IBM, Bell Labs and the pharmaceutical companies.. i.e. the exceptions.
Notice how every single reply uses the same two examples?
Mid-size employer Inc. doesn't invent things, and they certainly don't allow their employees the time or the incentive to either.
And unemployment continues to be at the lowest historical level coming out of a recession.
Tell that to the half-million out of work programmers. The $8.50 an hour grocery store/bookstore/restaurant job doesn't pay the mortgage. Unemployment doesn't count people who have given up looking either.
Given your obvious bias, you're really lacking in credibility here.
lol Certainly can't have a *bias* or anything. I never claimed to be objective. I can tell you I have not ONCE seen a "corporate" job where inventiveness or creativity was either encouraged or rewarded.
Really? Think it would have happened if it had to be run past middle management and had a "business case" made for it? Free hint: no. What was there prior to Linux that would qualify as its equivalent? If nothing, then it is an invention.
You are making a grave error if you think all large corporations are gray, dull bureaucracies. Many large corporations in fact supply wonderful environments that spawn incredible creativity and technological progress by their employees.
Well, goody for them. By and large, corporations exist for the express, exclusive purpose of providing middle managers a paycheck in exchange for obstructing and firing people.
By the way, most of your examples happened 30 years ago. These days, getting a company to stop hoarding money long enough to actually make progress at anything is the exception at best.
a steady wage while they are doing their inventing
That's even funnier than the article. What "steady wage?" You're kidding, right? Hundreds of thousands of people are being laid off every year, most for nothing more than doing a good job.
Big corporations don't invent anything, and the worst place in the world for an inventive, brilliant, highly intelligent and competent person (like an inventor) is a stultifying, closed-minded, skeptical, gray, dull bureaucracy (like a big corporation). Nothing will take the joy out of invention like having to appease a bunch of self-serving arrogant skeptics.
The days of the lone (or small group of) inventor(s) is just beginning. What about Linux, for example? Come on. This can't be serious.
The day we hand over the responsibility for progress to middle management is the day we better start preparing for a stagnant society.
As long as they don't make it dependent on Gecko, so it becomes part of the Gnome/Gecko/Galeon/Mozilla/Evolution/Nautilus vortex of doom. (Anyone who has tried to "upgrade" any of these programs likely understands).
I'm actually quite impressed with OpenOffice, given that it is probably at least twice as complex as Evolution, and it installs almost flawlessly. My guess is that StarOffice is at least as reliable as OpenOffice, or at least it should be.
The dependency tree for Evolution, OTOH is enough to make a brave man weep.
OAF BONOBO HOPELESSLY COMPLICATED EMBEDDED COMPONENT REFLECTION OBJECT INSTANTIATION REFERENCING BINARY FUNCTION ERROR!!! E-MAIL AND ADDRESS BOOK DISABLED! FIVE HOURS OF TEETH-GNASHING AND GARMENT-RENDING UPGRADING AWAITS!! PRODUCTIVITY FORFEITED FOR THE DAY AND MOST OF TOMORROW!!!
Would you like to add a new appointment?
Ever notice that if a slight breeze ruffles Evolution, the first to go is e-mail and the address book?
The average user doesn't know what a service pack is either, right? They do? Then why don't they know about TweakUI?
This "the average user is an empty-minded moron" elitism only serves to hold users (and developers) back. Instead of dumbing everything down, how about encouraging people to improve their knowledge? Know how to do that? Well, you start by NOT calling them morons.
..and people actually *complain* that everything is dumbed-down...
Right now, our need to accomplish has been turned inward, and our businesses are eating their own seed corn (shoddier products, more layoffs, bigger bonuses), while everyone else is looking for constant distractions, like what's at Blockbuster on Friday.
Working together to achieve something like landing on or colonizing the moon or another planet would only bring out the best in our society. Maybe all these highly technical people that our corporations seem to have no use for could contribute? Perhaps being a team player could be a positive goal instead of a cynical job "requirement."
We could use the advances in energy, information technology, engineering, biology and chemistry right about now anyway.
Well, someone has to provide jobs, and business certainly doesn't appear up to the task.
Shoddy products, poor customer service, wasted budgets, inept management, constant layoffs. Eventually former employees will get fed up (and they probably already are) and start their own companies.
A Renaissance of Entrepreneurship is precisely what the economy needs. Not more cubicles.
Management wants to have all the choices. Sorry. Those choices shouldn't be free.
"If you want this hard-won knowledge applied to your product, this employee wants a two-year guaranteed contract. If your company fails to keep him/her employed during that time, you will still be obligated to pay their salary."
