOs.
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He doesn't have to try to get loyal employees - both major political parties are assisting him and every other large company in getting workers on the cheap from some piss-poor 3rd world country to do our jobs for 1/10 the cost or less...whether by outsourcing or by moving the whole company there. *Those* folks will be loyal, because the alternative is to live in absolute squalor. The only jobs left in this country that you will be able to eke out a middle-class living or better will be lawyer, doctor, VPs, executives, and CxO. Everyone else will be in "service industry" job (you want fries with that?) or on welfare.
Welcome to globalism. It's all about the "staying competitive" strawman. I don't think even laissez-faire folks would have been on board with today's globalism. It fucks everyone over but board members, CxOs, and executives.
If said CEO does enough "globalism", he could make 100 million, and to hell with the country that actually affords him that opportunity.
Quit your whining.I'm not even working, thank you very much...I've been out of work for almost four months now. My unemployment "benefits" are going to run out soon, and you are worried about what you got for your Christmas bonus.
And I haven't gotten a Christmas bonus since 1994, and I've made my share of money for my bosses. It didn't chafe, though, because I was paid what I thought was a decent salary.
Be happy you are working - there are plenty of highly qualified people (like me) who are not.
I always sort by "Lowest rating first". It can give you a better idea, IMHO, to read these along with the top ones.
I haven't made any of these things up.
I know you haven't! I think I spent 20% or more of my time over my career cleaning up after these people.
Unfortunately, if these people are good at kissing ass, they stay, and the good people go.
That was the situation at the last job, anyway. And the incompetent fool that was left behind only made slightly less than me...even if I was paid TWICE as much as that person, it still is going to cost them much more...maybe even if I was paid 5x as much as that "developer". I'm serious. We're talking about someone who didn't even know what Usenet or Google Groups search was. We're talking about someone who didn't know what "patterns" were - never even heard of them. We're talking about someone who doesn't comment code at all, and was constantly breaking others' code to try to "fix" something in their own. Someone who would constantly make UNDOCUMENTED changes to PRODUCTION database systems without using the database modeling tool, which archives changes. Someone who thought they were a "DBA" because they could point and click in SQL Server Admin. And that's the most recent example...I could delve into various people I've worked with in the past nine years, and not many people here would be surprised because they have been subjected to the same, I'm sure.
The next job I land, I will be spending MUCH more effort relaying the screwups of my "peers", and making HIGHLY visible my accomplishments. It's unfortunate, because it actually makes me less productive, but that's the way it has to go I guess, if *I* am to stay employed. It infuriates me no end when I can name a dozen or so in-DUH-viduals who are still employed and produce nothing of value, while I sit at home unemployed month after month. It's partly my fault for not making sure the bosses at those jobs KNEW who was doing the screwing up.
I'm through with being a "team player" if it means more of this. When there were plenty of jobs to go around, playing along was fine. The situation has changed, so out come the knives, I'm afraid. Lord knows I had to pull a few out of my back after the last layoff.
My PHB is like this. He insists we use Oracle because we need an "industrial strength database", for a db with 40,000 records. Argh! Oracle is freaking expensive...
I couldn't agree more, but I'd also like to expand this to MS SQL Server - it also is expensive (for the enterprise edition) and its PR is even more adept at brainwashing PHBs. For a relatively small DB, a PHB CTO at the last job suggested we continue to use MS SQL Server and give them even more money for a shitty DB, because he wanted to add another instance of the DB, and pay 15K or whatever for that license, too....we could easily do with Postgres (or MySQL for that matter) but he thought he was some sort of DBA....his other suggestions were to do all coding in the DB, too, using stored procedures (when you learn how to use a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail), but that's another whole story altogether. A freaking idiot, but now he's busy running that company into the ground, and I have no job.
Oracle or maybe DB2 should be used for the truly big databases, and Postgres for the midsize and maybe MySQL for smaller projects, IMHO. MS SQL Server is *so* frustrating because anyone who can point and click in that GUI admin tool thinks they are DBAs, and hence you have to deal with fuckups from the likes of these people - I have seen it *literally* dozens of times. These same dipshits will go and directly modify tables in this GUI instead of in the proper place: a modeling tool that has archives of changes. It's also frustrating because of the various misfeatures I've run into over the years.
