I disagree with the statement that front line workers get the axe first. Usually when that happens, it's in a company with a strong union. In many situations, upper and middle managers get let go long before the front line workers. Why? Well I am glad you asked, because when a company is going down it's best to keep things moving on the 'factory floor'.
Ah, but AT&T did get away with it. Let's review. Excite is bankrupt and knows AT&T wants to buy their badly run company. Excite tries to force AT&T to renegotiate a deal that they agreed to previously...oh but..wait...we can't make any money. Whaaa. Look, all excite was trying to do is force AT&T into a renegotiation so they coudl make money..then their stock would rise...making it more expensive for AT&T to buy when Excite has already proven how badly it is run. If you were AT&T would you have done it? C'mon. Last year when AT&T Broadband was in the hole and sinking they reorganized their company and you know what? It worked. In fact AT&T BB is AT&T's brightest asset by far right now. I am glad Excite is going down: They controlled access for Charter/Comcast/AT&T and others and to me that isn't choice for the customer.
Well, it's because AT&T actually owns the majority of equipment it's cusomters use. I for one, am glad to see that port blocking pig excite@home go down.
That line is hilairious. However, what is the difference between sitting around in a dark room munching pills and listening to electronic music and sitting on your couch in a dark room munching fritos and watching television?
If the music and show are of the popular variety there is no difference at all. I can see only one area where this whole frontal lobe thing is going to make any difference. In the courts. People will begin blaming things they have done on their undeveloped frontal lobe further obscuring the real issue. The real issue is that someone wanted to get into the news and they know that allieviating responsibility while substituing a scapegoat is an wasy way to accomplish that.
BUT they are both victimless except in extreme cases (guy on coke while driving company vehicle or disgruntled employee decides to take advantage of MS Exchange's features and email everyone on the planet). So, to a lot of us, they are the same and should both be legal. Your argument that people shouldn't equate two things because one is currently illegal is just silly. What? Once some asshole decides what is right for the wrong reason no one can have an opinion?
"I can send those documents to someone else, who can just open them by a mouseclick, they can insert remarks and send it ack. Nice."
Spreading those nasty little macro virii everywhere. Ain't it great? It's all so convenient.
Well gee, would someone please explain why it makes any difference whether or not corporations have more money than governments? Is this really news? Where have you people been for the last 20 years. Of course big business influences governments and thankfully so because do you really want everyday people influencing government?? Come on. Most people can't take care of themselves let alone decide what's right for everyone else. Especially politicians. Don't give me any of that EU shit either. I lived in Europe for quite some time and I tell you what, it is no better than anywhere else (SE Asia, Central America, and especially not the USA).
In short. Only the lives of the extremely sheltered would be damaged by being exposed to the kind of material an AOL censor sees. I should know because I worked that job and others for AOL from 1995 until 1998. At AOL you don't just see this working for CAT. It is everywhere. The tech support reps hear it on the phone from customers as do the billing reps. In fact, I have to say that working the phones at AOL was much more stressful than answering email or canceling accounts for TOS violations. Here is the thing - while the person from the call center in NM says that they were always told to follow company policy that is hardly what happens. In fact, most AOL techs were given little guidance on what to do and so just did it their own way. I handed out addresses to porn sites when requested and instructed the same people on how to get porn from newsgroups. I handed out URLs and search engine tips like no tomorrow. I was monitored on many of these calls but did management ever say a word about helping the customer? Hell no. I was good. I gave the caller's what they wanted. Aside from fixing everything from their operating system installs to AOL's shitty software I provided a full service guide to the internet and had an average call time of about 5 minutes. It took me way to long to realize that I was actually too good. On the list not to promote due to high performance..etc etc. The article writer mentions high promotion rates at AOL. That only happens when a new call center is opened and after that it's kiss ass to move up. They never cared about their employees and stole employee ideas suggested at keyword 2 cents without even giving recognition. They lie constantly to employees. etc etc...not to mention customer complaints. AOL was by far the worst company I have ever worked for. On the other hand AOL stock has been good to me and will continue to do so in the near future. Steve Case and crew know what they want and they know how to get it which I can't say for many companies out there. They are a Juggernaut because they learned a long time ago that ANY press is good press...in fact bad press is probably better because it's free. They litter the world with their software and have spammed usenet to death at times. Their TOS rules are silly and aren't really an attempt to stop anything. They shun the porn trading that made them what they are today. I could go on for days. When I worked their the janitors were making more than the call center workers. So...then I left AOL to work for MediaOne and some of the same situations arose. One night some coworker's and I were monitoring our channels as we should. Pimps up Hos Down was on Skinimax. Some bible thumper that works here passed buy and noticed the tv. She filed an HR complaint to which I replied - "You work for the fucking cable company...you personally recommend this shit daily." It was dropped. Why did it happen? If you don't like what your company is selling, go work elsewhere.
