Being an unemployed Unix admin and having to live on unemployment, I've just revised my own personal economy:
1) My mortgage payment of 1300.00 has been reduced ( by me ) to 30.00. Hey if they don't like it, tough!
2) I drove to the convenience store today. Filled up the car ( 20.00 ) and got a pack of smokes ( 2.75) . I handed the guy 3 bucks and told him to keep the change. When he protested the total, I explained to him that because I'm having to scale back my economy, so would he.
3) I informed COBRA today that 562.00 per month is too much and that from now until I find another job, that I'll pay them 10.00 per month. This should be totally adequate.
4) I'm dropping my auto insurance since I haven't had an accident in 30 years. Seems fair to me.
5) Tomorrow I'm going shopping for clothing at Kohl's , I think. I'm going to pick out only items made in India and pay.10 each for them. This has to be a fair price since I'm sure it only cost.5 to produce there.
6) Once I've completed my wardrobe, I'm going to either Georgia Tech or University of Georgia and further my education. I think 50.00 a year is equitable.
See? No reason to change your lifestyle radically. Just spread the outsourcing effects around. I'm sure no one will argue with you . How could they? It's good for the economy, right? >:)
Re:Experience = Being Sedentary
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
I know just what you're saying. I work in an such an environment. I'm surrounded by specialists who typically won't walk across the room if they can avoid it. They have difficulty absorbing new concepts. Meeting deadlines is almost impossible for them, They tend to have a laid back attitude to their area of expertise and can't seem to broaden the scope of that expertise.
I've been working there ( as a contractor ) for a few years now. I had been doing some Unix admin work for them and then they dumped the entire responsibility for their CAD infrastructure on me. For the last year and a half I've had to not only support new applications, but I've had to function as an accountant, a manager, a help desk, and anything else the job required. The veterans sit back in a state of euphoric complacency, playing with the latest PDA or wireless laptop, while I might be walking a mile just to troubleshoot a problem for an end user or attend a planning meeting. Keep in mind that I've never supported CAD, I hate accounting, and I surely don't consider myself a manager or a help desk representative.
Now, it seems, that due to budget cuts, they're finally eliminating me. Fortunately, it's been a smooth transition and I have every confidence that the 4 people replacing me will be able to do an adequte job....I hope. They seem to be focusing on their individual areas of expertise, so I'm a bit worried that there won't be any overlap and something will slip through the cracks. Of course, when I'm gone in two weeks time, it won't really matter to me. ( I suppose it actually will matter in an abstract sense, actually )
Really confirms what you've said, right?
Wrong.
These people are in their mid 20s . I'm 47.
Hey. Thanks a bunch for stereotyping me.
I'd write a bit more on this subject, but I need to eat my soylent red and pay a visit to the suicide parlor....
Okay. Mod me down to old and stupid, but while this article may be true, so far I haven't seen anything (other than the URL referenced in the summary ) confirming this. Sure, there's a link in this ( the Slashdot ) thread to a DVD discussion group, but has anyone researched this? It seems to be a mighty thin basis on which to be posting an article?
That's because the original BattleZone, of which the trainer was a modification, used "stick-figures" or a sort of "wire frame". BattleZone is,after all, older than dog dirt >:)
If you were a consultant who had done some contract work for a company, any company, and they witheld payment for no legitimate reason, would you just accept the fact that you'd lost time and money?
I wouldn't.
The fact that he used to work for them has no bearing on what he's doing/just did/will do for them. He's no longer their employee. That relationship is finished.
If a company ( any company ) has a habit of screwing over consultants, then they do need a black mark next to their name as well as a good, judicial slapping around.
All that being a former employee should mean to the former employer is: He probably knows most of the network layout ( depending on how long he's been gone )
The problem is that he presented this whole scenario as being with his "Former employer" . If he'd presented it as a random client who he'd done work for previously, I imagine the responses would be a bit different. Way different!
Picture this:
Client: "John. You've done work for us in the past. We have an emergency. We demand you help us."
John:" At my standard bill rate plus expenses, right?"
Client: " Noooo. We thought that you'd want to do this for free. That's not a problem is it? If you do good for free, maybe we'll have future work for you to do for free later"
You probably would have done better to have stated , up front, your hourly rate and expenses. If you don't know how much your time is worth, break down your old salary to an hourly rate and double it. This should cover the amount that you need to cover taxes, medical insurance ( assuming you had that at before you were laid off ) etc.