But what I've noticed is that the least qualified people are the ones who are the ones makes decisions on key things like these. I've also noticed they are apt to look to the dumbest programmers or "admins" in the staff to "help" them. So I'm sure that people will continue to use shitty products like MS SQL Server because it can enable low-paid bungling fuckups to be "productive".
If you aren't really trolling, and you really think it's worth paying for quality software, why would you pick a crappy RDBMS like MS SQL Server over something with a far better track record, like Oracle or DB2?
Coding is not an engineering discipline. Coding is typing.
This gets "informative"???!!!
Funny, I've never seen a certain amount of WPM asked for in a programming job description. Well, with that kind of attitude, I'm sure you'll be in management in no time...I wonder what you think a doctor or a lawyer does, then, with that kind of reductionist view: "doctoring is just cutting people open", or "law is just a lot of talk".
I'm sorry, but with your view of coding, you don't have any business doing it. People very well can (and have) died from bugs.
All your points are very good and valid ones. However, the only people who can seriously effect a positive change are the people doing the hiring, and doing the "managing". If these folks continue set the bar of excellence by "X years using Y tool/language/methodology", then they will continue to get shitty workers, because even an idiot can stumble along at various jobs doing Y until he reaches X, and it's no measure of his talent, skill or knowledge.
I've also noticed that people who have fallen backwards into coding are often rewarded for their skills at brown-nosing or the gift of gab (the meaningless how's-the-weather type of chit-chat), and those who are really good at what they do, and can and do help others around them do better, are not always justly rewarded - in fact, I've been reprimanded for helping team members - I was told I "talk too much". In fact, those that are NOT in M0 seem to be rewarded the most, even if most of the team-members really despise working with these types of folks, because of all the crap code they produce.
Why the hell would you be wasting your time even acknowledging a salesman. Not too mention letting one try to "manage" you. allowing such a thing demonstrates a total lack of confidence and assetiveness which adversely impacts ones employment in tough times. When the axe falls, the weak get cut off. You can be the best IT worker int eh world, in a corporation, you still have to demonstrate the traits which a corporation finds desirable in all workers.
Believe me, I try. I am an exemplary worker, and I can give employers outstanding referrals from former contracts and jobs I've had. I also have plenty of confidence in my skillset..but when your other option is not to work, or work in, say, retail, you will have to listen to even the biggest of idiots, especially if they are "in" with the company owner. Just because YOU have not been placed in this position (yet) does not mean it can't happen to you, and that situations like this aren't pretty common these days.
BTW: This sales guy was only managing for a short time, and it was a very small company. But he had to be tolerated because he was the buddy of the CEO. One of my co-workers was a complete nitwit, but she would go out of her way to kiss ass, while the rest of us would be actually getting things done, or cleaning up her mess. Guess who's still working, and who isn't?
Lastly, it's not the weak that *necessarily* get cut first. It would make the most sense in a free market economy if that were the truth, but reality isn't always that way. The brown-nosers stay to the last, I've noticed - the ones who play golf with the CEO/CTOs of the world, not the most competent. That's not to say that some chaff has not been done away at the beginning of this down market, but now it seems to me it's down to nepotists and brown-nosers who are keeping their jobs the most frequently.
I have worked with several competent people at contracts and I know the skill layouts at those places - the competent got cut, and less-than-able people were kept. It's not cost-cutting, it's more likely to be who is buddies with whom.
Well, you are assuming that he is a smart person.
Your other comments also seem to assume that there isn't a sea change taking place. That sea change is globalism and the strength of the American dollar pushing companies to outsource to every Third World country they can find.
I would recommend to ANYONE still in college to steer clear of CS and engineering, too. I'd say go for something where you will have some kind of dignity. Maybe doctor or lawyer.
Even during the boom years, there was very little dignity given to CS folks. It was done only very begrudgingly, and if "dignity" only means high salaries (with looooong hours) and giving people Nerf guns but still putting them in cubes, then my definition of dignity is way off.
For the past 2 or so years of the down market (job market didn't *really* start sliding everywhere until late 2000, even though stock market took a serious dip in beginning of 2000), I was treated like a slave - I had SALES guys "managing" me, telling me that they could replace me tomorrow, etc. etc., and that's only when I was working. I have been out of work 6+ months in those 2+ years.
