When I'm 64 and older, I'll (hopefully) have the time to pull out the old rulebooks and funny looking dice and play AD&D like I did when I was in high school. Little things like working and raising children are getting in the way right now.:-)
To be fair, my original post was also a fairly loaded way of making the point that money/compensation are an important part of work, because everyone has to pay for food, housing, transportation, etc. More pay = better chances of securing the basics, and even going beyond basic needs to pay for luxuries.
About your point regarding "bread winners," I too know many people to whom those attitudes unfortunately apply. I'm sorry to hear that you had such a hard time with your husband.
I view the money I make as belonging to my family (my wife and I have beautiful fraternal twins (boy and girl) who are 3 years old). My wife wanted to stay home and take care of the kids (she used to work in a tech job making as much money as me), so that's what she's doing now. She does an amazing job of taking care of home and family. I work because that's my contribution to the enterprise of having and raising a family. That, for me, is why I work.
Yes, our finances are a lot tighter without her working, but we both feel that having a parent at home full-time is important for raising children. Yes, I would have done it if she hadn't volunteered -- I keep suggesting that she ought to send out her resume so I can stay home with the kids:-). More money at work would be important to me, because it would help me afford more of the fringes, or at least handle financial emergencies as they arise ("$500 to fix the car this month? How do we pay for that?!")
As far as charities go, I completely agree with you. All you need to do is look at the salaries of the people who run various charities and you can see the sham that so many of them are. I tend to donate stuff to my local church, where I see them directly redistrubite it to those in need.
See that, who'd of thunk an intelligent, reasoned discussion could have arisen from a couple of snotty remarks posted on slashdot?:-).
hackstraw, if you're "confused why money keeps coming into the picture," please have your paycheck direct deposited to my checking account for the next six months. I guarantee your confusion on this issue will disappear.
Thank you for reminding me why I love slashdot so much... I knew my blanket statement that Windows was better than Mac would goad someone into criticizing my post. What I didn't expect is that it would also get modded up to +3 Insightful! Rock on, slashdot!!
For the record, let me acknowledge the correctness of your point: the Mac is now x86 hardware. I was thinking back to two years ago, when I made my last computer purchase.
A few years ago, I bought my first Windows PC for much the same reasons, after years of loyalty to the Mac. The Windows and Mac versions of Adobe Illustrator, the one application I cannot live without, are so close that they are practically identical, even down to eqivalent keyboard shortcuts (substitute control for command and alt for option, and you're in business).
The Windows GUI is in many cases better than the Mac. Furthermore, x86 hardware is less expensive and more easily customized/repaired than the equivalent Mac hardware.
Actually, I think that would override the Varion phase subsystem and result in a dangerous multiphasic plasma leak. Remember when we tried that on the Trilobites of Gleberaux V? Lieutenant McShane spent weeks resurfacing the intermediary manifolds after that misadventure, and complained about it in the Forward Lounge every night for months!
I think if we draw off about 10% of our reserve holodeck power and re-route it to the rear sensor array, the resulting harmonics would induce a tachyon burst in all directions. We could measure the burst echo and we'd have have a much better idea what all of this is about.
(even if you mod me down, please mod the parent up; I just love a good Trek technobabble).
'"Greedy corporate America" is on both sides of this issue.
'Apple isn't looking out for you; Apple is looking out for Apple. '
Isn't that the whole rationale for capitalism and free markets? I.e., all parties acting in their own best interest yields the most efficient market.
Apple has chosen the strategy of furthering its own greed by making a music player with a good interface, integrating it with desktop synchronization software, and providing an online music store that sells songs at a reasonable price.
If this happens to serve my needs (i.e., a convenient method of listening to music), then we both benefit by acting in our own selfish best interests.
"We were afraid of the State, 1984-like, maintaining huge databases, monitoring us all.
"We - all of us, States, citizens, one and all - are not in control of the direction (I can't say decisions, because deliberate choice is not occuring) our society is taking."
I think a better analogy is Brave New World instead of 1984. We are creating a society where those in power are ensnaring us because of the innate human tendency to seek comfort and convenience.
