EA is there to make money, not take care of people.
EA has a responsibility to the community where it does business. Corporations, especially ones with eleven-figure market capitalizations should be good citizens, and part of that means providing the community with employment opportunities as well as quality products.
Nobody owes anybody a living, but they DO OWE everyone an opportunity to make a living.
If they are treating their employees poorly who cares?
Everyone should. When people lose jobs they lose their homes and savings. They lose their ability to raise families. Neighborhoods are damaged, which in turn damages the local economy, schools, tax revenues, government services, roads, utilities, retail businesses, vendors, construction companies and professional businesses.
Animators hate the thought of being reduced to the equivalent of highway-side trash collectors, trying to pretty the mocap solely by removing the trash.
Therefore, management thinks it is the "next big thing" and will soon announce massive layoffs so they can invest billions in the technology. Now let's all sing the company song.
Simple. Layoffs. Firings. Sequels. Crap. Raising prices. Destroying their 80-years-of-excellence animation division. 24 hours a day of garbage on television. Allowing Disneyland to turn into a toilet. Unsuccessfully trying to compete with anime, losing HUGE, like eight touchdowns huge, then frantically pouring mountains of cash into licensing deals so they can keep their name in theaters, then fucking up every anime product they have or just sitting on billion-dollar licenses for years and years and years and years for no reason.
In other words, the basic middle management results: clusterfuck
Then they started making movies about theme park rides and complaining that they can't make money with Monday Night Football. During this time they were paying about 197 lawyers to avoid paying royalties to Marvel and the Winnie the Pooh licensors. Now how much money do you suppose Disney has made on Winnie the Pooh? Billions? Tens of Billions?
maybe they're abandoning animation altogether so they can put out more "Old Yellar" movies.
They're abandoning animation altogether so they can save money. Big corporations are not interested in products. They are interested in brands.
Really all that is necessary is a good story. $150 million worth of special effects WILL NOT guarantee a success, as much as Hollywood wants entertainment to be a widget factory and as much as all other entertainment (except publishing) wants to be Hollywood.
Movies and television shows often fail miserably because stories are "written" by formula. Tired setting + predictable characters + smartass pop-culture insults = crap and it will always be crap.
Yet, just like the game industry, when something does succeed (Pixar) everybody comes running, checkbooks in hand and starts throwing money all over the place (Disney) in an attempt to duplicate the financial success without taking the time to understand the reason for the success. People like a good story. It doesn't matter if its a book, a comic book, a television show or a movie. Only the story matters.
And note, for all their money, and all their former excellence, Disney is so busy trying to avoid paying royalties to Marvel and the Winnie the Pooh licensors (and firing their animators) that they are completely unable to compete in the animation industry. Oh sure, their name is on "The Incredibles," but buying a ticket to a concert doesn't make someone an orchestra conductor.
It's hard to say that the terminated employees' "careers are destroyed" when AOL has only been in busines 10 years +/-.
Next interview: "so, where did you work last?" Candidate: "America Online" Interviewer: "and why aren't you working there now"
(this is unanswerable question #73A. The interview is over)
Candidate: "I was laid off" Interviewer: "Oh, I'm sorry. Thanks for stopping by."
Career in a toilet.
I don't think having 5 years as a code jockey or DB administrator at AOL counts.
So they put in five years full-time and it "doesn't count." See? That five years is worthless already (just like all their other experience, their degree, certifications and skills) and they probably haven't even finished updating their resume.
Maybe if you'd change your shitty attitude, you wouldn't have so many problems keeping a job.
Oh, I haven't always had a shitty attitude. It took years of being pissed on, fucked over, cheated and lied to in order to have a really shitty attitude. My chance to own a home, and to have the things I earned by getting an education and putting in years of solid, hard work were submerged in wet shit by liars so they could make a better business case for some half-assed "enterprise paradigm."
I'm probably unemployable in a cubicle now, since I can smell the fragrant horseshit beginning with the smug, arrogant ass-molded phone-flipping hairpiece in the interview. They're only looking for a reason to disqualify candidates, and even if I get hired, what do I have? Nothing, since I can be laid off for no reason any fucking time some asscrack middle manager decides his spreadshit isn't going to stuff his pockets fast enough.
