That would hold a lot more water if it weren't true that you can buy Audis in Europe, just like you can here. Sure enough, the Audis have the goodies... but the VWs do, too.
The European market is very, very different than the US. The branding/status culture in the US doesn't exist in the same form in Europe. You have whole model lines of Audis that they don't sell in the states. They want the VW to be the low end car here.
And even if that weren't true, I don't WANT a huge barge like an A6. I want a nice little Golf that scoots around peppily and happily and fits in tiny little parking spaces and doesn't use a ton of gas and is a heck of a lot more fun to drive than the aforementioned (relative) barge.
I really don't want one of those either. But the majority of US car consumers don't want a Lotus Elise because it has a great HP/weight ratio. They want one because it's expensive and nobody else has one.
But I still want my goodies. And, faced by the fact that people are defecting to small-car-makers that WILL provide said goodies for people whose needs are similar to mine, VW is learning the hard way that it HAS to change its head-up-its-rear policies of shortchanging people this way.
I think that's why we're seeing interesting option sets on cars from Scion and Hyundai. The manufacturers with the big ticket items are really reluctant to sell low cost cars with the features that their high end models do. It goes back to the status/branding issue in the US. Even if they can make some profit on the lower-end models, they worry obsessively about eroding the brand value and other marketing speak.
I'm a VW enthusiast and I can rattle off a rather long list of great options that are available to European buyers of VW cars that those of us in the enthusiast community would love to be able to utilize but can't because for whatever reason VW doesn't think those of us in the US are worthy of getting the new geek toys. Such as:
While I think you are correct that it will initially be a European option, your gripe with VW is probably due to branding concerns in the US. Most of the features you want on your VW are available on Audis in the US:
And those are just the ones I know of. Working for an arm of a car manufacturer, I've heard more that I ever wanted about branding. The sales and marketing types go to enormous lengths to make sure that each model doesn't overlap with the previous to keep demographic differences. To use Audi again for example, the sales and marketing types want to make sure that someone who buys an A6 feels like they got something they couldn't from an A4. Audi and VW working together want someone who buys an A4 to feel like they got more than a Jetta. It sucks for the people like you that would want a Jetta with the features available on an A4, but I don't see it changing. If it is changing, it's only going to get worse.
The two times I've had to provide evidence to HR of people using company assets to view porn, both employees were fired.
but what exactly are the legal reprecussions for looking at juicyhoes.com for example?
In the above instances (at two different companies) viewing adult content at work was against a written policy. Employees were required to acknowledge the policy when hired
Were you ever actually challenged in court?
We weren't. Both people basically gave up when presented with the proxy logs.
You need to find some activity that will allow you to forget about work. The title suggestion can help with that. I also use autocross and snowboarding as forget about work activities. It's easy to forget about annoying users when:
You have a (mostly) naked person sitting in front of you, especially after a few drinks.
You're pushing your car to the limits of its grip
You're zooming down a mountain with possibility of great bodily injury.
I maintain network/security equipment for about 1000 users located at 4 different sites. I have my share of extremely annoying users, and I find the above methods helpful for when I need to forget about work. I also play guitar, which seems to help as well.
Not all children are annoying, and nor are they noisy -- almost any argument that can be used on children can be extended to adults, too.
If children are noisy, troublesome and messy, so are several grownups -- by your logic, these adults should be shunned, too.
I don't know about the types of places you frequent, so I'll tell you my experience. If there is an adult (legally speaking) that is noisy, troublesome or messy in the bars and restaurants that person is asked to leave. If they don't, they're forced to leave. I've never seen a parent be asked to leave because of the behavior of a child. I've seen drunks making less noise and doing less damage be removed from several establishments.
Besides, you're forgetting the fact that children can't quite help how they are -- it's natural, and it's inevitable.
You say above that not all children are annoying and noisy. You are correct. What's the difference between these children and the ones that are annoying and noisy? Are you implying that some children can't (physically, genetically) behave?
A smoker _has_ a choice of not smoking at a place.
Just like a parent has a choice of not bringing his/her kids to a place.
Btw, in a lot of places in Asia, you're not allowed to smoke unless it _explicitly_ says that you can.
It's a cultural thing. Business owners in those countries do realize that smoking affects the business, and don't allow smokers.