We choose this state of affairs because it makes sense to our internal logic of getting the most return from the least effort.
Seeing a screeshot of Double Dribble, an NES game from the mid-80s, brought back memories of college, when we used to have our own "Double Dribble March Madness" tournament.
My friends and I also enjoyed the Engrish pronounciation of "Double Dribble," as a synthesized voice announced the name of the game while the initial splash screen was displayed.
Not so sure I'd trade my 10-hour days and long commute for life in the early 1800s.
Ever work on a farm? It takes a lot more than 10 hours per day just to eke out a basic subsistence, and there's no paid vacations (with or without Blackberry).
More time for your kids? Maybe for those that survived the high infant mortality rates of the past.
The times I'd like to go back to are the early 1960's. The more senior people I worked with at AT&T Bell Labs who started there in the late 50s / early 60s had one sweet deal in terms of interesting work that didn't always demand so much of their free time.
... various government and tech leaders in the U.S. are waving their hands and bemoaning the shortage of tech workers. And wondering about the decline in students interested in engineering and computer science.
HELLO!??! What kind of idiot works their butt off studing for four years to enter a career that is stressful, demands never-ending study, and calls for ever-increasing sacrifices of personal time in return for a job that offers middling pay and doubtful prospects for long-term employment?
My experience: I've had a vareity of admin jobs in different industries over the last 16 years. Most of the time, I have been responsible for my own training. Most of the time, I've opted to learn on the job and not pursue a certification.
I've found that certifications and working experience both carry weight, depending on how much prior hands-on experience your interviewer has had. (experience is more important to those hiring managers who have it themselves)
The way I've tried to use this to my own benefit: if my employer is running me ragged, won't provide training, doesn't compensate me well (money, fringes, whatever), I do the best job I can and work hard to learn how to deal with whatever they're throwing at me. I read stuff online, RTFM, buy a good third-party book on the subject, etc. I stay for a year, and then look for something else.
In that year, I've acquired a new skill that makes me more valuable to a new employer. At the next place, I'm in either in a siutation that I like, or I'm being trained for my next move.
Since 1990, I've worked for eight different companies; only two of those provded me with time and budget to pursue formal training.
This strategy landed me at what I considered a good job within five years. Unfortunately, the tech bubble burst six years after that, I was laid off, and I've had to scramble again since 2001. This time, instead of leaving for something better, I've been laid off every year. Each successive job, however, trained me for the next one, even if I left involuntarily.
Last year, however, I found another good place to work, where I am currently employed. Good place to work = sane hours, short commute, nice people, interesting projects, decent compensation.
I've found there are good companies out there; but until you find them your life will be stressful.
"there is a John Chambers (CEO, cisco) who lowered his pay (to $1.00 IIRC) to help the company save money and to up morale for his employees"
My heart bleeds for this real American hero.
He also cut my job and the jobs of ~8499 other people in June of 2001 (there were about 31,000 employees at Cisco at the time, as I recall, so it was a pretty significant cut). Yes we got a nice severance package, but the job market wasn't exactly healthy around that time. Many more people have been let go since, in dribs and drabs and with less publicity.
While I was still working there, I calculated that the total value of his annual compensation was more than 1000 times the value of mine. He could spend an amount equal to my annual salary with the same ease that I could take my wife out to dinner at a fancy restaurant.
The most recent issue of the IEEE newsletter ran a story about the gender gap in engineering schools, and I thought the writer hit the nail on the head with this observation (paraphrased from my memory of the original):
Besides the social stigma, why should a female seek to start a program of intense and difficult study to be rewarded with a career that offers long hours, stressful situations, and uncertain prospects for steady employment?
another prediction: medical technology will not be able to keep up with the variety of health problems created when people spend all their time sitting in a powered sofa.
Time is the only thing any of us have... to be able to spend the majority of your time doing what you choose is a key to happiness.
When I put in long hours for work, the best way that work can say "thank you" is to give me comp time. And I mean that for every one hour of overtime I work, I get one hour off.
It also means that management supports my ability to take that time off when I damn well please.