Thanks for the outstanding article. The problem I have with the H-1B Visa is that I don't believe it is our governments business to provide a means for companies to get lower wage employees. The IT worker shortage has always been a scam. Companies with the resources should start training programs and have their new employees agree to length of service contracts to make sure the training company reaps the rewards of the training. Companies without the budget requirements to run training programs probably can afford to hire experienced programmers and they should. From what I have seen of the corporate development model the average programmer doesn't really need to have a large skillset, but programmers without a lot of corporate support do. Why shouldn't American citizens be upset over giving away good jobs and lowering their salaries? The people that came to the US on H-1B Visas should have read the CONTRACT (because it is a contract). However, I feel the best answer to this dilemma is to let the current H-1B Visa holders stay, but not to issue any more. I am for corporations, but NOT for corporate welfare.
I have read some disparaging remarks on/. regarding this issue. Racist, Nationalist, Anti-US etc etc... I feel that US Citizens should look into the issue deeper as there are valid reasons for wanting this program to DIE. I think foreign readers of/. should stop making blanket remarks about Americans being racist. I have lived in 3 other countries (Germany,Thailand,Panama) and visited many others for extended stays and the level of racism in those countries was even more visible than here in the USA. Fuck people...India, from what I have read, still has a fucking caste system. Just because it was outlawed doesn't mean it went away so anyone from any of the countries I have personally been to that says the US has a race problem...is right, however they should take a closer look at the countries they left first. Don't cloud the real issue (scamming the US workers). Our government requires that we pay taxes in order to support public education and I have been paying my entire working existence. Foreign people who say that the American education system sucks may be right, but then they really don't have the right to influence what we do here in the first place. To hear companies say there is a shortage when I and many others can prove that there isn't, is fucking bullshit.
It seems odd to me that you should hate MySQL users exclusively when they brag about what they use. MS SQL...well it sucks (and yes I have used it in production). Oracle is well...bloated and complete overkill for most web work. Many of it's 'features' just get in the way. MySQL is great for select oriented web work but when I hit a few million queries/inserts a day on anything I am responisble for...you can bet your ass it will be using Oracle especially if it requires transactions (and people...sorry to tell you...regardless of what you have been told...not everything needs transcations. There was a reason TCX left them out). I will have to try PostgreSQL again soon, but the last time I checked it out it ran badly(that was a while back...admittedly). I see no reason to flame MySQL for it's lack of features over and over. The people at TCX have created a fine product and I am sure that newer versions of PostgreSQL are much better than previous releases. This doesn't mean I am going to go back and port everything over to PostgreSQL. They actually ran this test on a single processor pc?
Sure...however, I worked tech support for years and trained many people (women and men). Some were rotten at the job, some were good. However, most women that work technical jobs don't seem to be as involved in the technology as their male counterparts. Of course there are women out there who are very involved...but they are a relative minority of female computer users. I would like to see this change (My wife is a programmer as am I...a lot of friends of mine are female programmers). Articles like this aren't really doing women justice (or men for that matter). In fact, what the article stated was just about what I expect and knew already. That MOST women just aren't too concerned about how all this tech stuff works. That is sad, because isn't that what kept women behind the secretaries desk all those years instead of in the office running the business? I was hoping that by now I would be seeing less and less of this kind of article and more articles about women making a difference in areas like coding. I also hate reading that all men do online is look at porn. While I don't know any female Linux Pros...I do know a few Female Solaris Pros.
