It's pretty obvious you have been unable to negotiate anything because you can't figure out how to ask politely. Or were asking for too much, hard to say...
It's pretty obvious your method is to constantly leap to conclusions without checking your facts. I have asked these questions politely in the past with the help and approval of my immediate boss (in fact very recently) and they've either been ignored or avoided. But don't let facts that you haven't bothered to check get in the way of an irrational and insulting rant. The irony of a person who's repeatedly done this lecturing me on how to be polite is mind blowing. Thanks for the laugh.
In fact my last review which was accompanied by a renegotiation of my contract (since my employer is standardising them) resulted in a pay increase and almost uniformly positive comments about my ability to communicate. Once again, don't let facts get in your way.
My experience is from multiple companies, small to large. And yes, pretty much all HR/Legal departments do work like that (even at companies small enough to have a single HR person).
Well you can sure choose to ignore my experience, or without any kind of substantiation insist that I must have no social skills. You can choose to insist that what you've seen in your particular industry in your particular part of the world must apply uniformly. It makes you a provincial twit, but you can choose to do that. Or you could consider the possibility that it doesn't always work that way and that in fact you've been quite lucky.
Your advice offers nothing but fear to the perspective employees, I offer information that can help them understand how to take control of what they agree to.
My advice offers a different perspective and experience that counters yours. You offer blanket statements that if applied in the wrong circumstances or without tact and disgression could lose someone their job. You insist that things uniformly work in a particular way. I offer caution. Furthermore your extreme hostility means I'm finding it hard to believe your negotiation skills are as good as you claim.
Even if they do not agree, if you ask right nothing will come of just the asking. The key is reasonable demands, and asking for provisions to allow you to own your own work at home are eminently reasonable.
Sure, you can ask, and if you ask nicely you MAY get what you want. A lot of companies will simply refuse your requests no matter how reasonable. This is something you don't acknowledge. The bottom line is if they do this and you want the job, you either sign on the dotted line or you don't. You can lie to yourself about having some incredible degree of control over your working conditions, but in most places and for most jobs the employer will simply move on to the next job candidate before considering giving in on any condition they don't want. So sure, go ask, but to expect you'll always have a fantastic and reasonable response is as I first said naive in the extreme. Offering advice that the world always works this way is offering nothing more than a dangerous fairytale.
Gee, I'm reporting what I have found through practical experience. You are reporting what seem to be some fears you picked up in high school of authority.
High school???? Buddy, check your facts before saying something so stuipid it makes you come across as a turnip. I've been in IT professionally for 10 years now (since Uni) and did work before then too. You know nothing about what experiences I have had and assume I'm talking out of my backside simply because your experiences have been different. I too am simply reporting what I've found through practical experience. Perhaps you could take your head out of your backside for long enough to stop making assumptions about random strangers on a message board.
That is such bullshit. Companies of any size run all that through HR and legal departments, which have the most minimal contact with the people you actually work with (by mutual choice). I have angered HR people before by questioning stupid policies (unrelated to current discussion, it was disagreements I had with them over theories they had why people were quitting in droves) and it has ZERO impact on my ability to advance in the company (which I proceeded to do years after)
Well then since in that one company at which this is suppose to have happened, it worked out well for you, that must mean that all HR departments and all companies work the same way, and that anyone reporting any other kind of experience must be a coward who's afraid of something he heard at highschool. Yeah that makes sense. You sir are an idiot.
And now we reach the most obvious demonstration of your Naivete. At the point you are signing contracts, they HAVE ALREADY AGREED TO HIRE YOU. It's not that the agreement is all that binding, but the practical reality is the guy looking for a candidate is done looking. HR is done looking. No one cares about a few words in a contract, they get small changes all the time from the other employees that are not sheeple who blindly sign anything.
Buddy I got my current job because the guy that was meant to get it (who was more experienced) asked for conditions they didn't want to agree to.
Wake up, you have way more control over your life than you think.
How about you wake up and realize that not all companies work the same way. Some companies will NOT vary their contracts point blank, and if that means calling back another applicant for a job, they'll do it.
You're potentially losing 50% of the problem solving skills, assuming men and women are equally capable.
Regardless of the reason for their interest, unless you can get them interested you won't be achieving much by forcing them into the field even if they could have been great had they been interested.
