If you get progressive lenses there is an Computer Monitor configuration that enlarges the middle section and lower section (near) vision leaving a slit across the top for seeing farther away. They work very well. In my case, I have become far-sighted so I made a case making a pair od progressive lenses that progresses 24-15 (midrange) and near for reading and no top for far as my vision is good enough to see someone who is talking to me or coming sown a hall towards me without support.
Personally, I find this while "legal" tactic reprehensible. But, there is a lot of it around especially in the U.S. Every company wants to become a patent mill.:)
What you will hear from the employers is "If you have an invention within 6 months after termination, you were probably working on it while employed" which, is bogus, especially if the employer was NOT paying you as a engineer or some other level that warrants this. I have seen a classic grab where, lets say (in a fully fabricated reality), the company produces music players and the former player invented a new kind of nipple for a baby bottle. The music player company tried to say that invention was of interest as they were considering licensing baby bottle patents as part of their business.
One thing to ask for is that this clause be null and void if the company terminates you involuntarily, especially in the case of a layoff. (If they fire you for cause, you are in a bad place legally anyhow.)
Non compete, though, is something that has held up. I am a consultant/contractor and often have to sign business contracts on the order that I will not try to drum independent business with that company's clients for 2-5 years after my contract terminates. In this case I ALWAYS get a rider to the contract that states that it does not apply to any business with which I have a previous relationship, and I have good records.
Also, if you really like the current employer and don't want to jump ship as a way to get around this, ask for a negation clause. AND add that ANY invention is not developed on company time nor with company resources that also has no bearing on the companies CURRENT, at the time of conception or invention, be explicitly excluded and keep good records (including the trick of mailing yourself the initial and keeping the sealed envelope when you come up with an idea that might have future value to you.
Lastly, I assume there in nothing in the original employment contract that implies they can force you to sign a new contract as a condition of employment.
I have always thought it might be fun to line up a few of these companies, work for each 2-3 months, and come out with a patentable invention 2-3 months after the last employ and sit back and watch the fireworks.
First, are you willing to relocate or at least reside where the "Perl" job is during the normal work times? Can you telecommute for this job if not?
Second: You say you have been doing Microsoft/.NET work since college.
Perl/.../Linux would BROADEN your appeal to employers (and yourself) as you get more experience and become more senior in the programming world. So it would also be a professional learning experience. It never hurts to have balance, and more that one point of view in computing. My background (over just a FEW years) includes IBM Mainframe, most of the operating systems offered by Digital at one time or another, (U/Li)nix in several flavors and writing operating systems and applications. The breadth of my past professional background and the comfort in many platforms as contributed hugely in my abilities to offer value in situations where a "single view" (say Microsoft OR *nix OR Mainframe) contributors were banging their heads against the sides of the boxes they lived in.
Third: There is the personal reward.
Unless +20% is not enough to maintain the type of living you want, there is going to be an extra N% effective in self reward as well as developing breadth and making yourself a more salable senior programming "product" at the same time.
If you were to relocate to shorten the 120 mile commute, can it be done in such a way as to LOWER your cost of living, for instance? (Is housing cheaper or more expensive,...).
I personally thing we, as a society, have gotten so focused on money and "cost of doing business "here"" that we loose ourselves and a chunk of self reward.
You sound fairly new to the workplace and have time for the money to come. I shoot for fun and learning while it is still possible. Who knows, perhaps you can make the Perl shop a Python shop and/or become such a WEBbing expert that you won't care what platform it runs on, you can handle it and have a good time too. It is really nice to go home after work on a high. It is really nice to do something so creative, to you, that you keep beating in it, not because it is expected you will put in more that 40 hours, but because you are having fun.
Actually, having swap on a huge drive, if it is the only available drive will have wonderful results in contention if you have pre-emptive paging and swapping going on. A slower swap drive, used infrequently, is fine and you don't contend with data by seek-thrashing the 300GB drive.
