You probably will receive a months' pay per employed year at that company
What color is the sky on your planet? The most I've heard of anyone that I know getting when they get terminated is a month's pay. Most of them are lucky to get their coffee mug back (ie personal property) before they're escorted to the door by security, and I've actually seen cases where someone has asked for severance pay because of a layoff and actually been *yelled at* for daring to ask about such a thing, like the soon-to-be-former employee had insulted them.
Do not quit. Make them fire you. File for unemployment compensation; if they contest it, they will have to answer questions as to why they fired you, and I can bet you they won't want to answer those questions.
Then again, I've had former employers attend one of those hearings, lie blatantly and in ways that are easily disproven, and had them win anyway.. so YMMV. Don't quit, don't do the installs. Use any interim time between your refusal and your termination to find another job. If you don't have one by the time they fire you, ring up the BSA. They love that shit, and you'll get a nice bounty if they do find violations. File for unemployment while the BSA is investigating, and bring the documentation that you gave the BSA to any unemployment hearing.
It is possible that you'll get screwed, but you'll be looking for a new job in any case. If you don't want to out-and-out refuse to install (and not following management's instructions is grounds for termination for cause) get the request in writing.
I know this is a little redundant, but I wanted to offer my strategy.
The data "should" be recoverable, and the network server "should" have a RAID. I bet you anything that someone in IT asked for money for the RAID and it was denied, since lots of people with budget control think RAID is bug spray.
Backups and fault-tolerant hardware cost money. You can talk about potential losses and risks until you're blue in the face, until it *actually* costs the company money, nobody will listen. What's going to happen here more than likely is the person who asked for the RAID will get fired, as they're probably the same person in charge of the backups. This will also provide a scapegoat for that person's manager, since obviously if they got fired for it there need be no further repercussions or changes in behavior.
The only way they deserve to get fired is if they didn't advocate as hard as possible for enough backup hardware/software to allow for verification of backed up data and recovery in case of a mechanical hard drive failure. If they did, and were denied, then they did everything they could. (Which doesn't mean they won't get fired, it's just less deserved at that point. However, the thought there is that if they didn't want to get fired for incompetence, they should have tried to become a manager...)
How to think like a manager 101: You are presented with two answers to a single problem. One; is to "task" the network/email admins to fix a problem. Two; involves blaming a large vendor. One of these answers actually lets you accomplish something, while the other doesn't. Which do you choose?
Two. One requires work from your own people (who no doubt already have enough work for three people each), while the other involves forcing a big vendor to try to do something. If they don't, your ass is covered, since you can't control them. If you try to get your own people to do it, and they're not able to acceptably (on time/under budget), then you look bad.
Management can be a logic-free zone sometimes. Too many companies are run by people who care more about the appearance of competence and efficiency than things actually getting fixed, and any manager that wishes to keep his/her job will play the game, even if it means things don't get fixed.
The smart people get marginalized due to jealousy on the part of the dumb people, who outnumber them tremendously. Watch Marketing and IT clash sometimes in your own workplace. Chances are the marketing drones can't tell a mouse from a foot pedal but get paid twice as much as their IT counterparts, despite not doing any actual productive work and lying for a living.
After all, we all pay the price. People wouldn't wear their seat belts, so now the law says that we have no choice. People insist on being fat lazy slobs, so everyone's insurance premiums go up. People don't understand that roads are for driving, not talking on your cell phone, so now there are laws against that too. People aren't responsible with their guns, so now we have mandatory trigger locks. Etc.
I'm all for social Darwinism; however, the irresponsible frequently kill the innocent along with themselves.
1) Each one of your customers represents a large enough source of revenue to make this effort worthwhile; 2) The person that controls your salary budget understands how to turn on a computer; 3) Your site isn't designed around ActiveX.
Most companies will see accomodating "alternative" browsers as a loss, since bad decisionmaking and moronic executives have made it that way.
If someone doesn't tell you that they are logging your request, then ask to speak to a manager until you get someone who will.
So you'd prefer to be ignored by an overpaid manager than an underpaid phone jockey?
Believe me, nobody cares about what browser you'd prefer to use. The decisions regarding where to spend money on a web presence are almost always made by someone who barely knows what a web browser IS, let alone that there's more than one. Most marketing departments (and make no mistake, that's who controls the web site budget) work in percentages. If they can support 90% of the market they're happy.