If the client ( that's right - client - they did lay you off and you no longer work for them as an employee ) accepts this hourly rate , then you go onsite. If you want to charge for travel time, go ahead.
Make sure that you provide them with a written statement of your hourly rate and the scope of work that you will perform. Something as simple as:
Hourly rate = 50.00 (USD) (minimum charge 2 hours ) Travel = 1 hour of billable time Scope of work: Troubleshooting networks. Toilets will not be cleaned, nor dry cleaning delivered.
Don't go for the daily rate thing on a one off assignment like this. You will end up sorely abused!
Before you leave the client site, have the responsible party sign a time sheet or invoice. Provide them with a copy, but retain one, with their signature, for yourself.
If you do go with an invoice instead of a time sheet, make sure all charges (travel, cell phone,etc. ) are included!
Once you've received payment, take out the necessary amount for taxes, etc, and stick it in a bank account. Or be bold, and just spend all of it. The downside of the latter plan is that you might get busted by the IRS ( I knew someone who did. Long story..build a campfire some night and I'll tell it )
I'm not going to say you were stupid for doing the work, but chalk it up as a lesson learned and remember next time: Never do free work for a former employer unless they've been paying your bills, trying to find you a new job, taking your kids to soccer practice, etc. Once you're a former employee, you don't have an obligation to do pro bono work for your former employer.
Even if they call and say "This is something you screwed up while you were our employee. Fix it for free or else", you don't work for free. Once the employer/employee relationship is over, it's over. And besides, the above scenario ( which does happen ) is commonly referred to as extortion in the legal world.
Remember: There is a price for doing business. If they can't pay you that price, then they can't afford to pay anyone else, and probably shouldn't be in business.
I went the route of trying Gnucash. I tried other alternatives ( dual partition, etc. ). Everything I tried was less than optimal.
When I finally decided to break down and purchase a PDA last year, I found my answer: PDA based financial software.
I use BankBook and Quik Budget. Both of these are for the Palm OS.
I simply download transactions from my bank to my desktop (.QIF format ) and hotsync them to the PDA.
Quik Budget works with Bankbook to keep the finances (more or less) under control.
The cost for the two pieces of software added up to around 30 USD. And the PDA was around 150.
Now, if you're wanting to do your taxes using Quicken, my suggestion is: Don't.
Hire an accountant. It's so much easier to drag a (semi) human being in front of an IRS auditor than it is to blame errors on the software.
Palm based personal finance software has the advantage of always being available.
You can do reconcile your accounts during those boring departmental meetings or while sitting in front of the tube.
The downside is that the Palm ( at least my Visor Deluxe ) lacks pretty graphics and of course some of the budgetary things that quicken would do for you aren't included. But, it's simple and it works.
Okay. I've been on this drug. It's important to remember that it enhances alertness. It does not keep you from sleeping. I was able to nap if I chose to. It was prescribed for EDS (Excessive Daytime Sleepiness, not the other one!)
It had very few side effects that I was aware of. The biggest one was a slight head rush about 10-20 minutes after taking a dose.
I was on Provigil for about a month until my sleep apnea was finally treated properly (CPAP) and in my case it was definitely a life saver. Prior to taking it, I was actually falling asleep at work, at stoplights, and in the bathtub (glug)
As far as more recreational uses, I'd have to say that unless you absolutely have to stay awake, go to sleep. Besides, replacement of caffeine by something else would lead to the breakdown of modern society and the end of the world as we know it!
Well, we can hope that maybe he'll come up with something new and innovative.
I do remember meeting him in the early '80s at a computer software store in Georgia. I agree that he was a pioneer and obviously very dedicated to what he was doing. What struck me, was that even though he was quite well known and successful, at that point he possessed a quality I've rarely seen in programmers : Humility
I imagine he's grown up and lost that quality, but that's the way I remember him...
And I still remember the original Ultima ( the C-64) version with fondness.
Back in the early '80s when I was just starting out as a computer operator on HP3000 systems, I was working the "graveyard shift"
I was working alone and at first I was totally enthralled by the massive amount of technology I was able to explore. I had compilers, subsystems and even (primitive) networking to play with!