I tend to put the page/swap file (for Linux) on the otherwise least used drive. With 1GB of memory, 30% to the file buffering I have on occasion paged, actively. Then again, large builds while playing in Gimp with several pictures can cause occasional overflow of the lower 700MB. But because of the setup, I never notice it in the activity as the CPU has the horsepower to keep busy and do the build in the background. If I just run the build, and don't run something fat othewise, little to no swap-in happens and the build runs the same amount of time (well, within 10 seconds) on the wall.
99.44% of the time, the system doesn't swap. With paging not contending with the data being diddled, and enough file share that temp files never see a disk, the system flies even in the.66% of the time I page/swap some.
(Right now I have a 10GB swap because that is how big the odd drive is).
You don't mention your situation beyond a job that you find boring
and the fact that there is an opportunity to do what you feel woudl bemore rewarding.
First: if you are single you have a lot more room for risk. That makes
"go for it" a much easier decision.
Second: does the cut level of pay allow you to live, othewise, as you want.
(Pay bills, buy Tacos & beer or Caviar and expensive wines)? Is there
any other potential future compensation (do you get shares in the startup)?
Consider that you are changing type of job (from your description) so the cut may
be warranted
Third: should the company fail within a year or two, or should you
become disenchanted, will this job improve your resume for future
work in this direction (unplanned job hopping).
In my case, I moved jobs when jobs "found me". Once I got less for the
succeeding job but I changed direction (like this sounds). It works.
I ended up with a 20 year ride in a great set of positions within a company
and would do it all over again.
DEC had a program like this, I believe about 1989. The program was called "Engineers to Education" Of course, I guess that makes HP first since they now own the corpse of DEC and Compaq.
Slashdot Mirror
If you get progressive lenses there is an Computer Monitor configuration that enlarges the middle section and lower section (near) vision leaving a slit across the top for seeing farther away. They work very well. In my case, I have become far-sighted so I made a case making a pair od progressive lenses that progresses 24-15 (midrange) and near for reading and no top for far as my vision is good enough to see someone who is talking to me or coming sown a hall towards me without support.
Personally, I find this while "legal" tactic reprehensible. But, there is a lot of it around especially in the U.S. Every company wants to become a patent mill. :)
What you will hear from the employers is "If you have an invention within 6 months after termination, you were probably working on it while employed" which, is bogus, especially if the employer was NOT paying you as a engineer or some other level that warrants this. I have seen a classic grab where, lets say (in a fully fabricated reality), the company produces music players and the former player invented a new kind of nipple for a baby bottle. The music player company tried to say that invention was of interest as they were considering licensing baby bottle patents as part of their business.
One thing to ask for is that this clause be null and void if the company terminates you involuntarily, especially in the case of a layoff. (If they fire you for cause, you are in a bad place legally anyhow.)
Non compete, though, is something that has held up. I am a consultant/contractor and often have to sign business contracts on the order that I will not try to drum independent business with that company's clients for 2-5 years after my contract terminates. In this case I ALWAYS get a rider to the contract that states that it does not apply to any business with which I have a previous relationship, and I have good records.
Also, if you really like the current employer and don't want to jump ship as a way to get around this, ask for a negation clause. AND add that ANY invention is not developed on company time nor with company resources that also has no bearing on the companies CURRENT, at the time of conception or invention, be explicitly excluded and keep good records (including the trick of mailing yourself the initial and keeping the sealed envelope when you come up with an idea that might have future value to you.
Lastly, I assume there in nothing in the original employment contract that implies they can force you to sign a new contract as a condition of employment.
I have always thought it might be fun to line up a few of these companies, work for each 2-3 months, and come out with a patentable invention 2-3 months after the last employ and sit back and watch the fireworks.
I though Ebay bought a chunk of Craigslist. I expect any funds they gave would pay for 24 people for a while.
First, are you willing to relocate or at least reside where the "Perl" job
...).
is during the normal work times? Can you telecommute for this job if not?
