It seems to me that most of the posters on Slashdot are Libertarian, or else the moderators are, because 99.99999% of the high-rated replies up until now have been: "Oh my god! Contractors are doomed! They chose to work for Microsoft for no benefits, it's their fault! They could choose to leave!" and varying explanations on the theme that offering employment with no benefits is *good* for employees by giving them that Libertarian buzzword, "freedom", to use their slightly inflated paycheck how they wish.
Perhaps, for the sake of balance, we could approach the "choice" argument from the side of Microsoft. Microsoft had a choice: they could employ "temps" that weren't really temporary, and in doing so avoid being forced to pay a living wage *and* provide the benefits all other employees of the company got, or they could get their butt sued. They got their butts sued. Rightfully.
I was employed at SAIC for two years as a temporary worker, and nearly everyone in the building with me was also a "temp". A lot of those guys had been a "temp" for two years before I even got there, and were still there long after I was gone. The guys who weren't "temps" were contractors (I make the distinction between office grunt temps making $10 an hour and contract programmers who were pulling in $40). I think there might have been about 10 honest salaried employees with benefits and vacations, and those just happened to be the managers and bosses.
I find the "choice" argument to be tiresome, repetitive, and boring. It fails to acknowledge that far too many permanent, salaried jobs with benefits are being replaced by "temps" who get an option to buy agency health insurance after a YEAR of employment with the agency, and with no end-of-employment date in sight. I really like this settlement, because it sends the message that companies should hire temporary workers because they want the flexibility for short jobs, and not because they want to bypass labor and wage laws.
Please make sure, in the future, that an argument about "choice" actually includes two fairly rational choices. Choosing employment vs. unemployment is no choice at all. This industry is dominated by rent-a-workers, and folks looking for positions with tenure and a chance for advancement need not apply.
At least that's been my experience seeking employment within the IT world.
* STOP expecting a decent salary when others are willing to work for peanuts.
* STOP sleeping a healthy amount.
* START working a lot more than you're paid for, preferably until you fall over from exhaustion.
If you follow my three step plan, one day you might make 1/20th of what the CEO makes, instead of 1/200th. Oh, and you might not be downsized to make room for lower bidders.
Flip through Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and you find reference to a cruel work practice from 1900's meat packing plants called "speeding up". The plant owners would pay extra for a few guys whose job it was to work as fast as they could, to make sure that everyone else on the assembly lines had to work to the absolute limit of their fragile abilities, too. Then, when the hurried workers finished their work, they were sent home. If this meant sending them home before the end of the workday, well, that was that much more money saved, both by forcing more work per hour than a man could handle and then by cropping hours off his wages.
In some ways, these hiring practices that encourage people to work more than they should and accept less than they are worth are nothing more than a 2000's extension of "speeding up". Employees are forced to work longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits in the fear that their job might be given to someone willing to work for less.
I don't think America, being as tired as it is from working two jobs 60-80 hours a week, needs any more "motivational speeches". If you're working more than 40 hours a week, you shouldn't be proud. You should be outraged.
I don't want to repeat what other posters have said before me, namely that 1) you _can_ get a fast land line in Europe and 2) that there's no such thing as a free local phone call.
Another thing I have noticed during my time in Europe and the USA is that European mobile phones are so much more advanced. I have a fairly cheap GSM phone, and it does a lot of stuff that none of my American mobile phones ever did, and it's smaller!
For example, when I turn on my phone it asks me for a passcode in order to use the phone account (a nice security feature that saved me when I lost my last phone). The phone account is encoded on an encrypted smart card that is inserted into the back of the phone. If I want to switch phones, I can drop my number into the back of a new one and go. My little smart chip also stores all the names and addresses in my address book. Those go with me, too.
GSM is digital, encrypted, and I don't have to pay to receive a call as long as I am in my home country. There's a small charge to receive calls when roaming. I can send text messages for a few cents to any other GSM phone in Europe, and receive them, too. I can even buy pre-paid chips to put into my phone, instead of receiving a bill each month.
Also factor in that it is cheaper to call a mobile phone _from_ a mobile phone than it is to call a mobile phone from a landline... and these are other compelling reasons why Europe is so hooked on mobile phones.
Americans are spoiled by free local telephone calls, afraid of per-minute charges, angered by having to pay to receive a call, scared stiff every time they read a story about some phone-stealing ring billing unsuspecting accounts, annoyed that their phone calls can be listened to by anyone with a brain and utterly bewildered by a huge number of non-cooperative "standards" when choosing to buy a phone. It's no wonder they're staying away. They should, until the market offers them something comparable in quality to GSM.