After a month or two though, I discovered an adventure game - Mystery Mansion, hidden away on an HP1000 system in the corner. Since the shift was pretty slow and I had mastered the fundamentals of Pascal programming, I felt it was time to kick back and play for a while.
I had a few nice evenings of trying to solve the crime, kill the vampire, and sleep with the maid.
One night I came in,read the status reports, viewed the console logs, and settled down for another round of Mystery Mansion. I had just started the game when I remembered that I was supposed to verify that an ad hoc job had completed . I logged in as the superuser (manager.sys, I believe) and there on the display was the message: "Finish Necessary Work First".
In a state of shock, I looked around.Messages didn't appear on the console without a "Tellop" command being issued. There was no one in the room. There were no other users logged in. As I said, our networking was primitive, not even TCP/IP .
Being a novice to the MPE operating system, I wasn't aware that one of the dayshift guys with a terrible memory had placed the message in a logon UDC to remind himself to do his task list each day.
Well, I'm sitting there, the hair raising on the back of my neck , when a ballast in one of the overhead lights decides to burn out. There was an eerie flickering and then one of the dishwasher sized drives that had been taking out of service due to a head crash blew a beer can sized capacitor which produced a huge crashing sound in the server room.
Now there are three perfectly normal events taking place, but not being aware of the fact that they are all normal and already being freaked out, I'm figuring Vampires, Murderers, or Werewolves (not the maid, though:( ) are lurking behind the systems.
Through the glass wall (which hadn't been cleaned well for a while), I could see a swirl of smoke and in the midst of this, what appeared to be a form taking shape.
I was out the door in 20 seconds. I ran the 1/8 mile to the guard post and swore I'd never go back . Of course reason prevailed and I called the system manager and told him about the smoke, noise and lighting. I left out the text message and the game playing of course. Once he arrived, all of the pieces fell into place and I felt extremely silly
I went back to working on more advanced concepts of Pascal programming after that , though.:)
Slashdot Mirror
No. No! I've got a plan!...
.10 each for them. This has to be a fair price since I'm sure it only cost .5 to produce there.
Being an unemployed Unix admin and having to live on unemployment, I've just revised my own personal economy:
1) My mortgage payment of 1300.00 has been reduced ( by me ) to 30.00. Hey if they don't like it, tough!
2) I drove to the convenience store today. Filled up the car ( 20.00 ) and got a pack of smokes ( 2.75) . I handed the guy 3 bucks and told him to keep the change. When he protested the total, I explained to him that because I'm having to scale back my economy, so would he.
3) I informed COBRA today that 562.00 per month is too much and that from now until I find another job, that I'll pay them 10.00 per month. This should be totally adequate.
4) I'm dropping my auto insurance since I haven't had an accident in 30 years. Seems fair to me.
5) Tomorrow I'm going shopping for clothing at Kohl's , I think. I'm going to pick out only items made in India and pay
6) Once I've completed my wardrobe, I'm going to either Georgia Tech or University of Georgia and further my education. I think 50.00 a year is equitable.
See? No reason to change your lifestyle radically. Just spread the outsourcing effects around. I'm sure no one will argue with you . How could they? It's good for the economy, right? >:)
I know just what you're saying. I work in an such an environment. I'm surrounded by specialists who typically won't walk across the room if they can avoid it. They have difficulty absorbing new concepts. Meeting deadlines is almost impossible for them, They tend to have a laid back attitude to their area of expertise and can't seem to broaden the scope of that expertise.
I've been working there ( as a contractor ) for a few years now. I had been doing some Unix admin work for them and then they dumped the entire responsibility for their CAD infrastructure on me. For the last year and a half I've had to not only support new applications, but I've had to function as an accountant, a manager, a help desk, and anything else the job required. The veterans sit back in a state of euphoric complacency, playing with the latest PDA or wireless laptop, while I might be walking a mile just to troubleshoot a problem for an end user or attend a planning meeting. Keep in mind that I've never supported CAD, I hate accounting, and I surely don't consider myself a manager or a help desk representative.
Now, it seems, that due to budget cuts, they're finally eliminating me. Fortunately, it's been a smooth transition and I have every confidence that the 4 people replacing me will be able to do an adequte job....I hope. They seem to be focusing on their individual areas of expertise, so I'm a bit worried that there won't be any overlap and something will slip through the cracks. Of course, when I'm gone in two weeks time, it won't really matter to me. ( I suppose it actually will matter in an abstract sense, actually )
Really confirms what you've said, right?
