I remember when I went to college in the late 1980's, the RIAA had a campaign against Digital Audio Tape (DAT) but also, they had an ad campaign to get people to support a tax on blank audio casettes.
The college administration put up the RIAA flyers on the proposed tape tax and to lobby against DAT. At the time, CD's were becoming mainstream and the idea of burning CD's were a concept, not reality.
At the time, I bought CD's and one of the first things I did was make audio tape recordings from the CD's on casette metal tape (Type IV). The RIAA not only wanted you to buy the CD but if wanted it on casette, they wanted you to buy the pre-recorded tapes which were made on the cheapest tape possible (Type I - ferric oxide) which happened to dirty up tape heads pretty quickly. The metal tape sounded better and it did not dirty up your tape heads. I did not bother with Chromium (Type II) tapes. I now make duplicates of the CD's I buy to take with me on road trips. The originals stay at home. I recently made a copy of the Traveling Wilbury's CD from a guy I work with since it is out of print. The RIAA may not be happy with that but there is no opportunity to buy the CD.
The RIAA is ridiculous. You may not lose much audio quality if you have to go from digital to audio and back to digital if they implement this. It is bad enough the FCC caved in to the MPAA on the b-cast flag for digital TV. The MPAA also raised hell about VCR's when they came out.
Don't forget that one of the AOL/Time-Warner executives called people thieves who fast forwarded through the commercial ads. The name if I remember was Jamie Kellner.
There is one thing is shareholders can do is put a kibosh on outrageous executives especially their pay. Here are some things that can be done.
Vote NO on executive compensation and expansion of stock options
Put shareholder proposals on the table at the annual meeting that would put a stop to outsourcing and knock down executive pay especially if the stock price is down due to mis-management
If the board members does not reign in on the CEO's, vote their asses out as soon as they are up for election. I am sure many board members of Disney will be out on their asses after keeping Michael Eisner at the last annual meeting.
There are other things that can be done to reign in on their arrogance
For the last several years, I have voted against anything that the executives wanted such as more than generous pay since it is due to their scandals that caused the stock market to fall especially in 2002 and their arrogance especially towards the rank and file workers.
Sounds like a familiar system. I work for a DoD contractor. We just had our performance appraisal and we have to have people rate you and you have to do a self-appraisal as well. The rating of yourself and by others are a waste of time. When you do that excercise, management has already made the decision. The excercise give Mgt a reason to rate you as they see fit. Part of the decision is whether you kiss butt or play political games. I don't do either so I got a 3 rating.
How management decides is all the mgr's go into a special meeting or a set of meetings and hash it out who gets what rating. All the people w/ Staff titles are put together and rated, people who are Senior's are put together and rated and so on.
When we started the appraisal process, our manager told us unofficially that the company was doing a quota system but he mentioned that they were not required to give 4 or 5's this round which is considered a bad rating but in previous years, it was required.
I have a sheet of paper posted prominently in my office. It is a parody of holding meetings and shows my feelings about almost all meetings being a waste of time.
Are you Lonely ?
Don't like working on your own ?
Hate Making Decisions ?
An interesting item that should be added is additional vacation time. Companies refuse to discuss vacation time unlike compensation in money.
When I started my first job in 1990 and during a recession. The company I went to work for had a stingy vacation policy. Your first year, no time off and the next three years, you got one week. Time was not allowed to be carried over from year to year. Use it or lose it. No one was allowed to take time off during the Summer since the fiscal new year started on July 1. That company was run by marketing and accounting people but they are now out of business.
Here are some ideas that would contribute to employee morale.
Allow for more time off and if corporate policy is not flexible, give the option of unpaid time off
Give the option of standard time off for given pay or more time off for less pay.
Shutdown from Christmas to New Year's. Not much is accomplished in the business world during that time except for retail.
Allow vacation time to be consumed in half time if the time off is for civic/volunteer pursuits. Example is week off would consume 20 hours and the company throws in 20 hours and it makes them good corporate citizens.
Every 5 years, the employee can take an unpaid leave of absence or sabbatical (like in academia) for a year and be guranteed a job when he returns
Allow for vacation carry over from year to year
When I took 4 weeks off last Summer, I caught hell for that but it was nice to leave for a while. As a single guy, I did a lot of camping, bicycling in Indiana (where I am from), Ohio but also went to Eastern Canada (PEI, Nova Scotia), North East US such as Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. It was nice not to think about corporate politics, budgets, turf battles between us and the prime contractor.
I would love to take the months of June, July and August off even if I make 75% of what I now make. I can use the time to travel, spend time with family out of state and recreational pursuits like bicycling, four wheeling, and other things.
I had my share of many managers. The current one I work for is great.
Here are the reasons:
Doesn't care how I dress - my big thing, I like my jeans !
Doesn't care how I put in my hours
Does not micromanage
The main thing she cares is the work gets done, all other items don't matter.
Changes to the Workplace from the Dot Com days
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Dotcom Era Fads
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· Score: 5, Interesting
The Dot Com days made many changes to the work place which are both positive and negative.
Many of the positives which have been fading, taken away or restricted
Very relaxed dress code (shorts, jeans, sandals, hiking boots/sneakers)
Telecommuting
Flex Time ( work longer on Mon/Tue, take Fri off)
In-house gourmet lunches
Game room and outdoor games
Few of the negatives which are now flourishing
Oursourcing to India
H1-B Visas
Corporate executives throwing their weight around by reducing pay, taking away benefits such as flex time, telecommuting, vacations
One company that epitomizes the positives is
Google's Culture. They are one of the few Dot Com type companies still around.
On the dress code, many companies have brought back dress codes especially the legal and finance industry. Where I work at, we are subcontrctors to Boeing on a government contract. Their top manager has a strict dress policy of having to wear a tie, slacks and dress shoes. This means no jeans along with hiking boots/sneakers/tennis shoes. This dress code even applies on trips on weekends and if you come in on a Saturday. Their work hours are strict 8 to 5. Those rules don't apply to us, YET ! There are rumblings in the Boeing group to force us to comply with those rules since they hold the purse strings. I take Thursday and Friday afternoons off just about every week but Monday and Tuesday are long days though. I also wear jeans everyday as well. We are in one of the top outdoor recreational states of Colorado.
Part of the rumblings in Boeing to force us to comply with their rules caused a few problems for me. Back in June/July, I took 4 weeks vacation to do some traveling, go see family and one of the Managers in Boeing told me to cancel my vacation since my focus should be on working instead of taking time off that I have earned and I told him I did not answer to him and he got irate. He told me I will pay for my attitude. The same person got pissed when I happen to be around on Friday all day that they cannot get any work done because of our flex time policy. One of their computers at 4pm went down and the person who can call in left at 11 am. He was demanded that the computer get fixed this instant. He made the comment that we are lazy since we take Friday afternoon off. He fired off some complaints to their top executives.
At Oracle which is in Colorado Springs, they started to restrict people from telecommuting who live within 50 miles of the company building. Last I heard, there is talk to take it away. Those who live in different Mountain towns may have to move if they want to keep their job.