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I disagree with the statement that front line workers get the axe first. Usually when that happens, it's in a company with a strong union. In many situations, upper and middle managers get let go long before the front line workers. Why? Well I am glad you asked, because when a company is going down it's best to keep things moving on the 'factory floor'.
Roadrunner had to be dropped due to their involvement with Time Warner as per the merger agreement (MediaOne, AT&T).
Ah, but AT&T did get away with it. Let's review. Excite is bankrupt and knows AT&T wants to buy their badly run company. Excite tries to force AT&T to renegotiate a deal that they agreed to previously...oh but..wait...we can't make any money. Whaaa. Look, all excite was trying to do is force AT&T into a renegotiation so they coudl make money..then their stock would rise...making it more expensive for AT&T to buy when Excite has already proven how badly it is run. If you were AT&T would you have done it? C'mon. Last year when AT&T Broadband was in the hole and sinking they reorganized their company and you know what? It worked. In fact AT&T BB is AT&T's brightest asset by far right now. I am glad Excite is going down: They controlled access for Charter/Comcast/AT&T and others and to me that isn't choice for the customer.
Well, it's because AT&T actually owns the majority of equipment it's cusomters use. I for one, am glad to see that port blocking pig excite@home go down.
That line is hilairious. However, what is the difference between sitting around in a dark room munching pills and listening to electronic music and sitting on your couch in a dark room munching fritos and watching television?
If the music and show are of the popular variety there is no difference at all. I can see only one area where this whole frontal lobe thing is going to make any difference. In the courts. People will begin blaming things they have done on their undeveloped frontal lobe further obscuring the real issue. The real issue is that someone wanted to get into the news and they know that allieviating responsibility while substituing a scapegoat is an wasy way to accomplish that.
BUT they are both victimless except in extreme cases (guy on coke while driving company vehicle or disgruntled employee decides to take advantage of MS Exchange's features and email everyone on the planet). So, to a lot of us, they are the same and should both be legal. Your argument that people shouldn't equate two things because one is currently illegal is just silly. What? Once some asshole decides what is right for the wrong reason no one can have an opinion?
"I can send those documents to someone else, who can just open them by a mouseclick, they can insert remarks and send it ack. Nice." Spreading those nasty little macro virii everywhere. Ain't it great? It's all so convenient.
Well gee, would someone please explain why it makes any difference whether or not corporations have more money than governments? Is this really news? Where have you people been for the last 20 years. Of course big business influences governments and thankfully so because do you really want everyday people influencing government?? Come on. Most people can't take care of themselves let alone decide what's right for everyone else. Especially politicians. Don't give me any of that EU shit either. I lived in Europe for quite some time and I tell you what, it is no better than anywhere else (SE Asia, Central America, and especially not the USA).
In short. Only the lives of the extremely sheltered would be damaged by being exposed to the kind of material an AOL censor sees. I should know because I worked that job and others for AOL from 1995 until 1998. At AOL you don't just see this working for CAT. It is everywhere. The tech support reps hear it on the phone from customers as do the billing reps. In fact, I have to say that working the phones at AOL was much more stressful than answering email or canceling accounts for TOS violations. Here is the thing - while the person from the call center in NM says that they were always told to follow company policy that is hardly what happens. In fact, most AOL techs were given little guidance on what to do and so just did it their own way. I handed out addresses to porn sites when requested and instructed the same people on how to get porn from newsgroups. I handed out URLs and search engine tips like no tomorrow. I was monitored on many of these calls but did management ever say a word about helping the customer? Hell no. I was good. I gave the caller's what they wanted. Aside from fixing everything from their operating system installs to AOL's shitty software I provided a full service guide to the internet and had an average call time of about 5 minutes. It took me way to long to realize that I was actually too good. On the list not to promote due to high performance..etc etc. The article writer mentions high promotion rates at AOL. That only happens when a new call center is opened and after that it's kiss ass to move up. They never cared about their employees and stole employee ideas suggested at keyword 2 cents without even giving recognition. They lie constantly to employees. etc etc...not to mention customer complaints. AOL was by far the worst company I have ever worked for. On the other hand AOL stock has been good to me and will continue to do so in the near future. Steve Case and crew know what they want and they know how to get it which I can't say for many companies out there. They are a Juggernaut because they learned a long time ago that ANY press is good press...in fact bad press is probably better because it's free. They litter the world with their software and have spammed usenet to death at times. Their TOS rules are silly and aren't really an attempt to stop anything. They shun the porn trading that made them what they are today. I could go on for days. When I worked their the janitors were making more than the call center workers. So...then I left AOL to work for MediaOne and some of the same situations arose. One night some coworker's and I were monitoring our channels as we should. Pimps up Hos Down was on Skinimax. Some bible thumper that works here passed buy and noticed the tv. She filed an HR complaint to which I replied - "You work for the fucking cable company...you personally recommend this shit daily." It was dropped. Why did it happen? If you don't like what your company is selling, go work elsewhere.