Wrong.
These people are in their mid 20s . I'm 47.
Hey. Thanks a bunch for stereotyping me.
I'd write a bit more on this subject, but I need to eat my soylent red and pay a visit to the suicide parlor....
Check out this USAF museum link for the "unofficial" service ceiling of the X-15.
5 7. htm
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/modern_flight/mf
Pretty incredible for the era in which it was flying.
Okay. Mod me down to old and stupid, but while this article may be true, so far I haven't seen anything (other than the URL referenced in the summary ) confirming this. Sure, there's a link in this ( the Slashdot ) thread to a DVD discussion group, but has anyone researched this? It seems to be a mighty thin basis on which to be posting an article?
That's because the original BattleZone, of which the trainer was a modification, used "stick-figures" or a sort of "wire frame". BattleZone is ,after all, older than dog dirt >:)
Look at it from a different perspective:
If you were a consultant who had done some contract work for a company, any company, and they witheld payment for no legitimate reason, would you just accept the fact that you'd lost time and money?
I wouldn't.
The fact that he used to work for them has no bearing on what he's doing/just did/will do for them. He's no longer their employee. That relationship is finished.
If a company ( any company ) has a habit of screwing over consultants, then they do need a black mark next to their name as well as a good, judicial slapping around.
All that being a former employee should mean to the former employer is: He probably knows most of the network layout ( depending on how long he's been gone )
The problem is that he presented this whole scenario as being with his "Former employer" . If he'd presented it as a random client who he'd done work for previously, I imagine the responses would be a bit different. Way different!
Picture this:
Client: "John. You've done work for us in the past. We have an emergency. We demand you help us."
John:" At my standard bill rate plus expenses, right?"
Client: " Noooo. We thought that you'd want to do this for free. That's not a problem is it? If you do good for free, maybe we'll have future work for you to do for free later"
Here's my take:
:
,etc. ) are included!
You probably would have done better to have stated , up front, your hourly rate and expenses. If you don't know how much your time is worth, break down your old salary to an hourly rate and double it.
This should cover the amount that you need to cover taxes, medical insurance ( assuming you had that at before you were laid off ) etc.
If the client ( that's right - client - they did lay you off and you no longer work for them as an employee ) accepts this hourly rate , then you go onsite. If you want to charge for travel time, go ahead.
Make sure that you provide them with a written statement of your hourly rate and the scope of work that you will perform. Something as simple as
Hourly rate = 50.00 (USD) (minimum charge 2 hours )
Travel = 1 hour of billable time
Scope of work: Troubleshooting networks. Toilets will not be cleaned, nor dry cleaning delivered.
Don't go for the daily rate thing on a one off assignment like this. You will end up sorely abused!
Before you leave the client site, have the responsible party sign a time sheet or invoice. Provide them with a copy, but retain one, with their signature, for yourself.
If you do go with an invoice instead of a time sheet, make sure all charges (travel, cell phone
Once you've received payment, take out the necessary amount for taxes, etc, and stick it in a bank account. Or be bold, and just spend all of it. The downside of the latter plan is that you might get busted by the IRS ( I knew someone who did. Long story..build a campfire some night and I'll tell it )
I'm not going to say you were stupid for doing the work, but chalk it up as a lesson learned and remember next time: Never do free work for a former employer unless they've been paying your bills, trying to find you a new job, taking your kids to soccer practice, etc. Once you're a former employee, you don't have an obligation to do pro bono work for your former employer.
Even if they call and say "This is something you screwed up while you were our employee. Fix it for free or else", you don't work for free. Once the employer/employee relationship is over, it's over.
And besides, the above scenario ( which does happen ) is commonly referred to as extortion in the legal world.
Remember: There is a price for doing business. If they can't pay you that price, then they can't afford to pay anyone else, and probably shouldn't be in business.
Try purchasing a Stowaway keyboard for your visor. I did and have been able to play "Zork" in the strangest places..
The price used to be $100 (USD that is). It's hopefully less now..
I went the route of trying Gnucash. I tried other alternatives ( dual partition, etc. ). Everything I tried was less than optimal.