The company I worked for 5 years was a mid-size company with Corp. HQ in Indpls, IN and 6 "factories" in different states. There were about 400 employees. The IT group I worked in was very close knit with about 6 people. We knew each other pretty well and go to each other's houses for different socail things on weekends. This was my first job after college and all the groups I worked in ever since were not close knit like this job.
Around my 3rd year in the company and with the job market improving (1993), we had our annual review with the VP of Finance. The previous year, we worked our asses off to get a project done on time even with the unreasonable deadlines imposed by executive management. During our performance evaluations, each of us took turns with our boss and the VP and each of us got something like $1000 or $2000 pay raise and she made up excuses (downgrade our performance review) why we are not making more money. There was alot of grumbling within the ranks and a different executive overheard the comments and went to the owner of the company. Also, one of the top people left for a different job with a good jump in pay.
The owner of the company knew how to walk the fine line on compensation. He paid people enough money especially in the factories to where they didn't desire to unionize. The people (except executive mgt) in Corp. HQ made less money than the plant workers. The owner was cheap in paying the white collar people money.
The owner knew if IT people are unhappy, there would be problems with the company systems so he called the labor lawyer in NYC and he came out to Indiana to have confidential discussions with each person in the IT group. He would then present a report to the owner. The owner also sent the VP of Finance on a long vacation since a lot of people were pissed at (not only our group but also accounting since she meddled in their affairs).
After it was said and done, most of us got pay raises that were significant. Mine jumped up $5000. Within a year, I left the company to take a job in Colorado with a double in pay which was 1995.
In 1998, the company was sold to a large corporation and the owner got a good golden parachute with a no-compete clause. He owns similar businesses today and is expanding out quickly but how he paid his white collar people, I would not work for him again.
Also when I worked for that company, we had a strict dress code to where if you went on a business trip on a Sunday, you had to dress up even on Sunday to travel. Vacation time was also a premium. Cannot carry over from year to year and your first year in the company, you did not get vacation time and the following three years, you only got a week ! An additional note on the VP of Finance, on the dress code, she did not allow us to participate on dress down Friday while the rest of Corp. HQ could wear jeans. She was a snak
I can see this becoming a bonanza for SPAMMER's since they will have a list to then abuse. They have no repect for anyone except themselves.
They dishonor e-mail removal request by send more SPAM instead
They have been very elusive in being tracked down
When they abuse foreign countries, they will end up being beyond the reach of Colorado and Missouri
I have one e-mail address which I don't use except for domain name registrations since the addresses are required. I get deluged with 80 spam messages each day. It is a pain ion the ass having to unload that e-mail box each day. In their arrogance, they mentioned that I opted i to receive their commercial messages. I don't think so. They are well known for being assholes on the Internet and thank to SPAMMER's, they are making e-mail pretty much useless as a communication medium.
Here are some arguments that a corporate overlord can use against you based on your financial situation
Being Debt Free / Well to do
An employee will easily walk if it is demanded that he do something illegal/unethical to the company's benefit (cannot be bought)
The employee would be considered rich, therefore, doesn't need the job
Seeing info on brokerage accounts such as Merril Lynch or Schwab can indicate the type of wealth
Being in Debt / Poor
cannot keep home finances straight translates to not being able to properly manage company business
Can be easily bought
Would be willing to compromise company proprietary info by selling to a competitor
A financial position can be used for you or against you depending what Management needs done and who they can exploit. In my own opinion, it is none of the employer's business. The only circumstance to check out someone's credit is a part of National Security Clearances and those are not done by your employer, they are done by the Military and/or their representative.
Buried in my basement is my od C-64 including the 1541 Disk Drive. The power supply is fried though and haven't been able to use the machine. This would be pretty neat to get and play some old pirated games but my problem is getting the old floppies read if they are still good and get them transferred.
The old saying, "Leave it to marketing to f*ck things up". I am not a fan of Micro$oft being a Linux/BSD user.
One way they can solve their problems (M$) is let the engineers have a say on things. Marketing people should focus on selling the product instead of micromanage what the engineers make. Like used car salesman, they are scheming on how to make something complex and expensive which should be simple if the engineers are allowed to do their job.
Engineering pay, like IT is shrinking because those people who are in charge are not willing to pay people what they are worth. Those in charge also don't look too kindly on increasing the size of the pie but instead, want to reduce it so they can keep more money for themselves especially marketing.
I took vacation this past week and I sat next to a man who is in marketing on the plane and we talked. I mentioned that I was in IT and he mentioned "It is about time that compensation for IT workers go down". He then added that the downturn would be good for IT workers and it was long overdue for them to get hit. I thought, "what an asshole".
The major problem with IT right now are:
H1B Visas help drive down wages and jobs go to foreigners for 50 to 70% of the wages compared to what US citizens earn
Companies are willing to spend only cheap beer prices for IT workers but demand champagne type of systems
Without IT, comapnies would be a world of hurt and they need to recognize this and be nice to their IT workers through things such as good pay, relaxed dress codes, flex time.
Whould I pursue the same path again ? I don't know. I just got my Master's in CS and kind of seeing the writing on the wall, I am thinking of pursuing a law degree instead of going for a Ph.D. The down side of doing law is having to wear a suit quite a bit which I don't care for too much. The upside is it is good money especially in business law.
I work high tech here in Colorado and right now, there is very little chance to improve my pay with a down job market. I thought of getting a weekend job working the ski slopes and besides, I can get some free skiing in;)
I didn't move to Colorado just to work, I moved here to enjoy the recreation it has to offer. Another job I have considered is working in a 4x4 shop. Totally different from being a Unix Admin.
Marketers are hailing new legislation that was just signed by President Albert Gore that was sponsored by Senator Hollings that adds to the DMCA that makes it illegal to circumvent Internet advertising. In addition, ISP's are required to include wording in their contracts that
"since you signed the contract to get on the network, you are required to spend time looking at all advertisements whether on the web, IRC, and e-mail. Circumventing ads are considered theft and will not be tolerated.".
This law goes into effect immediately. Circumventing Internet advertising whether it is turning off javascript or using e-mail filters to circumvent e-mail advertising (known as SPAM) is illegal and punishable by a 5 year prison and/or $250,000 fine.
Alan Ralsky came from Michigan to the signing ceremony in addition to Sanford Wallace, formerly President of Cyberpromotions, Michael Eisner of Disney, and Jamie Kellner, CEO of Time Warner/Turner, Inc.. Representatives of the Direct Marketing Association were there as well.
Senator Hollings mentioned that he isn't finished and plans to sponsor legislation to apply this innovative law to Television and Radio as well. He wants to make it illegal to ignore the commercial message whether by changing the channel, going to the bathroom or getting something to eat. Full attention to the commercial ad would be required. He also mentiones that he will also sponsor legislation to require motorits to stop on the highway to look at billboards. Critics warn that it would lengthen a driving trip by 10 fold. Senator Hollings dismisses the criticism by saying that people should think of Society's views when it comes to advertising and not be so selfish by ignoring the commercial ads that are prevalent in Society.