What I'm saying is that this isn't a customer service issue or a quality of product issue, it's a "the wrong people are making these decisions" issue. Most big enterprises would rather piss off a small percentage of their customers than spend money on something that nobody who matters within the organization understands.
This issue will not make any headway (and clearly it hasn't, how long have we all been bitching about this?) until two things happen. 1: Technical decisions should be made by technical people. That means no overpaid MBA C*O, no Marketing director, no VP-in-charge-of-things-that-begin-with-H-on-altern ate-Tuesdays. It means someone who knows HTML from ESPN. 2: The Internet user becomes aware of the fact that IE sucks and they have alternatives. Considering the average end user thinks watching American Idol is a good use of their time, that's not likely.
It's not going to get fixed any time soon, and probably not at all. The only recourse that we have is to use another company for the services we're looking for and hope that someone realizes that lack of browser choice is equating to a loss in revenue, and that loss in revenue is significant enough to outweigh the additional cost of supporting multiple browsers. Not holding my breath.
OK, you need to explain your concept of "tax cost". Are you saying that the taxes that both I and my employer pay are "losses" that must be "made up" in order to be fair? If that were the case, it would seem that you're putting that in the same light as, for example, education loans or mortgages. If you're meaning something different, I think the community might benefit from a citation or two fleshing out your point of view. (I think I've been reading too much Wikipedia discussion.) Personally, I look at my taxes as paying for services that benefit society (as inefficient and wasteful as they may be sometimes.) I personally like having an FBI, an FDA, a national military, and so forth.
Your figure of 65% seems suspect to me. A quick glance at my last pay stub says that even when you consider both my and my employer's contribution to Social Security, the deductions (state and federal taxes, social security, and Medicare) are less than 30% of my income. Where does the other 35% come from? Even figuring in property taxes (in my case, less than 5% of my income alone, and we're a dual-income household) your number seems high.
IMHO the reasons that H1-B workers are so popular with US employers are more complicated than simply the financial considerations. Outside of the tax advantages (whatever they might be), it's easier to exploit H1-B workers. Specifically, you can pay them less and make them do more work than their native American counterparts, because they have the threat of deportation if they quit for being treated unfairly. Companies will always treat an employee as badly as they can get away with in terms of salary, benefits, and corporate culture, and H1-B visa holders are at a disadvantage. I know that the rules say they're required to pay an H1-B visa holder the same as they pay a US citizen, but honestly, how well is that enforced (or, more to the point, how enforceable is it?) An H1-B worker who finds out his/her US citizen co-workers are getting paid significantly more than he/she is has little recourse. Sure, they can file a complaint with the appropriate agency, but that's a sure way to find yourself laid off and on a plane back to your native country before you can follow up.
Not to take the wind out of your sails (your point is well taken) but most "serious" health professionals regard BMI with about as much respect as phrenology; it's pretty meaningless. 6'1" and 250 isn't unrealistic IF your body composition is sane. (Body composition is the percentage of fatty tissue versus lean mass in a human body, and is a far better indicator of a healthy weight.) If he's 6'1" 250# and has a body fat percentage under 10% (3% is bare bones(pardon the pun) essential for males, 15% is essential in females) then he's at a completely healthy weight for his height. If he's 6'1" 250# and his body fat is 30%, then that's a whole different story, and is at risk for obesity-related health problems.
Like so many other things in the health and fitness industry, nobody wants to look for the shades of gray or give people answers that they don't want to hear. For example: To lose fat weight, you must eat less (fewer calories) and exercise more. That's it. No fancy diets, no Atkins bullshit, no seaweed wraps, vibrating belts or other crap. BMI is a classic example of that. It's a number that is easily compared to an arbitrary scale, with math that isn't hard enough to make Joe Sixpack's eyes glaze over. The effort involved in body composition testing (Dunk tank best, caliper measure less so but more convenient, circumference measurement about the same, body conductivity most convenient but least accurate) is too great for most people to even consider unless they're forced.
There's more to measuring appropriate weight than height vs. weight. But like so many other things, nobody wants to hear that. And there's no money in telling people what they don't want to hear, so you'll never hear the fitness media conglomerate talk about it.