If they balk, then they probably planned on laying people off early. If they REALLY planned to fulfill even the most minimal obligation to an employee, they should sign without hesitation.
They'll balk. Therefore, it doesn't make any difference what certifications someone has.
If they don't balk, it should at least shut down most of the "I feel like it" layoffs.
It might be a good idea to at least consider modifying the license so that commercially viable products aren't discouraged. Pre-existing ownership (not license, but ownership) of someone else's creative effort is an inequitable agreement, legal concerns notwithstanding.
Surely Bioware wouldn't exercise their rights under this license to acquire and then profit commercially from someone else's work? If Bioware would compensate a particularly good module team, then the license should state that, or at least allow for it. Id, for example, has always included commercial terms for their products.
Deep pockets, but only if it is to hire someone in another country.
Now, I'm all for free and open markets, but this doesn't sound like a choice.
What's the motivation? What's the benefit to not hiring someone here? Could it be that management is still having a tantrum about having to pay a living wage for a few years? Programmers gettin' too uppity?
Do you want to walk us through the highlights of your proposals?
Well, only if there's a point to doing so.
Excellent question.
If you already know what you want to do, maybe we should begin with that.
Yes. We should.
OK, well, We aren't going to continue to bet on Keywords
MEETING ADJOURNED.
Don't stand there and dance for quarters. Pick up your stuff and leave. Sell to buyers, not skeptics. Bill 'em for your time too. They could have sent this by e-mail. This kind of arrogance is designed to do two things:
Create a non-existent problem which they will solve at your expense.
Create an illusory bargaining chip which will be traded for all of your value
Don't believe the hype. The only way to negotiate with arrogance is to close the door, while it still belongs to you. Meeting adjourned. ^^
MSFT recruiting would be a positive message to employees.
A positive message doesn't pay the mortgage. Thanks guys. You're wonderful people.
This perfectly illustrates the non-future that W-4 employment is becoming. Oh, and for all you boardroom-apologists: this happens ALL THE TIME. Don't even try to argue about it.
I wonder which of these managers are free agents. While we're at it, if people are so "free" why do they make the hiring process more grueling than becoming an astronaut.
So when are the chickens hatched? Which paycheck? Which year? First? Fifth? Hopefully they'll hatch before the mortgage runs out, or the house will still be empty.
When employers can fire people without reason any time they feel like it, it is fundamentally unfair to then expect the employee (or ex-employee) to be locked into decades-long obligations with no alternative except to have their credit and finances destroyed unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat.
Claim "that's just the way it is" all you want, but if employers had to pay out a 30-year guaranteed contract for every employee, fired or not, they would gripe day and night.
With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence
This statement alone should form the basis for many kinds of IT decisions, not just purchasing. Absolute brilliance.
where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers.
Hear, hear. Stating that a smarter, better informed "consumer" is a better served consumer is profound in its simplicity, and it neatly states an irrefutable argument that I think developers and admins have been trying to put into words for decades.
There is no such thing as an entry level job anywhere. This is done on purpose because it gives hiring managers and HR people an "unanswerable question" to inflict on people, much like banks and other "front doors" to business.
Good IT people are still finding jobs and getting work, the people who arent are for the most part not cut out for it.
Well, that's the answer then. Those seven years I was just faking it. Guess all of the programmers I was working with were too. Now I can go be a fisherman.
So if we make money selling products and services abroad, is it so terrible that other countries do the same? That's the way the global free market works.
Yep. Right up to the point where nobody can afford the products produced by these companies. Then the whole thing goes *splat* and nobody has a job.
Of course, that won't show up on the corporate radar until 3 months ahead of time (quarterly earnings projections donchaknow), so until then its "fire the mortgage-holders, schedule more meetings and pass the donuts."
Slashdot Mirror
IBM, Bell Labs and the pharmaceutical companies.. i.e. the exceptions.
Notice how every single reply uses the same two examples?
Mid-size employer Inc. doesn't invent things, and they certainly don't allow their employees the time or the incentive to either.
And unemployment continues to be at the lowest historical level coming out of a recession.
Tell that to the half-million out of work programmers. The $8.50 an hour grocery store/bookstore/restaurant job doesn't pay the mortgage. Unemployment doesn't count people who have given up looking either.
Given your obvious bias, you're really lacking in credibility here.
lol Certainly can't have a *bias* or anything. I never claimed to be objective. I can tell you I have not ONCE seen a "corporate" job where inventiveness or creativity was either encouraged or rewarded.
Bell Labs is an exception, and UNIX was invented almost 40 years ago. Where are the job ads for inventors today? BZZZZZZZT Time's up!