That is a rarity, because businesses in this country seldom swing towards any one section of the populace.
Again, if it's such a great idea, why don't I see American businesses doing the same thing? I'd like to see someone open a non-smoking bar in a community that hasn't banned public smoking. It would be interesting.
Most smokers I know are almost militant about their right to smoke anywhere, absolutely ignoring the irritation and harm that they cause others
Take that sentence and do the following things:
sed s/smokers/parents/
sed s/smoke/bring children/
sed s/harm/annoyance/
and it's still true.
With all the public smoking bans going up around the country, I came up with a great idea that would help non-smokers and smokers alike. Here's the idea:
Smoking areas must be walled off from non-smoking areas (perhaps even at a negative pressure to non-smoking areas)
One must be of legal age to enter a smoking area (no kids allowed, even with mom and dad).
That would solve the non-smoker "won't someone please think of the children" argument, and I can finally eat a meal without hearing a small child scream.
I've always wondered if there are so many people that want non-smoking environments, why doesn't a business owner start non-smoking restaurants and bars? If there are that many people that want it, doesn't it seem like a good idea?
I only know a handful of languages, (C/C++, Java, x86 assembly, perl) but I know them inside and out. I don't have a lot of networking experience, but I do have enough that I could quickly get up to speed on any network related problems that might present themselves in various projects.
I've been in a similar situation before. Since I was 17 I've been a corporate whore (W2 employee), whore with a pimp (both W2 and 1099) and an independant whore (1099 and ran my own shop). Until you get contacts, you might want to look at using a consulting firm. They'll take anywhere from 50 to 15 percent off the top, but if you take short gigs, you can build up contacts quick. Be sure to look at any non-compete clauses you sign if you do this.
Be prepared to walk away from contracts that you can't make a profit on. It's hard to turn down business, but sometimes you have to do it. When clients want a million dollar system on a $10,000 budget, you have to learn to walk away.
Being a network guy, I want to caution you about the statement I quoted and then generalize it. For really small shops with 1 or 2 switches, you are probably right in that you can figure out any problems that come up. When you get into clients with bigger networks, you should consider finding a partner that has the experience if you need network work done. When I do freelance stuff, I have a list of people that do the things I'm not good at or just don't want to do. I throw them the development and database work that my clients want and they throw me network gigs. If you're a good programmer, stick to it. By all means I think you should understand networking, but knowing how the stack works doesn't make you a network admin. If you want to be a network admin, you need experience with all kinds of gear. A Cisco 6513 with 720 Gbps backplane and router module is another beast from a 3548 stackable switch. If you enter a client site and start blaming the network without basis or suggest improvments when you don't know what your talking about, the outcome may not be pretty. Just from my personal experience, the few times I've had to prove developer wrong after a he-said she-said performance arguement they haven't been invited back. To generalize, be good at what you do and don't do things you aren't good at. Know people who are good at the things you aren't.
Finally, best of luck. Be prepared to work your butt off.
If you're looking for Gig over copper, the 6509 will probably give you the density you want in a single device. It has 9 slots, one of which is filled by the supervisor module. If you want to upgrade to the 720 Gbps switch fabric, I think that takes another slot, but could very well be wrong. But with 7 available slots at 48 ports per 10/100/1000 blade you would have 336 connections.
The 6513 is basically the same thing but with four extra slots.
The 6509 chassis lists at $9.5K and the 6513 $15.25K. That's completely bare bones. The supervisor modules run anywhere from $6K to $28K at list. The 48 port 10/100/1000 modules list at $7.5K while a 24 port SFP fiber blade lists for $15K. You'll need two power supplies at $2K-5K each.
On the cheap end, to get the port density you're looking for out of Cisco, you'll pay about $70K list. But if you find the right reseller, you can see a discount of 30-40%.
All numbers in this post should be considered best guess, based on quotes I've gotten. They may be out of date. They are not official prices from Cisco. Take with the appropriate grain of salt.
The problem with the 30-50% less that the article describes is that they use list prices. What will actually be relevant is how deep 3Com will be willing to go on VAR discounts. That $9000 they quote on the 3725 becomes more like $5400 with most corporate agreements. My guess is that 3Com will probably to a 10% discount to the VAR's so the price is basically a wash. At that point, I'll take Cisco.