(I have a degree in exercise science, but work in tech because I refuse to work in an industry that I've found to be based on scams and diet pills.)
This is way, way OT, but you're aware that most helmets are made of plastics that lose their energy-absorbing properties after 3 years or so? Glad to hear you're replacing it this summer, but this might be useful for next time.
I'm guessing you work either in a highly techno-centric company (on the scale of Yahoo, Google, Amazon, etc) or in a market sector that is so obscenely profitable that the higher-ups and/or the stockholders don't scream bloody murder every time someone from IT wants to spend money.
Either way, I call BS. Your scenario is a pipedream.
I don't find it odd at all. Who pays lobbyists to get laws passed that are in their interests? Big business. Of COURSE they're going to make it hard to prove discrimination. If they were forced to make hiring decisions based on who's best qualified, they'd never be able to hire the CEO's niece's husband to run a division into the ground.
Don't tell the one you're not going to hire anything past "We appreciate your coming in to speak with us. We're not able to offer you this position at this time."
If pressed, reply with: "We didn't think you were a good fit for the role."
You're not required to say anything more specific. If they choose to try to sue you over it (on the grounds that they're most qualified) they're going to have a hard damn time proving their case without knowing everyone else who applied, their backgrounds/personalities, detailed specifics on their skill sets, etc. Unless they've got deep pockets, they're not likely to find a lawyer to take their case, unless there's clear discrimination against a protected class (ie race, national origin, sex, orientation, religon, etc., and even then it's notoriously hard to prove.)
If someone is an asshole, that's just as good a reason to not hire them as a gap in their skill set. You're not required to explain yourselves. Employment law is heavily biased towards the employer in the US, when compared to other western countries. In an "at will" work state, you can be hired or fired for any reason, or no stated reason. I doubt there's much exposure to a lawsuit here. IANAL.
I may have been a little strident. The point I was trying to make is that programmers aren't the only ones at fault, and the post I was replying to seemed to blame everything on lazy/incompetent programming, when the problem is more complicated than that.
"Buckling down" and getting things right from step one requires things that are anathema to modern business, such as allowing developers to drive development, giving QA the right to delay a release, and doing more than is absolutely necessary to still push out a product people will pay for.
I think the computer world in general needs to do a lot more in this regard - consider a television. It's got a relatively simple interface (depending on the model, but they're all usually pretty similar), and it's got "uptime" and MTBF that would make any server manufacturer more than proud.
A television is a far simpler device than a modern computer. No hard drive, no networking, etc. Comparing a television with a PC is about the same as comparing a digital watch to a PC. The more complicated and powerful the system, the more that can go wrong.
And what the hell is "the computer world in general"? I think it's pretty safe to assume you don't know what the hell you're talking about. I bet you've got 12:00 still flashing on your VCR.
Why would the general population want to watch TV on their PC when (a) the TV is cheaper, (b) it works right out of the box, and (c) it's not going to be buggy or go obsolete suddenly (the impending HDTV changeover notwithstanding).
My current television cost 5 times what my current computer cost. ($2000 HDTV versus about $400 for the PC I put together myself.) The TV has crashed on me a few times. I don't know where you're getting your information from, but I suggest you catch up to the times.
Software manufacturers (including you programmers who read Slashdot) - spend less time adding the next new feature and more time making sure the existing features work. Stop using us as your beta testers!
Stop yelling at the programmers. Programmers have about as much to do with when a product is released or how much testing it gets as the guy who empties the trash at an auto factory has with the quality of the product.
Granted, better programming USUALLY leads to fewer bugs, IF they're not crippled by terrible managers more interested in getting ahead based on other people's work, IF marketing doesn't make outlandish promises involving technologies that don't exist and/or statistics that mean absolutely nothing, IF there are enough programmers on a project to make things sane, IF IF IF.
Case in point: I work for a software company as a research engineer. In a meeting about a month ago, the VP of Sales (who tragically is making all the engineering prioritization decisions) asked our QA manager how long it was going to take to test a product before it could be released. The QA manager replied "Two weeks." The VP IMMEDIATELY said "One week." QA: "Two weeks" VP: "One week, you never give QA as much time as they want." No explanation, no justification other than "Oh QA always takes too long, just release it." Given the option, programmers write good code. They're rarely given the option.