This feels a lot like the late 80's and early 90's when makers of high-speed modems were all competing to see who could make the standard that everyone else would be forced to support. I guess it was good for business, but it sure was horrible to be that consumer caught with the 14.4 modem that only connected at 14.4 when connecting to another one just like it.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that most of the posters on Slashdot are Libertarian, or else the moderators are, because 99.99999% of the high-rated replies up until now have been: "Oh my god! Contractors are doomed! They chose to work for Microsoft for no benefits, it's their fault! They could choose to leave!" and varying explanations on the theme that offering employment with no benefits is *good* for employees by giving them that Libertarian buzzword, "freedom", to use their slightly inflated paycheck how they wish.
Perhaps, for the sake of balance, we could approach the "choice" argument from the side of Microsoft. Microsoft had a choice: they could employ "temps" that weren't really temporary, and in doing so avoid being forced to pay a living wage *and* provide the benefits all other employees of the company got, or they could get their butt sued. They got their butts sued. Rightfully.
I was employed at SAIC for two years as a temporary worker, and nearly everyone in the building with me was also a "temp". A lot of those guys had been a "temp" for two years before I even got there, and were still there long after I was gone. The guys who weren't "temps" were contractors (I make the distinction between office grunt temps making $10 an hour and contract programmers who were pulling in $40). I think there might have been about 10 honest salaried employees with benefits and vacations, and those just happened to be the managers and bosses.
I find the "choice" argument to be tiresome, repetitive, and boring. It fails to acknowledge that far too many permanent, salaried jobs with benefits are being replaced by "temps" who get an option to buy agency health insurance after a YEAR of employment with the agency, and with no end-of-employment date in sight. I really like this settlement, because it sends the message that companies should hire temporary workers because they want the flexibility for short jobs, and not because they want to bypass labor and wage laws.
Please make sure, in the future, that an argument about "choice" actually includes two fairly rational choices. Choosing employment vs. unemployment is no choice at all. This industry is dominated by rent-a-workers, and folks looking for positions with tenure and a chance for advancement need not apply.
At least that's been my experience seeking employment within the IT world.
I can translate this as:
* STOP expecting a decent salary when others are willing to work for peanuts.
* STOP sleeping a healthy amount.
* START working a lot more than you're paid for, preferably until you fall over from exhaustion.
If you follow my three step plan, one day you might make 1/20th of what the CEO makes, instead of 1/200th. Oh, and you might not be downsized to make room for lower bidders.
Flip through Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and you find reference to a cruel work practice from 1900's meat packing plants called "speeding up". The plant owners would pay extra for a few guys whose job it was to work as fast as they could, to make sure that everyone else on the assembly lines had to work to the absolute limit of their fragile abilities, too. Then, when the hurried workers finished their work, they were sent home. If this meant sending them home before the end of the workday, well, that was that much more money saved, both by forcing more work per hour than a man could handle and then by cropping hours off his wages.
In some ways, these hiring practices that encourage people to work more than they should and accept less than they are worth are nothing more than a 2000's extension of "speeding up". Employees are forced to work longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits in the fear that their job might be given to someone willing to work for less.
I don't think America, being as tired as it is from working two jobs 60-80 hours a week, needs any more "motivational speeches". If you're working more than 40 hours a week, you shouldn't be proud. You should be outraged.
I don't want to repeat what other posters have said before me, namely that 1) you _can_ get a fast land line in Europe and 2) that there's no such thing as a free local phone call.
Another thing I have noticed during my time in Europe and the USA is that European mobile phones are so much more advanced. I have a fairly cheap GSM phone, and it does a lot of stuff that none of my American mobile phones ever did, and it's smaller!
For example, when I turn on my phone it asks me for a passcode in order to use the phone account (a nice security feature that saved me when I lost my last phone). The phone account is encoded on an encrypted smart card that is inserted into the back of the phone. If I want to switch phones, I can drop my number into the back of a new one and go. My little smart chip also stores all the names and addresses in my address book. Those go with me, too.
GSM is digital, encrypted, and I don't have to pay to receive a call as long as I am in my home country. There's a small charge to receive calls when roaming. I can send text messages for a few cents to any other GSM phone in Europe, and receive them, too. I can even buy pre-paid chips to put into my phone, instead of receiving a bill each month.
Also factor in that it is cheaper to call a mobile phone _from_ a mobile phone than it is to call a mobile phone from a landline... and these are other compelling reasons why Europe is so hooked on mobile phones.
Americans are spoiled by free local telephone calls, afraid of per-minute charges, angered by having to pay to receive a call, scared stiff every time they read a story about some phone-stealing ring billing unsuspecting accounts, annoyed that their phone calls can be listened to by anyone with a brain and utterly bewildered by a huge number of non-cooperative "standards" when choosing to buy a phone. It's no wonder they're staying away. They should, until the market offers them something comparable in quality to GSM.
This feels a lot like the late 80's and early 90's when makers of high-speed modems were all competing to see who could make the standard that everyone else would be forced to support. I guess it was good for business, but it sure was horrible to be that consumer caught with the 14.4 modem that only connected at 14.4 when connecting to another one just like it.
- chatte