If it didn't include all the IE DLLs that you used in the app, then yeah, I'd expect it to do something like ask the user to download them. Actually, that's a more graceful reaction than I would expect.
Well, the OCX control for IE was included, apparently, but I guess that version of IE wasn't installed on the other machine, so it insisted that IE be installed. That bothered me because this program just suddenly became an advertisement for the latest version of IE, and I had nothing to do with it.
Now if the Grid control or something were missing, you're right, I would expect the program to just pop up a red X dialog and crash.
I have to say that Linux in general and desktop software in particular have made unbelievable progress in just the past year or two. Gnome only looks to be improving. I'm not sure what I think of Mono yet, but I can say that I am not even remotely interested in.NET, and here's why:
I did VB development, among other things, for about 7 years. I started with version 3 (on three floppies on a 386/25) and worked on every version through VB6. I pushed VB about as far as it could be pushed (DirectX calls, BitBlts, API, simulated inheritance, etc.)
But one day, I embedded the SHDOC control (web browser) in a program I was writing. Not thinking much about it, I built a setup file, and then tried to install it on another machine. When the form opened, a dialog box appears "This program requires the latest version of Internet Explorer, would you like to upgrade now?" or something similar.
I thought to myself, "so now *my* program is promoting IE??? Huh?????" Nothing in the development process said anything about this. Needless to say I was not only confused, but a little annoyed.
I was never really all that impressed with VB (or Windows development) from that point forward. I've never seen anything like that with any other development system. I'm far more intrigued with Linux, because it is a great web development platform, and it has some hugely improved programs which have become available recently.
For example, I just spent a couple of days drafting a document in Openoffice. As far as I could tell, the program has all the features necessary to write good documents (formatting by paragraph type, header/footer, page numbering, proper graphics support with the possible exception of PNG in some cases), and, unlike my ancient 16-bit version of WordPerfect, it doesn't crash on page breaks and between graphics.
After drafting, I e-mailed it using Evolution, which has every feature I remember from Outlook (and some new ones).
Now I'm typing this comment on Mozilla, which, AFAIC is the best web browser I've ever used, and it looks to be improving.
I'm very much looking forward to learning Python, PyGTK and XUL in the next few months. This covers everything that I remember "needing" Windows for.
At this point, I would look at anyone managing an IT or development project who rejected use of Linux out of hand as irresponsibly ignorant.
Maybe I'm missing something, but from here it looks like Linux is doing just fine on the desktop... wait, EIGHT desktops.:)
if you can't figure out an alternative you deserve to go out of business.
The success of my business should not be the purview of Mastercard.
Half of your customers posess no other form of currency than a MasterCard...
Well, if they have a MasterCard, and no other credit card...
...
People would rather buy on-line with a credit card. We aren't set up to take checks or money orders, because we can't afford it and nobody wants to pay by check anyway.
So, they want to buy...
...with a credit card...
...and all they have is a Mastercard.
And Mastercard just lost us a customer. If it happens enough, we go out of business. Why? Mastercard.
Now that I've drawn the map, hopefully it will be easier to understand.
Get together with other small businesses and jointly purchase big-business privlidges.
Like accepting Mastercard? Oh, wait... we're not allowed to. Is this making sense yet?
Every IT/technical/engineering/science person I know is out of work, except for one, and they are miserable and under constant threat of imminent layoff. I have one other friend who has been working steadily for a few years, but making about 1/3 of what they need for basics.
I know one person who has sent out 2000 resumes, and gotten one interview since 12/00 which abruptly concluded (unsuccessfully, of course) after the answer to the question "how old are you?"
I know another person with an MA who was told they were unqualified to work part-time at a bookstore.
Of the two dozen people that were laid off with me at the last large company I worked at, only one is employed, and not in IT. The guy with the 4 year-old daughter is now raising his six year old daughter in another country. The layoff cost him about $40,000 including his kids' college fund.
30,000 tech jobs on Dice.
That enough evidence? See a problem here? As far as I'm concerned, with my unscientific sample, unemployment is about 80%. For me, it's 100%.
I've got 50 karma (about 14 today), so... so what?
All this talk of the US cell phones being so broken compared to Europe and Japan? Tsk tsk tsk...
Shame.
and all those intelligent, educated software engineers sitting at home reading the want ads, deciding whether to become a plumber or an electrician....
really is a shame...
see any CONNECTION HERE?? MANAGEMENT???? HELLO?????????
Well, of course you don't. Hurry along now, you're late for your all-day meeting!
Someone said "it'll get worse before it gets better?" I sure hope not.
Like your degree or experience entitles you to live a life of luxury.
No. But my degree AND experience entitles me to a fair evaluation for a job.
Businesses have a responsibility to hold up their end of the social contract.
