Besides, I don't see the industry rags reviewing the sysadmining at various companies. They review their PRODUCTS.
And their SERVICES. And in a lot of the companies I work for or sell to, those services are just as important as the products. For example, you may write a nice Internet banking program, but if the admins don't keep the servers up and running, and your program can't reach my account data, what value to me is that program?
In technology sales, I like the creative part of my job - finding ways to use the network and other tools to create value for my customers. But if I neglect the drudge part of my job - entering the godd*mn orders, filling out the forms, following up with the install team - guess what? I don't do diddly for my customer.
Your attitude reminds me of the old saw about the brain, the stomach, and the *sshole.
This comment seems ingenuous at best. I work in
telecom in Canada, and I have been 'right-sized',
'down-sized', and 'terminated' on a number of occasions.
I work in marketing and sales (and I'm an EE), and I have had the unhappy experience of listening to my technical team, selling what they told me they could make, and then watching them fail to produce. When that happens - surprise - they fire the marketing team and promote the engineers. So I got fired for doing my job too well? (If you want examples, ask!)
So long as companies take that approach, I will keep my eyes and options open. No matter how much I like my boss and colleagues, if the company isn't willing to offer me a contract, then I owe them as much loyalty as they are showing me.. zero.
At the risk of being dangerously off-topic:
Nothing illustrates to me the need for programs such as Ontario's recently announced 'quasi-voucher' private school funding as this story. I attend public schools from grade 1 to 9, and then went to a private school in Toronto. In the public system, I repeatedly came across power-crazed martinets who strutted around exercising their power over little boys and girls. Once I was in the private school system, I was still subject to discipline (detentions on SATURDAY afternoons!), but it was always reasonable and proportionate to the crime. There were no public humiliations; instead, I was called to the head
master's office, where he quietly dressed me down. In the end, I ended up feeling ashamed for whatever I had done wrong, and rarely repeated the error - to me, that's the hallmark of good discipline.
So long as 99% of our kids are forced into a system where parents' ability to complain about, control or direct the use and abuse of authority is virtually nil, stories like this will repeat.
Freedom of choice in education is at least as important as freedom of choice in say, OS's.
What do you consider 'research'? I would think that directing a question to a highly knowledgeable set of users in a very small space is a very efficient way to conduct research. I don't think the original poster was expecting someone to upload a business plan for him; I do think he expected to get some general information on the difficulties of building an ISP, and perhaps some specific information about, say, billing system issues.
Once he obtained that info, I don't doubt that he would have then used that to do some other research, such as finding comparisons between billing systems from TeleOSS or some other trade journals. But when you're not exactly sure where to start, why not ask the experts first?
And even though I have no interest in starting an ISP, I found the entire thread a good read. So I also dispute your assertion that this didn't belong on the front page.
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Besides, I don't see the industry rags reviewing the sysadmining at various companies. They review their PRODUCTS. And their SERVICES. And in a lot of the companies I work for or sell to, those services are just as important as the products. For example, you may write a nice Internet banking program, but if the admins don't keep the servers up and running, and your program can't reach my account data, what value to me is that program? In technology sales, I like the creative part of my job - finding ways to use the network and other tools to create value for my customers. But if I neglect the drudge part of my job - entering the godd*mn orders, filling out the forms, following up with the install team - guess what? I don't do diddly for my customer. Your attitude reminds me of the old saw about the brain, the stomach, and the *sshole.
This comment seems ingenuous at best. I work in telecom in Canada, and I have been 'right-sized', 'down-sized', and 'terminated' on a number of occasions. I work in marketing and sales (and I'm an EE), and I have had the unhappy experience of listening to my technical team, selling what they told me they could make, and then watching them fail to produce. When that happens - surprise - they fire the marketing team and promote the engineers. So I got fired for doing my job too well? (If you want examples, ask!) So long as companies take that approach, I will keep my eyes and options open. No matter how much I like my boss and colleagues, if the company isn't willing to offer me a contract, then I owe them as much loyalty as they are showing me.. zero.
Good post, but since you asked... It's 'delude', not 'dilude' also 'feeble', not 'feable' .. none of which detracts from
your points.
At the risk of being dangerously off-topic: Nothing illustrates to me the need for programs such as Ontario's recently announced 'quasi-voucher' private school funding as this story. I attend public schools from grade 1 to 9, and then went to a private school in Toronto. In the public system, I repeatedly came across power-crazed martinets who strutted around exercising their power over little boys and girls. Once I was in the private school system, I was still subject to discipline (detentions on SATURDAY afternoons!), but it was always reasonable and proportionate to the crime. There were no public humiliations; instead, I was called to the head master's office, where he quietly dressed me down. In the end, I ended up feeling ashamed for whatever I had done wrong, and rarely repeated the error - to me, that's the hallmark of good discipline. So long as 99% of our kids are forced into a system where parents' ability to complain about, control or direct the use and abuse of authority is virtually nil, stories like this will repeat. Freedom of choice in education is at least as important as freedom of choice in say, OS's.
What do you consider 'research'? I would think that directing a question to a highly knowledgeable set of users in a very small space is a very efficient way to conduct research. I don't think the original poster was expecting someone to upload a business plan for him; I do think he expected to get some general information on the difficulties of building an ISP, and perhaps some specific information about, say, billing system issues. Once he obtained that info, I don't doubt that he would have then used that to do some other research, such as finding comparisons between billing systems from TeleOSS or some other trade journals. But when you're not exactly sure where to start, why not ask the experts first? And even though I have no interest in starting an ISP, I found the entire thread a good read. So I also dispute your assertion that this didn't belong on the front page.