Perhaps you should consider being part of the solution as opposed to just bitching about the problem. Failing that, try using some actual facts or reality-based information in your arguments.
Wouldn't the ISP stand to lose an awful lot of business that way?
Not if they're the only game in town, which is unfortunately true for a large number of Americans. More and more, people can't do without their internet service.
ISPs are businesses, not candidates for office.
This is true, but they're subject to politics just like everything else. It's sad that the religous right/neocon/fascist cabal has so much influence in a government where church and state are supposed to be EXPLICITLY separate.
Plus, you could block a port with user-configurations, not via a blanket block.
I'm not denying that it's technically possible to do so. I'm saying it is more complicated and resource-intensive to get that granular with it.
In the unlikely case that (some) ISPs did cave in, wouldn't that give rise to "adult" ISPs that would capitalize on the situation?
If the barriers to entry in the broadband market weren't so unfathomably high, I'd agree with you. Once you get a rep as the "adult" ISP provider, you can pretty much forget about getting a lot of your calls returned from telcos, cable companies, town governments, etc.
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Do not quit. Make them fire you. File for unemployment compensation; if they contest it, they will have to answer questions as to why they fired you, and I can bet you they won't want to answer those questions.
Then again, I've had former employers attend one of those hearings, lie blatantly and in ways that are easily disproven, and had them win anyway.. so YMMV. Don't quit, don't do the installs. Use any interim time between your refusal and your termination to find another job. If you don't have one by the time they fire you, ring up the BSA. They love that shit, and you'll get a nice bounty if they do find violations. File for unemployment while the BSA is investigating, and bring the documentation that you gave the BSA to any unemployment hearing.
It is possible that you'll get screwed, but you'll be looking for a new job in any case. If you don't want to out-and-out refuse to install (and not following management's instructions is grounds for termination for cause) get the request in writing.
I know this is a little redundant, but I wanted to offer my strategy.
The data "should" be recoverable, and the network server "should" have a RAID. I bet you anything that someone in IT asked for money for the RAID and it was denied, since lots of people with budget control think RAID is bug spray.
Backups and fault-tolerant hardware cost money. You can talk about potential losses and risks until you're blue in the face, until it *actually* costs the company money, nobody will listen. What's going to happen here more than likely is the person who asked for the RAID will get fired, as they're probably the same person in charge of the backups. This will also provide a scapegoat for that person's manager, since obviously if they got fired for it there need be no further repercussions or changes in behavior.
The only way they deserve to get fired is if they didn't advocate as hard as possible for enough backup hardware/software to allow for verification of backed up data and recovery in case of a mechanical hard drive failure. If they did, and were denied, then they did everything they could. (Which doesn't mean they won't get fired, it's just less deserved at that point. However, the thought there is that if they didn't want to get fired for incompetence, they should have tried to become a manager...)
Management can be a logic-free zone sometimes. Too many companies are run by people who care more about the appearance of competence and efficiency than things actually getting fixed, and any manager that wishes to keep his/her job will play the game, even if it means things don't get fixed.
That's different from the US how?
The smart people get marginalized due to jealousy on the part of the dumb people, who outnumber them tremendously. Watch Marketing and IT clash sometimes in your own workplace. Chances are the marketing drones can't tell a mouse from a foot pedal but get paid twice as much as their IT counterparts, despite not doing any actual productive work and lying for a living.
Yup.
After all, we all pay the price. People wouldn't wear their seat belts, so now the law says that we have no choice. People insist on being fat lazy slobs, so everyone's insurance premiums go up. People don't understand that roads are for driving, not talking on your cell phone, so now there are laws against that too. People aren't responsible with their guns, so now we have mandatory trigger locks. Etc.
I'm all for social Darwinism; however, the irresponsible frequently kill the innocent along with themselves.
What that says to me is this:
1) Each one of your customers represents a large enough source of revenue to make this effort worthwhile;
2) The person that controls your salary budget understands how to turn on a computer;
3) Your site isn't designed around ActiveX.
Most companies will see accomodating "alternative" browsers as a loss, since bad decisionmaking and moronic executives have made it that way.
Believe me, nobody cares about what browser you'd prefer to use. The decisions regarding where to spend money on a web presence are almost always made by someone who barely knows what a web browser IS, let alone that there's more than one. Most marketing departments (and make no mistake, that's who controls the web site budget) work in percentages. If they can support 90% of the market they're happy.