I don't remember doctors or lawyers ever being run out of their chosen field. It seems to happen a lot in engineering and CS.
As for some folks who said that CS degree will give you that edge - well, out of the hundreds of resumes some of these jobs are getting, I guess I will be in the "top" portion of these - but I have no idea what that percentage is. Even if it's only 10%, that still puts me in with 30, 40, 50 other people competing for the same job. If you like those odds, go for it.
I used to have two house mates many years ago, and when watching something we were really interested in, two of us would hit "mute" when ad came on, and un-mute after it was over, and we'd usually gab about whatever during commercial, occasionally glancing to see if the show was back on. Commercials grate on the nerves.
The other asked us why we do that...we were both speechless for a heartbeat, and then we had to explain how irritating we find commercials - they are louder, they are demeaning to the intelligence, they are lying, etc...he still didn't get it.
When it was something we were only "marginally" interested in, we'd sometimes watch 3-4 shows...flipping back and forth, usually triggered by a commercial.
I've always watched TV in this manner. And then, I got Tivo.
I've spent most of my adult life not seeing (many) commercials on TV, and much of my childhood I didn't even HAVE A TV! Call me a criminal.
When people say, "Didja see that commercial where..." I'm that guy with the clueless look on his face...pure, blissful ignorance.
I find popups to be annoying, and over-use of flashing banners on the top, both sides, and at the bottom with 1x1 sq inch reserved for content. But casual use is tolerable, I suppose.
Here's one thing to be thankful for, though: I haven't seen any that use sound. [Diety] help us all if that happens...
Whatever happened to the micropayment model?
There doesn't seem to be any way to get it into some companies' heads that I DO NOT WANT TO BE ADVERTISED TO...and I can't even pay to get them off my back, which I would gladly do. Think about it:
1. Magazines.
2. TV - even when PAYING (~$50 these days) for cable, I still see commercials. Why is that?
3. Tivo - even though I pay for the service, they still "sponsor" this and that. WTF?
4. Web browsing - few sites offer a "members-only" AD-FREE portion of the site.
5. Phones - now companies are suing to get the "rights" to sell my info? What about MY rights? That's my info you have there, Mr. Head of Company.
6. Then there's the hospitals...who give your info out to folks when, say, your family has a baby.
7. DVDs!!!
8. Movies at the theater!!!
9. It just goes on and on...
I'm not confused about the need to advertise in the free market, but not one of these offer me discounts to advertise to me(phone companies, for example), or else they don't give me the option to pay a bit more to not get spammed.
Uh, no. I saw similar logic applied a few years back when the opportunities were much better. A QA person was saying that "developers should be forced to stay and debug their work", because he was tired of the turnover that he thought resulted in a crappy product. That logic appears to be: our software is crap, so punish all developers. In that market, I don't know how you were going to MAKE anyone stay - it violates just about everything the free market is about, but anyway...
The correct conclusion should be: we should listen to our customers, and convey that message to our developers and testers, rather than trying to find new ways to make developers suffer. If developers (and testers) are treated civilly, they WILL STAY, and do a good job...there is usually a reason that people move on, and it's not always money, or working on "cool" stuff. Many/most times it's about poor leadership and poor working conditions (cubicle hell).
And I might remind managers out there that this applies even in a down market. Even in this market, some people are going to be able to and will work elsewhere, especially if you are being a raging idiot. And you lose that expertise. Turnover does cost, even if you have 500 resumes to choose from to fill a position.
My Dad, Mom, and Sister all run Windows 98. (I upgraded them from Win95 because it's pretty unstable).
I didn't know that there was a difference in stability in W95 vs. W98. I'm not being facetious, either. I ran 95 at one point at home, and at one point at work (?! Don't ask. Yes, it was a software shop. No, I can't explain it. Thankfully, that was a short-lived experience. Developing on W9x is EXTREMELY painful and frustrating what with the N reboots per hour.), and now I have a W98 box sitting off in the corner for the occasional random windoze task, but it is always crashing and hanging. I didn't perceive any more stability in this than when I ran W95, but to be fair, it's not the same hardware on the W98 as the box that was running W95.