The place I worked before my current employer had Aeron chairs. My back would occasionally get sore, but nothing horrible. My current job has generic office chairs that are in bad shape. After about a month, I was seeing a massage therapist every other week.
That's a bit expensive, so I decided to make some changes. I found the best chair I could at the office, which helped a little. I also started doing yoga. This helped a great deal.
Some exercises that really helped my back are:
http://www.santosha.com/asanas/chakra.html The wheel and bridge positions. The bridge is easier than the wheel but still really helps the lower back. I use one of those large exercise balls to do a modified wheel pose. I'm still not strong enough to do the wheel for more than 30 seconds or so, but I can get mostly the same effect using the exercise ball. One good routine for back stretching is to alternate the bridge with pulling your knees to your chest. Works wonders.
If you're interested in yoga but don't want to buy a video, there is a show on Oxygen every morning at 6:00 a.m. (at least in my market). It's fairly intense, but you can at least watch it to get an idea of the various poses and positions.
I've been working with Cisco equipment for over 6 years. The TAC used to be OUTSTANDING. Now they are for shit. In my opinion it all started once they started moving most of the calls to Mexico etc.
I've been working with Cisco gear about the same amount of time. I would agree that US daytime support has gotten very bad. I generally can't get anyone that speaks intelligible English during my normal business hours. I'll let you in on a little secret I've discovered. If you need to talk to TAC and it's not critical, call between 10:00 P.M. and 2:00 A.M. EST. During this time I normally get the desk in Australia, and they are the bomb. When talking to EST daytime TAC, my ratio of good engineers to bad ones is about 1 to 10. When talking to the desk in Australia it's more like 5 to 1.
Plus, there's the added bonus that you might get a chick with an Australian accent. Man those are good support calls.
I had the same model but in the convertible. Your numbers are about the same as mine with one exception. If you draft on a long highway trip, you can increase your numbers to 35-35.5 mpg. I used to go on long trips to various autocrosses and draft behind my buddy who was hauling his eclipse on a trailer. I'd wind up at about 35 mpg every time.
Alternatively, you could bring him to an autocross [autocross.com]. It will cost about $20 for the day and will not harm your vehicle, and your son (and you!) will learn more about vehicle dynamics in one day than he will learn in ten years of driving on the street or playing Gran Turismo on the Playstation.
This is seriously good advice. Two years of autocross have taught me not only more about car control than I ever thought I would know but also how little I actually knew about controling a car before I started. From the males that I know, we all seem to think that we can drive really well. Once on an autocross course one quickly learns that this is not the case.
Since I started autocross, I've had two on-road experiences that could have cost me my car or worse.
The first came in a heavy rain. I was going through a double "S" turn at a low speed. When I shifted from 1st to 2nd, the car spun. 540 degrees later, I was looking at oncomming traffic in low-visibility conditions. I was able to gather myself, get the car turned and get out of the way with no difficulty. Before I was comfortable with an out-of-control car, I think I would have just frozen.
The second was definately scarrier and probably had more potential for personal injury. I was coming home through some back roads that were particularly twisty on a very cold day. I approached a turn that was off-camber and cresting a hill. I took way too much speed into the turn for the various conditions and lost the back end. I managed to get the car back under control about two feet into the other lane, just by reflex. Had I not gotten it under control, I would have at the least met a guard rail, and probably would have ended up twenty feet down an embankment.
Autocross will help teach your son through another method as well: community. Other than some petty squables, I've found the people at various autocross events to be some of the most helpful folks around. The older, more experienced drivers will critique his runs, ride along with him or take him for a ride. As a bonus, he might listen to them about bad habits if he won't listen to you. I found it to be a good time even though it generally makes for a long and tiring day.
I can tell you that I did not feel the least bit sorry for the American call center employees whose jobs were sent to India. The Americans in the center were men and women right out of high school and college with crappy attitudes and a streak of laziness a mile wide.
I worked in a GE sub business that moved some of our calls to the GE facility in India. I will agree that our call center staff in America was as you described. If they would have gone through and done drug testing about half of the call takers would have been fired
That being said, there is still a barrier. Despite English being the common language between India and the U.S., Most Americans cannot understand the Indian accent and get rather frustrated. (I am sure it works both ways. ) Also, some of the Indians take a "Brahman" or intellectualy superior view and treat their American customers like crap, especially women.