What I'm saying is that this isn't a customer service issue or a quality of product issue, it's a "the wrong people are making these decisions" issue. Most big enterprises would rather piss off a small percentage of their customers than spend money on something that nobody who matters within the organization understands.
This issue will not make any headway (and clearly it hasn't, how long have we all been bitching about this?) until two things happen. 1: Technical decisions should be made by technical people. That means no overpaid MBA C*O, no Marketing director, no VP-in-charge-of-things-that-begin-with-H-on-alter
It's not going to get fixed any time soon, and probably not at all. The only recourse that we have is to use another company for the services we're looking for and hope that someone realizes that lack of browser choice is equating to a loss in revenue, and that loss in revenue is significant enough to outweigh the additional cost of supporting multiple browsers. Not holding my breath.
I stand corrected. You really are that stupid.
Then you should be able to get it right.
It also shouldn't take you "half a dozen times" to catch that. And call me a spelling nazi all you want, you've Godwin'd yourself.
Really, this is just a symptom of pure laziness.
I like to call people like that "wicked fucking stupid."
It takes less effort to type "lose" than it does to type "loose". Why would you go out of your way to be wrong?
OK, you need to explain your concept of "tax cost". Are you saying that the taxes that both I and my employer pay are "losses" that must be "made up" in order to be fair? If that were the case, it would seem that you're putting that in the same light as, for example, education loans or mortgages. If you're meaning something different, I think the community might benefit from a citation or two fleshing out your point of view. (I think I've been reading too much Wikipedia discussion.) Personally, I look at my taxes as paying for services that benefit society (as inefficient and wasteful as they may be sometimes.) I personally like having an FBI, an FDA, a national military, and so forth.
Your figure of 65% seems suspect to me. A quick glance at my last pay stub says that even when you consider both my and my employer's contribution to Social Security, the deductions (state and federal taxes, social security, and Medicare) are less than 30% of my income. Where does the other 35% come from? Even figuring in property taxes (in my case, less than 5% of my income alone, and we're a dual-income household) your number seems high.
IMHO the reasons that H1-B workers are so popular with US employers are more complicated than simply the financial considerations. Outside of the tax advantages (whatever they might be), it's easier to exploit H1-B workers. Specifically, you can pay them less and make them do more work than their native American counterparts, because they have the threat of deportation if they quit for being treated unfairly. Companies will always treat an employee as badly as they can get away with in terms of salary, benefits, and corporate culture, and H1-B visa holders are at a disadvantage. I know that the rules say they're required to pay an H1-B visa holder the same as they pay a US citizen, but honestly, how well is that enforced (or, more to the point, how enforceable is it?) An H1-B worker who finds out his/her US citizen co-workers are getting paid significantly more than he/she is has little recourse. Sure, they can file a complaint with the appropriate agency, but that's a sure way to find yourself laid off and on a plane back to your native country before you can follow up.
Hmm, one of the most classic lines from the original trilogy, and Lucas didn't write it.
Hmm.
On a related note, any enterprising nerd lawyers want to file an injunction preventing Lucas from writing dialog ever again?
That rings a bell. I think you're right.
Things may have improved in the years since I took a motorcycle safety course; that's what I was told then.
Not to take the wind out of your sails (your point is well taken) but most "serious" health professionals regard BMI with about as much respect as phrenology; it's pretty meaningless. 6'1" and 250 isn't unrealistic IF your body composition is sane. (Body composition is the percentage of fatty tissue versus lean mass in a human body, and is a far better indicator of a healthy weight.) If he's 6'1" 250# and has a body fat percentage under 10% (3% is bare bones(pardon the pun) essential for males, 15% is essential in females) then he's at a completely healthy weight for his height. If he's 6'1" 250# and his body fat is 30%, then that's a whole different story, and is at risk for obesity-related health problems.
Like so many other things in the health and fitness industry, nobody wants to look for the shades of gray or give people answers that they don't want to hear. For example: To lose fat weight, you must eat less (fewer calories) and exercise more. That's it. No fancy diets, no Atkins bullshit, no seaweed wraps, vibrating belts or other crap. BMI is a classic example of that. It's a number that is easily compared to an arbitrary scale, with math that isn't hard enough to make Joe Sixpack's eyes glaze over. The effort involved in body composition testing (Dunk tank best, caliper measure less so but more convenient, circumference measurement about the same, body conductivity most convenient but least accurate) is too great for most people to even consider unless they're forced.
