In the early 1990's, I worked for a company in the NW side of Indianapolis by the three Pyramids that was a strict 8am to 5pm schedule. Where I lived at, I was about 15 miles from work. I usually left for the office around 6:45 and I usually arrived at 7:05. Before 8am, I got quite a few things done before the phone calls start coming. I did programming at the time. I was the primary person who supported the company plants on their software. At the end of the day, I would leave around 4:35pm. A wave of people leave at 4:30pm and 4:45pm from other businesses in the area. I took me about 20 minutes to get home when I left at 4:35pm. If I left at 4:45pm, I would not get home until around 5:20pm. If I left at the standard 5pm, I would get home at almost 6pm At the time, flex time was not prevalent - almost all companies worked on a 9 to 5 schedule.
In my current job, our company is pretty generous with flex time. I usually get into work ranging from 5am to 6am. There is little or no traffic and because of that, I don't have any road rage dealing with idiot drivers. On Mon and Tue, I usually work until 3 to 5pm to get some hours built up. Wed and Thu, I leave earlier and don't have to deal with the traffic on the way home and Friday is my short day.
In my previous job I left from back in October, our company worked with another company who is the prime contractor - gov't contracting for inquiring minds. The company I worked for was generous but the prime contractor was not. They were basically a 7am to 4pm operation. They do not like people leaving early especially on Friday. Some of our poeple had to go work at their facility and the first things they were told was they were expected to be there during normal business hours and comply with a dress code - dress slacks/pants were required, no jeans.
I was told this at one time, "It doesn't matter how early you get in, it is how late you stay that counts !". In some companies, even if the company offers flex time, there would be unwritten rules against taking it or it would be an unwritten rule that it was a perk for those who management liked.
Wow, 24 bathrooms ! It would almost take me a month to take a dump in each one ! Wow, take a dump in a different bathroom each day and not revisit the same one for almost a month. Cool beans !!!!!!
I have been in the working world for almost 16 years. I worked at various places that had different dress codes. Anymore, my attitude is my focus is getting the job done and getting it done where the poeple I serve are happy. Dress codes are fluff or in other words, bull$h!t. My work puts me behind the scene 99 percent of the time.
Currently I work for a major DoD contractor company in Colorado Springs. We also have several sites in Denver which I also worked at as well back in 2000. On Fri, I went to one of their sites in SW Denver in Jefferson County. The building used to be owned by John Mansfield Company back in the 1970's. I was on my way from home to Fraser by Winter Park for the weekend. I stopped by to see several of my old co-workers. I was waiting in the "foyer" of the building by the security station for one of them to show. I was dressed in ripped jeans, sweatshirt and Teva sandals. I crossed paths with this older man, he was dressed in Khaki's, dress shirt with sweater vest. He gave me a nasty look out of the corner of his eye. He then proceeded up the center stairs. I asked one of the security guards if that was the "executive offices" and the guy remarked yes. That explained the dirty look.
In my current job, I work at an USAF base. Our facility is controlled by a gov't executive. He is a stickler on the rules. He does not even permit Casual Friday. Before he took over, it was casual everyday. The executive is a retired army colonel. In my job as a Sys Admin, I get to pull cable and yet, no clothing allowance is provided. I basically thumb my nose at the dress code and wear jeans everyday anyway.
In my previous job, even though my manager was an @$$hole on certain things such as vacation usage, he left me alone on my dress. I wore jeans everyday since I was one of the lab people. It is suppose to be dress pants/slacks Mon to Thu and casual Friday. There were a few Friday's I showed up with my standard blue jeans, Harley Davidson T-shirt and my Teva's. My boss even saw me with the Teva's and remarked that I should wear socks with them.
Also with my previous job, one time, they sent out a note on Wed or Thu of an executive visit on a Friday afternoon. The note mentioned that the meeting was not only mandatory but also, we were told to "dress to impress" and not think of dressing casually that time. Even with my new job, I am out the door by 12 noon on Friday. I wore jeans anyway on that Friday but I also sat way in the back of the room. My manager was not happy that I showed such "disrespect".
In my first job after college, I worked for this company from 1990 to 1995 in Indiana. The executive management were former accountants. We had no Casual Friday. When we did business trips, it was an unwritten rule that you must dress even on weekends if you traveled. My last several years in the company, I said the hell with the unwritten rules. When I was out on trips, I went to company plants and they were filthy. I decided that I would only wear jeans on the trips. The maintainence on dress pants/slacks are a pain such as dry cleaning or ironing. Blue jeans are low maintainence. Just wash, rinse, dry and wear. Very simple.
I say thumbs up to the State of New Hampshire for refusing to go along with the Real ID Act of 2005. Unfortunately, NH is a small state that the Federal Gov't can easily ignore their citizens. If one of the heavily populated states such as California, New York, Texas decide not to go along and are defiant towards the Federal Gov't like NH, the house made from the deck of cards known as the Real ID Act will come tumbling down.
One of the most onerous provisions of the Real ID Act is requiring states to electronically link their driver databases. I don't know how extensive this will be. The worst case scenario is another state can add violations to a different state's driver's record. Best case would be states can access other states records on a "read only" basis. One of the biggest pitfalls are states with very strong privacy laws can be accessed from states with weak privacy laws. The strong privacy laws are no good ! The original language of the act required states to join an international compact known as the Driver License Agreement (DLA) which would not only other states can access your state's records but also foreign countries starting with Canada and Mexico. The foreign countries do not even have to comply with the Driver Privacy protection Act. If I was a stalker and I was interested in finding a certain person who went through all steps to protect themselves such as with unlisted phone numbers, I can go to Mexico, pay off a corrupt official (easy to find) to get the given information.
The author of the Real ID Act of 2005 was Francis James Sensenbrenner, Jr. of Wisconsin. An interesting item about him, he bullies people to get his way and does not take kindly to people who dare to disagree with him ! When it was time for people to testify against the PATRIOT Act, he got up, walked out of the hearing room, turned off the microphones. He acted like the Democrats. With his arrogance, he is not fit to be Congressman. Even though I am a Libertarian who usually votes Republican, I am having thoughts of giving money to his Democrat opponent.
This law was passed through the most underhanded ways. It was attached to a must pass appropriations bill. It would have never passed the Senate as a standalone bill. When the standalone bill was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was not given a hearing. The Real ID Act was also included in the House provisions of the Intel Reform bill that was later removed and passed at the end of 2004 in the 108th Congress.
The best way to get rid of this law is to tell people and get them pissed off enough to where they raise hell with their Congressman and demand a repeal.
Also a heads up, the DLA provision that didn't make the Real ID Act, it is included in the immigration bill under the Scott Gardner Act. Contact your Congressman. Raise hell about this DLA in the immigration bill and raise hell about the Real ID Act and politely & diplomatically tell him how much it stinks !
Lastly, not many people remember back in 2001, the CEO of Oracle, Lawrence Ellison mentioned that it is time for a National ID card here in the US. At the time, there were more congressman with common sense that put a kibosh on this like Rep. Dick Armey, Rep. Bob Barr who no longer are members of Congress. This leaves a question, how much lobbying money did Larry Ellison put in to get this asinine law passed.