Linux is not an invention
Really? Think it would have happened if it had to be run past middle management and had a "business case" made for it? Free hint: no. What was there prior to Linux that would qualify as its equivalent? If nothing, then it is an invention.
You are making a grave error if you think all large corporations are gray, dull bureaucracies. Many large corporations in fact supply wonderful environments that spawn incredible creativity and technological progress by their employees.
Well, goody for them. By and large, corporations exist for the express, exclusive purpose of providing middle managers a paycheck in exchange for obstructing and firing people.
By the way, most of your examples happened 30 years ago. These days, getting a company to stop hoarding money long enough to actually make progress at anything is the exception at best.
a steady wage while they are doing their inventing
That's even funnier than the article. What "steady wage?" You're kidding, right? Hundreds of thousands of people are being laid off every year, most for nothing more than doing a good job.
Absolute horsefeathers.
Big corporations don't invent anything, and the worst place in the world for an inventive, brilliant, highly intelligent and competent person (like an inventor) is a stultifying, closed-minded, skeptical, gray, dull bureaucracy (like a big corporation). Nothing will take the joy out of invention like having to appease a bunch of self-serving arrogant skeptics.
The days of the lone (or small group of)
inventor(s) is just beginning. What about Linux, for example? Come on. This can't be serious.
The day we hand over the responsibility for progress to middle management is the day we better start preparing for a stagnant society.
As long as they don't make it dependent on Gecko, so it becomes part of the Gnome/Gecko/Galeon/Mozilla/Evolution/Nautilus vortex of doom. (Anyone who has tried to "upgrade" any of these programs likely understands).
I'm actually quite impressed with OpenOffice, given that it is probably at least twice as complex as Evolution, and it installs almost flawlessly. My guess is that StarOffice is at least as reliable as OpenOffice, or at least it should be.
The dependency tree for Evolution, OTOH is enough to make a brave man weep.
OAF BONOBO HOPELESSLY COMPLICATED EMBEDDED COMPONENT REFLECTION OBJECT INSTANTIATION REFERENCING BINARY FUNCTION ERROR!!! E-MAIL AND ADDRESS BOOK DISABLED! FIVE HOURS OF TEETH-GNASHING AND GARMENT-RENDING UPGRADING AWAITS!! PRODUCTIVITY FORFEITED FOR THE DAY AND MOST OF TOMORROW!!!
Would you like to add a new appointment?
Ever notice that if a slight breeze ruffles Evolution, the first to go is e-mail and the address book?
sigh...
:end rant:
Yeah, but the average user.... blah blah blah
The average user doesn't know what a service pack is either, right? They do? Then why don't they know about TweakUI?
This "the average user is an empty-minded moron" elitism only serves to hold users (and developers) back. Instead of dumbing everything down, how about encouraging people to improve their knowledge? Know how to do that? Well, you start by NOT calling them morons.
..and people actually *complain* that everything is dumbed-down...
Right now, our need to accomplish has been turned inward, and our businesses are eating their own seed corn (shoddier products, more layoffs, bigger bonuses), while everyone else is looking for constant distractions, like what's at Blockbuster on Friday.
Working together to achieve something like landing on or colonizing the moon or another planet would only bring out the best in our society. Maybe all these highly technical people that our corporations seem to have no use for could contribute? Perhaps being a team player could be a positive goal instead of a cynical job "requirement."
We could use the advances in energy, information technology, engineering, biology and chemistry right about now anyway.
Hope is a powerful thing.
pony up...
fork over...
shell out...
Why is it the smaller the amount, the more often phrases like these are used? Does anyone *ever* "fork over" amounts more than $10?
sigh...
To succeed in a competitive job market, you need the extra edge that comes from having true passion for what you do.
Yep. Smart. Able. Ambitious. First ones to disagree with office politics and the first to be fired.
Jobs are not a market. It is a popularity contest. Only those who agree stay employed.
find what you love to do and ignore the Hot Careers lists.
Then, start your own company to do it.
Well, someone has to provide jobs, and business certainly doesn't appear up to the task.
Shoddy products, poor customer service, wasted budgets, inept management, constant layoffs. Eventually former employees will get fed up (and they probably already are) and start their own companies.
A Renaissance of Entrepreneurship is precisely what the economy needs. Not more cubicles.
"Guaranteed Contract"
Management wants to have all the choices. Sorry. Those choices shouldn't be free.
"If you want this hard-won knowledge applied to your product, this employee wants a two-year guaranteed contract. If your company fails to keep him/her employed during that time, you will still be obligated to pay their salary."
If they balk, then they probably planned on laying people off early. If they REALLY planned to fulfill even the most minimal obligation to an employee, they should sign without hesitation.