There is one thing is that Marketing people run Society these days. Marketers also drive advertising as well. Here are many instances of advertising.
Telemarketers which they call you at dinner time or while you are on the shitter
Spammers who are very insistent that you read their ad for some penis enlarger through deceptive subject and/or from lines
When you drive on the highway, billboards
On the back of sales receipts at the store
Pop up Web ads and its cousing, pop up instant messaging ad
Street SPAM (signs on T-phone poles, at intersections on work-at-home) which is as bad as litter.
One thing these have in common is they are obnoxious and very intrusive. I pissed off many telemarkters and in fact, had one cuss me out when I told him I wasn't interested. Marketing people and their insistent obnoxious demand that I pay attention to their pitch leaves me with a bad opinion of them.
On the issue of billboards, like street spam, twice a year, I travel cross country between Colorado and Indiana where family live at. One state, Missouri, has a lot of billboards along I-70. About a couple of years ago, one company put a bunch up such as 5 to 9 in a row. Thanks to marketing assholes, the scenery is ruined. Check out Scenic Missouri to get rid of the billboard blight.
I have been in IT for 13 years. There are some similarities and differences between the industries.
Pluses of Factory Work
There is no casual overtime (time working without pay). Overtime is paid.
More generous dress code (or more like, lack there of)
Very little corporate politics other than getting the job done.
Pluses of IT work
Little back breaking work (except for moving 90 lbs monitors)
Flex time (though being taken away with downturn)
More money (again, going down due to downturn)
In my own experience, IT has been good especially from 1996 until recently for me. The company I work for has cracked down on petty things like dress code and are demanding casual overtime. Also, surfing the Internet is really frowned upon much more than a year or two ago even during lunch. I know the corporate executives are pushing for the 45 hour work week while they themselves would come in at 9:30am and leave at 2:30pm. Where I am at, you don't get pay raises other than COLA's if you don't work casual overtime. There are poeple who go in every Saturday for a half day even though they do nothing but yet, they get the pay raises and praise from Mgt. My weekend time is valuable and I like to get out and play since Colorado is a great playground.
As much as the media and society puts down the dot com boom, it was good for us IT worers such as relaxing the rules like dress codes and bringing in flex time. Right now, it is payback time from the executives because of the boom several years ago. They make sure we know that they are in the driver's seat. Payback & Retribution sucks. When the IT market comes back, maybe within reason, we can regain the lost no-cost benefits such as flex time, relaxed dress codes.
Date: Mon, Nov 10, 1969
To: All Employees
Subject: Mooning and our Corporate Dress Code
As your CEO, it has come to my attention that many people are violating the Corporate Dress Code through mooning.
According to our Dress Code policy, mooning is prohibited and it is not tolerated. Those caught will be punished with 100 lashes on their bare bottoms followed by immediate termination. This will be done with extreme prejudice.
Our Corporate Dres Code is there for your benefit. We must be professionals and work should be serious, not enjoyable.
The important issues right now in a very weak job market are:
Too many H1B Visas. They need to be reduced or eliminated. The Asian Indiana workers are willing to work for half of what US citizens are making, therefore, drive down wages. They also fill spots that can be filled by unemployed American workers instead.
Politicians clamoring to regulate high tech and ruin it like other businesses got ruined. An example is the auto industry.
Solutions and ideas:
Keep high tech unregulated which encourages it to flourish. That means saying no to Senator Fritz "Disney" Hollings and the MPAA/RIAA. Also saying no to Jack "Fist Pounding" Valenti.
Tax incentives to companies that offer for flex time and telecommuting to their workers. Those are being taken away in the current tight job market.
Tax incentives to companies that buy high tech equipment and software such as more generous depreciation schedules. This would encourage them to stay updated.
Eliminate H1B Visas.
Repeal the DMCA especially the onerous provisions that stifle research.
Tax incentives to telecomm companies that put out high speed connections such as DSL to areas that don't have high internet speed service such as rural areas.
Whats so bad about wearing a suit? Are IT workers not supposed to be professionals? Professionals who work in offices should wear suits. I mean would it kill you? Tell you what. For one day, ONE DAY, if you are not already obliged to wear suits into work, wear one. Not a crappy one either. Go out and get a nice suit, one of the $800 kind. You probably need one anyway, so you can save it for later use. Get a good haircut and a shave/trim as well. Then go to work. Just do your job as you'd normally do it. You'll feel good. YOU'LL FEEL GOOD. You'll feel like a grownup. Seriously. Just give it one day. Then you can go back to whatever you wear, if you're allowed to wear it, right now.
Asking an IT worker to wear a suit to work is not unreasonable to me. I mean, you're a professional right? Or is there still a collegiate attitude and atmosphere you're expecting? How long and how old must you be till you start dressing your age?
You would be well advised to read Care and Feeding of your hacker (IT worker). It gives a lot of insight to your IT worker and how they think, what their opinion are and what makes them happy and unhappy. You wouldn't want unhappy IT workers since they can put you in a world of hurt.
My definition of professionalism is respecting other people, that is, co-workers and for those in management, respecting your people that work for you. The focus should be is getting the job. Suits, dress codes are bullshit. The only place I see it is in marketing with customer contact. IT people about 95% of the time work behind the scenes and have little if any contact with the customer.
The $800 suit is bullshit. For an average 5 day week, you would need 5 suits (a clean suit a day) plus a couple of others to hold you over while they are at the cleaners. So this makes 7 suits. Time to do some mathematics. To buy these suits, it will cost $5600 ! That is a load of money. Consider the wear and tear on suits and you have to replace them once a year. Cha-Ching ! How about the cost of the cleaners. A conservative number would be $50 a week. Calculating in vacation, holidays, 49 weeks for a total, $2450.
So "Dressing for Sucess" cost about almost $8000 a year. Thanks to a down economy, most IT workers will pull in $30-40k a year after taxes. This is almost one-third of one's income. The $8000 figure can be chopped in half if a suit is worn twice before going to the cleaners depending on factors such as sweat, smell, etc.
With a lax dress code that was prevalent during the Dot-Com time, wardrobe cost were low. I have better uses for $8000 such as investing it in the stock market with it being in the toilet right now and hopefully being at the bottom. When the market goes up, that $8000 would be a better return in investment.
At work, I have been talked to about how I should be "professional" and not wear jeans to work. Yet, I move equipment around, get on floors to do cables and even a pair of khakis would not last too long. Jeans are good and sturdy and last a long time. Management is not willing to give me a clothing allowance so I will continue to wear jeans.
With working full time and finishing up my graduate degree, I don't have time to maintain my wardrobe except washing and drying. I will not wear polyester (ie. polyester pants with the color of brown like shit). For Khaki pants, they require maintainence such as ironing. That would take about a couple of hours to do each week. I have better uses for my time.
If doctors, lawyers, executives, politicians, recuriters, realtors, detectives and bankers wear suits why should it be any different for the IT professional? Is it because there's supposed to be some artistic individuality to the industry? I don't buy that one.