In my job, I work at an Air Force facility. Besides doing my Unix stuff, I and my cohort also deal with Windows PC's for training classes. Besides loading the standard S/W on the machines such as MS Office, we also go through and remove any and all games. No hearts, no solitare, no freecell, no... you get the picture. There is also a strict Internet policy as well but they aim their enforcement towards porno which I can understand. Our company recently sent an e-mail out talking about appropriate use of Internet resources. Word got around that someone was surfing not only porn but child porn !
This is the crap that not only gets you canned but also arrested and eventually have to register as a sex offender along with loss of rights. The trend these days is cracking down on sex offenders such as banning them from living within a certain number of feet from schools, parks, trails, swimming pools or other areas where children congregate at. In fact some places, sex offenders are forced to move when new laws are passed. Also, even if you live far from places like parks, you are not allowed to use them or get near.
At the job I left back in Sep/Oct, for the number of people on the floor (5th), we had too small bathrooms. The last thing we have needed are gadgets to keep people longer than necessary. Our building was also shared with mostly dental offices. Our company had the whole 4th and 5th floor. The 3rd floor as partially ours and had their own facilities in addition to standard bathroom. In the building, all the standard bathrooms were in the center of each floor by the stairs and elevator.
If I needed to take a dump, I usually went to the 3rd floor since the only people who used the facilities were dental patients which were rare. Therefore, you can count on a peaceful dump there versus the 4th or 5th floor bathrooms which were very busy.
Towards the time when I was getting ready to change jobs, my manager and I were on pretty bad terms with each other. One of his golden boys reported me that I was going to the third floor to use the bathroom (take a dump) and I got called into his office got a new @$$hole chewed into me. He told me that I was not to use any bathroom except the 5th floor bathroom. He told me that he didn't care if I had to wait 30 minutes to use the can. He then said that the company didn't have to provide bathrooms but they provide them out of the goodness of their "heart". What an ass !
In my previous job, we had a very complex performance appraisal system cooked up by HR and the executives. One of the items is objectives or goals to attain in the coming year which comes up in the next appraisal cycle. As assistant lab manager, it was listed in my appraisal objectives that I need training such as Cisco routers. I was told that I needed to be proficient as well wih them. My title is UNIX System Administrator Senior. Having a manager who is an asshole, I was set up for failure. When he and I were going over my objectives, he emphasized the training. I then brought up that I would like to go to a class on Cisco routers which included plenty of hands-on training. I was told there was no money in the budget and the request for training was denied. His favored subordinates got the training money. Several people were given money to take different classes and even go to conventions. He could not spare a dime for my training. When salray increases came out later in the year, I was given a 0% raise, that is, no raise. Since I couldn't get training, it was held against me.
The company had money for training but who got the money was decided if you were a red-headed step child or the golden haired child.
Experience with meetings - waste of f***en time !
on
Meetings are Bad For You
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· Score: 2, Interesting
In my old job, the project was split between a Colorado Springs and Gaithersburg, MD location. The big shots were located on the East Coast in G-burg. There was one particular meeting that I had to attend every two weeks. I was Assistant Lab Manager. The meeting was a video conference hosted by G-burg. It was suppose to be a simple status meeting. A few years back when the meeting started, it was simple and short until the Sr. Mgt got involved. Today, the meetings last as long as 5 hours and one thing I notice, it is usually the same few people who just go on and on.
These "windbags" think they can impress the higher ups by spewing so mush B.S. My part takes about a minute and then I am out of there ! There are many times I sit listening to these windbags and I would like to say, "get to the point and be done !"
Also in that group, it seems like they liked to have late Friday afternoon meetings which I of course, ignored, unfortunately to my detriment.
The Real ID Act was originally part of the House Intelligence bill in the previous 108th Congress. The provisions were yanked because of the problems it posed especially at the insistence of the Senate. It came back in the current session of Congress. It was passed by the House without discussion or debate. There were no committee hearings either. The Senate refused to act upon especially how it would usurp states rights. The House decided to attach to a must pass appropriations bill to fund the Iraq troops and Tsunami relief fund. The Senate removed the provisions but the bill went to conference. The House prevailed.
Now, people are realizing this montrosity. Here are a couple of ways to get rid of this bill. First is a grassroots coalition to encourage the Senate to unilaterally attach the repeal language to any and all bills coming over from the House. A good place would be to hold the PATRIOT ACT hostage. The Senate could refuse to act on it unless the House goes along to repeal the Real ID Act. The PATRIOT ACT was temporarily extended.
The second way is contact our state legislators and governors and ask them to refuse to go along with this. If all 50 states refuse to sign on to the Real ID Act, it would be hard to stop commerce because Congress would not want to bankrupt the airlines.
What is Real ID Act about ? It would require states to follow the Federal Gov't prescription on how Driver's Licenses are issued such as linking driver databases, checking background information on license applicants such as birth certificates, proof of residence, etc. If a state decides to not go along, then citizens from that state would not be allowed to board aircraft, go into Federal buildings. Even more, the driver databases would allow hackers and marketers easy access for identity theft and some states with strong privacy laws would have their databases accessed from states with weak privacy laws.
Last of all, guess who was the sponsor ? House Judiciary Chairman Francis James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin. The same nitwit who is pushing to close the analog "loophole" for video and music. The people of Wisconsin should remove him from office through the ballot box. His Democrat opponent should be supported with money or whatever means. I am a Republican, a conservative one at that. People like Sensenbrennerare country club Republicans who originally opposed President Reagan.
One of my machines runs Win XP with a DVD burner. I recently started to pick up import Japanese Anime which are set to Region 2. When I got my first import, I put the DVD in and ran DVD Shrink. It insisted on changing the RPC-2 H/W Region Code. Of course, there are a max of 5 changes before the it is permanent. I ended up going out to pick up another DVD drive which is specific for Region 2 DVD's. What a pain !
I would like to meet the a-hole, probably a marketing executive, who thought of this Region coding BS.
On DVD Shrink, it is used for my own purpose of making dups of the DVD's i buy. The originals are kept at home and I play off the copies. I am about done with vacation and I recently bought some new Anime. I made copies and took the copies with me to watch when I have time. The originals are at home safe.
In the facility I use to work at, the management put in a game room with a fooseball & air hockey table. However, this room was for certain people only. In other words, if you were favored by management, you can use the facility but if you weren't, you better not be caught in there when one of the managers walked in. You would be asked if you had work to do and get out and do it.
By far, I was one of the least favored people by my manager and one time, I went there to play air hockey and some of his favored people walked in and I was given dirty looks by my manager's most senior person. within several days, I got called into my manager's office and was given a talk about my "lack" of performance.
I still have access to the building since I still work for the company but a different group. I have had many thoughts of going in there with a big sign, "plaster it" on the wall mentioned the room was for certain people - names will be named. However, getting in there without having to swipe my badge is the minor problem. That would cause some embarassment to management that would have to be addressed.
In my opinion, dressing up is part of playing politics like brown nosing or sucking up to management. Most of us IT people don't care for corporate politics including me. All we care about is not only being treated decently but also getting the job done.
In my job, I am a Unix Sys Admin and I do various jobs such as move equiupment, lay cable. In my opinion, I don't get paid enough to constantly have to buy nice clothes because they get destroyed in performance of my duties. In the last several jobs, I have worn jeans to work Monday to Friday contrary to the dress code that requires dressy clothes. In all instances except a couple of times, people including management didn't mind. They were happy that the job got done.
