Yeah, I was trying to resist; but I must admit my first thought once I read this article actually was "So Teacup Entropy physics, Bistromathics and the Someone Else's Problem field may actually work."
Actually the first two companies were rapidly expanding companies that were trying to build their business in as rapid a fashion as possible. Both were in the distribution business serving consumers directly. The first company didn't want to hire consultants because at the time it was looking at a long growth curve and wanted good employees long term. The second wanted someone who could fill multiple roles, obviously tough to find, but neither role was enough to hire a full time person. It was felt a person that was really good at one or the other and OK in second would be the best solution.
The third company was close to as you suggest. However, I included it to make a point that companies aren't always in a position to hire the best people, even if they'd really like to.
As for the last part, I've never been in a company that desired outsourcing. But I know people who have and from the situations their companies were in, this my understanding of the mindset of the executives involved. I didn't say I agreed with the decision. I shouldn't have included the last part but get rally pissed every time I hear this argument as it often seems to come from workers that I would have jettisoned if I'd had the option.
Once again, nobody gets everything they want. I guess your title sums up better what I was trying to say but was to enraged to put into words. Theres a good reason why I've only posted half a dozen times in something like five years:-)
Now that you mention it, you're correct that both never posted a salary range in the early stages of their hiring. Thats actually something I hadn't thought of.
Of the six or so hires only one ran as long as three months as I remember.
I'm extremely offended by the cultural bias comment. I can honestly say both companies were out to find the best people possible. As your mention of not posting salary suggests, we may have relied too much on luck for good applicants but from what I saw we honestly had a hard time finding the people we wanted from a skill set stand point.
> I see this short-sightedness so much in the industry it drives me nuts: YOU ARE NOT HIRING A SKILLSET, YOU ARE HIRING A PERSON
Sometimes you need a person, sometimes you need a person can perform like a cog.
If you've got the time and/or you're hiring before a project starts you really want a person. Everybody knows they make better employees long-term. What I find frustrating is that so many can't get it into their heads is that sometimes a cog is needed. Someone who can come in and get the job done and not complain about it. The amazing thing is that often times people who make great cogs end up becoming some of your best employees long-term. Why is this always short sighted? Why does the company always have to be the one to advance your career for you?
Now granted its never that simple, and yes companies over demand. By why shouldn't they? There's always a chance they'll get exactly what they want. Why not ask?
Oh and guess what! The people in finance and sales bitch about being cogs too. And you know who really complains about being cogs? Those folks working in your (or your clients) warehouse or the ones driving the trucks. How about that guy or gal who delivered your shiny new tech-toy. Bet they feel like a cog too. And the managers, well if they don't know the difference between a cog and person they've already sold their soul. If they do it means they spent some time in their life feeling like a cog.
Basically, everyone stop complaining! Everything in life is a trade off, both for you AND your employer. You (and they) can't have 100% what you want. If job security is what is most important to you, you better start realizing that your going to have to give up something else to guarantee your job. This list includes but is not limited to pay, respect, liking your boss, location and in extreme cases freedom.
I'd have to say I completely disagree with this. I'm getting really sick of hearing it too.
I've been a lead with three different companies in the upper mid-west since 1999. Two of those have been willing to pay whatever they had to for qualified programmers and had a hard time finding 'qualified applicants'. Its shocking how many times we would bring in a person who rated themselves a "8", "9", or "10" on a given programming language (Visual Basic at one and Python and Java in the other case) and it turned out they didn't understand a for loop or had never used ADO, et cetera. If you're a VB programmer self-rates as a 10 and you don't know what Oracle, ADO and ASP are and you walk into an interview with a company that needs exactly those three things and start demanding $75k a year don't be shocked when you get turned down. "Quality" is not based on a grading curve where just because you are a 7 and most of the people around you are 6s you become a 10.
The positions got filled eventually, but often weeks or months later then when we actually needed them. It caused project slippage, which in turn hurt both companies bottom line.