Well, Doctors, Lawyers, Executives, and so on are paid lavish salaries (>=6 figures) compared to IT professionals. If IT professionals are expected to dress in suits, they should be paid at least 6 figures. Most companies will not do that.
One last thing, I am of the opinion that the tie that goes with the suit has only one purpose, to wipe your bosses' ass.
Having been in the IT field for 13 years, there is one thing that is clear. Most of us in IT work to live which is diametrically opposed to what the high ups prefer, live to work. Unfortunately, the high up eecutives are never or very rarely promoted from the ranks of IT. They are almost always from marketing. Usually, the marketing people also try to push the BS on us like dress codes.
Since I live here in Colorado Springs, one of the big employers is MCI-Worldcom. I worked there back in 1995/1996 for 8 months. The managerial structure always pushed for long hours including weekends. Colorado offers great recreational opportunities and went against what the executive wanted, you living to work.
There is a Wall Street Journal Article about the executives and marketing people in Wash. DC griping about moving software development to Colorado Springs.
"In Washington, I judged the productivity of my workers by how many pizza truck s showed up in front of our buildings at 6 p.m.," Mr. Ditchfield recalls.
But in Colorado Springs "the parking lot was emptying out by 4:30 p.m., and by 6 p.m. the building was a ghost town," says John W. Harding, a senior manager. "I was stunned." He says he and his fellow managers' came to expect transferring workers to show a 50% productivity decline in the months immediately surrounding their move, and a 20% drop after.
The slower pace was introduced, in part, by new local hires who required start-up time and who had strong family commitments and interests in the outdoors. "This whole notion of having a balanced life is something the Colorado people didn't just give lip service to," Mr. Pingho says. For MCI veterans, the mood was contagious. "I began to buy into that culture myself," says Mr. Harding, who estimates his average work week fell by about 15 hours. "If no one's there to work with, there's no point in being there."
Still-frenzied MCI marketers in Washington and Atlanta grew impatient and resentfu l, and began to go elsewhere to get projects finished quickly. That culminated in MCI's 1995 purchase of SHL Systemhouse Inc., a Canadian software-engineering concern that mirrored Systems Engineering's talents.
This article came out in April 1996, about a month after I got fired from there. In my last two months there, our management instituted very late afternoon meetings that went from 4 pm to 6 pm especially on Friday. That pissed me off. I usually took off for the weekend and wanted to get out at 1pm to beat the traffic and I am disciplined enough to put the hours in early to do that. When I was fired, one of the things they mentioned is I didn't make work #1. They mentioned that I had no ambition since I didn't work Saturdays. It was very similar to the movie Office Space. The article put it into perspective on why things happened the way they did. Management got pressure from the executives in Wash. DC to force people to make work #1 like the useless afternoon meetings.
They were definitely a live to work organization and they are in shambles today. I myself believe and live as a work to live creature.
"I'm just trying to make a living like everyone else," says Ms. Betterly.
How about this
He (Mr. Connell) also hunts for new ways to get around software that tries to filter out spam and to get people to open his e-mails. He labors over a message's subject line; he's found people are more likely to open e-mail if it appears to be from a real person, so he types his friends' names on "from" lines. "The trick is to make it look personal," he said as he tapped out commands on his computer. "You want to make it look like it comes from the guy in the cubicle down the hall."
WTF. These asshole spammers just don't get it ! The spammed e-mail recipients go through the trouble to filter the bullshit out and are not interested. I had to change e-mail addresses several times because of these assholes. I setup an address that is only given to friends and family members and I get fsking spammed. I have one address that is used for domain registrations only and I get 100 commercial messages a day. That address is useless now. Pain in the ass and a waste of time looking for messages related to my domain.
While bitching about spam, there is junk mail. I get 5 credit offers a day in the US Mail. I have a shredder but these credit card vultures make the envelopes thick enough that I can't shove the damn thing through. I have to waste time opening the envelope and finding the application that needs to be shredded. Some days are bad to where I spend 20 minutes just going junk mail.
With the job market being tight, the employers are in the driver's seat instead of the employees like it was during the Dot Com boom of a few years ago. A guy I use to work with told me how bad the depression was. Those who were lucky to have jobs not only had to play the games at work like dress up, put in overtime without compensation but had to follow a code of behavior outside of work.
The depression was so bad that employers to advantage of it and the employees knew of it. It was the mentality that you should be thankful for having a job and you should show tolerance to the bullshit. The bullshit got outrageous during that time.
There were unwritten rules that you had to follow. Certain eating places were off limit and reserved for executive people. The guy mentioned that his grandparents went to eat at this nice resturaunt one time. His grandpa's boss walked in and went up to him and said,"You are not good enough to eat here. If you want your job on Monday, I suggest you leave now !" Kind of like EDS interviewing your wife as mentioned in another posting. They also at one time, went over to you house for a visit. My place wouldn't pass their standards right now.
Another instance, this one guy I knew bought a BMW, a pretty nice car. The company he worked at, the CEO put out a letter saying that certain prestigious cars were reserved for the executives. Their list was BMW, MB, Porsche, Cadillac and Lincoln. He ended up getting rid of the BMW and got a Buick. This was during the 1982 recession. I would have told the CEO to studd it regardless.
Unfortunately, you are judged on appearance. I at one time, had a Mustang GT. Where I worked at, I was frowned on because I owned a sports/muscle car. When we went on company trips, the VP of Finance made it clear that I was not to drive any of the rental cars. At the time, most people drove sedate type of cars. She supposedly connected driving a car like a Mustang to being irresponsible which was bullshit.
Back on dres code. I worked at a military base until a month ago. One of the people who worked in my group got on my ass about wearing jeans. He told me that blue jeans were inappropriate even for 3rd shift and even if I came in on Saturday for a few hours to get caught up on work. I gave a tour of the lab one time and I wore a looney tunes tie. Kind of eccentric and typical of us unix SA's. When my eval came up, it was mentioned in the eval that the tie was inappropriate. I did not connect it to that guy until he chewed me out for wearing jeans to 3rd shift. The job I am in now, I need to move equipment, etc. I wear jeans everyday. I will demand a clothing allowance if they insist I wear nice clothes even with moving equipment. It should come out of their pocket.
Here in Colorado, we are known for being relaxed especially in dress but with these tight times, I hear stories of places even here that are cracking down on dress codes.
An additional item. Look at some old pictures from after WWII. You see a picture of people sitting in an airplane. Everyone is dressed up. look at the classic movies, all the men are in suits. There is one thing that disappeared in the 1960's. Hats that go with the suit. Watch some TV shows or movies from the 1950's. Men wore hats along with their suits.
Interviewing wife before getting job w/ EDS
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Suit Up Or Ship Out?
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I joined the job market in 1990 and I also had some money saved up. I bought a new Mustang GT. I was told by a relative who was a job placement counselor at a University to be careful when I went to interviews.
She told me to park the Mustang in a place to where the potential manager couldn't see the car I drove. I asked why and she mentioned that Mustang would reflect badly to a potential employer and would show him that I supposedly have money and he think I don't need a job and by having a muscle car, it would show me as being irresponsible as well. Some psycho bullshit like that.
