While your post is relevant and contains useful and accurate information, you have to remember who you're talking to here. Some people are impervious to facts that don't align with their ideology, so you can cite facts as much as you want, you're wasting your time. You might as well try to convince a brick wall to not just stand there.
16? We don't pay for people to go to college in this country (no matter how good an idea it is). You get your 12, your useless diploma, and then you pay up if you don't want a job where you either 1) wear a paper hat and a nametag or 2) wade through other people's shit all day.
I don't think you understand what "community college" is. DeVry, UofP, etc. are not community colleges, they are for-profit diploma mills that employ far more salespeople than instructors. A two-year degree or certificate from your local CC carries far more weight than a for-profit degree, and is far far FAR cheaper.
As a former call center worker (multiple centers), I can tell you unequivocally that that is bullshit. Your average CSR does not give a single fuck about the company they're working for (or the company that their company has a contract with). They're paid to absorb anger and read scripts. There is no intellectual input other than saying what they're told accurately. The first time your manager at the call center chews you out for doing a fantastic job and resolving the problem to everyone's satisfaction, but going over your handle time by 3 seconds, you run out of fucks to give.
They go to a state university to get a nursing degree when hospitals are so desperate for nurses they're actually paying dental assistants to go to school in my local area!
Yes, they're so desperate for nurses that they're driving nurses with 40+ years experience right out of the profession (because 1) they make too much money, and 2) nurses actually give a shit about patient care, which tends to eat into the profits). They're so desperate for nurses that they almost never hire two uncertified techs at 1/3 a nurses salary each instead of hiring a floor nurse. They're so desperate for nurses that when the nurses join a union, they create scenarios in which they can fire the union president on a pretense (True story, the president was on call for the OR, and they deliberately chose the case so she would be unqualified to recover the patient, then fired her for abandoning the patient). They're so desperate for nurses that they would never consider giving nurses COL raises without being arm-twisted into doing it, despite making tens of millions in profit each year (Partners Healthcare, who own Massachusetts General Hospital and dozens of other hospitals in New England).
My mom just retired from nursing after nearly 45 years in the profession. There wasn't a single nurse at her retirement party that was under 40. Hospitals SHOULD be desperate for young or experienced nurses, but they don't give a shit about anything other than how much nurses cost them. They'll do shit like opening new dedicated outpatient surgical centers (think knee scopes, cataract surgery, laparoscopic abdominal surgery, tonsils, wisdom teeth.. anything you don't need an overnight stay for) where the nurses don't have a union, so that they can take the profit-making cases away from the hospital WITH unionized nurses, and then claim that the union is what's making the hospital lose money.
Nursing is a profession under siege. They're set up to fail at every turn by greedy administrators. I have no idea why they're training hygienist to be nurses, but I'll bet you they're LPNs that they can pay a pittance (certainly less than a hygienist makes).
You can get the education cheaper than that; use a state college or university
Not really, not anymore. The in-state cost (not tuition, that's a very small part of the actual cost) of my state's public university exceeds $20,000 per year. While that is less than the $40,000 that "elite" private institutions get, I wouldn't describe it as "cheap". Plus, that degree from that "aggie"/"safety" school is waaaaay less marketable than the equivalent degree from Harvard etc., even though the quality of the actual education from the state institution is reasonably equivalent.
get a part time job instead of all debt
Let's do the math on that one. Say you can find a part-time job that pays you $12 an hour (not bloody likely). If you were to work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, you'd make about $25k before statutory deductions, so let's say you take home $20k. That'd pay for a years' bills at an in-state university; however, since you're actually going to school, you can work probably 20 hours a week when classes are in session if you work your ass off. At my school, classes were in session for all but 16 weeks out of the year. So, 16 * 40 * $12 = $7680, and 36 * 20 * $12 = $8640. That's $16320 before deductions, so probably about $13k take-home. That won't pay your way through any four-year college that I know, and that number is likely the high limit of a reasonable probable range. You could go to community college for that much; just don't get your degree from there, it's a waste of money. No matter which way you look at it, you're talking probably close to $10,000 a year in loans to make up the gap under ideal circumstances (I'm counting incidental expenses as well, like books and meals the cafeteria plan doesn't cover.)
get used books or borrow a friend's
Used books aren't cheap either. It's changing with pirated PDF versions of the texts, which are free, but if you want the actual book, even a used copy will set you back $100 or so depending on subject. And that's if you can get a used copy of the specified text; they love to put out new "editions" every year that eliminate any used books from the market. This is especially bad with professors that make you buy the book they wrote, you're a captive audience and they want that cheddar.
Furthermore, you should not be going to college/university for money.
Bullshit. College has become an investment in your future earning potential; it's all about the money. Whether it's a good investment or not depends on a large number of factors, such as your chosen career path and the bullshit "reputation" that your chosen school has. It's become far too expensive to go to college for a "well rounded" education, or for a good general basis for further study without actually doing that further study (masters, doctorate, etc). Nobody gives a fuck if you did well in Rocks for Jocks or waxed eloquent in your Comp Lit class; they care that you spent a lot of money on your education so that they can treat you like crap without your quitting, due to your enormous student loan payments.