With many blogging sites, some of which are critical of corporations especailly by their employees concerning their policies. There are many instances and examples of this. Freedom of speech should be based on the Zenger Case from 1732 which you have the right to say anything as long as it is the truth.
It is interesting that the workplace considers your outside of work behavior/activities as a part of the "picture" when you get your annual review or when they decide to discipline you. In my previous job I left, my manager and I did not exactly get along to say it nicely. When it was determined who will get pay raises and who won't, I did not get one. The main reason mentioned was a I received a very big speeding ticket out of state - in Wisconsin while on vacation. The fine was more than $150. Since the company I work for is a government contractor, I was required to disclose the ticket to management. Traffic tickets have no bearing on job performance, therefore, should not be "counted". The group I left, many of the managerial people were former IBM employees.
On schools, many of them especially at the collegiate level dish out punishment for infractions outside the "school yard". Here in Colorado, if you get convicted of rioting and you go to a state supported school, you will get suspended for at least a year. This is in response to the riots in Boulder where University of Colorado is located. Another school, Southern Illinois University also applies off campus offenses towards campus punishment. The motivator of this is because of the Halloween parties in the Carbondale area has gotten out of hand such as riots. The high school I went to Indiana - BTW private started to crack down on many things after I graduated in 1985. At the time, many of the students were potheads. The school started to apply their discipline system to off campus incidents such as getting arrested for marijuana. The year after I graduated, the school got a new Dean who was previously an administrator at one of Indianapolis' inner city schools. One student got jugged (Catholic school term for after school detention) for passing the dean on the highway. The dean recognized the person and car.
This is wonderful!! There is a current trend where schools think they have authority outside of school hours/property. As a parent I feel that it is NONE of the schools buisness what my child does outside of school period. If threatening comments are made they of course have the right to call the police who DO have authority outside of school. However it is NEVER appropriate to levy a school punnishment (like detention or removal of privilages) for an activity outside school. It's just a power grab to make the administrators feel more important than they are. Worry about education and keeping kids safe while at school. Leave the parenting to me and any criminal punnishments to the police.
It is interesting reading that the author of the bill is Francis James Sensenbrenner, Jr. Thanks to him, the states are saddled with the expensive Real ID Act of 2005 that goes into full effect 5/11/2008. He needs to be voted out of office. He also is behind the Patriot Act. Republican or Democrat, someone with totalitaritan ideas need to be out of office.
I am sure as a part of the DRM on the devices, you will not be allowed to skip commercial advertisements.
I can see Micro$h!t not only have DRM on any given show but would go as far as not to allow you skip commercial ads. They might even require a human response during the commercials in order to get at people who choose to get a drink or go to the bathroom during the ads.
You will not have any control on how you watch the content.
Here are some other indicators that it is time to get out and move on !
You are expected to rapidly ramp up on working on certain equipment but you ask for training and you are told that no funding is available, therefore, no training. Meanwhile, money is budgeted for one of the fair hair boys can go to conferences which helps to establish his connections.
Request for vacation time met with alot of resistance and scrutiny even though you have the time such as "we have a lot of work do, it is not a good time to take vacation...". "We need you contact information while you are gone....". "Vacation is a privilege
You prefer to drive an older vehicle, one that is paid for and you are told by management to park it further out because one of the big-wigs don't like looking at it comong in and looking out their window. In addition, you are told that for the amount of compensation you receive, it would better reflect on you and the company that you drive a newer vehicle. I drive a 1991 pickup truck FYI.
The building you work in, your company leases several floors, other floors are leased to other people like dentists. The bathrooms are inadequate for the number of people on the floor. For the men's room, there are two urinals and two dumpers. For the women's room, there are three stalls. Most of the time, they are in use. You go to a different floor to use the bathroom because first, you don't want to wait and second, you want some peace and quiet especially to go number two. The bathrooms are not in the dental offices but in the public area by the elevators. You are seen on a different floor by someone and they report this to management. You are told that the bathrooms on other floors are meant for the dental clients and not for you. Going someplace to excrete is a personal thing and should not be subject to the whims of management.
The big-wigs decide on Thursday to call for a mandatory meeting on Friday at 3:30 in the afteroon. Forget about leaving town early enough to beat the traffic.
This is what I had to put up in the job I just left last week.
The second thing you need to consider is what kind of options they offer for career advancement. Will the company you're working for pay for graduate schooling in your field? What about management classes? How about industry certifications? If the answer to any of those three is no, the company is trying to trap you, by removing the path most employees use to get better jobs: Expanding on their experience and education. Plenty of companies now offer this benefit to developers, so if yours doesn't, find one that does. You'll thank me when you have that nanotechnology Ph.D.
It seems like everything we enjoy has turned into from being a right to being a privilege. It started with the idea that driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right and we should tolerate police intrusion such as checking we are wearing our seatbelts and not exceeding some arbitrary low speed limit. In the corporate world, management mentiones that benefits are a privilege bestowed upon us by the executives. What they give, they can take away. A manager I will soon no longer work for mentions that taking vacation is a prvilege, not a right. I will play my CD's on whatever machine I damn will feel like. I earned the money to buy the CD and f*** the record company that tries to control how I will play it.
Now, the Finnish equivalent to the USA RIAA are saying that playing a CD is a privilege. I say horseshit ! If they DRM their CD's, it is simple, they won't get my business.
When the term "privilege" is used, it means it is subject to arbitrary control. It could mean that only certain favored people by the establishment would be able to enjoy their "privilege". In order to get "privileged" it could mean kissing ass like at work, kissing you manager's ass in order to be able to use your earned vacation time.
Colorado is becoming like that as well. I wouldn't say "for yuppies only" but should say "for executives only" since they make all the rules these days. A friend of mine from Indiana who I went to H.S. with is leaving Colorado next month to move to Albuquerque, NM. He lived in Colorado for 12 or 13 years. I moved here 10 years ago. I noticed a lot of things has changed. His wife and I agreed when we were talking a few nights ago that people here has changed as well. People are much more rude than they use to be. When I moved here 10 years ago, people were pretty easy going but anymore, I don't see that. Another example, where I live at, they implemented covenant rules after I lived there for 6 years there on things like the size of you dog (not greater than 25 pounds), parking such as trucks. I got a few letters from the HOA about it. Not only is it bad at home but at work as well. My truck got an "Abandonded Vehicle" sticker on the window at work which is ridiculous ! It is a 15 year old redneck looking truck. I know we have a few executive types that work there. I know one of them is kind of stuck up - an elitists attitude. That executive type will not hesitate to tell you that "you better know your place and stay there".
I work in the corporate world and it has got so cut-throat. I am losing my job at the end of the year and the job market here is dismal for tech. I looked into job opportunities in California (better job market) but the thing there is it is the cost of living is extremely high. I am also afraid that the housing bubble is going to pop especially in the Bay Area of where I looked into. A piece of $h!t house cost +$450k !
I am looking into possibly moving to New Zealand. They are big on the outdoors like here but their work culture is "work to live", not "live to work". Also what I know of there, people are more of thinking that people are equal and less class distinction. Where I work at, if you want to advance then you better damn well "live to work" and play the political games such as "kissing ass" or "participate in the fashion show - dress up, no jeans not even on Friday" for examples.