Now the third company, we needed SysAdmins, we were cash strapped, and we were up front about it. That time we went through referrals and got a lot better quality applicants, but unfortunately couldn't meet the price they deserved. We had to turn down some really good people because we couldn't afford them, but we never said they weren't qualified! We ended up having to widen our search to applicants we weren't as crazy about but could afford. It ended up really hurting us, our reliability plummeted, we lost clients and while the company is still around its basically just trying to wrap up operations.
All three companies needed people who were ready to hit the ground running. They needed people who had programmed or administered the technology they were using, not something similar. When you are midstream with the water rising you can't afford to bring on people who need time to learn a new technology or who by overrating their abilities make you wonder about their ability to learn and adapt in general. That doesn't mean that they are bad people or that they wouldn't have become the employees that we needed. It just means that they weren't what we needed RIGHT NOW.
If you aren't exactly what they need they aren't going to pay as much for you, period. Unfair? Nope. The company isn't getting your best work from you until you get up to speed with their needs.
When new people come into the market I always tell them the same thing. Learn as many skills as you can. Have a track record for learning quickly and being adaptable. If you can walk into an interview showing you've done high-quality work in two or three different languages and half a dozen APIs you will be given a lot more leeway than if you know only one language, rated yourself a 10 and when asked, can't explain what a vital portion of the language (like one of its most popular database interfaces) is.
As far as outsourcing goes, I think a lot of companies have grown tired of paying for people who think they are 9s and 10s but who are really 6s and 7s, demand to be paid like 10s and demand no risk in their employment. Executives in large companies have learned that given enough time even 5s and 6s will eventually get your product to market. When a company comes from India and says "We'll give you 7s and 8s and want to be paid like 6s." you assume they are 5s and hopefully have an 8 or 9 on their team and pull the trigger. Besides if they don't perform you can terminate the contract a whole lot easier than firing one of your own employees.
Bad decision? You bet! But after listening to your IT staff miss objective after objective for years you're willing to try something else.
Good Lord. Relax. Its a TV show not a doctoral thesis.
Everything about the way they produce and edit the show says edutainment. Also keep in mind each one hour show (minus commercials) covers between three to five different "myths". Their accuracy of measurement is dependent on the topic. In your example, we have a "fun" myth with low danger. Plus we have a high probablity of it looking cool on tape whether it works or not, which it probably will since the internet has several videos. I'd say "I think that was about twice as high" is a reasonable margin of error in that scenario.
Second, numbers and graphs don't mean much to most normal people. Take the "Will driving fast on a washboard make the ride smoother?" segment. They had some very good data from an accelerameter that actually had them questioning their perceptions. They also had a pyramid of wine glasses filled with water. The splashing water is easier for a normal person to translate into something they can relate to. A "horizontal acceleration of blah point blah blah m/s^2" means little, while most people have some idea the amount of force it takes to shake some water out of a glass (even if they don't know what force is).
In fact I thought they did a pretty good job of using the scientific method in that segment. When they got data they didn't expect they refined their experiment to eliminate variables and try to narrow in on what was *generally* happening.
Also I think when you hear someone mention science its usually Adam. Its safe to say that Adam doesn't always think things through. My guess is that what Adam usually means is he is *using* science, not *doing* science. Most people do not differentiate using scientific knowledge and using the scientific method. The show often uses scientific knowledge to make educated guesses about what will happen. Basically this is used to narrow "likely" outcomes. They use a fair amount of scientific knowledge for safety reasons as well. I'll even grant you that probably a good deal of the "using science" is some anonymous producer calling up a subject matter expert.
I will grant that they are taking short cuts. However, off hand I can't think of an episode where Jaime has stated that they were publishing their results in a peer reviewed journal.
At work I'm forced to write in VB. I'm trying to find a (hopefully Open Source) solution to generate documentation from in code documentation that I don't have to spend months teaching everyone how to use. It would preferably integrate with VSS as well (I'm also working on converting us to CVS;).