In a profession that eats up personal lives like Homer Simpson binges on Krispy Kreme, comp time is a powerful benefit. My opinion is that companies do not use comp time as an incentive because it forces management to actually come up with well-thought-out project plans, build balanced teams where multiple people can cover for each other, and create rational schedules that don't demand late-night heroics to meet.
And for everyone who snorted in disbelief that "modern" management would ever consider such a radical policy: I have had this benefit in the past, and I have it now. It is worth more to me than any bonus or stock option I've ever receieved.
1. The lack of creative offerings in the game industry (or music, movies, TV shows, etc.) illustrates the difficulty of producing a high-quality, original product.
2. Any game (movie/tv show/music) that's bad will not make money because, in the long term, people won't like it.
Corollary: if you think a creative product is bad, yet it is commercially successful, there must be *something* about that product that people like that makes it a good product. Examples abound of wildly successful creative works that were criticized as trash in their day: the works of Jack London, the Lord of the Rings, rock and roll music, rap music, etc.
Certifications improve your chances at getting hired.
That's it.
If an HR person is looking at two resumes that show equal experience, and one resume lists a certification even remotely relevant to the position that needs to be filled, guess which candidate has an edge?
I have edged out other candidates twice because I have a CCNA. Am I an IOS guru? Hardly -- I'll be the first one to assure anyone of that in any situation. But because my core experience was good, the router cert helped make out. (the jobs in question were in QA testing of VoIP and other network applications, so the router experience was relevant)
Also, the folks who screen your resume (HR) are used to working with people from *all* professions -- not just our narrow little world of tech -- where career credentials are common yardsticks for measuring accomplishment and skill.
Certifications demonstrate also that you had the wherewithal to take and pass a long boring multiple-guess test. Sometimes that in itself is a differntiator, regardless of whether the cert actually makes you an expert in anything. (Remember the SATs?)
Whether certs actually give you any kind of skill at all is another story.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
When I'm 64 and older, I'll (hopefully) have the time to pull out the old rulebooks and funny looking dice and play AD&D like I did when I was in high school. Little things like working and raising children are getting in the way right now. :-)
Go ahead, Mr. Apricot; brandish that raspberry, be as viscious with it as you like ...
About your point regarding "bread winners," I too know many people to whom those attitudes unfortunately apply. I'm sorry to hear that you had such a hard time with your husband.
I view the money I make as belonging to my family (my wife and I have beautiful fraternal twins (boy and girl) who are 3 years old). My wife wanted to stay home and take care of the kids (she used to work in a tech job making as much money as me), so that's what she's doing now. She does an amazing job of taking care of home and family. I work because that's my contribution to the enterprise of having and raising a family. That, for me, is why I work.
Yes, our finances are a lot tighter without her working, but we both feel that having a parent at home full-time is important for raising children. Yes, I would have done it if she hadn't volunteered -- I keep suggesting that she ought to send out her resume so I can stay home with the kids :-). More money at work would be important to me, because it would help me afford more of the fringes, or at least handle financial emergencies as they arise ("$500 to fix the car this month? How do we pay for that?!")
As far as charities go, I completely agree with you. All you need to do is look at the salaries of the people who run various charities and you can see the sham that so many of them are. I tend to donate stuff to my local church, where I see them directly redistrubite it to those in need.
See that, who'd of thunk an intelligent, reasoned discussion could have arisen from a couple of snotty remarks posted on slashdot? :-).
Excellent reply to my snotty remark!! My wife is already in on that deal, unfortunately.
hackstraw, if you're "confused why money keeps coming into the picture," please have your paycheck direct deposited to my checking account for the next six months. I guarantee your confusion on this issue will disappear.
For the record, let me acknowledge the correctness of your point: the Mac is now x86 hardware. I was thinking back to two years ago, when I made my last computer purchase.
A few years ago, I bought my first Windows PC for much the same reasons, after years of loyalty to the Mac. The Windows and Mac versions of Adobe Illustrator, the one application I cannot live without, are so close that they are practically identical, even down to eqivalent keyboard shortcuts (substitute control for command and alt for option, and you're in business).