The thing we should be doing is ensuring the barriers to entry for women aren't any higher or tougher than those for men. If we manage that the question of why they're not interested may be more relevant.
Try to give your male child a doll. Last time I gave my son a doll, he was about 1 year old. He threw it around for a while, then smashed it repeatedly with a hammer
People might not want to accept this but it's definitely true.
When I was a baby a friend of the family gave my mum a doll because that friend got my sex wrong. My mother didn't want to offend that friend so she gave it to me. I stripped the doll bare, worked out how it's head and arms came off, lost an arm, lost all the clothing and I'm not sure what I did with the legs. Anyway I like to joke that even back then I knew how to treat a lady. (Please understand this is a joke and I'm not violent to women or anyone else for that matter).
I thought about reply with something humorous (along the lines of them being interested in other body parts too) but it occurs to me that you're probably frustrated and I'd only be adding to that. So I'll check that immature impulse and here's the serious response instead.
I think it depends on how you're hit on. Yes, I agree, ignoring your wedding ring isn't a good way to be hit on. I don't know what your workplace is like but it may be that some of the guys aren't hitting on you but are still responding to the fact that you're female by being chatty and flirty. That doesn't make it any more comfortable for you. Also you have to be aware that there are douche bags out there that are going to try it on at any cost with no regard for your feelings. Just like there are horrible women, there are horrible men too. Please don't judge the entire gender based on the actions of a few men (particularly if you're in an industry where that sort of crap is tolerated).
First of all while it's important to pick a career where you are able to earn, it's also important to choose something you enjoy doing. You're going to be doing it for most of the waking hours of your life. You really don't want to pick something that pays well but that you detest unless suicidal unhappiness is your idea of doing well. (At least men will spend most of their waking hours. There is actually some biological gender difference here, since women may spend child raring years looking after newborns and infants).
Secondly, if a CS is not the way to make money, I must be living in some fictional world, because I'm doing quite well thanks very much. I won't be making it onto any rich list but I have a secure job that pays better than a lot of those in my social circle and the hours aren't bad either. CS is not the way to make money if you're lousy at it, are lazy and don't want to learn, or if you're just doing it for the dollars. For some of us it's still a brilliant career.
Money is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.
I'm all for space research but the Australian Federal and State Governments couldn't organize a pissup in a brewery. Sydney's public transport is awful and continually getting worse. Our roads are getting clogged and the solution proposed is to increase taxes, raise fares, decrease the size of the carriages on our trains, and split up the network. Space travel? We can't even get from the suburbs into town!!!
You can do all sorts of stuff to an image that would shot holes in this technique. Resize (shrink, or grow and reinterpolate), apply a filter (curves, b&w or sepia would be easiest but there are others). Hell put it through an artistic filter. Still at 90% accuracy, in most cases, I wouldn't even bother!
For those who must say that God does not exist, try this: your position is just as unprovable as theirs, and yet raising your voice to argue your point is just as pointless as theirs.
I'd rather the world was run according to what can be proved than on fairy stories. I've seen first hand how dangerous religion can be and how irrational religious people can be. I'm not saying science can't be destructive or that scientists can't be irrational, but science at least teaches critical thinking and teaches you to bases actions and conclusions on what is provable. Therefore religion and science aren't the same and there is good reason for those who do think scientifically to oppose religion.
Newton's theory is a useful approximation. In that context it was never bunk and did not need to be debunked. In the context of describing reality neither Newton nor Einstein's theories account for all situations. (Relativity breaks down at the smallest scales).
Ockham's razor is poorly understood. It says take the simplest explanation where there are 2 alternatives that give equally good results in terms of explaining and predicting. It says nothing about situations where your theory isn't complete or doesn't explain all the facts. If you need another layer to do that, that old rusty razor needs to be put away. The real trouble is we keep discovering phenomenon and situations which aren't explained by any of our theories no matter how convoluted and at that point we sometimes have to introduce new complexity to bring in a theory that does explain all we now know.
WAP - True enough. If we weren't here there would be noone to ask the question. SAP - Zero evidence for the assertion that life must evolve. PAP - Weak arguments based on mysticism combined with quantum mechanics. An observer in QM need not be sentient. An observer is simply another object with which an interaction is taking place that therefore "observes" or is affected by what is being observed. FAP - More like religion than anything remotely scientific.