Place I went to work at, there was an old school large corporate type of guy, about mid 40's who I didn't interview with but met on my first day at work. I left for lunch and he remarked to one of the people who I became good friends with that I was a spoiled SOB. He then mentioned that driving a car like that reflected badly on the company. Kind of what my relative mentioned. I still think it is bullshit.
I now drive a heavily modified truck for 4 wheeling and the same with a Jeep. If someone makes a comment, I will tell them to where to stick it.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember when I went to college in the late 1980's, the RIAA had a campaign against Digital Audio Tape (DAT) but also, they had an ad campaign to get people to support a tax on blank audio casettes.
The college administration put up the RIAA flyers on the proposed tape tax and to lobby against DAT. At the time, CD's were becoming mainstream and the idea of burning CD's were a concept, not reality.
At the time, I bought CD's and one of the first things I did was make audio tape recordings from the CD's on casette metal tape (Type IV). The RIAA not only wanted you to buy the CD but if wanted it on casette, they wanted you to buy the pre-recorded tapes which were made on the cheapest tape possible (Type I - ferric oxide) which happened to dirty up tape heads pretty quickly. The metal tape sounded better and it did not dirty up your tape heads. I did not bother with Chromium (Type II) tapes. I now make duplicates of the CD's I buy to take with me on road trips. The originals stay at home. I recently made a copy of the Traveling Wilbury's CD from a guy I work with since it is out of print. The RIAA may not be happy with that but there is no opportunity to buy the CD.
The RIAA is ridiculous. You may not lose much audio quality if you have to go from digital to audio and back to digital if they implement this. It is bad enough the FCC caved in to the MPAA on the b-cast flag for digital TV. The MPAA also raised hell about VCR's when they came out.
Don't forget that one of the AOL/Time-Warner executives called people thieves who fast forwarded through the commercial ads. The name if I remember was Jamie Kellner.
Vote NO on executive compensation and expansion of stock options
Put shareholder proposals on the table at the annual meeting that would put a stop to outsourcing and knock down executive pay especially if the stock price is down due to mis-management
If the board members does not reign in on the CEO's, vote their asses out as soon as they are up for election. I am sure many board members of Disney will be out on their asses after keeping Michael Eisner at the last annual meeting.
There are other things that can be done to reign in on their arrogance
For the last several years, I have voted against anything that the executives wanted such as more than generous pay since it is due to their scandals that caused the stock market to fall especially in 2002 and their arrogance especially towards the rank and file workers.
Sounds like a familiar system. I work for a DoD contractor. We just had our performance appraisal and we have to have people rate you and you have to do a self-appraisal as well. The rating of yourself and by others are a waste of time. When you do that excercise, management has already made the decision. The excercise give Mgt a reason to rate you as they see fit. Part of the decision is whether you kiss butt or play political games. I don't do either so I got a 3 rating.
How management decides is all the mgr's go into a special meeting or a set of meetings and hash it out who gets what rating. All the people w/ Staff titles are put together and rated, people who are Senior's are put together and rated and so on.
When we started the appraisal process, our manager told us unofficially that the company was doing a quota system but he mentioned that they were not required to give 4 or 5's this round which is considered a bad rating but in previous years, it was required.
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
All on Company TimeMEETINGS
The pratical alternative to work.
When I started my first job in 1990 and during a recession. The company I went to work for had a stingy vacation policy. Your first year, no time off and the next three years, you got one week. Time was not allowed to be carried over from year to year. Use it or lose it. No one was allowed to take time off during the Summer since the fiscal new year started on July 1. That company was run by marketing and accounting people but they are now out of business.
Here are some ideas that would contribute to employee morale.
- Allow for more time off and if corporate policy is not flexible, give the option of unpaid time off
- Give the option of standard time off for given pay or more time off for less pay.
- Shutdown from Christmas to New Year's. Not much is accomplished in the business world during that time except for retail.
- Allow vacation time to be consumed in half time if the time off is for civic/volunteer pursuits. Example is week off would consume 20 hours and the company throws in 20 hours and it makes them good corporate citizens.
- Every 5 years, the employee can take an unpaid leave of absence or sabbatical (like in academia) for a year and be guranteed a job when he returns
- Allow for vacation carry over from year to year
When I took 4 weeks off last Summer, I caught hell for that but it was nice to leave for a while. As a single guy, I did a lot of camping, bicycling in Indiana (where I am from), Ohio but also went to Eastern Canada (PEI, Nova Scotia), North East US such as Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. It was nice not to think about corporate politics, budgets, turf battles between us and the prime contractor.I would love to take the months of June, July and August off even if I make 75% of what I now make. I can use the time to travel, spend time with family out of state and recreational pursuits like bicycling, four wheeling, and other things.
Here are the reasons:
Doesn't care how I dress - my big thing, I like my jeans !
Doesn't care how I put in my hours
Does not micromanage The main thing she cares is the work gets done, all other items don't matter.
The Dot Com days made many changes to the work place which are both positive and negative.
Many of the positives which have been fading, taken away or restricted
Very relaxed dress code (shorts, jeans, sandals, hiking boots/sneakers)
Telecommuting
Flex Time ( work longer on Mon/Tue, take Fri off)
In-house gourmet lunches
Game room and outdoor games
Few of the negatives which are now flourishing
Oursourcing to India
H1-B Visas
Corporate executives throwing their weight around by reducing pay, taking away benefits such as flex time, telecommuting, vacations
One company that epitomizes the positives is Google's Culture. They are one of the few Dot Com type companies still around.
On the dress code, many companies have brought back dress codes especially the legal and finance industry. Where I work at, we are subcontrctors to Boeing on a government contract. Their top manager has a strict dress policy of having to wear a tie, slacks and dress shoes. This means no jeans along with hiking boots/sneakers/tennis shoes. This dress code even applies on trips on weekends and if you come in on a Saturday. Their work hours are strict 8 to 5. Those rules don't apply to us, YET ! There are rumblings in the Boeing group to force us to comply with those rules since they hold the purse strings. I take Thursday and Friday afternoons off just about every week but Monday and Tuesday are long days though. I also wear jeans everyday as well. We are in one of the top outdoor recreational states of Colorado.
Part of the rumblings in Boeing to force us to comply with their rules caused a few problems for me. Back in June/July, I took 4 weeks vacation to do some traveling, go see family and one of the Managers in Boeing told me to cancel my vacation since my focus should be on working instead of taking time off that I have earned and I told him I did not answer to him and he got irate. He told me I will pay for my attitude. The same person got pissed when I happen to be around on Friday all day that they cannot get any work done because of our flex time policy. One of their computers at 4pm went down and the person who can call in left at 11 am. He was demanded that the computer get fixed this instant. He made the comment that we are lazy since we take Friday afternoon off. He fired off some complaints to their top executives.
At Oracle which is in Colorado Springs, they started to restrict people from telecommuting who live within 50 miles of the company building. Last I heard, there is talk to take it away. Those who live in different Mountain towns may have to move if they want to keep their job.
I will bite on this !