I could write something, but I'd rather not replicate previous work. Any suggestions?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I was trying to resist; but I must admit my first thought once I read this article actually was "So Teacup Entropy physics, Bistromathics and the Someone Else's Problem field may actually work."
Is that universe in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Actually the first two companies were rapidly expanding companies that were trying to build their business in as rapid a fashion as possible. Both were in the distribution business serving consumers directly. The first company didn't want to hire consultants because at the time it was looking at a long growth curve and wanted good employees long term. The second wanted someone who could fill multiple roles, obviously tough to find, but neither role was enough to hire a full time person. It was felt a person that was really good at one or the other and OK in second would be the best solution.
:-)
The third company was close to as you suggest. However, I included it to make a point that companies aren't always in a position to hire the best people, even if they'd really like to.
As for the last part, I've never been in a company that desired outsourcing. But I know people who have and from the situations their companies were in, this my understanding of the mindset of the executives involved. I didn't say I agreed with the decision. I shouldn't have included the last part but get rally pissed every time I hear this argument as it often seems to come from workers that I would have jettisoned if I'd had the option.
Once again, nobody gets everything they want. I guess your title sums up better what I was trying to say but was to enraged to put into words. Theres a good reason why I've only posted half a dozen times in something like five years
Now that you mention it, you're correct that both never posted a salary range in the early stages of their hiring. Thats actually something I hadn't thought of.
Of the six or so hires only one ran as long as three months as I remember.
I'm extremely offended by the cultural bias comment. I can honestly say both companies were out to find the best people possible. As your mention of not posting salary suggests, we may have relied too much on luck for good applicants but from what I saw we honestly had a hard time finding the people we wanted from a skill set stand point.
> I see this short-sightedness so much in the industry it drives me nuts: YOU ARE NOT HIRING A SKILLSET, YOU ARE HIRING A PERSON
Sometimes you need a person, sometimes you need a person can perform like a cog.
If you've got the time and/or you're hiring before a project starts you really want a person. Everybody knows they make better employees long-term. What I find frustrating is that so many can't get it into their heads is that sometimes a cog is needed. Someone who can come in and get the job done and not complain about it. The amazing thing is that often times people who make great cogs end up becoming some of your best employees long-term. Why is this always short sighted? Why does the company always have to be the one to advance your career for you?
Now granted its never that simple, and yes companies over demand. By why shouldn't they? There's always a chance they'll get exactly what they want. Why not ask?
Oh and guess what! The people in finance and sales bitch about being cogs too. And you know who really complains about being cogs? Those folks working in your (or your clients) warehouse or the ones driving the trucks. How about that guy or gal who delivered your shiny new tech-toy. Bet they feel like a cog too. And the managers, well if they don't know the difference between a cog and person they've already sold their soul. If they do it means they spent some time in their life feeling like a cog.
Basically, everyone stop complaining! Everything in life is a trade off, both for you AND your employer. You (and they) can't have 100% what you want. If job security is what is most important to you, you better start realizing that your going to have to give up something else to guarantee your job. This list includes but is not limited to pay, respect, liking your boss, location and in extreme cases freedom.
I'd have to say I completely disagree with this. I'm getting really sick of hearing it too.
I've been a lead with three different companies in the upper mid-west since 1999. Two of those have been willing to pay whatever they had to for qualified programmers and had a hard time finding 'qualified applicants'. Its shocking how many times we would bring in a person who rated themselves a "8", "9", or "10" on a given programming language (Visual Basic at one and Python and Java in the other case) and it turned out they didn't understand a for loop or had never used ADO, et cetera. If you're a VB programmer self-rates as a 10 and you don't know what Oracle, ADO and ASP are and you walk into an interview with a company that needs exactly those three things and start demanding $75k a year don't be shocked when you get turned down. "Quality" is not based on a grading curve where just because you are a 7 and most of the people around you are 6s you become a 10.
The positions got filled eventually, but often weeks or months later then when we actually needed them. It caused project slippage, which in turn hurt both companies bottom line.