When I finally decided to break down and purchase a PDA last year, I found my answer: PDA based financial software.
I use BankBook and Quik Budget. Both of these are for the Palm OS.
I simply download transactions from my bank to my desktop (.QIF format ) and hotsync them to the PDA.
Quik Budget works with Bankbook to keep the finances (more or less) under control.
The cost for the two pieces of software added up to around 30 USD. And the PDA was around 150.
Now, if you're wanting to do your taxes using Quicken, my suggestion is: Don't.
Hire an accountant. It's so much easier to drag a (semi) human being in front of an IRS auditor than it is to blame errors on the software.
Palm based personal finance software has the advantage of always being available.
You can do reconcile your accounts during those boring departmental meetings or while sitting in front of the tube.
The downside is that the Palm ( at least my Visor Deluxe ) lacks pretty graphics
and of course some of the budgetary things that quicken would do for you aren't included. But, it's simple and it works.
Just a thought!
Sitt
Okay. I've been on this drug. It's important to remember that it enhances alertness. It does not keep you from sleeping. I was able to nap if I chose to. It was prescribed for EDS (Excessive Daytime Sleepiness, not the other one!)
It had very few side effects that I was aware of. The biggest one was a slight head rush about 10-20 minutes after taking a dose.
I was on Provigil for about a month until my sleep apnea was finally treated properly (CPAP) and in my case it was definitely a life saver. Prior to taking it, I was actually falling asleep at work, at stoplights, and in the bathtub (glug)
As far as more recreational uses, I'd have to say that unless you absolutely have to stay awake, go to sleep. Besides, replacement of caffeine by something else would lead to the breakdown of modern society and the end of the world as we know it!
Well, we can hope that maybe he'll come up with something new and innovative.
I do remember meeting him in the early '80s at a computer software store in Georgia. I agree that he was a pioneer and obviously very dedicated to what he was doing. What struck me, was that even though he was quite well known and successful, at that point he possessed a quality I've rarely seen in programmers : Humility
I imagine he's grown up and lost that quality, but that's the way I remember him...
And I still remember the original Ultima ( the C-64) version with fondness.
Sittius
Back in the early '80s when I was just starting out as a computer operator on HP3000 systems, I was working the "graveyard shift"
,read the status reports, viewed the console logs, and settled down for another round of Mystery Mansion. I had just started the game when I remembered that I was supposed to verify that an ad hoc job had completed . I logged in as the superuser (manager.sys, I believe) and there on the display was the message: "Finish Necessary Work First".
:( ) are lurking behind the systems.
I was working alone and at first I was totally enthralled by the massive amount of technology I was able to explore. I had compilers, subsystems and even (primitive) networking to play with!
After a month or two though, I discovered an adventure game - Mystery Mansion, hidden away on an HP1000 system in the corner. Since the shift was pretty slow and I had mastered the fundamentals of Pascal programming, I felt it was time to kick back and play for a while.
I had a few nice evenings of trying to solve the crime, kill the vampire, and sleep with the maid.
One night I came in
In a state of shock, I looked around.Messages didn't appear on the console without a "Tellop" command being issued. There was no one in the room. There were no other users logged in. As I said, our networking was primitive, not even TCP/IP .
Being a novice to the MPE operating system, I wasn't aware that one of the dayshift guys with a terrible memory had placed the message in a logon UDC to remind himself to do his task list each day.
Well, I'm sitting there, the hair raising on the back of my neck , when a ballast in one of the overhead lights decides to burn out. There was an eerie flickering and then one of the dishwasher sized drives that had been taking out of service due to a head crash blew a beer can sized capacitor which produced a huge crashing sound in the server room.
Now there are three perfectly normal events taking place, but not being aware of the fact that they are all normal and already being freaked out, I'm figuring Vampires, Murderers, or Werewolves (not the maid, though
Through the glass wall (which hadn't been cleaned well for a while), I could see a swirl of smoke and in the midst of this, what appeared to be a form taking shape.
I was out the door in 20 seconds. I ran the 1/8 mile to the guard post and swore I'd never go back . Of course reason prevailed and I called the system manager and told him about the smoke, noise and lighting. I left out the text message and the game playing of course. Once he arrived, all of the pieces fell into place and I felt extremely silly
I went back to working on more advanced concepts of Pascal programming after that , though.:)
Sittius