Every single promise I was made in school has turned out to be bullshit. My education is worthless in the workplace. My experience is worthless in the workplace. My skills are worthless in the workplace. Why? Because the middle managers are in control and they say so.
and apparently you've been through a few layoffs.
I've been through layoffs that would make people want to drop to one knee and weep into their hands. I have been lied to and cheated so many times it became funny. The bald-faced rotten craven lying bastards I have worked with and for would truly amaze most people. The financial and emotional horrors they visited upon my co-workers were some of the most repulsive and disgusting things I have ever seen. I watched them happily destroy careers by the dozens, and my company isn't the only place this has happened.
You'll be much happier if you aren't constantly butting heads with people.
I agree. I'm much happier because I don't work in a cubicle job any more. I don't have any office politics and I don't have to work with lying cheat middle managers.
The sooner you learn to make politics work to your advantage instead of against you every time, the better off your career will be.
The only way I can make office politics work to my advantage is to become a lying cheat bastard like the people who set out to destroy mine and several of my friends' and co-workers' careers.
People who take the initiative and actually deliver a good job, like those I worked with, automatically find themselves at a disadvantage in office politics because instead of griping to the lying cheat middle manager in the break room, they are actually doing their job. Competent, qualified, hard-working people are not welcome in the modern workplace, and because of that, our society is destroying the educations of millions of people.
In other words, short-term thinking says "layoffs."
In a down market, you can only reduce labor to ensure you show some profit.
Maybe in a down market, a company doesn't show a profit. The horror! Wouldn't that be better than throwing half the company into the street?
It's arguably better to benefit the organization as a whole by maintaining its profitability
It's also arguably better to benefit the organization as a whole by keeping valuable employees. If they're worth paying a salary, they're worth keeping through down markets.
but it's a perfectly rational course for management to take.
Sure. Management is always right, especially when they are destroying careers. It's not capitalism. It's making everyone a temp so they don't have to worry about their responsibility to the people they employ.
Hey, isn't the whole US economic-religion based on competition above all else?
No. In each industry there are only a few companies. The economy is based on 40000% markups, a regular campaign of vigorous layoffs, and constant blatantly manipulative advertising.
We're installing breakfast nooks and berber carpeting all on credit at 28% interest compounded daily! We have Disney trademark paint color choices at Home Repo! We're modern too!
Which is why our entire economy is based on the career paycheck
where you got a job in your 20's as a low-level worker and worked your way up to management over 30 years and eventually retired on a nice pension from the company when you were 60
Like every generation of my family back to the Roosevelt administration. Theodore.
Now, you are lucky to get a job by age 30 that isn't a McJob retail temp foodservice internship that pays minimum wage, no benefits, no raises, no promotions.
Then, at age 30, the layoffs begin. By age 40, you're unemployable. No amount of skill, education or experience has any effect whatsoever on employability. And everyone is so busy blaming the workers for "whining" that they haven't noticed there are fewer opportunities every year.
The job market is a giant maggot-infested, shit-encrusted sphincter cesspool temp agency. I'm just wondering what we're planning to tell the next generation after we've completely destroyed our economy and educational system.
Yes. The former employees are bitter, of course. The phone-flipping hairpieces who fire them by the thousands for no reason are wonderful people. Sure.
Middle management's first and only answer to each new day in business: fire hundreds of people, preferably by entire departments.
Of course, AOL is still making over $400 million a month in subscriber revenue, but it's always better to have mass layoffs, as every middle manager knows. Fire 'em all. Layoffs by the hundreds. Destroyed careers. Destroyed credit. Savings lost. Years of effort flushed down a shitpipe. Who the fuck cares? The business must maintain their earnings and 20% annual growth.
Disney fired 4000 people between nine-figure summer movie releases, then destroyed an entire animation studio, firing 250 with unique abilities and experience. Walt Disney was very proud of the fact most of his employees had worked for Disney their entire careers. Now, the company can't wait to fire people every quarter. It's the way of business.
This isn't capitalism. It's budgeting by layoffs.