I had to sub at our SecureID reset desk right after the transition. Because we had offices in Canada as well as the US, we had some French-Canadians call in from time to time. If you want to have some fun with accents, try to have a call between a French-Canadian and someone working a desk in India.
The main problem I had with the GE facility is that I don't feel they ever delivered the level of training the told us they would. During US business hours we were told we would get people that spoke English at a rating of 8 or better, on a scale of 1 to 10. In the time I dealt with the call center, we couldn't even get them to use the military phoentic alphabet. I'd hear things like "C as in kite, J as in giant."
The solution we finally discovered was to use instant messaging between the sites. We would have conference calls where all the Americans would talk to each other and the Indians would talk to each other, but for communication between the groups, it was all IM.
I've used a lap-desk from K-Mart since 1998 or so. It's hard plastic on one side and is like a bean-bag chair on the other (maybe two inches of padding). My legs don't get hot and the laptop isn't noticeably warmer than if I use it on a table or desk.
They don't work when you've turned them up to '11' in order to drown out the ambient hub-bub. And then someone will have the nerve to complain about the noise coming from your headphones.
I don't know if you were kidding or not, but this actually happened to me.
I work in an area that has movable desks instead of cubes. Desks are setup in pod form, with no walls between pods.
One day the pod behind me decided to have a six person meeting about 5 feet from my desk. I kept turning up my headphones until I couldn't hear them. They came over and asked me to turn down my headphones because I was "disturbing" their meeting.
That was the last day I worked at my desk. I now sit in a server room with about 200 servers plus network equipment plus 3 large Liebert air handlers. It is much, much better.
Did you consider it might be cheaper to hire people to click the ads than to contract a company to write such a script
I had a similar experience recently that made me aware of my Western ideas about labor. My company was in the process of building a new plant in China (for goods to be delivered in China only, no exports). Several IT people went over to help them get their infrastructure setup. There was a large safe in the area that was to become the datacenter. The safe needed to be taken out of the room and down three flights of stairs.
If you asked me how to do it, I would have said to rent a forklift and use the freight elevator. My Chinese counterparts thought differently. They got 20 people with straps and carried that safe out of the room and down three flights of stairs. For them, that was the cheapest, most efficient way to solve the problem.
How did you go about remapping the ECU? Is it something you flashed yourself or did you have the work done? As a fellow WRX owner, I'd appreciate any links or recommendations you might have.
I worked on a roll-out of POS systems to Burger Kings and we used something similar on the PC in the manager's office. All the airborne grease vapors from the deep fryers eventually coated everything in the store with grease. They covers we used weren't laytex, but they did a good job of keeping grease out of the keyboard. It was actually cool to take the cover off of a three year old keyboard and have it look brand new.
The 1918 pandemic killed 30-40 million, about half of them otherwise healthy adults (as opposed to most flu's, which affect mostly the young and old).
You make a good point about the young and old being affected more than healthy adults, but you need to include the immuno-compromised. The flu can be quite deadly to those living with AIDS.
To put the 1918 pandemic in perspective, each year the flu kills about 30,000 people in the U.S. (according to my source that participates in CDC flu studies every year). If U.S. deaths are representative of the rest of the world (which they probably aren't, but I'm using them for the calculation anyway) that would equal about 600,000 deaths per year due to the flu. While it's only 2 percent of the total that died from the 1918 pandemic, that's still a lot of people.
Slashdot Mirror
The European market is very, very different than the US. The branding/status culture in the US doesn't exist in the same form in Europe. You have whole model lines of Audis that they don't sell in the states. They want the VW to be the low end car here.
And even if that weren't true, I don't WANT a huge barge like an A6. I want a nice little Golf that scoots around peppily and happily and fits in tiny little parking spaces and doesn't use a ton of gas and is a heck of a lot more fun to drive than the aforementioned (relative) barge.
I really don't want one of those either. But the majority of US car consumers don't want a Lotus Elise because it has a great HP/weight ratio. They want one because it's expensive and nobody else has one.