They'll balk. Therefore, it doesn't make any difference what certifications someone has.
If they don't balk, it should at least shut down most of the "I feel like it" layoffs.
It might be a good idea to at least consider modifying the license so that commercially viable products aren't discouraged. Pre-existing ownership (not license, but ownership) of someone else's creative effort is an inequitable agreement, legal concerns notwithstanding.
Surely Bioware wouldn't exercise their rights under this license to acquire and then profit commercially from someone else's work? If Bioware would compensate a particularly good module team, then the license should state that, or at least allow for it. Id, for example, has always included commercial terms for their products.
Very skeptical. Well done.
:)
If the BSA gets a court order, file a challenge, get a hearing and have the order quashed.
Legal system works both ways. Just because someone pays a filing fee doesn't give them the keys to the universe.
But move as much as possible to Linux (or Macs) anyway.
Ha! Mortgage...
House has probably long since been foreclosed, boarded up and turned into a Wal-Mart.
Deep pockets, but only if it is to hire someone in another country.
Now, I'm all for free and open markets, but this doesn't sound like a choice.
What's the motivation? What's the benefit to not hiring someone here? Could it be that management is still having a tantrum about having to pay a living wage for a few years? Programmers gettin' too uppity?
It's sickening.
Someone's been watching the History Channel again...
Well, only if there's a point to doing so.
Excellent question.
If you already know what you want to do, maybe we should begin with that.
Yes. We should.
OK, well, We aren't going to continue to bet on Keywords
MEETING ADJOURNED.
Don't stand there and dance for quarters. Pick up your stuff and leave. Sell to buyers, not skeptics. Bill 'em for your time too. They could have sent this by e-mail. This kind of arrogance is designed to do two things:
Don't believe the hype. The only way to negotiate with arrogance is to close the door, while it still belongs to you. Meeting adjourned. ^^
IP is the asset, people are free agents.
Then...
MSFT recruiting would be a positive message to employees.
A positive message doesn't pay the mortgage. Thanks guys. You're wonderful people.
This perfectly illustrates the non-future that W-4 employment is becoming. Oh, and for all you boardroom-apologists: this happens ALL THE TIME. Don't even try to argue about it.
I wonder which of these managers are free agents. While we're at it, if people are so "free" why do they make the hiring process more grueling than becoming an astronaut.
It's sickening.
So when are the chickens hatched? Which paycheck? Which year? First? Fifth? Hopefully they'll hatch before the mortgage runs out, or the house will still be empty.
When employers can fire people without reason any time they feel like it, it is fundamentally unfair to then expect the employee (or ex-employee) to be locked into decades-long obligations with no alternative except to have their credit and finances destroyed unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat.
Claim "that's just the way it is" all you want, but if employers had to pay out a 30-year guaranteed contract for every employee, fired or not, they would gripe day and night.
With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence
This statement alone should form the basis for many kinds of IT decisions, not just purchasing. Absolute brilliance.
where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers.
Hear, hear. Stating that a smarter, better informed "consumer" is a better served consumer is profound in its simplicity, and it neatly states an irrefutable argument that I think developers and admins have been trying to put into words for decades.
Just because you make money doesn't necessarily mean you have to have it tied up somewhere.
Yeah, like a roof. Sheesh. What's the matter with people these days? They should just pay cash for a lean-to.
Most companies could care less.
There is no such thing as an entry level job anywhere. This is done on purpose because it gives hiring managers and HR people an "unanswerable question" to inflict on people, much like banks and other "front doors" to business.
but really, can we expect the job market to be as good for IT people since the Internet bubble burst?
Yes. We can. Every business now depends on computers. There are five-figures of jobs advertised on Dice... perpetually.
Companies that use "well, the Internet bubble burst" as an excuse are about 80% of the problem.
keep their skills current
as dictated by the ever-knowledgeable managment, right?
and their pay expectations realistic.
Food, clothing, shelter. Every day. That realistic enough? But can't have that obviously.
Good IT people are still finding jobs and getting work, the people who arent are for the most part not cut out for it.
Well, that's the answer then. Those seven years I was just faking it. Guess all of the programmers I was working with were too. Now I can go be a fisherman.
Please.
So if we make money selling products and services abroad, is it so terrible that other countries do the same? That's the way the global free market works.
Yep. Right up to the point where nobody can afford the products produced by these companies. Then the whole thing goes *splat* and nobody has a job.
Of course, that won't show up on the corporate radar until 3 months ahead of time (quarterly earnings projections donchaknow), so until then its "fire the mortgage-holders, schedule more meetings and pass the donuts."
The corporations are eating their own seeds.