The company I worked for 5 years was a mid-size company with Corp. HQ in Indpls, IN and 6 "factories" in different states. There were about 400 employees. The IT group I worked in was very close knit with about 6 people. We knew each other pretty well and go to each other's houses for different socail things on weekends. This was my first job after college and all the groups I worked in ever since were not close knit like this job.
Around my 3rd year in the company and with the job market improving (1993), we had our annual review with the VP of Finance. The previous year, we worked our asses off to get a project done on time even with the unreasonable deadlines imposed by executive management. During our performance evaluations, each of us took turns with our boss and the VP and each of us got something like $1000 or $2000 pay raise and she made up excuses (downgrade our performance review) why we are not making more money. There was alot of grumbling within the ranks and a different executive overheard the comments and went to the owner of the company. Also, one of the top people left for a different job with a good jump in pay.
The owner of the company knew how to walk the fine line on compensation. He paid people enough money especially in the factories to where they didn't desire to unionize. The people (except executive mgt) in Corp. HQ made less money than the plant workers. The owner was cheap in paying the white collar people money.
The owner knew if IT people are unhappy, there would be problems with the company systems so he called the labor lawyer in NYC and he came out to Indiana to have confidential discussions with each person in the IT group. He would then present a report to the owner. The owner also sent the VP of Finance on a long vacation since a lot of people were pissed at (not only our group but also accounting since she meddled in their affairs).
After it was said and done, most of us got pay raises that were significant. Mine jumped up $5000. Within a year, I left the company to take a job in Colorado with a double in pay which was 1995.
In 1998, the company was sold to a large corporation and the owner got a good golden parachute with a no-compete clause. He owns similar businesses today and is expanding out quickly but how he paid his white collar people, I would not work for him again.
Also when I worked for that company, we had a strict dress code to where if you went on a business trip on a Sunday, you had to dress up even on Sunday to travel. Vacation time was also a premium. Cannot carry over from year to year and your first year in the company, you did not get vacation time and the following three years, you only got a week ! An additional note on the VP of Finance, on the dress code, she did not allow us to participate on dress down Friday while the rest of Corp. HQ could wear jeans. She was a snak
They dishonor e-mail removal request by send more SPAM instead
They have been very elusive in being tracked down
When they abuse foreign countries, they will end up being beyond the reach of Colorado and Missouri
I have one e-mail address which I don't use except for domain name registrations since the addresses are required. I get deluged with 80 spam messages each day. It is a pain ion the ass having to unload that e-mail box each day. In their arrogance, they mentioned that I opted i to receive their commercial messages. I don't think so. They are well known for being assholes on the Internet and thank to SPAMMER's, they are making e-mail pretty much useless as a communication medium.
Being Debt Free / Well to do
An employee will easily walk if it is demanded that he do something illegal/unethical to the company's benefit (cannot be bought)
The employee would be considered rich, therefore, doesn't need the job
Seeing info on brokerage accounts such as Merril Lynch or Schwab can indicate the type of wealth
Being in Debt / Poor
cannot keep home finances straight translates to not being able to properly manage company business
Can be easily bought
Would be willing to compromise company proprietary info by selling to a competitor
A financial position can be used for you or against you depending what Management needs done and who they can exploit. In my own opinion, it is none of the employer's business. The only circumstance to check out someone's credit is a part of National Security Clearances and those are not done by your employer, they are done by the Military and/or their representative.
Buried in my basement is my od C-64 including the 1541 Disk Drive. The power supply is fried though and haven't been able to use the machine. This would be pretty neat to get and play some old pirated games but my problem is getting the old floppies read if they are still good and get them transferred.
You buy a computer with your hard earned cash but yet, you cannot take full advantage of it since it is controlled by someone else.
To add insult to injury, you pay for the privilege of being abused (controlled). What a wonderful deal, NOT !
AMI can take their Trusted (controlled) computing and shove it where the sun don't shine.
The old saying, "Leave it to marketing to f*ck things up". I am not a fan of Micro$oft being a Linux/BSD user.
One way they can solve their problems (M$) is let the engineers have a say on things. Marketing people should focus on selling the product instead of micromanage what the engineers make. Like used car salesman, they are scheming on how to make something complex and expensive which should be simple if the engineers are allowed to do their job.
I took vacation this past week and I sat next to a man who is in marketing on the plane and we talked. I mentioned that I was in IT and he mentioned "It is about time that compensation for IT workers go down". He then added that the downturn would be good for IT workers and it was long overdue for them to get hit. I thought, "what an asshole".
The major problem with IT right now are:
H1B Visas help drive down wages and jobs go to foreigners for 50 to 70% of the wages compared to what US citizens earn
Companies are willing to spend only cheap beer prices for IT workers but demand champagne type of systems
Without IT, comapnies would be a world of hurt and they need to recognize this and be nice to their IT workers through things such as good pay, relaxed dress codes, flex time.
Whould I pursue the same path again ? I don't know. I just got my Master's in CS and kind of seeing the writing on the wall, I am thinking of pursuing a law degree instead of going for a Ph.D. The down side of doing law is having to wear a suit quite a bit which I don't care for too much. The upside is it is good money especially in business law.
I work high tech here in Colorado and right now, there is very little chance to improve my pay with a down job market. I thought of getting a weekend job working the ski slopes and besides, I can get some free skiing in ;)
I didn't move to Colorado just to work, I moved here to enjoy the recreation it has to offer. Another job I have considered is working in a 4x4 shop. Totally different from being a Unix Admin.
Marketers are hailing new legislation that was just signed by President Albert Gore that was sponsored by Senator Hollings that adds to the DMCA that makes it illegal to circumvent Internet advertising. In addition, ISP's are required to include wording in their contracts that
"since you signed the contract to get on the network, you are required to spend time looking at all advertisements whether on the web, IRC, and e-mail. Circumventing ads are considered theft and will not be tolerated.".
This law goes into effect immediately. Circumventing Internet advertising whether it is turning off javascript or using e-mail filters to circumvent e-mail advertising (known as SPAM) is illegal and punishable by a 5 year prison and/or $250,000 fine.
Alan Ralsky came from Michigan to the signing ceremony in addition to Sanford Wallace, formerly President of Cyberpromotions, Michael Eisner of Disney, and Jamie Kellner, CEO of Time Warner/Turner, Inc.. Representatives of the Direct Marketing Association were there as well.
Senator Hollings mentioned that he isn't finished and plans to sponsor legislation to apply this innovative law to Television and Radio as well. He wants to make it illegal to ignore the commercial message whether by changing the channel, going to the bathroom or getting something to eat. Full attention to the commercial ad would be required. He also mentiones that he will also sponsor legislation to require motorits to stop on the highway to look at billboards. Critics warn that it would lengthen a driving trip by 10 fold. Senator Hollings dismisses the criticism by saying that people should think of Society's views when it comes to advertising and not be so selfish by ignoring the commercial ads that are prevalent in Society.
Telemarketers which they call you at dinner time or while you are on the shitter
Spammers who are very insistent that you read their ad for some penis enlarger through deceptive subject and/or from lines
When you drive on the highway, billboards
On the back of sales receipts at the store
Pop up Web ads and its cousing, pop up instant messaging ad
Street SPAM (signs on T-phone poles, at intersections on work-at-home) which is as bad as litter.