What's the point if most managers want to control where you are in meatspace - most don't want you to telecommute, and some hit the roof if they can't find you during *lunchtime*, for Pete's sake...why would they pay for something that lets their workers roam?
You seem to be missing my original point, but regarding the suit: okay, people who are taking 10, 20, 25, and as high as 50% paycuts are now expected to maintain a high-cost, high-maintenance wardrobe, only because some upper-level management or HR folks want to exact some revenge?
Regarding doctors, lawyers, politicians, realtors, detectives and bankers: how many of these people face having their jobs outsourced overseas? Do YOU know what those code grinders in India/Pakistan/Singapore are wearing? Do you care? People don't treat me like a professional, even if I dress like one, so what's the point? I am and have been treated little better than a common ditch-digger. Also: I have never seen a doctor in a suit, and I have seen very few recruiters in suits. These people are different in any case: they are constantly immersed in clients/customers/PR, programmers like myself are constantly trying to get into what Peopleware calls "flow". Programmers are closer to scientists or, yes, artists, than they are to bankers, lawyers, or doctors, and so that implies a creative element to it. I'm not saying that programmers cannot wear suits for this reason, but there is little ROI for them or the company for them to be forced to do so - in fact, it may impair the performance of both. It certainly will increase turnover in the long term.
Regarding the nice suit, I know what a nice suit is like, trust me. But it's hard to justify the expense in this down market, other than for some HR person's revenge, and that was my point: HR people out for blood will come to no good end. Does your idea of being "professional" include revenge? If so, I want nothing to do with your brand of "professionalism".
Professional to ME means doing what you say you'll do, on time, under budget, showing up on time, being courteous, speaking standard English, and yes, some good grooming. I don't think that the grooming part necessitates a suit, especially if in the environment, you will never see a customer. I have worked places where I barely saw managers, for Pete's sake. Why on Earth would I waste all that money on good suits, even if it made me feel good? I wouldn't feel good about the non-tax-deductible expense I was incurring for no good reason. Plus, other coders wouldn't respect me if I was wearing a tie and/or suit....they'd think I was trying to compensate for a deficiency in my thought processes.
Bah. Obviously with you the arrogant dotcom attitude persists.
I don't think it does. I'm a humble person, I just expect some basic human decency when it comes to the workplace. Is that so wrong? I don't want people kissing my ass or anything, and I was never overpaid for what I provided. When HR at some companies are now making people dress up just to come in and sit at a computer all day, that's just vengeance, and it's not doing anyone any good. Not only that, but programmers that pissed off HR in the past aren't necessarily the ones that they are trying to punish now. Personally, I think HR is frantically trying to justify their own jobs, as are some lame-ass recruiters.
Anyway, I started working in development before the dot-com hysteria. I think the arrogance of some folks was due to either being young, and thus a sense of entitlement, or else as a direct reaction to the silliness of HR in the past. Unless HR wants people to act even more petulant in the future, I would say they shouldn't be ignorant at this time.
In any case, I agree that some of these "developers" need to be run out of the industry. I personally railed against them in other comments of mine on this article. I suggest you read those - you and I are in complete agreement on this point.
The downside to what'd I call a train wreck is that I now have to compete with the incompetents who were rightly cut from other jobs...and that's harder than it sounds. Some of these jagoffs may interview well if they get a "soft"* interview, while I might not do so great on those. Better than most, but still...
The bummer is that the dot-bomb didn't work out quite the way I thought it might - I thought the poseurs would be sought out quickly and canned, or the poseurs would get the message if they did get canned, and LEAVE and go back to whatever basketweaving background they had. But no, those folks aren't getting the message, and I have to compete with them just to get my resume even looked over at this point.
I just hope people start conducting better interviews. I did recently talk to a recruiter that's happy that other "car-dealer" type recruiters are getting run out of the industry, and the ones that actually know what the industry consists of (people like himself, he was good, and had many years of experience to boot) were the ones left standing. So maybe it is finally happening. I can only hope so. I have built my career on trying to do the right thing and to build a solid foundation, and to work side-by-side with incompetent jackasses or not working at all, while I personally know of a handful of people who are, but shouldn't be, is excruciatingly painful.
