The article was actually a bit of a walk down memory lane. I played UO for about 2 years, starting a few days after the official release. I watched the growing pains and lessons that the designers and community went through. This article was well written and well researched, and was a pleasent reminder of the ups and downs of UO over that 2 year period.
The article certainly raises warning flags. What it doesn't mention is the other side of the coin.
Non-compete clauses are often ruled uneforceable.
I was sued by a company based on a ND/NC clause for a job I took. I fought the case, and won. The court ruled that the clause was overbraod and uneforceable. I am happily emplyed in a very similar job at my new company.
I'm afraid that is the life of a coop. Even college students (I worked for a university that is known for its coop program) end up doing grunt work while on coop. It comes with the territory.
That said, the key to getting the most out of a coop is the same as any other job. Watch what people around you are working on. Ask questions. Look for something that you'd like to be doing, and then volunteer to do it. No, this doesn't make your job easy. It means doing MORE work, and you will probably still have to the grunt work. But depending on your supervisor, you might ALSO end up doing something more chalenging.
Even if you don't get to actually work on a project, you can still learn by paying attention to what's going on around you.
And don't hesitate to suggest to your boss (in a polite way) that you would like to do more. You might just get what you want.
Of course, you might get _more_ than you bargained for.;-)
I am not surprised, and was wondering yesterday if they would try something like this.
The gravitaional pull of a body as small as Eros, is a fraction of 1g, so it should be reasonably feasible to relaunch it, and possibly even achieve a stable orbit, if not escape velocity.
My boyfriend used to work as client relations manager for a small ISP that was bought out by Verio. Verio proceded to lay off the former owner (who was also the chief engineer, and the only one who knew some of the infrastructure, Doh!) and piss off most of the staff. Their service went downhill rapidly.
They were planning the regional infrastructure to support their ISDN/Frame/T1 clients, and decided that a T3 (with NO redundancy) was sufficient to service all of them. After my non-techie boyfriend took exception to this in an engineering meeting, they finally consented to put in a T1 as backup in case the T3 fell over.
Well, no surprise, the T3 eventually fell over. Unfortunately for them, the T1 wasn't in place yet, and they had most of their larger clients off the air for 48 hours. The regional VP's solution? Did they, maybe, as the client relations manager suggested, offer not to charge these irate customers for their dedicated service being down? Of course not. That would have made sense. Instead they sent them COFFEE MUGS with the company logo on them.
My boyfriend left soon after.
But I still have a T-shirt that Verio printed up shortly after they took over. It was (I think) misprinted, and was supposed to have some pithy "call us for bandwidth" message on it. Unfortunately for them, the last few words were chopped off, and it just said, in big letters under the comapny logo:
Slashdot Mirror
The article was actually a bit of a walk down memory lane. I played UO for about 2 years, starting a few days after the official release. I watched the growing pains and lessons that the designers and community went through. This article was well written and well researched, and was a pleasent reminder of the ups and downs of UO over that 2 year period.
The article certainly raises warning flags. What it doesn't mention is the other side of the coin.
Non-compete clauses are often ruled uneforceable.
I was sued by a company based on a ND/NC clause for a job I took. I fought the case, and won. The court ruled that the clause was overbraod and uneforceable. I am happily emplyed in a very similar job at my new company.
Just what I always wanted, my own nuclear submarine. All I need to do is control the data feeds for their GPS... ;-)
I'm afraid that is the life of a coop. Even college students (I worked for a university that is known for its coop program) end up doing grunt work while on coop. It comes with the territory.
;-)
That said, the key to getting the most out of a coop is the same as any other job. Watch what people around you are working on. Ask questions. Look for something that you'd like to be doing, and then volunteer to do it. No, this doesn't make your job easy. It means doing MORE work, and you will probably still have to the grunt work. But depending on your supervisor, you might ALSO end up doing something more chalenging.
Even if you don't get to actually work on a project, you can still learn by paying attention to what's going on around you.
And don't hesitate to suggest to your boss (in a polite way) that you would like to do more. You might just get what you want.
Of course, you might get _more_ than you bargained for.
I am not surprised, and was wondering yesterday if they would try something like this.
The gravitaional pull of a body as small as Eros, is a fraction of 1g, so it should be reasonably feasible to relaunch it, and possibly even achieve a stable orbit, if not escape velocity.
My boyfriend used to work as client relations manager for a small ISP that was bought out by Verio. Verio proceded to lay off the former owner (who was also the chief engineer, and the only one who knew some of the infrastructure, Doh!) and piss off most of the staff. Their service went downhill rapidly.
They were planning the regional infrastructure to support their ISDN/Frame/T1 clients, and decided that a T3 (with NO redundancy) was sufficient to service all of them. After my non-techie boyfriend took exception to this in an engineering meeting, they finally consented to put in a T1 as backup in case the T3 fell over.
Well, no surprise, the T3 eventually fell over. Unfortunately for them, the T1 wasn't in place yet, and they had most of their larger clients off the air for 48 hours. The regional VP's solution? Did they, maybe, as the client relations manager suggested, offer not to charge these irate customers for their dedicated service being down? Of course not. That would have made sense. Instead they sent them COFFEE MUGS with the company logo on them.
My boyfriend left soon after.
But I still have a T-shirt that Verio printed up shortly after they took over. It was (I think) misprinted, and was supposed to have some pithy "call us for bandwidth" message on it. Unfortunately for them, the last few words were chopped off, and it just said, in big letters under the comapny logo:
"Thinking about the internet? Dont"