In places like Boston, LA and NYC for yuppies only, these claims probably are. In many, many more places like where I live (Toledo OH), these claims are too optimistic. The employment situation within a 100 mile radius is less than dismal -- it's APPALLING.
America is creating Third World areas within itself in a wholesale attempt to cash out the middle class to mint another financial-based millionaire an hour. This trend has well been noticed in those areas that the yuppies thought they'd be protected from it in. But there's no protection from insatiable greed. There's no safe harbor... not even in the cities.
People have grown used to both parents working to rent a home they can never actually own. This is EXACTLY what Jefferson warned us about when he said we'd "wake up slaves on the continent our fathers conquered". The Third Worlding of America is going to hit the White Collars as universally and severely as it hit the Blue Collars.
Even if there is a vacation benefit, below is typical response when attempting to take time off.
Worker: I want to take a week's vacation in July.
Boss: Why do you want to take vacation ? You are slacking off. We prefer that you don't take vacation. We need to work hard.
Worker: I need the time off, it is time to spend with family and my kids. We planned this since January and you knew about it.
Boss: We have a lot of work to do ! Your vacation request has been denied. Don't ask again !
How much of the above dialog happens between workers and their managers especially during the Summer ? I take some time off every Summer and I get this kind of crap. This year, one of my co-workers passed away at age 61. This reminded many people of what is important and it is not work. I took a 1.5 week off in June to go to California and 2.5 weeks in July. I get four weeks each year. I know I am not one of my manager's favorite subordinate. Every Summer, I go to him and request my time off. I get the usual shit from him such as dirty looks and be told there is a alot of work planned and taking time off is considered a privilege. Before he grants the time, there are all sorts of conditions that have to be fulfilled. I get the items fullfilled about a week before. On my last day before I leave town, he adds in more conditions at last minute . A co-worker of mine doesn't hardly take time off. He gets better ratings each year.
If the company executives didn't like people taking vacation, then why is it given in the first place ? People should be able to take time off without getting a management guilt trip & shit.
People working full time in America, despite these figures, still work relatively hard. There is little to no vacations available to a lot of workers here. How many times do you hear of someone going to Europe for a vacation, for a month? Rarely. Yet, this happens a lot in other nations. Many companies in Europe and Asia, for example, give 3-4+ weeks of vacation a year. Here in the U.S., it's called "sick days" and you get a very limited amount of them. Obviously not all companies, but most I have dealt with.
I worked as a contractor for a couple of years. I got a salary increase with a performance review. Buried in the document was a non-compete clause. It was for three years and had a 100 mile radius. If the pay increase was accepted, then it is considered that the non-compete was accepted. The contract company had different clients and you could not work for their clients either as employee or contractor(different company).
Supposedly, it is null and void since Colorado does not allow for non-competes. Looking at the paperwork, it mentioned that legal action is subject under the courts in the State of Maryland. So that possibly means that legal action would not take place in my home state of Colorado but in Maryland at my cost and convenience for the company. I got layed off but luckily, the company I went to work for did not have connection to the contract company.
More than likely, if I fought it, I would have won at but at considerable legal expense.
What is even worse, I am far from being an executive. At one time, non-competes were done in the rareified air of executive row and not on the lower rungs of the corporate ladder but not anymore. It is now the executives have more freedom but people who are not executives are the ones shackled.
Sounds like the first job I had after I graduated back in 1990. Our IT Dept. was under Executive VP of Finance who has been a bean counter all her life. We were given crappy furniture, we always got leftover computer equipment to do our development on. We also had to follow a strict dress code which also applied on weekends such as for business trips. When we went to the company plants, she would always accompany us. The people at the plants were very uncomfortable when she was around. I visited the plants without her and they acted much better and were more relaxed.
The VP had a reputation as being called the "Wicked Witch of the West" and she was proud of it. She also did not like our group too well since we had a cowboy way of doing things. Our group made a decent software package for a given industry and our manager wanted to sell it to help the company to make money. He was not allowed to do that which was a means by the VP to keep us down.
I have had my license for 22 years. I sat in on the first exam back in Oct 1982. At that time, the exams were done by the FCC and not the ARRL. For Indianapolis, the visit was every 3 months. I failed it the first time even the novice 5 wpm. When the FCC testers returned, I barely passed the 13 wpm test which allowed me to sit on the Novice/General Exam elements. The morse code test was a 10 question exam and I got 7 right. When I satr previously, I barely failed the novice 5 wpm and really flunked the 13 wpm exam. Within a year, I sat for the Advanced license exam but failed it. With College coming up and other things, I never had the chance to retake the Advanced until 1992. I was looking at sitting in for the Extra but have yet to get to it.
One guy I knew in grad school attempted and passed the Extra license examination before the 20 wpm morse code requirements was lifted. He did not want to be called "Extra Lite".
An intersting thing is up until the early 1960's, Amateur Radio was thriving especially businesses selling the equipment. Around 1963, there was something called "Incentive Licensing" where if you have given privileges, unless you upgraded, they would be lost. Novices had a couple of phone bands where afterward, if you were a Novice, you could only do CW and no phone, SSTV or any other mode. The Incentive Licensing was a dabacle where quite a few businesses and magazines catering to Amateur Radio went out of business.
Today, even though I have the Advanced Class license, I do mostly VHF/UHF/SHF stuff these days. I don't have the property to put up a good skyhook. I would like to do some 160m but it requires a long antenna.
I have one simple solution. If I was a state legislator, one of the bills I would sponsor every year would be to eliminate license points for minor violations and go as far as not even record the violations. Since traffic tickets are used to enhance revenue for a given locality/county/state, lets cut through the bullshit and recognize tickets are for revenue, not safety.
By getting rid of the points, you don't have to worry about losing your license for a few violations such as 65 mph in a 55 mph zone and you don't have to worry about your insurance going up since there is no record of the ticket.
On this notion that driving is a privilege, where do we get this ? What I understand is back in the aristocratic days, riding a horse was considered a privilege. That notion of thought carried to automobiles since the original cars were only owned by the wealthy before the Model T. In today's society, driving is a necessity in order to survive unless you live in the few metro areas like NYC. Back in 1990, I lived in the NW Indianapolis area which was served by the Metro Bus line. My office was about 4 miles away and I looked into taking the bus to and from work to save gas and wear/tear on my vehicle. The bus ride would take an hour one way and all lines had to go through the downtown Indy bus station. Since Indy streets are setup as a grid, that logic did not apply to their bus routes. I was also in Toronto for vacation as well back in 1991 and they had good public transportation. I was able to get around pretty easily by bus & train. Their bus lines were setup in a more grid pattern.
I got my oil changed on my Jeep today and the controller for the shop was playing card games on her computer the whole time I was there. I commented about this to one of the workers and he mentioned that she doesn't do anything. Her computer was positioned to where it could be seen by everyone.
I admit I do some 'net surfing at work including Slashdot. But, I have my computer setup in such a way that pople would have to come into my office and come behind me to see what is on the screen. I am discreet about it.