But I still want my goodies. And, faced by the fact that people are defecting to small-car-makers that WILL provide said goodies for people whose needs are similar to mine, VW is learning the hard way that it HAS to change its head-up-its-rear policies of shortchanging people this way.
I think that's why we're seeing interesting option sets on cars from Scion and Hyundai. The manufacturers with the big ticket items are really reluctant to sell low cost cars with the features that their high end models do. It goes back to the status/branding issue in the US. Even if they can make some profit on the lower-end models, they worry obsessively about eroding the brand value and other marketing speak.
While I think you are correct that it will initially be a European option, your gripe with VW is probably due to branding concerns in the US. Most of the features you want on your VW are available on Audis in the US:
- HID/xenon headlamps (better visibility)
- Headlight washers (same as above)
- Front fog lights (see ahead in heavy fog)
- Rear fog light (see cars ahead in heavy fog)
- In-car navigation (turn by turn routing)
- Better seats (improved comfort)
- Upgraded instrument clusters (electronic display)
- All-wheel-drive (safety in bad conditions)
- More color choices (aesthetics)
And those are just the ones I know of. Working for an arm of a car manufacturer, I've heard more that I ever wanted about branding. The sales and marketing types go to enormous lengths to make sure that each model doesn't overlap with the previous to keep demographic differences. To use Audi again for example, the sales and marketing types want to make sure that someone who buys an A6 feels like they got something they couldn't from an A4. Audi and VW working together want someone who buys an A4 to feel like they got more than a Jetta. It sucks for the people like you that would want a Jetta with the features available on an A4, but I don't see it changing. If it is changing, it's only going to get worse.
The two times I've had to provide evidence to HR of people using company assets to view porn, both employees were fired.
but what exactly are the legal reprecussions for looking at juicyhoes.com for example?
In the above instances (at two different companies) viewing adult content at work was against a written policy. Employees were required to acknowledge the policy when hired
Were you ever actually challenged in court?
We weren't. Both people basically gave up when presented with the proxy logs.
I maintain network/security equipment for about 1000 users located at 4 different sites. I have my share of extremely annoying users, and I find the above methods helpful for when I need to forget about work. I also play guitar, which seems to help as well.
If children are noisy, troublesome and messy, so are several grownups -- by your logic, these adults should be shunned, too.
I don't know about the types of places you frequent, so I'll tell you my experience. If there is an adult (legally speaking) that is noisy, troublesome or messy in the bars and restaurants that person is asked to leave. If they don't, they're forced to leave. I've never seen a parent be asked to leave because of the behavior of a child. I've seen drunks making less noise and doing less damage be removed from several establishments.
Besides, you're forgetting the fact that children can't quite help how they are -- it's natural, and it's inevitable.
You say above that not all children are annoying and noisy. You are correct. What's the difference between these children and the ones that are annoying and noisy? Are you implying that some children can't (physically, genetically) behave?
A smoker _has_ a choice of not smoking at a place.
Just like a parent has a choice of not bringing his/her kids to a place.
Btw, in a lot of places in Asia, you're not allowed to smoke unless it _explicitly_ says that you can.
It's a cultural thing. Business owners in those countries do realize that smoking affects the business, and don't allow smokers.
That is a rarity, because businesses in this country seldom swing towards any one section of the populace.
Again, if it's such a great idea, why don't I see American businesses doing the same thing? I'd like to see someone open a non-smoking bar in a community that hasn't banned public smoking. It would be interesting.
Take that sentence and do the following things:
- sed s/smokers/parents/
- sed s/smoke/bring children/
- sed s/harm/annoyance/
and it's still true.With all the public smoking bans going up around the country, I came up with a great idea that would help non-smokers and smokers alike. Here's the idea:
That would solve the non-smoker "won't someone please think of the children" argument, and I can finally eat a meal without hearing a small child scream.
I've always wondered if there are so many people that want non-smoking environments, why doesn't a business owner start non-smoking restaurants and bars? If there are that many people that want it, doesn't it seem like a good idea?
I've been in a similar situation before. Since I was 17 I've been a corporate whore (W2 employee), whore with a pimp (both W2 and 1099) and an independant whore (1099 and ran my own shop). Until you get contacts, you might want to look at using a consulting firm. They'll take anywhere from 50 to 15 percent off the top, but if you take short gigs, you can build up contacts quick. Be sure to look at any non-compete clauses you sign if you do this.