My experience has been that I have gotten an exclusion all three times this has come up. The key is to be reasonable.
Fantastic that you've been so fortunate. However you that will only work for certain roles with certain companies. Others have standard contracts, aren't as willing to compromise, wish to actively discourage any negotiation etc. My experience has been quite the opposite.
I still think the best continuation of the Star Trek Universe is Boston Legal. It's got Kirk and Odo and Quark and even Seven of Nine a couple of years back.
Nice theory, but it still doesn't explain the awful camera work!
Someone went around the Sydney CBD putting "Bullshit" stickers on a large number of the billboards and advertising around the place. Now every time I see "Quantum of Solace" I think "Quantum of Bullshit". That's okay though - I'm not the biggest Bond fan. Last one I really enjoyed was Moonraker.
ALmost any company will let you add an addendum like that to your employment contract. Do not be overawed by contracts, they are simply a starting point.
-1:Naive
Most companies will label you a trouble maker if you question anything in the contract. They will only hire you if they don't have a less troublesome alternative available. If the company wants to play fair they'll never include such a clause or at least limit it to what is work related.
Hmmm, I say, the lightsaber *is* casting a shadow.
I'm more interested in whether or not it has a reflection. Then I'll know if it's vampire technology or not. Just think the ultimate defence to a lightsaber might be wearing garlic around your neck!
How do you jump from finding one very old temple to deciding that the motivation for all civilization starting and people getting together being religion?
Sounds to me like someone with religion is trying to justify their bad habit.
Slashdot Mirror
I have recently read a book that was supposedly written by an alien.
Tom Cruise?! I had no idea you posted on slashdot!!!
It's pretty obvious you have been unable to negotiate anything because you can't figure out how to ask politely. Or were asking for too much, hard to say...
It's pretty obvious your method is to constantly leap to conclusions without checking your facts. I have asked these questions politely in the past with the help and approval of my immediate boss (in fact very recently) and they've either been ignored or avoided. But don't let facts that you haven't bothered to check get in the way of an irrational and insulting rant. The irony of a person who's repeatedly done this lecturing me on how to be polite is mind blowing. Thanks for the laugh.
In fact my last review which was accompanied by a renegotiation of my contract (since my employer is standardising them) resulted in a pay increase and almost uniformly positive comments about my ability to communicate. Once again, don't let facts get in your way.
My experience is from multiple companies, small to large. And yes, pretty much all HR/Legal departments do work like that (even at companies small enough to have a single HR person).
Well you can sure choose to ignore my experience, or without any kind of substantiation insist that I must have no social skills. You can choose to insist that what you've seen in your particular industry in your particular part of the world must apply uniformly. It makes you a provincial twit, but you can choose to do that. Or you could consider the possibility that it doesn't always work that way and that in fact you've been quite lucky.
Your advice offers nothing but fear to the perspective employees, I offer information that can help them understand how to take control of what they agree to.
My advice offers a different perspective and experience that counters yours. You offer blanket statements that if applied in the wrong circumstances or without tact and disgression could lose someone their job. You insist that things uniformly work in a particular way. I offer caution. Furthermore your extreme hostility means I'm finding it hard to believe your negotiation skills are as good as you claim.
Even if they do not agree, if you ask right nothing will come of just the asking. The key is reasonable demands, and asking for provisions to allow you to own your own work at home are eminently reasonable.
Sure, you can ask, and if you ask nicely you MAY get what you want. A lot of companies will simply refuse your requests no matter how reasonable. This is something you don't acknowledge. The bottom line is if they do this and you want the job, you either sign on the dotted line or you don't. You can lie to yourself about having some incredible degree of control over your working conditions, but in most places and for most jobs the employer will simply move on to the next job candidate before considering giving in on any condition they don't want. So sure, go ask, but to expect you'll always have a fantastic and reasonable response is as I first said naive in the extreme. Offering advice that the world always works this way is offering nothing more than a dangerous fairytale.
Why not? It works very well for lawyers.
Yes, because if I were to be asked to point out a happy well adjusted human being, I'd head straight for the nearest legal office or court room.
Gee, I'm reporting what I have found through practical experience. You are reporting what seem to be some fears you picked up in high school of authority.