Slashdot Mirror
In the early 1990's, I worked for a company in the NW side of Indianapolis by the three Pyramids that was a strict 8am to 5pm schedule. Where I lived at, I was about 15 miles from work. I usually left for the office around 6:45 and I usually arrived at 7:05. Before 8am, I got quite a few things done before the phone calls start coming. I did programming at the time. I was the primary person who supported the company plants on their software. At the end of the day, I would leave around 4:35pm. A wave of people leave at 4:30pm and 4:45pm from other businesses in the area. I took me about 20 minutes to get home when I left at 4:35pm. If I left at 4:45pm, I would not get home until around 5:20pm. If I left at the standard 5pm, I would get home at almost 6pm At the time, flex time was not prevalent - almost all companies worked on a 9 to 5 schedule.
In my current job, our company is pretty generous with flex time. I usually get into work ranging from 5am to 6am. There is little or no traffic and because of that, I don't have any road rage dealing with idiot drivers. On Mon and Tue, I usually work until 3 to 5pm to get some hours built up. Wed and Thu, I leave earlier and don't have to deal with the traffic on the way home and Friday is my short day.
In my previous job I left from back in October, our company worked with another company who is the prime contractor - gov't contracting for inquiring minds. The company I worked for was generous but the prime contractor was not. They were basically a 7am to 4pm operation. They do not like people leaving early especially on Friday. Some of our poeple had to go work at their facility and the first things they were told was they were expected to be there during normal business hours and comply with a dress code - dress slacks/pants were required, no jeans.
I was told this at one time, "It doesn't matter how early you get in, it is how late you stay that counts !". In some companies, even if the company offers flex time, there would be unwritten rules against taking it or it would be an unwritten rule that it was a perk for those who management liked.
Wow, 24 bathrooms ! It would almost take me a month to take a dump in each one ! Wow, take a dump in a different bathroom each day and not revisit the same one for almost a month. Cool beans !!!!!!
I have been in the working world for almost 16 years. I worked at various places that had different dress codes. Anymore, my attitude is my focus is getting the job done and getting it done where the poeple I serve are happy. Dress codes are fluff or in other words, bull$h!t. My work puts me behind the scene 99 percent of the time.
Currently I work for a major DoD contractor company in Colorado Springs. We also have several sites in Denver which I also worked at as well back in 2000. On Fri, I went to one of their sites in SW Denver in Jefferson County. The building used to be owned by John Mansfield Company back in the 1970's. I was on my way from home to Fraser by Winter Park for the weekend. I stopped by to see several of my old co-workers. I was waiting in the "foyer" of the building by the security station for one of them to show. I was dressed in ripped jeans, sweatshirt and Teva sandals. I crossed paths with this older man, he was dressed in Khaki's, dress shirt with sweater vest. He gave me a nasty look out of the corner of his eye. He then proceeded up the center stairs. I asked one of the security guards if that was the "executive offices" and the guy remarked yes. That explained the dirty look.
In my current job, I work at an USAF base. Our facility is controlled by a gov't executive. He is a stickler on the rules. He does not even permit Casual Friday. Before he took over, it was casual everyday. The executive is a retired army colonel. In my job as a Sys Admin, I get to pull cable and yet, no clothing allowance is provided. I basically thumb my nose at the dress code and wear jeans everyday anyway.
In my previous job, even though my manager was an @$$hole on certain things such as vacation usage, he left me alone on my dress. I wore jeans everyday since I was one of the lab people. It is suppose to be dress pants/slacks Mon to Thu and casual Friday. There were a few Friday's I showed up with my standard blue jeans, Harley Davidson T-shirt and my Teva's. My boss even saw me with the Teva's and remarked that I should wear socks with them.
Also with my previous job, one time, they sent out a note on Wed or Thu of an executive visit on a Friday afternoon. The note mentioned that the meeting was not only mandatory but also, we were told to "dress to impress" and not think of dressing casually that time. Even with my new job, I am out the door by 12 noon on Friday. I wore jeans anyway on that Friday but I also sat way in the back of the room. My manager was not happy that I showed such "disrespect".
In my first job after college, I worked for this company from 1990 to 1995 in Indiana. The executive management were former accountants. We had no Casual Friday. When we did business trips, it was an unwritten rule that you must dress even on weekends if you traveled. My last several years in the company, I said the hell with the unwritten rules. When I was out on trips, I went to company plants and they were filthy. I decided that I would only wear jeans on the trips. The maintainence on dress pants/slacks are a pain such as dry cleaning or ironing. Blue jeans are low maintainence. Just wash, rinse, dry and wear. Very simple.
I say thumbs up to the State of New Hampshire for refusing to go along with the Real ID Act of 2005. Unfortunately, NH is a small state that the Federal Gov't can easily ignore their citizens. If one of the heavily populated states such as California, New York, Texas decide not to go along and are defiant towards the Federal Gov't like NH, the house made from the deck of cards known as the Real ID Act will come tumbling down.
One of the most onerous provisions of the Real ID Act is requiring states to electronically link their driver databases. I don't know how extensive this will be. The worst case scenario is another state can add violations to a different state's driver's record. Best case would be states can access other states records on a "read only" basis. One of the biggest pitfalls are states with very strong privacy laws can be accessed from states with weak privacy laws. The strong privacy laws are no good ! The original language of the act required states to join an international compact known as the Driver License Agreement (DLA) which would not only other states can access your state's records but also foreign countries starting with Canada and Mexico. The foreign countries do not even have to comply with the Driver Privacy protection Act. If I was a stalker and I was interested in finding a certain person who went through all steps to protect themselves such as with unlisted phone numbers, I can go to Mexico, pay off a corrupt official (easy to find) to get the given information.
The author of the Real ID Act of 2005 was Francis James Sensenbrenner, Jr. of Wisconsin. An interesting item about him, he bullies people to get his way and does not take kindly to people who dare to disagree with him ! When it was time for people to testify against the PATRIOT Act, he got up, walked out of the hearing room, turned off the microphones. He acted like the Democrats. With his arrogance, he is not fit to be Congressman. Even though I am a Libertarian who usually votes Republican, I am having thoughts of giving money to his Democrat opponent.
This law was passed through the most underhanded ways. It was attached to a must pass appropriations bill. It would have never passed the Senate as a standalone bill. When the standalone bill was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was not given a hearing. The Real ID Act was also included in the House provisions of the Intel Reform bill that was later removed and passed at the end of 2004 in the 108th Congress.
The best way to get rid of this law is to tell people and get them pissed off enough to where they raise hell with their Congressman and demand a repeal.
Also a heads up, the DLA provision that didn't make the Real ID Act, it is included in the immigration bill under the Scott Gardner Act. Contact your Congressman. Raise hell about this DLA in the immigration bill and raise hell about the Real ID Act and politely & diplomatically tell him how much it stinks !
Lastly, not many people remember back in 2001, the CEO of Oracle, Lawrence Ellison mentioned that it is time for a National ID card here in the US. At the time, there were more congressman with common sense that put a kibosh on this like Rep. Dick Armey, Rep. Bob Barr who no longer are members of Congress. This leaves a question, how much lobbying money did Larry Ellison put in to get this asinine law passed.
In my job, I work at an Air Force facility. Besides doing my Unix stuff, I and my cohort also deal with Windows PC's for training classes. Besides loading the standard S/W on the machines such as MS Office, we also go through and remove any and all games. No hearts, no solitare, no freecell, no ... you get the picture. There is also a strict Internet policy as well but they aim their enforcement towards porno which I can understand. Our company recently sent an e-mail out talking about appropriate use of Internet resources. Word got around that someone was surfing not only porn but child porn !