Careers are meaningless. Everyone is a temp. W-4 employment is a farce.
Of course. Here, space exploration doesn't have a "business case" which sufficiently impresses middle management. Therefore, we invest in breakfast nooks.
People have been discussing change of election laws for decades and decades.
And centuries. And now, when the election laws were eventually changed, NOBODY discussed it. At least eight different laws were repealed. There was not one mention of this wholesale repeal of state election law in the news. Not one. The voting machines just appeared one day.
vote on a Tuesday and folks have been trying to get that moved to a weekend day ever since the weekend was invented
Election day was originally moved to a Tuesday to avoid the weekend, since polling places used to be a day or more's travel, and elections on a Monday would have required travel on Sundays.
I don't know how much "reverence" we need to have for the act of voting. I'm more concerned about it being accurate and accessible than some mystical process.
Reverence doesn't imply mysticism. It does imply respect, however. Casting a ballot on a card table next to the Fritos display with Cyndi Lauper playing over the PA system is probably not what most people would consider respectful.
but the general availability of early voting is long overdue.
So we just throw out 200+ years of election laws (which were passed for a reason) to make things more convenient, with no public discussion?
There are SO many circumstances where voting a day or two (or a week or two) early is appropriate because of personal schedules.
Polls have been open for four weeks. The polls were open before the third debate. For all we know, some states have already elected their Congressional delegations.
Perhaps election day should be a holiday, but I don't think election month is a good idea.
Very little discussion has taken place on the wholesale repeal and replacement of several election laws in states like California, where people line up to vote at the entrance to grocery stores.
Under the old laws, which were repealed in grand fashion without so much as a whisper from the press, such voting would be flagrantly illegal. Voting less than 40 feet from a newsstand, for example, or voting on a day other than election day was unheard of...
...until now.
The election of the people whose responsibility it is to run our government is now treated with the same level of consideration as a sale on ground beef in the frozen food aisle. Naturally, this is fine, since everything in our society is evaluated based on the convenience factor for the SUV moms, and whether it can be scheduled between trips to the dry cleaners and the bank. More thought is invested in the right windows for the breakfast nook and the new countertops for the kitchen renovations at Home Repo than is invested in the sober consideration of who should run the country.
Selfishness, greed, apathy and laziness are great criteria for elections.
It was possible to vote before the most recent debate. It was possible to vote before several very lengthy and comprehensive articles on various propositions were published in newspapers. It was necessary for the legislature in California to repeal no fewer than EIGHT election laws in order to make "election month" legal, and nobody pays it a second thought. We did just fine with election DAY for 228 years, but now, that doesn't seem to be enough.
The potential for fraud and inaccuracy is immense, but there wasn't even the most rudimentary opportunity to even COMMENT on this before it showed up next to the paper towel display weeks before the election.
Election without representation is even worse than taxation without representation. We had better turn off the fucking high-definition entertainment center and develop some reverence for the democratic process, and soon.
Do you not realize that if the majority of Americans saved their money rather than spending it, it would destroy our economy?
Nonsense. It would increase the amount of available capital and make it possible to build businesses, which would help the economy more than running up credit cards at Circuit City.
doesn't it click in your head that getting people to BUY MORE STUFF is far more important to everyone's well being than getting them to save money or conserve resources?
No, because that isn't true. That's what big business wants, but it doesn't mean it's better for the economy.
Slashdot Mirror
Or are you one of those people who feels the fact that you were born to a middle class American family gives you a right to a 6 digit salary?
Or how about those who feel the fact they were hired in upper management gives them the right to take careers away from middle class families?
The only problem I see is certain people needing a crutch in life
Oh, so now working two full-time jobs for one paycheck is a crutch? Ever notice business is ALWAYS BLAMELESS?
You should be thankful you had a steady hand-holding position for so long.
Oh, I'll see if I can make time to grovel before management next week.
EA is there to make money, not take care of people.
EA has a responsibility to the community where it does business. Corporations, especially ones with eleven-figure market capitalizations should be good citizens, and part of that means providing the community with employment opportunities as well as quality products.
Nobody owes anybody a living, but they DO OWE everyone an opportunity to make a living.