* By "soft", I mean those stupid interviews where they only ask number of years with a certain skilll, what kind of fish would you be, and other dumb questions, rather than putting you in front of someone you'd be working with or for, directly, and getting to the meat of things. Number of years of experience, with, say, EJB or some other tiny slice of this field doesn't tell anyone very much...someone may have been lucky enough or kissed enough ass to fall into doing, say, EJB, really early and has just done it (badly) ever since. Telling someone what kind of fish you'd be makes for great psych major fodder, but it's not very useful in the hard sciences, people. Some of these interviewers and recruiters and HR folks REALLY need a copy of Peopleware.
they dumped some wheat, and they dumped some chaffe.
Well, at the layoffs I went through, they dumped a lot of wheat, and kept a LOT of chaffe. But chaffe that kissed ass, and that explains much. It's NOT just a cost-cutting measure, it's a way to settle any old scores with people who didn't suck up enough to CEOs and CTOs who are megalomaniacs. Those who just kept working instead of going out of their way (except to occassionally point out their accomplishments) to kiss up were let go.
Some of this chaffe spent several HOURS a day kissing CTO or CEO ass. I'm serious. Now, that's some real productivity, but, hell, if the CTO/CEO feels like a rock star because of it, then it's all worthwhile!!!
The downsizings weren't that rational, from what I've seen. I dearly wish more of the deadwood had been cut, but I keep running into it.
Well, from what I've seen, it's not so much just the deadwood that WAS cut...from what I see, it was the asskissers who were left behind, and competent people who didn't play golf with the boss, or always tell him/her how "smart" they were, etc., were the ones who were cut. At the last job I had, I brought many skills to the table, and I was cheap, to boot. But they cut me and another developer who was equally, if not more qualified than me, and left an individual who was one of those Johnny-come-latelys with no business in this field - the kind that we saw so much of in the boom, but this one was spending copious time and effort kissing the ass of their superior.
So anyone who might have been thought of as "arrogant" or dangerous(read: knows what they are doing) to people like project managers/CTOs/CEOs that don't know what they were doing were cut. They'd rather have easily malleable idiots than brilliant people who might question them, even if what they are questioning is legitimate discussion, and not just being difficult.
Believe me, I know what you mean. In fact, the entire time I was at that job, I was constantly covering for that lame excuse for a developer, or else fixing their jumbled mess of code. No database design skills, no sense of the rich history of programming, no idea of what OO is, didn't know half the jargon....and lastly, and this is the best one, DIDN'T EVEN HEAR OF USENET until told about just a few weeks before I was laid off.
Oh well, those that surround themselves with incompetent yes-men and yes-women are doomed to failure, and they'll get what they so rightly deserve. When are people going to learn? When you start a company, or you move up in the company, it SHOULD be about making the company succeed, and making money, not feeling like a rock star because you manage a few people. Asskissers might make you feel like a rock star, but they WILL NOT tell you what you need to know to succeed, and they most certainly aren't doing what the company needs to succeed if they are spending so much time and energy kissing your ass. They'll "yes, sir" you right over the cliff, and ride your backside all the way down.
Companies chipping away at any sense of dignity in this field right now + any future turnaround = massive quitting in the future. Job jumping, etc. will be even more than it was in the late 90's.
And you HR/recruiters trying to get "revenge" on developers....shame on you. You'll pay for this in the future, so I wouldn't be so petty right now.
If you're older, this isn't an option, but if you are young enough (or young at heart enough), I'd say go back to school.
Pick a profession that won't be gone in a few years...if you think IT (this includes software development, too, BTW) will be a "profession" much longer, I think you are deluding yourself. Personally, I think programmers will rank up there with welders as far as job security goes. Maybe even lower. At least welders were smart enough to get some unions going, and there isn't rampant ageism in that field, either. As long as industries can send work to third-world countries like India, then this trend of joblessness will continue. There will be no dignity when you are "lucky" enough to be employed, either.
Like doctor or lawyer.
Quit sucking yourself off.
I see. Pointing out some facts is "sucking myself off". And I'm not Right Wing, thank you very much. And who said I'm a knee jerk U.S. cheerleader? I just choose NOT to play up the bad asspects, and de-emphasize the good.