This is the crap that not only gets you canned but also arrested and eventually have to register as a sex offender along with loss of rights. The trend these days is cracking down on sex offenders such as banning them from living within a certain number of feet from schools, parks, trails, swimming pools or other areas where children congregate at. In fact some places, sex offenders are forced to move when new laws are passed. Also, even if you live far from places like parks, you are not allowed to use them or get near.
At the job I left back in Sep/Oct, for the number of people on the floor (5th), we had too small bathrooms. The last thing we have needed are gadgets to keep people longer than necessary. Our building was also shared with mostly dental offices. Our company had the whole 4th and 5th floor. The 3rd floor as partially ours and had their own facilities in addition to standard bathroom. In the building, all the standard bathrooms were in the center of each floor by the stairs and elevator.
If I needed to take a dump, I usually went to the 3rd floor since the only people who used the facilities were dental patients which were rare. Therefore, you can count on a peaceful dump there versus the 4th or 5th floor bathrooms which were very busy.
Towards the time when I was getting ready to change jobs, my manager and I were on pretty bad terms with each other. One of his golden boys reported me that I was going to the third floor to use the bathroom (take a dump) and I got called into his office got a new @$$hole chewed into me. He told me that I was not to use any bathroom except the 5th floor bathroom. He told me that he didn't care if I had to wait 30 minutes to use the can. He then said that the company didn't have to provide bathrooms but they provide them out of the goodness of their "heart". What an ass !
In my previous job, we had a very complex performance appraisal system cooked up by HR and the executives. One of the items is objectives or goals to attain in the coming year which comes up in the next appraisal cycle. As assistant lab manager, it was listed in my appraisal objectives that I need training such as Cisco routers. I was told that I needed to be proficient as well wih them. My title is UNIX System Administrator Senior. Having a manager who is an asshole, I was set up for failure. When he and I were going over my objectives, he emphasized the training. I then brought up that I would like to go to a class on Cisco routers which included plenty of hands-on training. I was told there was no money in the budget and the request for training was denied. His favored subordinates got the training money. Several people were given money to take different classes and even go to conventions. He could not spare a dime for my training. When salray increases came out later in the year, I was given a 0% raise, that is, no raise. Since I couldn't get training, it was held against me.
The company had money for training but who got the money was decided if you were a red-headed step child or the golden haired child.
In my old job, the project was split between a Colorado Springs and Gaithersburg, MD location. The big shots were located on the East Coast in G-burg. There was one particular meeting that I had to attend every two weeks. I was Assistant Lab Manager. The meeting was a video conference hosted by G-burg. It was suppose to be a simple status meeting. A few years back when the meeting started, it was simple and short until the Sr. Mgt got involved. Today, the meetings last as long as 5 hours and one thing I notice, it is usually the same few people who just go on and on.
These "windbags" think they can impress the higher ups by spewing so mush B.S. My part takes about a minute and then I am out of there ! There are many times I sit listening to these windbags and I would like to say, "get to the point and be done !"
Also in that group, it seems like they liked to have late Friday afternoon meetings which I of course, ignored, unfortunately to my detriment.
I use to have this at my old job that was posted. Some of the high-ups were not impressed.
Are you Lonely ?
Don't like working on your own ? Hate Making Decisions ?
Then Call a Meeting !!!!
YOU CAN...
SEE people
DRAW Flowcharts
FEEL Important
IMPRESS your collegues
FORM subcommittees
MAKE meaningless recommendations
All on Company Time
MEETINGS
The pratical alternative to work.
The Real ID Act was originally part of the House Intelligence bill in the previous 108th Congress. The provisions were yanked because of the problems it posed especially at the insistence of the Senate. It came back in the current session of Congress. It was passed by the House without discussion or debate. There were no committee hearings either. The Senate refused to act upon especially how it would usurp states rights. The House decided to attach to a must pass appropriations bill to fund the Iraq troops and Tsunami relief fund. The Senate removed the provisions but the bill went to conference. The House prevailed.
Now, people are realizing this montrosity. Here are a couple of ways to get rid of this bill. First is a grassroots coalition to encourage the Senate to unilaterally attach the repeal language to any and all bills coming over from the House. A good place would be to hold the PATRIOT ACT hostage. The Senate could refuse to act on it unless the House goes along to repeal the Real ID Act. The PATRIOT ACT was temporarily extended.
The second way is contact our state legislators and governors and ask them to refuse to go along with this. If all 50 states refuse to sign on to the Real ID Act, it would be hard to stop commerce because Congress would not want to bankrupt the airlines.
What is Real ID Act about ? It would require states to follow the Federal Gov't prescription on how Driver's Licenses are issued such as linking driver databases, checking background information on license applicants such as birth certificates, proof of residence, etc. If a state decides to not go along, then citizens from that state would not be allowed to board aircraft, go into Federal buildings. Even more, the driver databases would allow hackers and marketers easy access for identity theft and some states with strong privacy laws would have their databases accessed from states with weak privacy laws.
Last of all, guess who was the sponsor ? House Judiciary Chairman Francis James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin. The same nitwit who is pushing to close the analog "loophole" for video and music. The people of Wisconsin should remove him from office through the ballot box. His Democrat opponent should be supported with money or whatever means. I am a Republican, a conservative one at that. People like Sensenbrennerare country club Republicans who originally opposed President Reagan.
One of my machines runs Win XP with a DVD burner. I recently started to pick up import Japanese Anime which are set to Region 2. When I got my first import, I put the DVD in and ran DVD Shrink. It insisted on changing the RPC-2 H/W Region Code. Of course, there are a max of 5 changes before the it is permanent. I ended up going out to pick up another DVD drive which is specific for Region 2 DVD's. What a pain !
I would like to meet the a-hole, probably a marketing executive, who thought of this Region coding BS.
On DVD Shrink, it is used for my own purpose of making dups of the DVD's i buy. The originals are kept at home and I play off the copies. I am about done with vacation and I recently bought some new Anime. I made copies and took the copies with me to watch when I have time. The originals are at home safe.
In the facility I use to work at, the management put in a game room with a fooseball & air hockey table. However, this room was for certain people only. In other words, if you were favored by management, you can use the facility but if you weren't, you better not be caught in there when one of the managers walked in. You would be asked if you had work to do and get out and do it.
By far, I was one of the least favored people by my manager and one time, I went there to play air hockey and some of his favored people walked in and I was given dirty looks by my manager's most senior person. within several days, I got called into my manager's office and was given a talk about my "lack" of performance.
I still have access to the building since I still work for the company but a different group. I have had many thoughts of going in there with a big sign, "plaster it" on the wall mentioned the room was for certain people - names will be named. However, getting in there without having to swipe my badge is the minor problem. That would cause some embarassment to management that would have to be addressed.
In my opinion, dressing up is part of playing politics like brown nosing or sucking up to management. Most of us IT people don't care for corporate politics including me. All we care about is not only being treated decently but also getting the job done.