Right now there are millions of kids in school who are being told "get good grades, work hard, get an education and when you graduate you'll get a good job." I know that because it's what *I* was told.
It is a lie.
Good jobs mean people are productive and happy. Real good jobs become CAREERS.
They can put down roots in a community, send their kids to school, pay taxes and build a home. They have something they can DEPEND ON.
Many people together doing this creates neighborhoods where kids develop friendships with other kids, community programs start, and people work together to build a nice life for themselves and their neighbors.
Sounds great, right? I haven't seen a community like this since the early 1980s, over 20 years ago. The only communities like this today are extremely affluent ones where the residents are almost never affected by mass random layoffs.
Take that same community about two years in and lay off 20% of the people. Homes are sold. Friendships lost. The neighborhood is diminished. People move away, or lose their homes completely. Those who remain fear for their jobs.
New people move in. Then the second wave hits. 30% this time. Half the neighborhood is gone. Everyone is confused. Nobody knows anyone. People work harder, and longer hours, thinking they might be next. The kids don't get to spend much time with their parents any more. People become gloomy and depressed. Community events are cancelled for non-participation. People spend a lot of time at home. People complain of fatigue.
More new people move in. Half the first group has already moved away because they couldn't find work. 10% more are laid off. Wages are cut elsewhere. People start to complain. Businesses fail because people either have no money or won't spend it. More people leave. Pretty soon you have an entire group of houses (no longer a neighborhood) where nobody knows anyone else. Kids aren't allowed outside any more. The neighborhood has died.
Everywhere I've lived since 1987 has been this way. That's what's wrong, and it is 100% the fault of businesses that don't keep up their end of the bargain. People have no incentive to do right if they cannot depend on the rewards.
Pretty soon, people will realize that nothing they do matters, and stop trying. Then we are really going to have problems. Banks, for example, will soon realize that having a job is no guarantee that someone can pay a mortgage. (This is already a fact, but banks, like all corporate businesses, are sometimes a little slow)
All a person has is their education and experience, and businesses have made both worthless. It took the hundreds of businesses I applied to only a few months to make my eight years experience utterly worthless.
"Put your education last and lie about your experience" is the accepted way to get hired now. Matter of fact, it is not much of a stretch to say it is the only way to get hired in a lot of cases.
Well, hired until management decides to lay off another 4000.
Surprise! There is no great crisis here (in an economic sense rather than individual personal crises)...
Surprise! I don't care about the economic sense! This is the longest I've been unemployed in 18 years! I'm not the only person having trouble getting ANY JOB either.
be prepared to ride this recession out
Well, it's been 14 months now. Granted I haven't been out of work the whole time, but 14 months? Are businesses REALLY that bad off? I doubt it.
Roast beef on wheat is a luxury. Great. I'm doing better than I thought.
$1000 for 600 sq ft apartment means your living in an area which is way too expensive.
That's the point.
$600k buys a luxuroius mansion not a house.
$600K buys a three bedroom house four blocks from here. Too expensive? Yep. Can anyone do anything about it? Nope. And this ain't even CLOSE to an expensive area.
my rent was less than $200/month
With how many roommates? Five? A 10x10 room for $200 a month I'll believe. An apartment? Not on this planet.
just over $30/month for food.
Really? What eight items at the grocery store can one buy to feed themselves for a month? A gallon of milk (which will not stretch to a month) is about $4.
Or is this just a tiny exaggeration designed to avoid the fact that the cost of living is out of reach of the average salary?
Now, I could easily survive comfortably on $1000/month.
Yeah. I could probably survive on $800 a month, but comes a time when a man would rather MAKE A LIVING than just "survive."
Yeah. Let's ask for a simple answer that'll fit in a text box so we'll have something to ridicule.
I don't know. I'm not that smart. What I do know is that what is happening is very corrosive, and business better get a handle on it, or the bill is eventually going to come due: meaning there won't be anyone left to buy their overpriced low-quality products.
Houses at $600K ($13K/month to qualify)
600 sq. ft. apartments at $1000/month (over 50% of the average wage)
$7 for a sandwich
Adds up. And there are two kinds of jobs where them houses, apartments and sandwiches are (and it isn't SV): $7/hr. at Wal Mart and that VB job that's been on Dice for three years. And THAT'S IT. I don't know how these other people are paying the bills, but my guess is that none of them have a current resume.
(For those of you watching at home, yes, that's ONE HOUR and 20 MINUTES OF WORK for a sandwich, after taxes.)
There, how's that for a troll? Maybe I'll get another 3: Insightful, eh?
That goes against every single item of information I have heard, seen or read in 18 months. The tech sector is at ZERO opportunity right now. There are people with THOUSANDS of resumes out that have gotten nothing.