Now the third company, we needed SysAdmins, we were cash strapped, and we were up front about it. That time we went through referrals and got a lot better quality applicants, but unfortunately couldn't meet the price they deserved. We had to turn down some really good people because we couldn't afford them, but we never said they weren't qualified! We ended up having to widen our search to applicants we weren't as crazy about but could afford. It ended up really hurting us, our reliability plummeted, we lost clients and while the company is still around its basically just trying to wrap up operations.
All three companies needed people who were ready to hit the ground running. They needed people who had programmed or administered the technology they were using, not something similar. When you are midstream with the water rising you can't afford to bring on people who need time to learn a new technology or who by overrating their abilities make you wonder about their ability to learn and adapt in general. That doesn't mean that they are bad people or that they wouldn't have become the employees that we needed. It just means that they weren't what we needed RIGHT NOW.
If you aren't exactly what they need they aren't going to pay as much for you, period. Unfair? Nope. The company isn't getting your best work from you until you get up to speed with their needs.
When new people come into the market I always tell them the same thing. Learn as many skills as you can. Have a track record for learning quickly and being adaptable. If you can walk into an interview showing you've done high-quality work in two or three different languages and half a dozen APIs you will be given a lot more leeway than if you know only one language, rated yourself a 10 and when asked, can't explain what a vital portion of the language (like one of its most popular database interfaces) is.
As far as outsourcing goes, I think a lot of companies have grown tired of paying for people who think they are 9s and 10s but who are really 6s and 7s, demand to be paid like 10s and demand no risk in their employment. Executives in large companies have learned that given enough time even 5s and 6s will eventually get your product to market. When a company comes from India and says "We'll give you 7s and 8s and want to be paid like 6s." you assume they are 5s and hopefully have an 8 or 9 on their team and pull the trigger. Besides if they don't perform you can terminate the contract a whole lot easier than firing one of your own employees.
Bad decision? You bet! But after listening to your IT staff miss objective after objective for years you're willing to try something else.
Good Lord. Relax. Its a TV show not a doctoral thesis.
Everything about the way they produce and edit the show says edutainment. Also keep in mind each one hour show (minus commercials) covers between three to five different "myths". Their accuracy of measurement is dependent on the topic. In your example, we have a "fun" myth with low danger. Plus we have a high probablity of it looking cool on tape whether it works or not, which it probably will since the internet has several videos. I'd say "I think that was about twice as high" is a reasonable margin of error in that scenario.
Second, numbers and graphs don't mean much to most normal people. Take the "Will driving fast on a washboard make the ride smoother?" segment. They had some very good data from an accelerameter that actually had them questioning their perceptions. They also had a pyramid of wine glasses filled with water. The splashing water is easier for a normal person to translate into something they can relate to. A "horizontal acceleration of blah point blah blah m/s^2" means little, while most people have some idea the amount of force it takes to shake some water out of a glass (even if they don't know what force is).
In fact I thought they did a pretty good job of using the scientific method in that segment. When they got data they didn't expect they refined their experiment to eliminate variables and try to narrow in on what was *generally* happening.
Also I think when you hear someone mention science its usually Adam. Its safe to say that Adam doesn't always think things through. My guess is that what Adam usually means is he is *using* science, not *doing* science. Most people do not differentiate using scientific knowledge and using the scientific method. The show often uses scientific knowledge to make educated guesses about what will happen. Basically this is used to narrow "likely" outcomes. They use a fair amount of scientific knowledge for safety reasons as well. I'll even grant you that probably a good deal of the "using science" is some anonymous producer calling up a subject matter expert.
I will grant that they are taking short cuts. However, off hand I can't think of an episode where Jaime has stated that they were publishing their results in a peer reviewed journal.
Zooooooooonk!
At work I'm forced to write in VB. I'm trying to find a (hopefully Open Source) solution to generate documentation from in code documentation that I don't have to spend months teaching everyone how to use. It would preferably integrate with VSS as well (I'm also working on converting us to CVS ;).
I could write something, but I'd rather not replicate previous work. Any suggestions?