And even the first kind of companies is restricted by the prevailing wage law, so they pay quite a good wage as a result.
No they don't. They don't because the H1Bs don't complain about it (because complainers get fired, especially when they complain to someone who's in a position to cause the business trouble), so there's little chance they'll get caught. Even if they do complain, good luck finding out what the "native" workers actually get paid; that information is usually confidential.
You were talking about yourself ("I can replace my job in 1/10th the time/cost it would take my employer to replace me."), then you made a value judgement against others ("If you are at your employers mercy, you have no one to blame but yourself.") Attacking your value judgement and your privilege is reasonable in that context.
When your job description includes the dreaded "other duties as assigned by management" that becomes meaningless. Job descriptions are basically there to con you into taking a job.
You're confusing "protecting employees" with "bad for business". It's a common mistake to make. Keeping someone from earning a living if they ever quit isn't reasonable.
That's almost everywhere in the USA. "At-will" employment is the law of the land. You can be fired at any time for no reason whatsoever, and if you think you've been fired for an illegal reason (for example, racial discrimination), good luck proving it without a stack of documentation, a "smoking gun", and a lawyer willing to take a chance on a case he/she is likely to lose. Most of the time your former employer's lawyers can beat up your lawyer. The only time your former employer has to provide a reason for termination is if you file for unemployment assistance and they fight the claim, in which case they'll invent something plausible that can't be disproved, or they'll just flat-out lie (knowing it's their word against yours, and you're the unemployed slacker that wants something for nothing, while they're job creators.)
The only time an employee is entitled to any process at all before termination is when there's a collective bargaining agreement in place, e.g. you are part of a labor union. And the USA views labor unions with about as much contempt as child molesters.
Thunderbird and Seamonkey have no paid developers.
And, as a result, likely no clueless non-technical product "managers" that never met a feature they didn't like, and also never met a tech lead or developer whose objections they couldn't ignore.
For almost a decade, one can transfer H1Bs. So, if your boss treats you badly or pays you too low, you can switch jobs and keep the same H1B. There are also lots of headhunters who poach H1Bs because the original employer has done all the hard work of getting the H1B, paying the fees and bringing the worker to the US. If they can get them to switch employers, you avoid all the costs of hiring a fresh H1B.
And if your current employer finds out you're talking to a headhunter or interviewing elsewhere, you get fired and deported. No thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
While your post is relevant and contains useful and accurate information, you have to remember who you're talking to here. Some people are impervious to facts that don't align with their ideology, so you can cite facts as much as you want, you're wasting your time. You might as well try to convince a brick wall to not just stand there.
16? We don't pay for people to go to college in this country (no matter how good an idea it is). You get your 12, your useless diploma, and then you pay up if you don't want a job where you either 1) wear a paper hat and a nametag or 2) wade through other people's shit all day.
I don't think you understand what "community college" is. DeVry, UofP, etc. are not community colleges, they are for-profit diploma mills that employ far more salespeople than instructors. A two-year degree or certificate from your local CC carries far more weight than a for-profit degree, and is far far FAR cheaper.
As a former call center worker (multiple centers), I can tell you unequivocally that that is bullshit. Your average CSR does not give a single fuck about the company they're working for (or the company that their company has a contract with). They're paid to absorb anger and read scripts. There is no intellectual input other than saying what they're told accurately. The first time your manager at the call center chews you out for doing a fantastic job and resolving the problem to everyone's satisfaction, but going over your handle time by 3 seconds, you run out of fucks to give.
Yes, they're so desperate for nurses that they're driving nurses with 40+ years experience right out of the profession (because 1) they make too much money, and 2) nurses actually give a shit about patient care, which tends to eat into the profits). They're so desperate for nurses that they almost never hire two uncertified techs at 1/3 a nurses salary each instead of hiring a floor nurse. They're so desperate for nurses that when the nurses join a union, they create scenarios in which they can fire the union president on a pretense (True story, the president was on call for the OR, and they deliberately chose the case so she would be unqualified to recover the patient, then fired her for abandoning the patient). They're so desperate for nurses that they would never consider giving nurses COL raises without being arm-twisted into doing it, despite making tens of millions in profit each year (Partners Healthcare, who own Massachusetts General Hospital and dozens of other hospitals in New England).
My mom just retired from nursing after nearly 45 years in the profession. There wasn't a single nurse at her retirement party that was under 40. Hospitals SHOULD be desperate for young or experienced nurses, but they don't give a shit about anything other than how much nurses cost them. They'll do shit like opening new dedicated outpatient surgical centers (think knee scopes, cataract surgery, laparoscopic abdominal surgery, tonsils, wisdom teeth.. anything you don't need an overnight stay for) where the nurses don't have a union, so that they can take the profit-making cases away from the hospital WITH unionized nurses, and then claim that the union is what's making the hospital lose money.