Stop expecting jobs to be handed to you simply because you are qualified.
Was that supposed to make sense? I must have missed it. What else am I supposed to be except qualified? Or did that question just define everything that's wrong with business today?
What part of "Should they need you they will hire you" did you not understand?
"They will hire you." Because it's not true. They WON'T.
that you are only taking this job to pay the bills and absolutely WILL jump ship when times get better.
Oh, so the employee has to be true blue but the employer can throw 5000 people out in the street whenever they feel like it. Sounds great.
Business are only in it to make money, right? Well, GUESS WHAT?? EMPLOYEES are in it to PAY THE BILLS.
just take a look over in Europe
No. That's not what I said. Nice red herring. I said RESPONSIBILITY. Companies should not pull the rug out from under a man providing for a family who is doing a good job. It's wrong, and they know it, but they do it anyway (by the hundreds of thousands), and then hide behind "we're just in it to make money" when someone calls them on it.
Either change your tactice, or change your profession/field/industry, whatever.
Yeah. Throw eight years into the trash and start over in an entry-level job and try to retire on time. Sure. Uh huh.
when you get lucky once again this time
People shouldn't have to "get lucky" in order to feed themselves.
I am betting that at one time you had a nice phat paying techie job yet handled the money in perhaps not the most responsible mannner.
...and you'd lose. Management handled the jobs in not the most responsible manner, and I wasn't the only one affected. I watched a man kneel down and wipe tears away from his four-year-old daughters face in the parking lot as she asked "are you sad, Daddy?" I can tell you that I thought some very ugly things about the person who fired him (and me, and two dozen other people) that day. 10 days later, they were advertising to fill our positions again, through an agency.
I haven't purchased a single luxury item in 15 years. I was making a few bucks here and there, and could barely afford about 3/4 of the basics.
I think it's time to stop stereotyping and start realizing there are some major problems here. There should never be this many highly educated and qualified people unemployed. Period.
Plenty of people are living hand-to-mouth, have no savings, own nothing and are two paychecks away from being broke.
Plenty of people are underemployed, have nothing to do most of the day, and are tormented by management on purpose to get them to quit.
Plenty of people try to work hard and do a good job and get fired anyway.
Plenty of people have to choose between child care and medical insurance.
Plenty of people have to spend their retirement account on food.
Plenty of people have no meaningful contribution to their jobs.
Plenty of people spend the majority of their work day in unproductive meetings.
Plenty of people have to allow the company to control every moment of their workday, and attempt to control every moment of their off-time.
Plenty of people lose those jobs when management decides to reorganize the paradigms.
Plenty of people can't afford a house, ever.
Plenty of people can't afford to raise a family.
Plenty of people have watched their unemployment run out and the phone never rings.
Plenty of people have to lie in order to get hired.
Plenty of people have given up on ever finding another job, anywhere.
Yes, of course. All those thousands of people. It's all them. It's NEVER the fault of the incompetent people doing the hiring. It's never the fault of the businesses. They can do no wrong. They are blameless in their pursuit of profits.
Always better to blame anyone who complains than to fix the problem.
Businesses have no responsibility anymore. Just hire and fire whenever they feel like it. Pay a non-living wage. Work people 60 hours a week. Cut benefits. Increase overtime (on salary of course) and make people as miserable as possible while they are there... until they are fired.
This isn't just one opinion. There are thousands of people out there, many of which have been sitting unemployed for OVER A YEAR NOW. The economy is recovering. WHERE'S THE JOBS? NEWSFLASH: THERE AREN'T ANY.
No they won't. There are people with 10 TIMES my qualifications who have answered THOUSANDS of ads for work and gotten ZERO. THAT IS A FACT. I've applied for jobs I was PERFECTLY qualified for and gotten ZIP. I know a guy with an MA in English who applied for a part-time job at a bookstore.
"Got any experience selling books?"
"Uhhh.. well, I did my Master's Thesis on Library Science and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Graduate Degree in English."
(Translation: I've forgotten more about books than you, or anyone in this entire company put together will EVER know)
"Sorry. We need qualified people."
So, a guy with a MASTER'S DEGREE IN ENGLISH is unqualified to sell books. That's the reality of the job market now.
Even if they do hire anyone, they'll fire them in a week.
The smallest merchants pay over 300% more than the largest. More than just a bit.
Apparently they have lived up to their end of the agreement
No, they haven't. They pulled the rug out from under thousands of businesses. Most of them do not have the time or the money to pursue it, so they lose. Thousands more unemployed too.
Won't be long before people just don't believe a single word that comes out of a businessman's mouth.
Adapt or go out of business.
Yeah. You just lost half your market. Adapt. Sure.
everyone though that anything they do on the internet was guaranteed to succeed. Now people like yourself need to hit the realization that the internet doesn't change the fundamental nature of business.