In my job, I am a Unix Sys Admin and I do various jobs such as move equiupment, lay cable. In my opinion, I don't get paid enough to constantly have to buy nice clothes because they get destroyed in performance of my duties. In the last several jobs, I have worn jeans to work Monday to Friday contrary to the dress code that requires dressy clothes. In all instances except a couple of times, people including management didn't mind. They were happy that the job got done.
With many blogging sites, some of which are critical of corporations especailly by their employees concerning their policies. There are many instances and examples of this. Freedom of speech should be based on the Zenger Case from 1732 which you have the right to say anything as long as it is the truth.
It is interesting that the workplace considers your outside of work behavior/activities as a part of the "picture" when you get your annual review or when they decide to discipline you. In my previous job I left, my manager and I did not exactly get along to say it nicely. When it was determined who will get pay raises and who won't, I did not get one. The main reason mentioned was a I received a very big speeding ticket out of state - in Wisconsin while on vacation. The fine was more than $150. Since the company I work for is a government contractor, I was required to disclose the ticket to management. Traffic tickets have no bearing on job performance, therefore, should not be "counted". The group I left, many of the managerial people were former IBM employees.
On schools, many of them especially at the collegiate level dish out punishment for infractions outside the "school yard". Here in Colorado, if you get convicted of rioting and you go to a state supported school, you will get suspended for at least a year. This is in response to the riots in Boulder where University of Colorado is located. Another school, Southern Illinois University also applies off campus offenses towards campus punishment. The motivator of this is because of the Halloween parties in the Carbondale area has gotten out of hand such as riots. The high school I went to Indiana - BTW private started to crack down on many things after I graduated in 1985. At the time, many of the students were potheads. The school started to apply their discipline system to off campus incidents such as getting arrested for marijuana. The year after I graduated, the school got a new Dean who was previously an administrator at one of Indianapolis' inner city schools. One student got jugged (Catholic school term for after school detention) for passing the dean on the highway. The dean recognized the person and car.
This is wonderful!! There is a current trend where schools think they have authority outside of school hours/property. As a parent I feel that it is NONE of the schools buisness what my child does outside of school period. If threatening comments are made they of course have the right to call the police who DO have authority outside of school. However it is NEVER appropriate to levy a school punnishment (like detention or removal of privilages) for an activity outside school. It's just a power grab to make the administrators feel more important than they are. Worry about education and keeping kids safe while at school. Leave the parenting to me and any criminal punnishments to the police.
It is interesting reading that the author of the bill is Francis James Sensenbrenner, Jr. Thanks to him, the states are saddled with the expensive Real ID Act of 2005 that goes into full effect 5/11/2008. He needs to be voted out of office. He also is behind the Patriot Act. Republican or Democrat, someone with totalitaritan ideas need to be out of office.
I am sure as a part of the DRM on the devices, you will not be allowed to skip commercial advertisements.
I can see Micro$h!t not only have DRM on any given show but would go as far as not to allow you skip commercial ads. They might even require a human response during the commercials in order to get at people who choose to get a drink or go to the bathroom during the ads.
You will not have any control on how you watch the content.
Here are some other indicators that it is time to get out and move on !
You are expected to rapidly ramp up on working on certain equipment but you ask for training and you are told that no funding is available, therefore, no training. Meanwhile, money is budgeted for one of the fair hair boys can go to conferences which helps to establish his connections.
Request for vacation time met with alot of resistance and scrutiny even though you have the time such as "we have a lot of work do, it is not a good time to take vacation...". "We need you contact information while you are gone....". "Vacation is a privilege
You prefer to drive an older vehicle, one that is paid for and you are told by management to park it further out because one of the big-wigs don't like looking at it comong in and looking out their window. In addition, you are told that for the amount of compensation you receive, it would better reflect on you and the company that you drive a newer vehicle. I drive a 1991 pickup truck FYI.
The building you work in, your company leases several floors, other floors are leased to other people like dentists. The bathrooms are inadequate for the number of people on the floor. For the men's room, there are two urinals and two dumpers. For the women's room, there are three stalls. Most of the time, they are in use. You go to a different floor to use the bathroom because first, you don't want to wait and second, you want some peace and quiet especially to go number two. The bathrooms are not in the dental offices but in the public area by the elevators. You are seen on a different floor by someone and they report this to management. You are told that the bathrooms on other floors are meant for the dental clients and not for you. Going someplace to excrete is a personal thing and should not be subject to the whims of management.
The big-wigs decide on Thursday to call for a mandatory meeting on Friday at 3:30 in the afteroon. Forget about leaving town early enough to beat the traffic.
This is what I had to put up in the job I just left last week.
The second thing you need to consider is what kind of options they offer for career advancement. Will the company you're working for pay for graduate schooling in your field? What about management classes? How about industry certifications? If the answer to any of those three is no, the company is trying to trap you, by removing the path most employees use to get better jobs: Expanding on their experience and education. Plenty of companies now offer this benefit to developers, so if yours doesn't, find one that does. You'll thank me when you have that nanotechnology Ph.D.
It seems like everything we enjoy has turned into from being a right to being a privilege. It started with the idea that driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right and we should tolerate police intrusion such as checking we are wearing our seatbelts and not exceeding some arbitrary low speed limit. In the corporate world, management mentiones that benefits are a privilege bestowed upon us by the executives. What they give, they can take away. A manager I will soon no longer work for mentions that taking vacation is a prvilege, not a right. I will play my CD's on whatever machine I damn will feel like. I earned the money to buy the CD and f*** the record company that tries to control how I will play it.
Now, the Finnish equivalent to the USA RIAA are saying that playing a CD is a privilege. I say horseshit ! If they DRM their CD's, it is simple, they won't get my business.
When the term "privilege" is used, it means it is subject to arbitrary control. It could mean that only certain favored people by the establishment would be able to enjoy their "privilege". In order to get "privileged" it could mean kissing ass like at work, kissing you manager's ass in order to be able to use your earned vacation time.
Colorado is becoming like that as well. I wouldn't say "for yuppies only" but should say "for executives only" since they make all the rules these days. A friend of mine from Indiana who I went to H.S. with is leaving Colorado next month to move to Albuquerque, NM. He lived in Colorado for 12 or 13 years. I moved here 10 years ago. I noticed a lot of things has changed. His wife and I agreed when we were talking a few nights ago that people here has changed as well. People are much more rude than they use to be. When I moved here 10 years ago, people were pretty easy going but anymore, I don't see that. Another example, where I live at, they implemented covenant rules after I lived there for 6 years there on things like the size of you dog (not greater than 25 pounds), parking such as trucks. I got a few letters from the HOA about it. Not only is it bad at home but at work as well. My truck got an "Abandonded Vehicle" sticker on the window at work which is ridiculous ! It is a 15 year old redneck looking truck. I know we have a few executive types that work there. I know one of them is kind of stuck up - an elitists attitude. That executive type will not hesitate to tell you that "you better know your place and stay there".
... not even in the cities.
I work in the corporate world and it has got so cut-throat. I am losing my job at the end of the year and the job market here is dismal for tech. I looked into job opportunities in California (better job market) but the thing there is it is the cost of living is extremely high. I am also afraid that the housing bubble is going to pop especially in the Bay Area of where I looked into. A piece of $h!t house cost +$450k !