If they are treating their employees poorly who cares?
Everyone should. When people lose jobs they lose their homes and savings. They lose their ability to raise families. Neighborhoods are damaged, which in turn damages the local economy, schools, tax revenues, government services, roads, utilities, retail businesses, vendors, construction companies and professional businesses.
Corporations aren't just about the shareholders.
I'm shocked they haven't responded yet.
They're probably still having meetings.
WARNER BROS MOVIE
This is a WARNER BROS MOVIE WARNER WARNER BROS MOVIE. See? We've even got snow on the logo! Warner Brothers! Remember that!
30 seconds of LOOK HOW IMPORTANT HOLLYWOOD IS!!
End of the trailer, for less than 0.5 seconds, the name of the author. Yeah! Way to reward the people with the ideas!
Animators hate the thought of being reduced to the equivalent of highway-side trash collectors, trying to pretty the mocap solely by removing the trash.
Therefore, management thinks it is the "next big thing" and will soon announce massive layoffs so they can invest billions in the technology. Now let's all sing the company song.
one has to wonder what Disney is doing.
Simple. Layoffs. Firings. Sequels. Crap. Raising prices. Destroying their 80-years-of-excellence animation division. 24 hours a day of garbage on television. Allowing Disneyland to turn into a toilet. Unsuccessfully trying to compete with anime, losing HUGE, like eight touchdowns huge, then frantically pouring mountains of cash into licensing deals so they can keep their name in theaters, then fucking up every anime product they have or just sitting on billion-dollar licenses for years and years and years and years for no reason.
In other words, the basic middle management results: clusterfuck
Then they started making movies about theme park rides and complaining that they can't make money with Monday Night Football. During this time they were paying about 197 lawyers to avoid paying royalties to Marvel and the Winnie the Pooh licensors. Now how much money do you suppose Disney has made on Winnie the Pooh? Billions? Tens of Billions?
maybe they're abandoning animation altogether so they can put out more "Old Yellar" movies.
They're abandoning animation altogether so they can save money. Big corporations are not interested in products. They are interested in brands.
Really all that is necessary is a good story. $150 million worth of special effects WILL NOT guarantee a success, as much as Hollywood wants entertainment to be a widget factory and as much as all other entertainment (except publishing) wants to be Hollywood.
Movies and television shows often fail miserably because stories are "written" by formula. Tired setting + predictable characters + smartass pop-culture insults = crap and it will always be crap.
Yet, just like the game industry, when something does succeed (Pixar) everybody comes running, checkbooks in hand and starts throwing money all over the place (Disney) in an attempt to duplicate the financial success without taking the time to understand the reason for the success. People like a good story. It doesn't matter if its a book, a comic book, a television show or a movie. Only the story matters.
And note, for all their money, and all their former excellence, Disney is so busy trying to avoid paying royalties to Marvel and the Winnie the Pooh licensors (and firing their animators) that they are completely unable to compete in the animation industry. Oh sure, their name is on "The Incredibles," but buying a ticket to a concert doesn't make someone an orchestra conductor.
It's hard to say that the terminated employees' "careers are destroyed" when AOL has only been in busines 10 years +/-.
Next interview: "so, where did you work last?"
Candidate: "America Online"
Interviewer: "and why aren't you working there now"
(this is unanswerable question #73A. The interview is over)
Candidate: "I was laid off"
Interviewer: "Oh, I'm sorry. Thanks for stopping by."
Career in a toilet.
I don't think having 5 years as a code jockey or DB administrator at AOL counts.
So they put in five years full-time and it "doesn't count." See? That five years is worthless already (just like all their other experience, their degree, certifications and skills) and they probably haven't even finished updating their resume.
Maybe if you'd change your shitty attitude, you wouldn't have so many problems keeping a job.
Oh, I haven't always had a shitty attitude. It took years of being pissed on, fucked over, cheated and lied to in order to have a really shitty attitude. My chance to own a home, and to have the things I earned by getting an education and putting in years of solid, hard work were submerged in wet shit by liars so they could make a better business case for some half-assed "enterprise paradigm."