Oh, please. We've been working at this for SIX YEARS. People like myself... please.
I admit they should have had a much earlier notice
For openers, but this was designed to be as painful as possible. I wonder how Mastercard's executives would respond if Congress made it illegal for them to do business west of the Mississippi? The whining would make a daycare center sound like a PBS round table.
That is the total, utter and absolute failure of corporate business. It is a tragedy of near epic proportions for this nation to have so many hundreds of thousands of qualified, educated, capable people sitting unemployed.
Corporate America should hang their heads in shame.
It is our own money. What, Mastercard is footing the bill on their own? Why do you think the little guy gets stuck with a 6-8% fee?
I can't understand why you and many others insist that credit card companies leave themselves at such risk without attempting to do anything about it.
They're welcome to do something about it, up to the point where it makes it nigh-unto impossible for us to properly serve our customers.
See, what a lot of people are forgetting here is that 30 days ago, Mastercard hadn't said a WORD about this. We were all working and selling under an agreement, and Mastercard was happily pulling down ten million a day in merchant fees. Now that we've established a relationship with the market, they switch terms and lock us out. That's flat out unfair. I don't care what they say about it either. We held up our end of the bargain (and PAID HANDSOMELY for it), they didn't. Period.
It's not a law or in the constitution. If a business hitches their wagon to a practice, and the practice is stopped for whatever reason, it's their responsibility to either find a new way to do business, or step aside while a competitor does. That's what free enterprise is all about.
Nope.
We didn't "hitch our wagon" to anything. It is not our responsibility to find a new way to do business either. It is MASTERCARD'S responsibility to live up to the agreement they made with their merchants and customers to allow them to do business AS AGREED, (and still in effect as of today) BOUGHT AND PAID FOR WITH LONG GREEN DOLLARS without INTERFERENCE by the mighty trademark holder.
Besides, that same speil about small businesses suffering is exactly what we heard when spammers objected to spam laws.
...and a fine red herring it is, but that is entirely different. We are being prevented from conducting commercial transactions with paying customers, not from sending advertisements to random people.
If there wasn't a law that ensured that consumers can't be held responsible for unauthorized purchases, you'd be singing a different tune.
No I wouldn't. It's not the consumer's fault, and it isn't our fault either. It is the fault of the person making the unauthorized purchase. That law is probably 97% of the reason credit card companies are making tens of million$ a day.
give a credit card number to amazon.com
Mastercard wouldn't *dare* screw with Amazon.com
There is nothing in place to stop them from doing just that with your bank account, credit card, whatever.
Other than the fact that it is bank and wire fraud? Maybe not.
Right now, it's a big free-for-all, and I think it's great that MasterCard is at least taking the first step to begin to tighten the reigns.
At the direct and unfair expense of the smallest businesses.
With all due respect to the fine people at Mastercard, this is their own responsibility, not ours. They set the system up this way, it is their responsibility to come up with ways to reduce (note I did NOT say eliminate) fraud, which I really don't think is as big a problem as they claim, and if it is, tough. That's THEIR PROBLEM.
They have a lot of highly-paid, very intelligent people working for them (supposedly). I'm sure they can figure it out. Maybe they should call a meeting. (there are times when I truly appreciate the easy availability of sarcasm).
They do not have the right to trample all over our businesses in order to fix it either. Maybe they might consider ASKING US to HELP them instead of issuing autocratic pronouncements from atop the corporate dais.
They can refuse to give you CREDIT if you can't prove you'd be a good investment.
We never asked for credit. We (always) pay our money through our vendors, we should get the service we paid for.
Mastercard should not then, HAVING EXPLICITLY ALLOWED US TO ESTABLISH A GOOD FAITH RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MARKETPLACE, turn around and build a wall between us and half our customers.
Slashdot Mirror
It wasn't just the control. It wanted to reinstall IE completely.
(Slow down Cowboy is getting REALLY old)
If it didn't include all the IE DLLs that you used in the app, then yeah, I'd expect it to do something like ask the user to download them. Actually, that's a more graceful reaction than I would expect.
Well, the OCX control for IE was included, apparently, but I guess that version of IE wasn't installed on the other machine, so it insisted that IE be installed. That bothered me because this program just suddenly became an advertisement for the latest version of IE, and I had nothing to do with it.
Now if the Grid control or something were missing, you're right, I would expect the program to just pop up a red X dialog and crash.
I have to say that Linux in general and desktop software in particular have made unbelievable progress in just the past year or two. Gnome only looks to be improving. I'm not sure what I think of Mono yet, but I can say that I am not even remotely interested in .NET, and here's why:
:)
I did VB development, among other things, for about 7 years. I started with version 3 (on three floppies on a 386/25) and worked on every version through VB6. I pushed VB about as far as it could be pushed (DirectX calls, BitBlts, API, simulated inheritance, etc.)