Thanks for the outstanding article. The problem I have with the H-1B Visa is that I don't believe it is our governments business to provide a means for companies to get lower wage employees. The IT worker shortage has always been a scam. Companies with the resources should start training programs and have their new employees agree to length of service contracts to make sure the training company reaps the rewards of the training. Companies without the budget requirements to run training programs probably can afford to hire experienced programmers and they should. From what I have seen of the corporate development model the average programmer doesn't really need to have a large skillset, but programmers without a lot of corporate support do. Why shouldn't American citizens be upset over giving away good jobs and lowering their salaries? The people that came to the US on H-1B Visas should have read the CONTRACT (because it is a contract). However, I feel the best answer to this dilemma is to let the current H-1B Visa holders stay, but not to issue any more. I am for corporations, but NOT for corporate welfare.
/. regarding this issue. Racist, Nationalist, Anti-US etc etc... I feel that US Citizens should look into the issue deeper as there are valid reasons for wanting this program to DIE. I think foreign readers of /. should stop making blanket remarks about Americans being racist. I have lived in 3 other countries (Germany,Thailand,Panama) and visited many others for extended stays and the level of racism in those countries was even more visible than here in the USA. Fuck people...India, from what I have read, still has a fucking caste system. Just because it was outlawed doesn't mean it went away so anyone from any of the countries I have personally been to that says the US has a race problem...is right, however they should take a closer look at the countries they left first. Don't cloud the real issue (scamming the US workers). Our government requires that we pay taxes in order to support public education and I have been paying my entire working existence. Foreign people who say that the American education system sucks may be right, but then they really don't have the right to influence what we do here in the first place. To hear companies say there is a shortage when I and many others can prove that there isn't, is fucking bullshit.
I have read some disparaging remarks on
It seems odd to me that you should hate MySQL users exclusively when they brag about what they use. MS SQL...well it sucks (and yes I have used it in production). Oracle is well...bloated and complete overkill for most web work. Many of it's 'features' just get in the way. MySQL is great for select oriented web work but when I hit a few million queries/inserts a day on anything I am responisble for...you can bet your ass it will be using Oracle especially if it requires transactions (and people...sorry to tell you...regardless of what you have been told...not everything needs transcations. There was a reason TCX left them out). I will have to try PostgreSQL again soon, but the last time I checked it out it ran badly(that was a while back...admittedly). I see no reason to flame MySQL for it's lack of features over and over. The people at TCX have created a fine product and I am sure that newer versions of PostgreSQL are much better than previous releases. This doesn't mean I am going to go back and port everything over to PostgreSQL. They actually ran this test on a single processor pc?
Sure...however, I worked tech support for years and trained many people (women and men). Some were rotten at the job, some were good. However, most women that work technical jobs don't seem to be as involved in the technology as their male counterparts. Of course there are women out there who are very involved...but they are a relative minority of female computer users. I would like to see this change (My wife is a programmer as am I...a lot of friends of mine are female programmers). Articles like this aren't really doing women justice (or men for that matter). In fact, what the article stated was just about what I expect and knew already. That MOST women just aren't too concerned about how all this tech stuff works. That is sad, because isn't that what kept women behind the secretaries desk all those years instead of in the office running the business? I was hoping that by now I would be seeing less and less of this kind of article and more articles about women making a difference in areas like coding. I also hate reading that all men do online is look at porn. While I don't know any female Linux Pros...I do know a few Female Solaris Pros.