The Windows GUI is in many cases better than the Mac. Furthermore, x86 hardware is less expensive and more easily customized/repaired than the equivalent Mac hardware.
Winds light to variable; lighter in the daytime and darker at night.
Back to you, Jim.
Actually, I think that would override the Varion phase subsystem and result in a dangerous multiphasic plasma leak. Remember when we tried that on the Trilobites of Gleberaux V? Lieutenant McShane spent weeks resurfacing the intermediary manifolds after that misadventure, and complained about it in the Forward Lounge every night for months!
I think if we draw off about 10% of our reserve holodeck power and re-route it to the rear sensor array, the resulting harmonics would induce a tachyon burst in all directions. We could measure the burst echo and we'd have have a much better idea what all of this is about.
(even if you mod me down, please mod the parent up; I just love a good Trek technobabble).
And so it is the responsibility of government to ensure that all children are raised properly?
No. It is the responsibility of parents to raise children.
'"Greedy corporate America" is on both sides of this issue.
'Apple isn't looking out for you; Apple is looking out for Apple. '
Isn't that the whole rationale for capitalism and free markets? I.e., all parties acting in their own best interest yields the most efficient market.
Apple has chosen the strategy of furthering its own greed by making a music player with a good interface, integrating it with desktop synchronization software, and providing an online music store that sells songs at a reasonable price.
If this happens to serve my needs (i.e., a convenient method of listening to music), then we both benefit by acting in our own selfish best interests.
"We were afraid of the State, 1984-like, maintaining huge databases, monitoring us all.
"We - all of us, States, citizens, one and all - are not in control of the direction (I can't say decisions, because deliberate choice is not occuring) our society is taking."
I think a better analogy is Brave New World instead of 1984. We are creating a society where those in power are ensnaring us because of the innate human tendency to seek comfort and convenience.
We choose this state of affairs because it makes sense to our internal logic of getting the most return from the least effort.
Check out this link:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512
Seeing a screeshot of Double Dribble, an NES game from the mid-80s, brought back memories of college, when we used to have our own "Double Dribble March Madness" tournament.
...
My friends and I also enjoyed the Engrish pronounciation of "Double Dribble," as a synthesized voice announced the name of the game while the initial splash screen was displayed.
Ah, those were the days
Ever work on a farm? It takes a lot more than 10 hours per day just to eke out a basic subsistence, and there's no paid vacations (with or without Blackberry).
Human life expectancy was 37 years at the *end* of the 19th century, not sure what it was in the early 1800s (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy).
More time for your kids? Maybe for those that survived the high infant mortality rates of the past.
The times I'd like to go back to are the early 1960's. The more senior people I worked with at AT&T Bell Labs who started there in the late 50s / early 60s had one sweet deal in terms of interesting work that didn't always demand so much of their free time.
... various government and tech leaders in the U.S. are waving their hands and bemoaning the shortage of tech workers. And wondering about the decline in students interested in engineering and computer science.
... I'm that kind of idiot ... Never mind.
HELLO!??! What kind of idiot works their butt off studing for four years to enter a career that is stressful, demands never-ending study, and calls for ever-increasing sacrifices of personal time in return for a job that offers middling pay and doubtful prospects for long-term employment?
Oh wait
My experience: I've had a vareity of admin jobs in different industries over the last 16 years.
Most of the time, I have been responsible for my own training. Most of the time, I've opted to learn on the job and not pursue a certification.
I've found that certifications and working experience both carry weight, depending on how much prior hands-on experience your interviewer has had. (experience is more important to those hiring managers who have it themselves)
The way I've tried to use this to my own benefit: if my employer is running me ragged, won't provide training, doesn't compensate me well (money, fringes, whatever), I do the best job I can and work hard to learn how to deal with whatever they're throwing at me. I read stuff online, RTFM, buy a good third-party book on the subject, etc. I stay for a year, and then look for something else.
In that year, I've acquired a new skill that makes me more valuable to a new employer. At the next place, I'm in either in a siutation that I like, or I'm being trained for my next move.