But one day, I embedded the SHDOC control (web browser) in a program I was writing. Not thinking much about it, I built a setup file, and then tried to install it on another machine. When the form opened, a dialog box appears "This program requires the latest version of Internet Explorer, would you like to upgrade now?" or something similar.
I thought to myself, "so now *my* program is promoting IE??? Huh?????" Nothing in the development process said anything about this. Needless to say I was not only confused, but a little annoyed.
I was never really all that impressed with VB (or Windows development) from that point forward. I've never seen anything like that with any other development system. I'm far more intrigued with Linux, because it is a great web development platform, and it has some hugely improved programs which have become available recently.
For example, I just spent a couple of days drafting a document in Openoffice. As far as I could tell, the program has all the features necessary to write good documents (formatting by paragraph type, header/footer, page numbering, proper graphics support with the possible exception of PNG in some cases), and, unlike my ancient 16-bit version of WordPerfect, it doesn't crash on page breaks and between graphics.
After drafting, I e-mailed it using Evolution, which has every feature I remember from Outlook (and some new ones).
Now I'm typing this comment on Mozilla, which, AFAIC is the best web browser I've ever used, and it looks to be improving.
I'm very much looking forward to learning Python, PyGTK and XUL in the next few months. This covers everything that I remember "needing" Windows for.
At this point, I would look at anyone managing an IT or development project who rejected use of Linux out of hand as irresponsibly ignorant.
Maybe I'm missing something, but from here it looks like Linux is doing just fine on the desktop... wait, EIGHT desktops.
Nothing wrong with an occasional colloquialism.
Then again, seeing a 55 y.o. PHB outside a meeting would be an incredible event, so there you go.
Isn't a corporation's first and foremost responsibility to its shareholders?
Time's up!
GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!
run-mozilla.sh
line 72
6681
Segmentation Fault $prog ${1+"$@"}
FYI
FWIW
Something on this page is crashing Mozilla 0.9.9 every single time the page is viewed.
Konqueror has no problem with it. So far.
and get a job.
LOL! Like it's up to the employee.
their Gimme!Gimme! attitude.
What, like "Gimme" a job? It only gets better.
Somthing *some* people don't understand.
Yeah. No one else works. Oooookay.
Big smile! BIIIIIG SMILE!!!!
if you can't figure out an alternative you deserve to go out of business.
The success of my business should not be the purview of Mastercard.
Half of your customers posess no other form of currency than a MasterCard...
Well, if they have a MasterCard, and no other credit card...
...
People would rather buy on-line with a credit card. We aren't set up to take checks or money orders, because we can't afford it and nobody wants to pay by check anyway.
So, they want to buy...
...with a credit card...
...and all they have is a Mastercard.
And Mastercard just lost us a customer. If it happens enough, we go out of business. Why? Mastercard.
Now that I've drawn the map, hopefully it will be easier to understand.
Get together with other small businesses and jointly purchase big-business privlidges.
Like accepting Mastercard? Oh, wait... we're not allowed to. Is this making sense yet?
Fine. I'll make a different argument.
Every IT/technical/engineering/science person I know is out of work, except for one, and they are miserable and under constant threat of imminent layoff. I have one other friend who has been working steadily for a few years, but making about 1/3 of what they need for basics.
I know one person who has sent out 2000 resumes, and gotten one interview since 12/00 which abruptly concluded (unsuccessfully, of course) after the answer to the question "how old are you?"
I know another person with an MA who was told they were unqualified to work part-time at a bookstore.
Of the two dozen people that were laid off with me at the last large company I worked at, only one is employed, and not in IT. The guy with the 4 year-old daughter is now raising his six year old daughter in another country. The layoff cost him about $40,000 including his kids' college fund.
30,000 tech jobs on Dice.
That enough evidence? See a problem here? As far as I'm concerned, with my unscientific sample, unemployment is about 80%. For me, it's 100%.
I've got 50 karma (about 14 today), so...
so what?
All this talk of the US cell phones being so broken compared to Europe and Japan? Tsk tsk tsk...
Shame.
and all those intelligent, educated software engineers sitting at home reading the want ads, deciding whether to become a plumber or an electrician....
really is a shame...
see any CONNECTION HERE?? MANAGEMENT???? HELLO?????????
Well, of course you don't. Hurry along now, you're late for your all-day meeting!
Someone said "it'll get worse before it gets better?" I sure hope not.
Like your degree or experience entitles you to live a life of luxury.
No. But my degree AND experience entitles me to a fair evaluation for a job.
Businesses have a responsibility to hold up their end of the social contract.