High school???? Buddy, check your facts before saying something so stuipid it makes you come across as a turnip. I've been in IT professionally for 10 years now (since Uni) and did work before then too. You know nothing about what experiences I have had and assume I'm talking out of my backside simply because your experiences have been different. I too am simply reporting what I've found through practical experience. Perhaps you could take your head out of your backside for long enough to stop making assumptions about random strangers on a message board.
That is such bullshit. Companies of any size run all that through HR and legal departments, which have the most minimal contact with the people you actually work with (by mutual choice). I have angered HR people before by questioning stupid policies (unrelated to current discussion, it was disagreements I had with them over theories they had why people were quitting in droves) and it has ZERO impact on my ability to advance in the company (which I proceeded to do years after)
Well then since in that one company at which this is suppose to have happened, it worked out well for you, that must mean that all HR departments and all companies work the same way, and that anyone reporting any other kind of experience must be a coward who's afraid of something he heard at highschool. Yeah that makes sense. You sir are an idiot.
And now we reach the most obvious demonstration of your Naivete. At the point you are signing contracts, they HAVE ALREADY AGREED TO HIRE YOU. It's not that the agreement is all that binding, but the practical reality is the guy looking for a candidate is done looking. HR is done looking. No one cares about a few words in a contract, they get small changes all the time from the other employees that are not sheeple who blindly sign anything.
Buddy I got my current job because the guy that was meant to get it (who was more experienced) asked for conditions they didn't want to agree to.
Wake up, you have way more control over your life than you think.
How about you wake up and realize that not all companies work the same way. Some companies will NOT vary their contracts point blank, and if that means calling back another applicant for a job, they'll do it.
You're potentially losing 50% of the problem solving skills, assuming men and women are equally capable.
Regardless of the reason for their interest, unless you can get them interested you won't be achieving much by forcing them into the field even if they could have been great had they been interested.
The thing we should be doing is ensuring the barriers to entry for women aren't any higher or tougher than those for men. If we manage that the question of why they're not interested may be more relevant.
Try to give your male child a doll. Last time I gave my son a doll, he was about 1 year old. He threw it around for a while, then smashed it repeatedly with a hammer
People might not want to accept this but it's definitely true.
When I was a baby a friend of the family gave my mum a doll because that friend got my sex wrong. My mother didn't want to offend that friend so she gave it to me. I stripped the doll bare, worked out how it's head and arms came off, lost an arm, lost all the clothing and I'm not sure what I did with the legs. Anyway I like to joke that even back then I knew how to treat a lady. (Please understand this is a joke and I'm not violent to women or anyone else for that matter).
I thought about reply with something humorous (along the lines of them being interested in other body parts too) but it occurs to me that you're probably frustrated and I'd only be adding to that. So I'll check that immature impulse and here's the serious response instead.
I think it depends on how you're hit on. Yes, I agree, ignoring your wedding ring isn't a good way to be hit on. I don't know what your workplace is like but it may be that some of the guys aren't hitting on you but are still responding to the fact that you're female by being chatty and flirty. That doesn't make it any more comfortable for you. Also you have to be aware that there are douche bags out there that are going to try it on at any cost with no regard for your feelings. Just like there are horrible women, there are horrible men too. Please don't judge the entire gender based on the actions of a few men (particularly if you're in an industry where that sort of crap is tolerated).
First of all while it's important to pick a career where you are able to earn, it's also important to choose something you enjoy doing. You're going to be doing it for most of the waking hours of your life. You really don't want to pick something that pays well but that you detest unless suicidal unhappiness is your idea of doing well. (At least men will spend most of their waking hours. There is actually some biological gender difference here, since women may spend child raring years looking after newborns and infants).
Secondly, if a CS is not the way to make money, I must be living in some fictional world, because I'm doing quite well thanks very much. I won't be making it onto any rich list but I have a secure job that pays better than a lot of those in my social circle and the hours aren't bad either. CS is not the way to make money if you're lousy at it, are lazy and don't want to learn, or if you're just doing it for the dollars. For some of us it's still a brilliant career.
Money is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.