One thing these have in common is they are obnoxious and very intrusive. I pissed off many telemarkters and in fact, had one cuss me out when I told him I wasn't interested. Marketing people and their insistent obnoxious demand that I pay attention to their pitch leaves me with a bad opinion of them.
On the issue of billboards, like street spam, twice a year, I travel cross country between Colorado and Indiana where family live at. One state, Missouri, has a lot of billboards along I-70. About a couple of years ago, one company put a bunch up such as 5 to 9 in a row. Thanks to marketing assholes, the scenery is ruined. Check out Scenic Missouri to get rid of the billboard blight.
Pluses of Factory Work
There is no casual overtime (time working without pay). Overtime is paid.
More generous dress code (or more like, lack there of)
Very little corporate politics other than getting the job done.
Pluses of IT work
Little back breaking work (except for moving 90 lbs monitors)
Flex time (though being taken away with downturn)
More money (again, going down due to downturn)
In my own experience, IT has been good especially from 1996 until recently for me. The company I work for has cracked down on petty things like dress code and are demanding casual overtime. Also, surfing the Internet is really frowned upon much more than a year or two ago even during lunch. I know the corporate executives are pushing for the 45 hour work week while they themselves would come in at 9:30am and leave at 2:30pm. Where I am at, you don't get pay raises other than COLA's if you don't work casual overtime. There are poeple who go in every Saturday for a half day even though they do nothing but yet, they get the pay raises and praise from Mgt. My weekend time is valuable and I like to get out and play since Colorado is a great playground.
As much as the media and society puts down the dot com boom, it was good for us IT worers such as relaxing the rules like dress codes and bringing in flex time. Right now, it is payback time from the executives because of the boom several years ago. They make sure we know that they are in the driver's seat. Payback & Retribution sucks. When the IT market comes back, maybe within reason, we can regain the lost no-cost benefits such as flex time, relaxed dress codes.
Date: Mon, Nov 10, 1969
To: All Employees
Subject: Mooning and our Corporate Dress Code
As your CEO, it has come to my attention that many people are violating the Corporate Dress Code through mooning.
According to our Dress Code policy, mooning is prohibited and it is not tolerated. Those caught will be punished with 100 lashes on their bare bottoms followed by immediate termination. This will be done with extreme prejudice.
Our Corporate Dres Code is there for your benefit. We must be professionals and work should be serious, not enjoyable.
Sincerely,
You Corporate CEO
Too many H1B Visas. They need to be reduced or eliminated. The Asian Indiana workers are willing to work for half of what US citizens are making, therefore, drive down wages. They also fill spots that can be filled by unemployed American workers instead.
Politicians clamoring to regulate high tech and ruin it like other businesses got ruined. An example is the auto industry.
Solutions and ideas:
Keep high tech unregulated which encourages it to flourish. That means saying no to Senator Fritz "Disney" Hollings and the MPAA/RIAA. Also saying no to Jack "Fist Pounding" Valenti.
Tax incentives to companies that offer for flex time and telecommuting to their workers. Those are being taken away in the current tight job market.
Tax incentives to companies that buy high tech equipment and software such as more generous depreciation schedules. This would encourage them to stay updated.
Eliminate H1B Visas.
Repeal the DMCA especially the onerous provisions that stifle research.
Tax incentives to telecomm companies that put out high speed connections such as DSL to areas that don't have high internet speed service such as rural areas.
Whats so bad about wearing a suit? Are IT workers not supposed to be professionals? Professionals who work in offices should wear suits. I mean would it kill you? Tell you what. For one day, ONE DAY, if you are not already obliged to wear suits into work, wear one. Not a crappy one either. Go out and get a nice suit, one of the $800 kind. You probably need one anyway, so you can save it for later use. Get a good haircut and a shave/trim as well. Then go to work. Just do your job as you'd normally do it. You'll feel good. YOU'LL FEEL GOOD. You'll feel like a grownup. Seriously. Just give it one day. Then you can go back to whatever you wear, if you're allowed to wear it, right now.
Asking an IT worker to wear a suit to work is not unreasonable to me. I mean, you're a professional right? Or is there still a collegiate attitude and atmosphere you're expecting? How long and how old must you be till you start dressing your age?
You would be well advised to read Care and Feeding of your hacker (IT worker). It gives a lot of insight to your IT worker and how they think, what their opinion are and what makes them happy and unhappy. You wouldn't want unhappy IT workers since they can put you in a world of hurt.
My definition of professionalism is respecting other people, that is, co-workers and for those in management, respecting your people that work for you. The focus should be is getting the job. Suits, dress codes are bullshit. The only place I see it is in marketing with customer contact. IT people about 95% of the time work behind the scenes and have little if any contact with the customer.
The $800 suit is bullshit. For an average 5 day week, you would need 5 suits (a clean suit a day) plus a couple of others to hold you over while they are at the cleaners. So this makes 7 suits. Time to do some mathematics. To buy these suits, it will cost $5600 ! That is a load of money. Consider the wear and tear on suits and you have to replace them once a year. Cha-Ching ! How about the cost of the cleaners. A conservative number would be $50 a week. Calculating in vacation, holidays, 49 weeks for a total, $2450.
So "Dressing for Sucess" cost about almost $8000 a year. Thanks to a down economy, most IT workers will pull in $30-40k a year after taxes. This is almost one-third of one's income. The $8000 figure can be chopped in half if a suit is worn twice before going to the cleaners depending on factors such as sweat, smell, etc.
With a lax dress code that was prevalent during the Dot-Com time, wardrobe cost were low. I have better uses for $8000 such as investing it in the stock market with it being in the toilet right now and hopefully being at the bottom. When the market goes up, that $8000 would be a better return in investment.
At work, I have been talked to about how I should be "professional" and not wear jeans to work. Yet, I move equipment around, get on floors to do cables and even a pair of khakis would not last too long. Jeans are good and sturdy and last a long time. Management is not willing to give me a clothing allowance so I will continue to wear jeans.
With working full time and finishing up my graduate degree, I don't have time to maintain my wardrobe except washing and drying. I will not wear polyester (ie. polyester pants with the color of brown like shit). For Khaki pants, they require maintainence such as ironing. That would take about a couple of hours to do each week. I have better uses for my time.
If doctors, lawyers, executives, politicians, recuriters, realtors, detectives and bankers wear suits why should it be any different for the IT professional? Is it because there's supposed to be some artistic individuality to the industry? I don't buy that one.
Well, Doctors, Lawyers, Executives, and so on are paid lavish salaries (>=6 figures) compared to IT professionals. If IT professionals are expected to dress in suits, they should be paid at least 6 figures. Most companies will not do that.
One last thing, I am of the opinion that the tie that goes with the suit has only one purpose, to wipe your bosses' ass.