Right now there are millions of kids in school who are being told "get good grades, work hard, get an education and when you graduate you'll get a good job." I know that because it's what *I* was told.
It is a lie.
Good jobs mean people are productive and happy.
Real good jobs become CAREERS.
They can put down roots in a community, send their kids to school, pay taxes and build a home. They have something they can DEPEND ON.
Many people together doing this creates neighborhoods where kids develop friendships with other kids, community programs start, and people work together to build a nice life for themselves and their neighbors.
Sounds great, right? I haven't seen a community like this since the early 1980s, over 20 years ago. The only communities like this today are extremely affluent ones where the residents are almost never affected by mass random layoffs.
Take that same community about two years in and lay off 20% of the people. Homes are sold. Friendships lost. The neighborhood is diminished. People move away, or lose their homes completely. Those who remain fear for their jobs.
New people move in. Then the second wave hits. 30% this time. Half the neighborhood is gone. Everyone is confused. Nobody knows anyone. People work harder, and longer hours, thinking they might be next. The kids don't get to spend much time with their parents any more. People become gloomy and depressed. Community events are cancelled for non-participation. People spend a lot of time at home. People complain of fatigue.
More new people move in. Half the first group has already moved away because they couldn't find work. 10% more are laid off. Wages are cut elsewhere. People start to complain. Businesses fail because people either have no money or won't spend it. More people leave. Pretty soon you have an entire group of houses (no longer a neighborhood) where nobody knows anyone else. Kids aren't allowed outside any more. The neighborhood has died.
Everywhere I've lived since 1987 has been this way. That's what's wrong, and it is 100% the fault of businesses that don't keep up their end of the bargain. People have no incentive to do right if they cannot depend on the rewards.
Pretty soon, people will realize that nothing they do matters, and stop trying. Then we are really going to have problems. Banks, for example, will soon realize that having a job is no guarantee that someone can pay a mortgage. (This is already a fact, but banks, like all corporate businesses, are sometimes a little slow)
All a person has is their education and experience, and businesses have made both worthless. It took the hundreds of businesses I applied to only a few months to make my eight years experience utterly worthless.
"Put your education last and lie about your experience" is the accepted way to get hired now. Matter of fact, it is not much of a stretch to say it is the only way to get hired in a lot of cases.
Well, hired until management decides to lay off another 4000.
Surprise! There is no great crisis here (in an economic sense rather than individual personal crises)...
Surprise! I don't care about the economic sense! This is the longest I've been unemployed in 18 years! I'm not the only person having trouble getting ANY JOB either.
be prepared to ride this recession out
Well, it's been 14 months now. Granted I haven't been out of work the whole time, but 14 months? Are businesses REALLY that bad off? I doubt it.
$7 for a sandwich is a luxury.
Roast beef on wheat is a luxury. Great. I'm doing better than I thought.
$1000 for 600 sq ft apartment means your living in an area which is way too expensive.
That's the point.
$600k buys a luxuroius mansion not a house.
$600K buys a three bedroom house four blocks from here. Too expensive? Yep. Can anyone do anything about it? Nope. And this ain't even CLOSE to an expensive area.
my rent was less than $200/month
With how many roommates? Five? A 10x10 room for $200 a month I'll believe. An apartment? Not on this planet.
just over $30/month for food.
Really? What eight items at the grocery store can one buy to feed themselves for a month? A gallon of milk (which will not stretch to a month) is about $4.
Or is this just a tiny exaggeration designed to avoid the fact that the cost of living is out of reach of the average salary?
Now, I could easily survive comfortably on $1000/month.
Yeah. I could probably survive on $800 a month, but comes a time when a man would rather MAKE A LIVING than just "survive."
OK, I'll feed this troll some more:
lol Ironic to use the word "troll."
how do we "fix the problem"?
Yeah. Let's ask for a simple answer that'll fit in a text box so we'll have something to ridicule.
I don't know. I'm not that smart. What I do know is that what is happening is very corrosive, and business better get a handle on it, or the bill is eventually going to come due: meaning there won't be anyone left to buy their overpriced low-quality products.
Houses at $600K ($13K/month to qualify)
600 sq. ft. apartments at $1000/month (over 50% of the average wage)
$7 for a sandwich
Adds up. And there are two kinds of jobs where them houses, apartments and sandwiches are (and it isn't SV): $7/hr. at Wal Mart and that VB job that's been on Dice for three years. And THAT'S IT. I don't know how these other people are paying the bills, but my guess is that none of them have a current resume.
(For those of you watching at home, yes, that's ONE HOUR and 20 MINUTES OF WORK for a sandwich, after taxes.)
There, how's that for a troll? Maybe I'll get another 3: Insightful, eh?