Since 1990, I've worked for eight different companies; only two of those provded me with time and budget to pursue formal training.
This strategy landed me at what I considered a good job within five years. Unfortunately, the tech bubble burst six years after that, I was laid off, and I've had to scramble again since 2001. This time, instead of leaving for something better, I've been laid off every year. Each successive job, however, trained me for the next one, even if I left involuntarily.
Last year, however, I found another good place to work, where I am currently employed. Good place to work = sane hours, short commute, nice people, interesting projects, decent compensation.
I've found there are good companies out there; but until you find them your life will be stressful.
"there is a John Chambers (CEO, cisco) who lowered his pay (to $1.00 IIRC) to help the company save money and to up morale for his employees"
My heart bleeds for this real American hero.
He also cut my job and the jobs of ~8499 other people in June of 2001 (there were about 31,000 employees at Cisco at the time, as I recall, so it was a pretty significant cut). Yes we got a nice severance package, but the job market wasn't exactly healthy around that time. Many more people have been let go since, in dribs and drabs and with less publicity.
While I was still working there, I calculated that the total value of his annual compensation was more than 1000 times the value of mine. He could spend an amount equal to my annual salary with the same ease that I could take my wife out to dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Thanks, John!
The most recent issue of the IEEE newsletter ran a story about the gender gap in engineering schools, and I thought the writer hit the nail on the head with this observation (paraphrased from my memory of the original):
Besides the social stigma, why should a female seek to start a program of intense and difficult study to be rewarded with a career that offers long hours, stressful situations, and uncertain prospects for steady employment?
... right off your head."
If we start facing the sort of crime implied in this song, it kinda makes Robert Hunter seem a little prophetic, no?
And he's still alive and well in North America
another prediction: medical technology will not be able to keep up with the variety of health problems created when people spend all their time sitting in a powered sofa.
Time is the only thing any of us have ... to be able to spend the majority of your time doing what you choose is a key to happiness.
When I put in long hours for work, the best way that work can say "thank you" is to give me comp time. And I mean that for every one hour of overtime I work, I get one hour off.
It also means that management supports my ability to take that time off when I damn well please.
In a profession that eats up personal lives like Homer Simpson binges on Krispy Kreme, comp time is a powerful benefit. My opinion is that companies do not use comp time as an incentive because it forces management to actually come up with well-thought-out project plans, build balanced teams where multiple people can cover for each other, and create rational schedules that don't demand late-night heroics to meet.
And for everyone who snorted in disbelief that "modern" management would ever consider such a radical policy: I have had this benefit in the past, and I have it now. It is worth more to me than any bonus or stock option I've ever receieved.
1. The lack of creative offerings in the game industry (or music, movies, TV shows, etc.) illustrates the difficulty of producing a high-quality, original product. 2. Any game (movie/tv show/music) that's bad will not make money because, in the long term, people won't like it. Corollary: if you think a creative product is bad, yet it is commercially successful, there must be *something* about that product that people like that makes it a good product. Examples abound of wildly successful creative works that were criticized as trash in their day: the works of Jack London, the Lord of the Rings, rock and roll music, rap music, etc.
Certifications improve your chances at getting hired.
:-)
That's it.
If an HR person is looking at two resumes that show equal experience, and one resume lists a certification even remotely relevant to the position that needs to be filled, guess which candidate has an edge?
I have edged out other candidates twice because I have a CCNA. Am I an IOS guru? Hardly -- I'll be the first one to assure anyone of that in any situation. But because my core experience was good, the router cert helped make out. (the jobs in question were in QA testing of VoIP and other network applications, so the router experience was relevant)
Also, the folks who screen your resume (HR) are used to working with people from *all* professions -- not just our narrow little world of tech -- where career credentials are common yardsticks for measuring accomplishment and skill.
Certifications demonstrate also that you had the wherewithal to take and pass a long boring multiple-guess test. Sometimes that in itself is a differntiator, regardless of whether the cert actually makes you an expert in anything. (Remember the SATs?)
Whether certs actually give you any kind of skill at all is another story.