I'm all for space research but the Australian Federal and State Governments couldn't organize a pissup in a brewery. Sydney's public transport is awful and continually getting worse. Our roads are getting clogged and the solution proposed is to increase taxes, raise fares, decrease the size of the carriages on our trains, and split up the network. Space travel? We can't even get from the suburbs into town!!!
Is there anything they can't do?
Yes, there is! That is what the sharks are for!
one of TV's most notorious hacks and ripoff artists that barely lasted a single season.
From your link he made
- Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
- Knight Rider
- BattleStar Galactica
and was involved in
- The Fall Guy
- Magnum P.I.
- The Six Million Dollar Man
I wish I was such a 'hack'
You can do all sorts of stuff to an image that would shot holes in this technique. Resize (shrink, or grow and reinterpolate), apply a filter (curves, b&w or sepia would be easiest but there are others). Hell put it through an artistic filter. Still at 90% accuracy, in most cases, I wouldn't even bother!
For those who must say that God does not exist, try this: your position is just as unprovable as theirs, and yet raising your voice to argue your point is just as pointless as theirs.
I'd rather the world was run according to what can be proved than on fairy stories. I've seen first hand how dangerous religion can be and how irrational religious people can be. I'm not saying science can't be destructive or that scientists can't be irrational, but science at least teaches critical thinking and teaches you to bases actions and conclusions on what is provable. Therefore religion and science aren't the same and there is good reason for those who do think scientifically to oppose religion.
Newton's theory is a useful approximation. In that context it was never bunk and did not need to be debunked. In the context of describing reality neither Newton nor Einstein's theories account for all situations. (Relativity breaks down at the smallest scales).
Ockham's razor is poorly understood. It says take the simplest explanation where there are 2 alternatives that give equally good results in terms of explaining and predicting. It says nothing about situations where your theory isn't complete or doesn't explain all the facts. If you need another layer to do that, that old rusty razor needs to be put away. The real trouble is we keep discovering phenomenon and situations which aren't explained by any of our theories no matter how convoluted and at that point we sometimes have to introduce new complexity to bring in a theory that does explain all we now know.
WAP - True enough. If we weren't here there would be noone to ask the question.
SAP - Zero evidence for the assertion that life must evolve.
PAP - Weak arguments based on mysticism combined with quantum mechanics. An observer in QM need not be sentient. An observer is simply another object with which an interaction is taking place that therefore "observes" or is affected by what is being observed.
FAP - More like religion than anything remotely scientific.
My experience has been that I have gotten an exclusion all three times this has come up. The key is to be reasonable.
Fantastic that you've been so fortunate. However you that will only work for certain roles with certain companies. Others have standard contracts, aren't as willing to compromise, wish to actively discourage any negotiation etc. My experience has been quite the opposite.
I still think the best continuation of the Star Trek Universe is Boston Legal. It's got Kirk and Odo and Quark and even Seven of Nine a couple of years back.
Nice theory, but it still doesn't explain the awful camera work!
Ironically, that's how I felt about Q of S too
Someone went around the Sydney CBD putting "Bullshit" stickers on a large number of the billboards and advertising around the place. Now every time I see "Quantum of Solace" I think "Quantum of Bullshit". That's okay though - I'm not the biggest Bond fan. Last one I really enjoyed was Moonraker.
Isn't using a Star Wars quote in a Star Trek thread a hanging offense on Slashdot?
Feel better now???
Only the top 23 run Vista well.
ALmost any company will let you add an addendum like that to your employment contract. Do not be overawed by contracts, they are simply a starting point.
-1:Naive
Most companies will label you a trouble maker if you question anything in the contract. They will only hire you if they don't have a less troublesome alternative available. If the company wants to play fair they'll never include such a clause or at least limit it to what is work related.
Hmmm, I say, the lightsaber *is* casting a shadow.
I'm more interested in whether or not it has a reflection. Then I'll know if it's vampire technology or not. Just think the ultimate defence to a lightsaber might be wearing garlic around your neck!
How do you jump from finding one very old temple to deciding that the motivation for all civilization starting and people getting together being religion?
Sounds to me like someone with religion is trying to justify their bad habit.
Now, if the evidence was indeed that strong, maybe PETA or some other animal rights group
Maybe PETA can drop off the face of the Earth or fall into a black hole or something. Those people are loopy, irrational nut-jobs.
Other sane animals rights groups are welcome to stay.