Be prepared to walk away from contracts that you can't make a profit on. It's hard to turn down business, but sometimes you have to do it. When clients want a million dollar system on a $10,000 budget, you have to learn to walk away.
Being a network guy, I want to caution you about the statement I quoted and then generalize it. For really small shops with 1 or 2 switches, you are probably right in that you can figure out any problems that come up. When you get into clients with bigger networks, you should consider finding a partner that has the experience if you need network work done. When I do freelance stuff, I have a list of people that do the things I'm not good at or just don't want to do. I throw them the development and database work that my clients want and they throw me network gigs. If you're a good programmer, stick to it. By all means I think you should understand networking, but knowing how the stack works doesn't make you a network admin. If you want to be a network admin, you need experience with all kinds of gear. A Cisco 6513 with 720 Gbps backplane and router module is another beast from a 3548 stackable switch. If you enter a client site and start blaming the network without basis or suggest improvments when you don't know what your talking about, the outcome may not be pretty. Just from my personal experience, the few times I've had to prove developer wrong after a he-said she-said performance arguement they haven't been invited back. To generalize, be good at what you do and don't do things you aren't good at. Know people who are good at the things you aren't.
Finally, best of luck. Be prepared to work your butt off.
The 6513 is basically the same thing but with four extra slots.
The 6509 chassis lists at $9.5K and the 6513 $15.25K. That's completely bare bones. The supervisor modules run anywhere from $6K to $28K at list. The 48 port 10/100/1000 modules list at $7.5K while a 24 port SFP fiber blade lists for $15K. You'll need two power supplies at $2K-5K each.
On the cheap end, to get the port density you're looking for out of Cisco, you'll pay about $70K list. But if you find the right reseller, you can see a discount of 30-40%.
All numbers in this post should be considered best guess, based on quotes I've gotten. They may be out of date. They are not official prices from Cisco. Take with the appropriate grain of salt.
The place I worked before my current employer had Aeron chairs. My back would occasionally get sore, but nothing horrible. My current job has generic office chairs that are in bad shape. After about a month, I was seeing a massage therapist every other week.
That's a bit expensive, so I decided to make some changes. I found the best chair I could at the office, which helped a little. I also started doing yoga. This helped a great deal.
Some exercises that really helped my back are:
If you're interested in yoga but don't want to buy a video, there is a show on Oxygen every morning at 6:00 a.m. (at least in my market). It's fairly intense, but you can at least watch it to get an idea of the various poses and positions.
I've been working with Cisco gear about the same amount of time. I would agree that US daytime support has gotten very bad. I generally can't get anyone that speaks intelligible English during my normal business hours. I'll let you in on a little secret I've discovered. If you need to talk to TAC and it's not critical, call between 10:00 P.M. and 2:00 A.M. EST. During this time I normally get the desk in Australia, and they are the bomb. When talking to EST daytime TAC, my ratio of good engineers to bad ones is about 1 to 10. When talking to the desk in Australia it's more like 5 to 1.
Plus, there's the added bonus that you might get a chick with an Australian accent. Man those are good support calls.
Just wondering...
I-D-10-T
If it truly is a robot, wouldn't it bite its own shiny metal ass?
I had the same model but in the convertible. Your numbers are about the same as mine with one exception. If you draft on a long highway trip, you can increase your numbers to 35-35.5 mpg. I used to go on long trips to various autocrosses and draft behind my buddy who was hauling his eclipse on a trailer. I'd wind up at about 35 mpg every time.
This is seriously good advice. Two years of autocross have taught me not only more about car control than I ever thought I would know but also how little I actually knew about controling a car before I started. From the males that I know, we all seem to think that we can drive really well. Once on an autocross course one quickly learns that this is not the case.
Since I started autocross, I've had two on-road experiences that could have cost me my car or worse.
The first came in a heavy rain. I was going through a double "S" turn at a low speed. When I shifted from 1st to 2nd, the car spun. 540 degrees later, I was looking at oncomming traffic in low-visibility conditions. I was able to gather myself, get the car turned and get out of the way with no difficulty. Before I was comfortable with an out-of-control car, I think I would have just frozen.