Second: You say you have been doing Microsoft/.NET work since college.
Perl/.../Linux would BROADEN your appeal to employers (and yourself) as
you get more experience and become more senior in the programming world.
So it would also be a professional learning experience. It never hurts
to have balance, and more that one point of view in computing. My background
(over just a FEW years) includes IBM Mainframe, most of the operating systems
offered by Digital at one time or another, (U/Li)nix in several flavors
and writing operating systems and applications. The breadth of my past
professional background and the comfort in many platforms as contributed
hugely in my abilities to offer value in situations where a "single view"
(say Microsoft OR *nix OR Mainframe) contributors were banging their heads
against the sides of the boxes they lived in.
Third: There is the personal reward.
Unless +20% is not enough to maintain the type of living you want, there
is going to be an extra N% effective in self reward as well as developing
breadth and making yourself a more salable senior programming "product"
at the same time.
If you were to relocate to shorten the 120 mile commute, can it be done
in such a way as to LOWER your cost of living, for instance? (Is
housing cheaper or more expensive,
I personally thing we, as a society, have gotten so focused on money and
"cost of doing business "here"" that we loose ourselves and a chunk of
self reward.
You sound fairly new to the workplace and have time for the money to come.
I shoot for fun and learning while it is still possible. Who knows, perhaps
you can make the Perl shop a Python shop and/or become such a WEBbing expert
that you won't care what platform it runs on, you can handle it and have
a good time too. It is really nice to go home after work on a high.
It is really nice to do something so creative, to you, that you keep beating
in it, not because it is expected you will put in more that 40 hours, but
because you are having fun.
JMHO
Bill
Actually, having swap on a huge drive, if it is the only available drive will have wonderful results in contention if you have pre-emptive paging and swapping going on. A slower swap drive, used infrequently, is fine and you don't contend with data by seek-thrashing the 300GB drive.
.66% of the time I page/swap some.
I tend to put the page/swap file (for Linux) on the otherwise least used drive. With 1GB of memory, 30% to the file buffering I have on occasion paged, actively. Then again, large builds while playing in Gimp with several pictures can cause occasional overflow of the lower 700MB. But because of the setup, I never notice it in the activity as the CPU has the horsepower to keep busy and do the build in the background. If I just run the build, and don't run something fat othewise, little to no swap-in happens and the build runs the same amount of time (well, within 10 seconds) on the wall.
99.44% of the time, the system doesn't swap. With paging not contending with the data being diddled, and enough file share that temp files never see a disk, the system flies even in the
(Right now I have a 10GB swap because that is how big the odd drive is).
You don't mention your situation beyond a job that you find boring and the fact that there is an opportunity to do what you feel woudl bemore rewarding.
First: if you are single you have a lot more room for risk. That makes "go for it" a much easier decision.
Second: does the cut level of pay allow you to live, othewise, as you want. (Pay bills, buy Tacos & beer or Caviar and expensive wines)? Is there any other potential future compensation (do you get shares in the startup)?
Consider that you are changing type of job (from your description) so the cut may be warranted
Third: should the company fail within a year or two, or should you become disenchanted, will this job improve your resume for future work in this direction (unplanned job hopping).
In my case, I moved jobs when jobs "found me". Once I got less for the succeeding job but I changed direction (like this sounds). It works. I ended up with a 20 year ride in a great set of positions within a company and would do it all over again.
DEC had a program like this, I believe about 1989. The program was called "Engineers to Education" Of course, I guess that makes HP first since they now own the corpse of DEC and Compaq.
A very good person to ask about this kind of thing would be Jon Hall (Maddog) at Linux International.
I believe he has been involved with Open Source Development grants and LI might even have such a program.
Bill
No, VISTA is COMPAQ's. The article refered to suggests that Dell is doing one too but COMPAQ has the jump in market speek at the moment.
They are talking about both. Fortran is in field test and has been for a while.