There's more to measuring appropriate weight than height vs. weight. But like so many other things, nobody wants to hear that. And there's no money in telling people what they don't want to hear, so you'll never hear the fitness media conglomerate talk about it.
(I have a degree in exercise science, but work in tech because I refuse to work in an industry that I've found to be based on scams and diet pills.)
This is way, way OT, but you're aware that most helmets are made of plastics that lose their energy-absorbing properties after 3 years or so? Glad to hear you're replacing it this summer, but this might be useful for next time.
What color is the sky on your planet?
I'm guessing you work either in a highly techno-centric company (on the scale of Yahoo, Google, Amazon, etc) or in a market sector that is so obscenely profitable that the higher-ups and/or the stockholders don't scream bloody murder every time someone from IT wants to spend money.
Either way, I call BS. Your scenario is a pipedream.
I don't find it odd at all. Who pays lobbyists to get laws passed that are in their interests? Big business. Of COURSE they're going to make it hard to prove discrimination. If they were forced to make hiring decisions based on who's best qualified, they'd never be able to hire the CEO's niece's husband to run a division into the ground.
Don't tell the one you're not going to hire anything past "We appreciate your coming in to speak with us. We're not able to offer you this position at this time."
If pressed, reply with: "We didn't think you were a good fit for the role."
You're not required to say anything more specific. If they choose to try to sue you over it (on the grounds that they're most qualified) they're going to have a hard damn time proving their case without knowing everyone else who applied, their backgrounds/personalities, detailed specifics on their skill sets, etc. Unless they've got deep pockets, they're not likely to find a lawyer to take their case, unless there's clear discrimination against a protected class (ie race, national origin, sex, orientation, religon, etc., and even then it's notoriously hard to prove.)
If someone is an asshole, that's just as good a reason to not hire them as a gap in their skill set. You're not required to explain yourselves. Employment law is heavily biased towards the employer in the US, when compared to other western countries. In an "at will" work state, you can be hired or fired for any reason, or no stated reason. I doubt there's much exposure to a lawsuit here. IANAL.
I may have been a little strident. The point I was trying to make is that programmers aren't the only ones at fault, and the post I was replying to seemed to blame everything on lazy/incompetent programming, when the problem is more complicated than that.
"Buckling down" and getting things right from step one requires things that are anathema to modern business, such as allowing developers to drive development, giving QA the right to delay a release, and doing more than is absolutely necessary to still push out a product people will pay for.
You're right about that. Looking at my own code is all the confirmation I really need :)
And what the hell is "the computer world in general"? I think it's pretty safe to assume you don't know what the hell you're talking about. I bet you've got 12:00 still flashing on your VCR.My current television cost 5 times what my current computer cost. ($2000 HDTV versus about $400 for the PC I put together myself.) The TV has crashed on me a few times. I don't know where you're getting your information from, but I suggest you catch up to the times.Stop yelling at the programmers. Programmers have about as much to do with when a product is released or how much testing it gets as the guy who empties the trash at an auto factory has with the quality of the product.
Granted, better programming USUALLY leads to fewer bugs, IF they're not crippled by terrible managers more interested in getting ahead based on other people's work, IF marketing doesn't make outlandish promises involving technologies that don't exist and/or statistics that mean absolutely nothing, IF there are enough programmers on a project to make things sane, IF IF IF.
Case in point: I work for a software company as a research engineer. In a meeting about a month ago, the VP of Sales (who tragically is making all the engineering prioritization decisions) asked our QA manager how long it was going to take to test a product before it could be released. The QA manager replied "Two weeks." The VP IMMEDIATELY said "One week." QA: "Two weeks" VP: "One week, you never give QA as much time as they want." No explanation, no justification other than "Oh QA always takes too long, just release it." Given the option, programmers write good code. They're rarely given the option.
Perhaps you should consider being part of the solution as opposed to just bitching about the problem. Failing that, try using some actual facts or reality-based information in your arguments.
Turn off your browser.
You have a choice. Nobody said anything about a choice you *liked*.