I'm probably unemployable in a cubicle now, since I can smell the fragrant horseshit beginning with the smug, arrogant ass-molded phone-flipping hairpiece in the interview. They're only looking for a reason to disqualify candidates, and even if I get hired, what do I have? Nothing, since I can be laid off for no reason any fucking time some asscrack middle manager decides his spreadshit isn't going to stuff his pockets fast enough.
Every single promise I was made in school has turned out to be bullshit. My education is worthless in the workplace. My experience is worthless in the workplace. My skills are worthless in the workplace. Why? Because the middle managers are in control and they say so.
and apparently you've been through a few layoffs.
I've been through layoffs that would make people want to drop to one knee and weep into their hands. I have been lied to and cheated so many times it became funny. The bald-faced rotten craven lying bastards I have worked with and for would truly amaze most people. The financial and emotional horrors they visited upon my co-workers were some of the most repulsive and disgusting things I have ever seen. I watched them happily destroy careers by the dozens, and my company isn't the only place this has happened.
You'll be much happier if you aren't constantly butting heads with people.
I agree. I'm much happier because I don't work in a cubicle job any more. I don't have any office politics and I don't have to work with lying cheat middle managers.
The sooner you learn to make politics work to your advantage instead of against you every time, the better off your career will be.
The only way I can make office politics work to my advantage is to become a lying cheat bastard like the people who set out to destroy mine and several of my friends' and co-workers' careers.
People who take the initiative and actually deliver a good job, like those I worked with, automatically find themselves at a disadvantage in office politics because instead of griping to the lying cheat middle manager in the break room, they are actually doing their job. Competent, qualified, hard-working people are not welcome in the modern workplace, and because of that, our society is destroying the educations of millions of people.
In the short run, your only variable is labor.
In other words, short-term thinking says "layoffs."
In a down market, you can only reduce labor to ensure you show some profit.
Maybe in a down market, a company doesn't show a profit. The horror! Wouldn't that be better than throwing half the company into the street?
It's arguably better to benefit the organization as a whole by maintaining its profitability
It's also arguably better to benefit the organization as a whole by keeping valuable employees. If they're worth paying a salary, they're worth keeping through down markets.
but it's a perfectly rational course for management to take.
Sure. Management is always right, especially when they are destroying careers. It's not capitalism. It's making everyone a temp so they don't have to worry about their responsibility to the people they employ.
Hey, isn't the whole US economic-religion based on competition above all else?
No. In each industry there are only a few companies. The economy is based on 40000% markups, a regular campaign of vigorous layoffs, and constant blatantly manipulative advertising.
Gotta admit that stoplight timer technology sounds good.
Oh, everyone has stoplight timers now. I think this is the programming:
if (LATE_FOR_WORK)
green() || construction();
else if (ON_TIME)
red(minutes(5));
else
red();
We're installing breakfast nooks and berber carpeting all on credit at 28% interest compounded daily! We have Disney trademark paint color choices at Home Repo! We're modern too!
Careers were a fantasy of 1950s America
Which is why our entire economy is based on the career paycheck
where you got a job in your 20's as a low-level worker and worked your way up to management over 30 years and eventually retired on a nice pension from the company when you were 60
Like every generation of my family back to the Roosevelt administration. Theodore.
Now, you are lucky to get a job by age 30 that isn't a McJob retail temp foodservice internship that pays minimum wage, no benefits, no raises, no promotions.
Then, at age 30, the layoffs begin. By age 40, you're unemployable. No amount of skill, education or experience has any effect whatsoever on employability. And everyone is so busy blaming the workers for "whining" that they haven't noticed there are fewer opportunities every year.
The job market is a giant maggot-infested, shit-encrusted sphincter cesspool temp agency. I'm just wondering what we're planning to tell the next generation after we've completely destroyed our economy and educational system.
Yes. The former employees are bitter, of course. The phone-flipping hairpieces who fire them by the thousands for no reason are wonderful people. Sure.
Middle management's first and only answer to each new day in business: fire hundreds of people, preferably by entire departments.