The second was definately scarrier and probably had more potential for personal injury. I was coming home through some back roads that were particularly twisty on a very cold day. I approached a turn that was off-camber and cresting a hill. I took way too much speed into the turn for the various conditions and lost the back end. I managed to get the car back under control about two feet into the other lane, just by reflex. Had I not gotten it under control, I would have at the least met a guard rail, and probably would have ended up twenty feet down an embankment.
Autocross will help teach your son through another method as well: community. Other than some petty squables, I've found the people at various autocross events to be some of the most helpful folks around. The older, more experienced drivers will critique his runs, ride along with him or take him for a ride. As a bonus, he might listen to them about bad habits if he won't listen to you. I found it to be a good time even though it generally makes for a long and tiring day.
I worked in a GE sub business that moved some of our calls to the GE facility in India. I will agree that our call center staff in America was as you described. If they would have gone through and done drug testing about half of the call takers would have been fired
That being said, there is still a barrier. Despite English being the common language between India and the U.S., Most Americans cannot understand the Indian accent and get rather frustrated. (I am sure it works both ways. ) Also, some of the Indians take a "Brahman" or intellectualy superior view and treat their American customers like crap, especially women.
I had to sub at our SecureID reset desk right after the transition. Because we had offices in Canada as well as the US, we had some French-Canadians call in from time to time. If you want to have some fun with accents, try to have a call between a French-Canadian and someone working a desk in India.
The main problem I had with the GE facility is that I don't feel they ever delivered the level of training the told us they would. During US business hours we were told we would get people that spoke English at a rating of 8 or better, on a scale of 1 to 10. In the time I dealt with the call center, we couldn't even get them to use the military phoentic alphabet. I'd hear things like "C as in kite, J as in giant."
The solution we finally discovered was to use instant messaging between the sites. We would have conference calls where all the Americans would talk to each other and the Indians would talk to each other, but for communication between the groups, it was all IM.
I've used a lap-desk from K-Mart since 1998 or so. It's hard plastic on one side and is like a bean-bag chair on the other (maybe two inches of padding). My legs don't get hot and the laptop isn't noticeably warmer than if I use it on a table or desk.
I don't know if you were kidding or not, but this actually happened to me.
I work in an area that has movable desks instead of cubes. Desks are setup in pod form, with no walls between pods.
One day the pod behind me decided to have a six person meeting about 5 feet from my desk. I kept turning up my headphones until I couldn't hear them. They came over and asked me to turn down my headphones because I was "disturbing" their meeting.
That was the last day I worked at my desk. I now sit in a server room with about 200 servers plus network equipment plus 3 large Liebert air handlers. It is much, much better.
From here if you don't get the reference.
I had a similar experience recently that made me aware of my Western ideas about labor. My company was in the process of building a new plant in China (for goods to be delivered in China only, no exports). Several IT people went over to help them get their infrastructure setup. There was a large safe in the area that was to become the datacenter. The safe needed to be taken out of the room and down three flights of stairs.
If you asked me how to do it, I would have said to rent a forklift and use the freight elevator. My Chinese counterparts thought differently. They got 20 people with straps and carried that safe out of the room and down three flights of stairs. For them, that was the cheapest, most efficient way to solve the problem.
"You know what marriage is? Find a woman you hate and buy her a house."
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I worked on a roll-out of POS systems to Burger Kings and we used something similar on the PC in the manager's office. All the airborne grease vapors from the deep fryers eventually coated everything in the store with grease. They covers we used weren't laytex, but they did a good job of keeping grease out of the keyboard. It was actually cool to take the cover off of a three year old keyboard and have it look brand new.
You make a good point about the young and old being affected more than healthy adults, but you need to include the immuno-compromised. The flu can be quite deadly to those living with AIDS.
To put the 1918 pandemic in perspective, each year the flu kills about 30,000 people in the U.S. (according to my source that participates in CDC flu studies every year). If U.S. deaths are representative of the rest of the world (which they probably aren't, but I'm using them for the calculation anyway) that would equal about 600,000 deaths per year due to the flu. While it's only 2 percent of the total that died from the 1918 pandemic, that's still a lot of people.