The national unemployment rate is still under 6%
I don't buy it for a second.
the tech sector unemployment rate is lower still
That goes against every single item of information I have heard, seen or read in 18 months. The tech sector is at ZERO opportunity right now. There are people with THOUSANDS of resumes out that have gotten nothing.
Stop expecting jobs to be handed to you simply because you are qualified.
Was that supposed to make sense? I must have missed it. What else am I supposed to be except qualified? Or did that question just define everything that's wrong with business today?
What part of "Should they need you they will hire you" did you not understand?
"They will hire you." Because it's not true. They WON'T.
that you are only taking this job to pay the bills and absolutely WILL jump ship when times get better.
Oh, so the employee has to be true blue but the employer can throw 5000 people out in the street whenever they feel like it. Sounds great.
Business are only in it to make money, right? Well, GUESS WHAT?? EMPLOYEES are in it to PAY THE BILLS.
just take a look over in Europe
No. That's not what I said. Nice red herring. I said RESPONSIBILITY. Companies should not pull the rug out from under a man providing for a family who is doing a good job. It's wrong, and they know it, but they do it anyway (by the hundreds of thousands), and then hide behind "we're just in it to make money" when someone calls them on it.
Either change your tactice, or change your profession/field/industry, whatever.
Yeah. Throw eight years into the trash and start over in an entry-level job and try to retire on time. Sure. Uh huh.
when you get lucky once again this time
People shouldn't have to "get lucky" in order to feed themselves.
I am betting that at one time you had a nice phat paying techie job yet handled the money in perhaps not the most responsible mannner.
...and you'd lose. Management handled the jobs in not the most responsible manner, and I wasn't the only one affected. I watched a man kneel down and wipe tears away from his four-year-old daughters face in the parking lot as she asked "are you sad, Daddy?" I can tell you that I thought some very ugly things about the person who fired him (and me, and two dozen other people) that day. 10 days later, they were advertising to fill our positions again, through an agency.
I haven't purchased a single luxury item in 15 years. I was making a few bucks here and there, and could barely afford about 3/4 of the basics.
I think it's time to stop stereotyping and start realizing there are some major problems here. There should never be this many highly educated and qualified people unemployed. Period.
Nice troll.
Plenty of people have jobs
Plenty of people are living hand-to-mouth, have no savings, own nothing and are two paychecks away from being broke.
Plenty of people are underemployed, have nothing to do most of the day, and are tormented by management on purpose to get them to quit.
Plenty of people try to work hard and do a good job and get fired anyway.
Plenty of people have to choose between child care and medical insurance.
Plenty of people have to spend their retirement account on food.
Plenty of people have no meaningful contribution to their jobs.
Plenty of people spend the majority of their work day in unproductive meetings.
Plenty of people have to allow the company to control every moment of their workday, and attempt to control every moment of their off-time.
Plenty of people lose those jobs when management decides to reorganize the paradigms.
Plenty of people can't afford a house, ever.
Plenty of people can't afford to raise a family.
Plenty of people have watched their unemployment run out and the phone never rings.
Plenty of people have to lie in order to get hired.
Plenty of people have given up on ever finding another job, anywhere.
Yes, of course. All those thousands of people. It's all them. It's NEVER the fault of the incompetent people doing the hiring. It's never the fault of the businesses. They can do no wrong. They are blameless in their pursuit of profits.
Always better to blame anyone who complains than to fix the problem.
They exist to profit from selling products
To whom? All those unemployed people?
Businesses have no responsibility anymore. Just hire and fire whenever they feel like it. Pay a non-living wage. Work people 60 hours a week. Cut benefits. Increase overtime (on salary of course) and make people as miserable as possible while they are there... until they are fired.
This isn't just one opinion. There are thousands of people out there, many of which have been sitting unemployed for OVER A YEAR NOW. The economy is recovering. WHERE'S THE JOBS? NEWSFLASH: THERE AREN'T ANY.
Managers: Employed (for years)
HR: Employed (for years)
Admin Assistants: Employed (for years)
IT and Engineeers: FIRED (after a few months)
Should they need you they will hire you.
No they won't. There are people with 10 TIMES my qualifications who have answered THOUSANDS of ads for work and gotten ZERO. THAT IS A FACT. I've applied for jobs I was PERFECTLY qualified for and gotten ZIP. I know a guy with an MA in English who applied for a part-time job at a bookstore.
"Got any experience selling books?"
"Uhhh.. well, I did my Master's Thesis on Library Science and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Graduate Degree in English."
(Translation: I've forgotten more about books than you, or anyone in this entire company put together will EVER know)
"Sorry. We need qualified people."
So, a guy with a MASTER'S DEGREE IN ENGLISH is unqualified to sell books. That's the reality of the job market now.
Even if they do hire anyone, they'll fire them in a week.