I am looking into possibly moving to New Zealand. They are big on the outdoors like here but their work culture is "work to live", not "live to work". Also what I know of there, people are more of thinking that people are equal and less class distinction. Where I work at, if you want to advance then you better damn well "live to work" and play the political games such as "kissing ass" or "participate in the fashion show - dress up, no jeans not even on Friday" for examples.
In places like Boston, LA and NYC for yuppies only, these claims probably are. In many, many more places like where I live (Toledo OH), these claims are too optimistic. The employment situation within a 100 mile radius is less than dismal -- it's APPALLING.
America is creating Third World areas within itself in a wholesale attempt to cash out the middle class to mint another financial-based millionaire an hour. This trend has well been noticed in those areas that the yuppies thought they'd be protected from it in. But there's no protection from insatiable greed. There's no safe harbor
People have grown used to both parents working to rent a home they can never actually own. This is EXACTLY what Jefferson warned us about when he said we'd "wake up slaves on the continent our fathers conquered". The Third Worlding of America is going to hit the White Collars as universally and severely as it hit the Blue Collars.
Even if there is a vacation benefit, below is typical response when attempting to take time off.
Worker: I want to take a week's vacation in July.
Boss: Why do you want to take vacation ? You are slacking off. We prefer that you don't take vacation. We need to work hard.
Worker: I need the time off, it is time to spend with family and my kids. We planned this since January and you knew about it.
Boss: We have a lot of work to do ! Your vacation request has been denied. Don't ask again !
How much of the above dialog happens between workers and their managers especially during the Summer ? I take some time off every Summer and I get this kind of crap. This year, one of my co-workers passed away at age 61. This reminded many people of what is important and it is not work. I took a 1.5 week off in June to go to California and 2.5 weeks in July. I get four weeks each year. I know I am not one of my manager's favorite subordinate. Every Summer, I go to him and request my time off. I get the usual shit from him such as dirty looks and be told there is a alot of work planned and taking time off is considered a privilege. Before he grants the time, there are all sorts of conditions that have to be fulfilled. I get the items fullfilled about a week before. On my last day before I leave town, he adds in more conditions at last minute . A co-worker of mine doesn't hardly take time off. He gets better ratings each year.
If the company executives didn't like people taking vacation, then why is it given in the first place ? People should be able to take time off without getting a management guilt trip & shit.
People working full time in America, despite these figures, still work relatively hard. There is little to no vacations available to a lot of workers here. How many times do you hear of someone going to Europe for a vacation, for a month? Rarely. Yet, this happens a lot in other nations. Many companies in Europe and Asia, for example, give 3-4+ weeks of vacation a year. Here in the U.S., it's called "sick days" and you get a very limited amount of them. Obviously not all companies, but most I have dealt with.
I worked as a contractor for a couple of years. I got a salary increase with a performance review. Buried in the document was a non-compete clause. It was for three years and had a 100 mile radius. If the pay increase was accepted, then it is considered that the non-compete was accepted. The contract company had different clients and you could not work for their clients either as employee or contractor(different company).
Supposedly, it is null and void since Colorado does not allow for non-competes. Looking at the paperwork, it mentioned that legal action is subject under the courts in the State of Maryland. So that possibly means that legal action would not take place in my home state of Colorado but in Maryland at my cost and convenience for the company. I got layed off but luckily, the company I went to work for did not have connection to the contract company.
More than likely, if I fought it, I would have won at but at considerable legal expense.
What is even worse, I am far from being an executive. At one time, non-competes were done in the rareified air of executive row and not on the lower rungs of the corporate ladder but not anymore. It is now the executives have more freedom but people who are not executives are the ones shackled.
Sounds like the first job I had after I graduated back in 1990. Our IT Dept. was under Executive VP of Finance who has been a bean counter all her life. We were given crappy furniture, we always got leftover computer equipment to do our development on. We also had to follow a strict dress code which also applied on weekends such as for business trips. When we went to the company plants, she would always accompany us. The people at the plants were very uncomfortable when she was around. I visited the plants without her and they acted much better and were more relaxed.
The VP had a reputation as being called the "Wicked Witch of the West" and she was proud of it. She also did not like our group too well since we had a cowboy way of doing things. Our group made a decent software package for a given industry and our manager wanted to sell it to help the company to make money. He was not allowed to do that which was a means by the VP to keep us down.
I have had my license for 22 years. I sat in on the first exam back in Oct 1982. At that time, the exams were done by the FCC and not the ARRL. For Indianapolis, the visit was every 3 months. I failed it the first time even the novice 5 wpm. When the FCC testers returned, I barely passed the 13 wpm test which allowed me to sit on the Novice/General Exam elements. The morse code test was a 10 question exam and I got 7 right. When I satr previously, I barely failed the novice 5 wpm and really flunked the 13 wpm exam. Within a year, I sat for the Advanced license exam but failed it. With College coming up and other things, I never had the chance to retake the Advanced until 1992. I was looking at sitting in for the Extra but have yet to get to it.
One guy I knew in grad school attempted and passed the Extra license examination before the 20 wpm morse code requirements was lifted. He did not want to be called "Extra Lite".
An intersting thing is up until the early 1960's, Amateur Radio was thriving especially businesses selling the equipment. Around 1963, there was something called "Incentive Licensing" where if you have given privileges, unless you upgraded, they would be lost. Novices had a couple of phone bands where afterward, if you were a Novice, you could only do CW and no phone, SSTV or any other mode. The Incentive Licensing was a dabacle where quite a few businesses and magazines catering to Amateur Radio went out of business.
Today, even though I have the Advanced Class license, I do mostly VHF/UHF/SHF stuff these days. I don't have the property to put up a good skyhook. I would like to do some 160m but it requires a long antenna.
I have one simple solution. If I was a state legislator, one of the bills I would sponsor every year would be to eliminate license points for minor violations and go as far as not even record the violations. Since traffic tickets are used to enhance revenue for a given locality/county/state, lets cut through the bullshit and recognize tickets are for revenue, not safety.
By getting rid of the points, you don't have to worry about losing your license for a few violations such as 65 mph in a 55 mph zone and you don't have to worry about your insurance going up since there is no record of the ticket.
On this notion that driving is a privilege, where do we get this ? What I understand is back in the aristocratic days, riding a horse was considered a privilege. That notion of thought carried to automobiles since the original cars were only owned by the wealthy before the Model T. In today's society, driving is a necessity in order to survive unless you live in the few metro areas like NYC. Back in 1990, I lived in the NW Indianapolis area which was served by the Metro Bus line. My office was about 4 miles away and I looked into taking the bus to and from work to save gas and wear/tear on my vehicle. The bus ride would take an hour one way and all lines had to go through the downtown Indy bus station. Since Indy streets are setup as a grid, that logic did not apply to their bus routes. I was also in Toronto for vacation as well back in 1991 and they had good public transportation. I was able to get around pretty easily by bus & train. Their bus lines were setup in a more grid pattern.
I got my oil changed on my Jeep today and the controller for the shop was playing card games on her computer the whole time I was there. I commented about this to one of the workers and he mentioned that she doesn't do anything. Her computer was positioned to where it could be seen by everyone.
I admit I do some 'net surfing at work including Slashdot. But, I have my computer setup in such a way that pople would have to come into my office and come behind me to see what is on the screen. I am discreet about it.