Nursing is a profession under siege. They're set up to fail at every turn by greedy administrators. I have no idea why they're training hygienist to be nurses, but I'll bet you they're LPNs that they can pay a pittance (certainly less than a hygienist makes).
Yup, and there's the bitching about welfare. You guys are so predictable.
Funny, I pay all my taxes and somehow I still have money in my account. Try living within your means (and that means not cheating on your taxes).
Are you arguing in favor of tax evasion?
Unless they force you to live in the dorms, like mine did.
Not really, not anymore. The in-state cost (not tuition, that's a very small part of the actual cost) of my state's public university exceeds $20,000 per year. While that is less than the $40,000 that "elite" private institutions get, I wouldn't describe it as "cheap". Plus, that degree from that "aggie"/"safety" school is waaaaay less marketable than the equivalent degree from Harvard etc., even though the quality of the actual education from the state institution is reasonably equivalent.
Let's do the math on that one. Say you can find a part-time job that pays you $12 an hour (not bloody likely). If you were to work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, you'd make about $25k before statutory deductions, so let's say you take home $20k. That'd pay for a years' bills at an in-state university; however, since you're actually going to school, you can work probably 20 hours a week when classes are in session if you work your ass off. At my school, classes were in session for all but 16 weeks out of the year. So, 16 * 40 * $12 = $7680, and 36 * 20 * $12 = $8640. That's $16320 before deductions, so probably about $13k take-home. That won't pay your way through any four-year college that I know, and that number is likely the high limit of a reasonable probable range. You could go to community college for that much; just don't get your degree from there, it's a waste of money. No matter which way you look at it, you're talking probably close to $10,000 a year in loans to make up the gap under ideal circumstances (I'm counting incidental expenses as well, like books and meals the cafeteria plan doesn't cover.)
Used books aren't cheap either. It's changing with pirated PDF versions of the texts, which are free, but if you want the actual book, even a used copy will set you back $100 or so depending on subject. And that's if you can get a used copy of the specified text; they love to put out new "editions" every year that eliminate any used books from the market. This is especially bad with professors that make you buy the book they wrote, you're a captive audience and they want that cheddar.
Bullshit. College has become an investment in your future earning potential; it's all about the money. Whether it's a good investment or not depends on a large number of factors, such as your chosen career path and the bullshit "reputation" that your chosen school has. It's become far too expensive to go to college for a "well rounded" education, or for a good general basis for further study without actually doing that further study (masters, doctorate, etc). Nobody gives a fuck if you did well in Rocks for Jocks or waxed eloquent in your Comp Lit class; they care that you spent a lot of money on your education so that they can treat you like crap without your quitting, due to your enormous student loan payments.
No they don't. They don't because the H1Bs don't complain about it (because complainers get fired, especially when they complain to someone who's in a position to cause the business trouble), so there's little chance they'll get caught. Even if they do complain, good luck finding out what the "native" workers actually get paid; that information is usually confidential.
You were talking about yourself ("I can replace my job in 1/10th the time/cost it would take my employer to replace me."), then you made a value judgement against others ("If you are at your employers mercy, you have no one to blame but yourself.") Attacking your value judgement and your privilege is reasonable in that context.
When your job description includes the dreaded "other duties as assigned by management" that becomes meaningless. Job descriptions are basically there to con you into taking a job.
You're confusing "protecting employees" with "bad for business". It's a common mistake to make. Keeping someone from earning a living if they ever quit isn't reasonable.
That's almost everywhere in the USA. "At-will" employment is the law of the land. You can be fired at any time for no reason whatsoever, and if you think you've been fired for an illegal reason (for example, racial discrimination), good luck proving it without a stack of documentation, a "smoking gun", and a lawyer willing to take a chance on a case he/she is likely to lose. Most of the time your former employer's lawyers can beat up your lawyer. The only time your former employer has to provide a reason for termination is if you file for unemployment assistance and they fight the claim, in which case they'll invent something plausible that can't be disproved, or they'll just flat-out lie (knowing it's their word against yours, and you're the unemployed slacker that wants something for nothing, while they're job creators.)
The only time an employee is entitled to any process at all before termination is when there's a collective bargaining agreement in place, e.g. you are part of a labor union. And the USA views labor unions with about as much contempt as child molesters.
Ohh, the irony...
And, it usually means you're not getting paid what you're worth, since they know that if you like the work they can pay you less.
Well, when you consider that employers in the USA don't have to give any vacation, sick time, etc AT ALL, 3 weeks is pretty generous in comparison.
Take health insurance into account when you're figuring that. If I were to pay my health insurance myself it'd be another $1300 a month.
And, as a result, likely no clueless non-technical product "managers" that never met a feature they didn't like, and also never met a tech lead or developer whose objections they couldn't ignore.
Gosh, you might have to *gasp* TRAIN them to be better workers! Can't have that! Much better to toss them out like used toilet paper.
There's always one, isn't there.
Worker rights. lol.
And if your current employer finds out you're talking to a headhunter or interviewing elsewhere, you get fired and deported. No thanks.