Having been in the IT field for 13 years, there is one thing that is clear. Most of us in IT work to live which is diametrically opposed to what the high ups prefer, live to work. Unfortunately, the high up eecutives are never or very rarely promoted from the ranks of IT. They are almost always from marketing. Usually, the marketing people also try to push the BS on us like dress codes.
Since I live here in Colorado Springs, one of the big employers is MCI-Worldcom. I worked there back in 1995/1996 for 8 months. The managerial structure always pushed for long hours including weekends. Colorado offers great recreational opportunities and went against what the executive wanted, you living to work.
There is a Wall Street Journal Article about the executives and marketing people in Wash. DC griping about moving software development to Colorado Springs.
"In Washington, I judged the productivity of my workers by how many pizza truck s showed up in front of our buildings at 6 p.m.," Mr. Ditchfield recalls.
But in Colorado Springs "the parking lot was emptying out by 4:30 p.m., and by 6 p.m. the building was a ghost town," says John W. Harding, a senior manager. "I was stunned." He says he and his fellow managers' came to expect transferring workers to show a 50% productivity decline in the months immediately surrounding their move, and a 20% drop after.
The slower pace was introduced, in part, by new local hires who required start-up time and who had strong family commitments and interests in the outdoors. "This whole notion of having a balanced life is something the Colorado people didn't just give lip service to," Mr. Pingho says. For MCI veterans, the mood was contagious. "I began to buy into that culture myself," says Mr. Harding, who estimates his average work week fell by about 15 hours. "If no one's there to work with, there's no point in being there."
Still-frenzied MCI marketers in Washington and Atlanta grew impatient and resentfu l, and began to go elsewhere to get projects finished quickly. That culminated in MCI's 1995 purchase of SHL Systemhouse Inc., a Canadian software-engineering concern that mirrored Systems Engineering's talents.
This article came out in April 1996, about a month after I got fired from there. In my last two months there, our management instituted very late afternoon meetings that went from 4 pm to 6 pm especially on Friday. That pissed me off. I usually took off for the weekend and wanted to get out at 1pm to beat the traffic and I am disciplined enough to put the hours in early to do that. When I was fired, one of the things they mentioned is I didn't make work #1. They mentioned that I had no ambition since I didn't work Saturdays. It was very similar to the movie Office Space. The article put it into perspective on why things happened the way they did. Management got pressure from the executives in Wash. DC to force people to make work #1 like the useless afternoon meetings.
They were definitely a live to work organization and they are in shambles today. I myself believe and live as a work to live creature.
"I'm just trying to make a living like everyone else," says Ms. Betterly.
How about this
He (Mr. Connell) also hunts for new ways to get around software that tries to filter out spam and to get people to open his e-mails. He labors over a message's subject line; he's found people are more likely to open e-mail if it appears to be from a real person, so he types his friends' names on "from" lines. "The trick is to make it look personal," he said as he tapped out commands on his computer. "You want to make it look like it comes from the guy in the cubicle down the hall."
WTF. These asshole spammers just don't get it ! The spammed e-mail recipients go through the trouble to filter the bullshit out and are not interested. I had to change e-mail addresses several times because of these assholes. I setup an address that is only given to friends and family members and I get fsking spammed. I have one address that is used for domain registrations only and I get 100 commercial messages a day. That address is useless now. Pain in the ass and a waste of time looking for messages related to my domain.
While bitching about spam, there is junk mail. I get 5 credit offers a day in the US Mail. I have a shredder but these credit card vultures make the envelopes thick enough that I can't shove the damn thing through. I have to waste time opening the envelope and finding the application that needs to be shredded. Some days are bad to where I spend 20 minutes just going junk mail.
With the job market being tight, the employers are in the driver's seat instead of the employees like it was during the Dot Com boom of a few years ago. A guy I use to work with told me how bad the depression was. Those who were lucky to have jobs not only had to play the games at work like dress up, put in overtime without compensation but had to follow a code of behavior outside of work.
The depression was so bad that employers to advantage of it and the employees knew of it. It was the mentality that you should be thankful for having a job and you should show tolerance to the bullshit. The bullshit got outrageous during that time.
There were unwritten rules that you had to follow. Certain eating places were off limit and reserved for executive people. The guy mentioned that his grandparents went to eat at this nice resturaunt one time. His grandpa's boss walked in and went up to him and said,"You are not good enough to eat here. If you want your job on Monday, I suggest you leave now !" Kind of like EDS interviewing your wife as mentioned in another posting. They also at one time, went over to you house for a visit. My place wouldn't pass their standards right now.
Another instance, this one guy I knew bought a BMW, a pretty nice car. The company he worked at, the CEO put out a letter saying that certain prestigious cars were reserved for the executives. Their list was BMW, MB, Porsche, Cadillac and Lincoln. He ended up getting rid of the BMW and got a Buick. This was during the 1982 recession. I would have told the CEO to studd it regardless.
Unfortunately, you are judged on appearance. I at one time, had a Mustang GT. Where I worked at, I was frowned on because I owned a sports/muscle car. When we went on company trips, the VP of Finance made it clear that I was not to drive any of the rental cars. At the time, most people drove sedate type of cars. She supposedly connected driving a car like a Mustang to being irresponsible which was bullshit.
Back on dres code. I worked at a military base until a month ago. One of the people who worked in my group got on my ass about wearing jeans. He told me that blue jeans were inappropriate even for 3rd shift and even if I came in on Saturday for a few hours to get caught up on work. I gave a tour of the lab one time and I wore a looney tunes tie. Kind of eccentric and typical of us unix SA's. When my eval came up, it was mentioned in the eval that the tie was inappropriate. I did not connect it to that guy until he chewed me out for wearing jeans to 3rd shift. The job I am in now, I need to move equipment, etc. I wear jeans everyday. I will demand a clothing allowance if they insist I wear nice clothes even with moving equipment. It should come out of their pocket.
Here in Colorado, we are known for being relaxed especially in dress but with these tight times, I hear stories of places even here that are cracking down on dress codes.
An additional item. Look at some old pictures from after WWII. You see a picture of people sitting in an airplane. Everyone is dressed up. look at the classic movies, all the men are in suits. There is one thing that disappeared in the 1960's. Hats that go with the suit. Watch some TV shows or movies from the 1950's. Men wore hats along with their suits.
I joined the job market in 1990 and I also had some money saved up. I bought a new Mustang GT. I was told by a relative who was a job placement counselor at a University to be careful when I went to interviews.
She told me to park the Mustang in a place to where the potential manager couldn't see the car I drove. I asked why and she mentioned that Mustang would reflect badly to a potential employer and would show him that I supposedly have money and he think I don't need a job and by having a muscle car, it would show me as being irresponsible as well. Some psycho bullshit like that.
Place I went to work at, there was an old school large corporate type of guy, about mid 40's who I didn't interview with but met on my first day at work. I left for lunch and he remarked to one of the people who I became good friends with that I was a spoiled SOB. He then mentioned that driving a car like that reflected badly on the company. Kind of what my relative mentioned. I still think it is bullshit.
I now drive a heavily modified truck for 4 wheeling and the same with a Jeep. If someone makes a comment, I will tell them to where to stick it.