Lastly, I think dissent that is reasoned out has merit, and it must be part of a free republic. On that we agree. However, many professors,* for example, think everything that the U.S. does is bad, and therefore knee-jerk Chomsky-style at every action taken by the U.S....that's not reasoned dissent by any stretch of the imagination.
* I don't think "demonizing" education, institutions, or intelligent people is necessary, either. But I find it interesting that you want me to practice dissent when it comes to government, but then it's "hands off" when it comes to education. And today's campuses need some examination and some overhauling. And if you don't think so, you are either so steeped in newthink that you can't reason anymore, or you aren't paying attention.
You probably enjoy Boortz and Hannity on the radio/web, yes?
:)
Hey, I'm Libertarian, too! Actually, I listen to Quinn at http://www.warroom.com a lot. When I had cable, I did enjoy the program that Hannity was on: Hannity and Colmes (sp?). I also enjoyed O'Reilly. Both programs, H&C in particular, really seemed to promote and engage in a free and open debate, I think. Fox has a rap as being some tool of the Right, but I tend to disagree. O'Reilly and H&C regularly have people from the Left. When you are retaining someone like Ferraro (and I saw her on a lot), how biased to the right can you be? If Geraldo is on the payroll, etc...?
NPR has the same rep for the Left, but if you listen for a long enough time, they *usually* report fairly, I think.
Even if I don't like the other potential drivel the courts might spout, I'll gladly take an "interpretation" that provides a precedent for a right to reasonable privacy.
Yes, well, same here, in all honesty. But it sets (or rather, would be continuing) a bad precedent, IMHO. I'd much rather have it through something ratified by Congress...another amendment, or somesuch. "Reasonable" is very hard to define, though.
Amen, brother.
I'm not totally against writing stored procedures and such into the DB, but I am against doing it indiscriminately across the board, especially when it is dictated from "on high" by some poseur who knows vastly less than you do about maintaining a project or managing dependencies across development, QA, and production environments.
At the last job I had (laid off due to the schemings of the same dumbfuck I'm about to describe), some new whiz comes in as the CTO and a totally pro-MS guy and tells the Java programmers, myself included, to just "as we go along, move all logic into DB."
This was solely because HE DIDN'T KNOW JAVA. He thought it was because we didn't know RDBMS that we dug our heels in a bit - one of the co-workers who is too stupid and inexperienced to know better had been told to "always do stored procedures" by someone she worked with in the past, so she just started doing it, making us look like the ones who were not "team players", when in fact, we just wanted to avoid a maintenance nightmare or engaging in busywork so that a CTO can understand the codebase, all of which supplied no benefit. We gave the arguments in a rational manner - the CTO would go, "well, that sounds good, but do it, anyway", giving no argument for his side. Of course, the co-worker thought we didn't know how to do it, so she gave us a "lesson" in how to write stored procedures. I just about walked out of work that day - I have written stored procedures in at least five different types of databases, and called them from five different languages, and my junior is telling me how to do it. It got worse - because of this Benedict Arnold on our "team", we also had naming standards handed to us -- when we already HAD 170+ TABLES and a naming standard on those. But the new CTO could not perceive that we had naming conventions already, and by God, we were going to have to put those in, and "convert tables as we move forward, when we are in that code". Yes, there really are people that stupid out there running things, folks. It's not just in Dilbert strips. I was struck almost speechless by the depths of his stupidity. Unfortunately, the market doesn't always oust folks like this even in down markets, as much as they deserve it.
Well, the rest of the programming team was canned by this jackass CTO who was a wanna-be DBA. And he is still there, still making my ex co-worker move logic into the DB for NO BENEFIT!!! Nothing is faster because of this, unless you know what you are doing - I know, I spent 2.5 years doing a lot of serious PL/SQL coding and tuning, and I know T-SQL pretty well, too. And neither of these people know what they are doing, trust me.
I was glad when I got canned. Even in this economy, I'd rather look for something else than to work with and for ignorant dumbfucks who are posing as knowledgeable, and somehow respected by even dumber CEOs. Call me cynical. [Shrug]. Actually, I have a very good work attitude and ethic, but this was beyond the pale.
But I will have marshmallows handy when they go down in flames for decisions and for hiring incompetent asskissers who can talk a good line to clueless CEOs.