Of course, AOL is still making over $400 million a month in subscriber revenue, but it's always better to have mass layoffs, as every middle manager knows. Fire 'em all. Layoffs by the hundreds. Destroyed careers. Destroyed credit. Savings lost. Years of effort flushed down a shitpipe. Who the fuck cares? The business must maintain their earnings and 20% annual growth.
Disney fired 4000 people between nine-figure summer movie releases, then destroyed an entire animation studio, firing 250 with unique abilities and experience. Walt Disney was very proud of the fact most of his employees had worked for Disney their entire careers. Now, the company can't wait to fire people every quarter. It's the way of business.
This isn't capitalism. It's budgeting by layoffs.
Careers are meaningless. Everyone is a temp. W-4 employment is a farce.
It still doesn't work in IE
Now they're leading the "new wave" into space.
Of course. Here, space exploration doesn't have a "business case" which sufficiently impresses middle management. Therefore, we invest in breakfast nooks.
Everyone wants to be Apple. Everyone.
People have been discussing change of election laws for decades and decades.
And centuries. And now, when the election laws were eventually changed, NOBODY discussed it. At least eight different laws were repealed. There was not one mention of this wholesale repeal of state election law in the news. Not one. The voting machines just appeared one day.
vote on a Tuesday and folks have been trying to get that moved to a weekend day ever since the weekend was invented
Election day was originally moved to a Tuesday to avoid the weekend, since polling places used to be a day or more's travel, and elections on a Monday would have required travel on Sundays.
I don't know how much "reverence" we need to have for the act of voting. I'm more concerned about it being accurate and accessible than some mystical process.
Reverence doesn't imply mysticism. It does imply respect, however. Casting a ballot on a card table next to the Fritos display with Cyndi Lauper playing over the PA system is probably not what most people would consider respectful.
but the general availability of early voting is long overdue.
So we just throw out 200+ years of election laws (which were passed for a reason) to make things more convenient, with no public discussion?
There are SO many circumstances where voting a day or two (or a week or two) early is appropriate because of personal schedules.
Polls have been open for four weeks. The polls were open before the third debate. For all we know, some states have already elected their Congressional delegations.
Perhaps election day should be a holiday, but I don't think election month is a good idea.
(cue sound of horses)
NASA plans a manned mission to Mars before 2020
We'll just bypass Bush's strong support for this program, of course.
Not a political statement, just a fact.
Very little discussion has taken place on the wholesale repeal and replacement of several election laws in states like California, where people line up to vote at the entrance to grocery stores.
...until now.
Under the old laws, which were repealed in grand fashion without so much as a whisper from the press, such voting would be flagrantly illegal. Voting less than 40 feet from a newsstand, for example, or voting on a day other than election day was unheard of...
The election of the people whose responsibility it is to run our government is now treated with the same level of consideration as a sale on ground beef in the frozen food aisle. Naturally, this is fine, since everything in our society is evaluated based on the convenience factor for the SUV moms, and whether it can be scheduled between trips to the dry cleaners and the bank. More thought is invested in the right windows for the breakfast nook and the new countertops for the kitchen renovations at Home Repo than is invested in the sober consideration of who should run the country.
Selfishness, greed, apathy and laziness are great criteria for elections.
It was possible to vote before the most recent debate. It was possible to vote before several very lengthy and comprehensive articles on various propositions were published in newspapers. It was necessary for the legislature in California to repeal no fewer than EIGHT election laws in order to make "election month" legal, and nobody pays it a second thought. We did just fine with election DAY for 228 years, but now, that doesn't seem to be enough.
The potential for fraud and inaccuracy is immense, but there wasn't even the most rudimentary opportunity to even COMMENT on this before it showed up next to the paper towel display weeks before the election.
Election without representation is even worse than taxation without representation. We had better turn off the fucking high-definition entertainment center and develop some reverence for the democratic process, and soon.
Do you not realize that if the majority of Americans saved their money rather than spending it, it would destroy our economy?
Nonsense. It would increase the amount of available capital and make it possible to build businesses, which would help the economy more than running up credit cards at Circuit City.
doesn't it click in your head that getting people to BUY MORE STUFF is far more important to everyone's well being than getting them to save money or conserve resources?
No, because that isn't true. That's what big business wants, but it doesn't mean it's better for the economy.