It's true that you have to pay just a bit more
The smallest merchants pay over 300% more than the largest. More than just a bit.
Apparently they have lived up to their end of the agreement
No, they haven't. They pulled the rug out from under thousands of businesses. Most of them do not have the time or the money to pursue it, so they lose. Thousands more unemployed too.
Won't be long before people just don't believe a single word that comes out of a businessman's mouth.
Adapt or go out of business.
Yeah. You just lost half your market. Adapt. Sure.
everyone though that anything they do on the internet was guaranteed to succeed. Now people like yourself need to hit the realization that the internet doesn't change the fundamental nature of business.
Oh, please. We've been working at this for SIX YEARS. People like myself... please.
I admit they should have had a much earlier notice
For openers, but this was designed to be as painful as possible. I wonder how Mastercard's executives would respond if Congress made it illegal for them to do business west of the Mississippi? The whining would make a daycare center sound like a PBS round table.
That is the total, utter and absolute failure of corporate business. It is a tragedy of near epic proportions for this nation to have so many hundreds of thousands of qualified, educated, capable people sitting unemployed.
Corporate America should hang their heads in shame.
230 jobs
230,000 applicants
Hooray!
if it was your own money paying for fraud,
It is our own money. What, Mastercard is footing the bill on their own? Why do you think the little guy gets stuck with a 6-8% fee?
I can't understand why you and many others insist that credit card companies leave themselves at such risk without attempting to do anything about it.
They're welcome to do something about it, up to the point where it makes it nigh-unto impossible for us to properly serve our customers.
See, what a lot of people are forgetting here is that 30 days ago, Mastercard hadn't said a WORD about this. We were all working and selling under an agreement, and Mastercard was happily pulling down ten million a day in merchant fees. Now that we've established a relationship with the market, they switch terms and lock us out. That's flat out unfair. I don't care what they say about it either. We held up our end of the bargain (and PAID HANDSOMELY for it), they didn't. Period.
It's not a law or in the constitution. If a business hitches their wagon to a practice, and the practice is stopped for whatever reason, it's their responsibility to either find a new way to do business, or step aside while a competitor does. That's what free enterprise is all about.
Nope.
We didn't "hitch our wagon" to anything. It is not our responsibility to find a new way to do business either. It is MASTERCARD'S responsibility to live up to the agreement they made with their merchants and customers to allow them to do business AS AGREED, (and still in effect as of today) BOUGHT AND PAID FOR WITH LONG GREEN DOLLARS without INTERFERENCE by the mighty trademark holder.
Besides, that same speil about small businesses suffering is exactly what we heard when spammers objected to spam laws.
...and a fine red herring it is, but that is entirely different. We are being prevented from conducting commercial transactions with paying customers, not from sending advertisements to random people.
Having failed to compete with PayPal in the marketplace, the banks are resorting to regulation
:)
I'd call that observation insightful and profound. Sounds just a little like the ol' recording industry debate, doesn't it?
The proposed rule by MasterCard would take effect on May 1st, so there are 30 days for MasterCard customers to comment on the proposed change.
Actually, that leaves about 10 days.
If there wasn't a law that ensured that consumers can't be held responsible for unauthorized purchases, you'd be singing a different tune.
No I wouldn't. It's not the consumer's fault, and it isn't our fault either. It is the fault of the person making the unauthorized purchase. That law is probably 97% of the reason credit card companies are making tens of million$ a day.
give a credit card number to amazon.com
Mastercard wouldn't *dare* screw with Amazon.com
There is nothing in place to stop them from doing just that with your bank account, credit card, whatever.
Other than the fact that it is bank and wire fraud? Maybe not.
Right now, it's a big free-for-all, and I think it's great that MasterCard is at least taking the first step to begin to tighten the reigns.
At the direct and unfair expense of the smallest businesses.
With all due respect to the fine people at Mastercard, this is their own responsibility, not ours. They set the system up this way, it is their responsibility to come up with ways to reduce (note I did NOT say eliminate) fraud, which I really don't think is as big a problem as they claim, and if it is, tough. That's THEIR PROBLEM.
They have a lot of highly-paid, very intelligent people working for them (supposedly). I'm sure they can figure it out. Maybe they should call a meeting. (there are times when I truly appreciate the easy availability of sarcasm).
They do not have the right to trample all over our businesses in order to fix it either. Maybe they might consider ASKING US to HELP them instead of issuing autocratic pronouncements from atop the corporate dais.
They can refuse to give you CREDIT if you can't prove you'd be a good investment.
We never asked for credit. We (always) pay our money through our vendors, we should get the service we paid for.
Mastercard should not then, HAVING EXPLICITLY ALLOWED US TO ESTABLISH A GOOD FAITH RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MARKETPLACE, turn around and build a wall between us and half our customers.