I never stated that Iwata is a failure, just that he naysays the console industry with little basis in fact other than Nintendo not doing well personally.
Rules of Business, #47A:
Anyone who complains or points out deficient businesses who does not have 70% market share is a whiner and should therefore be ignored.
At the same time it is there to reward you for your outstanding work.
lol Ok.
You might want to draw up your work contract a bit different.
My at-will, W-4, underpaid, overtime and weekends, take-it-or-leave-it contract? These jobs have no contracts. Getting hired is valueless, since the layoffs could begin the next day.
I am willing to work 80+ hours for any firm that I can do business with, but at the same time, I want to get a big fat check.
Birds of a feather, and all that. At the risk of seeming flippant here, maybe you need to cultivate some better friends.;-)
So now it's all of us, not just me. Do you see my point? That the (former) employee NEVER gets the benefit of the doubt? First, I'm just a smart-ass know-it-all, so that must be why I get fired.
Now, it's several college-educated, intelligent people who have a great deal to offer in several fields. But what's this? None of us can keep a job. So, now it's ALL of our faults. We're all smart-ass know-it-alls, so we ALL get fired, and you know what, darn it all, we SHOULD be fired. Nobody likes a smart-ass.
Then you read the business section. A Inc. lays off 4000. B Inc. lays off 8000. C Inc. lays off 12000. Stock market's up 35%. Economy's growing for several quarters. Earnings are all up. So how many of these college-educated, intelligent people are smart-ass know-it-alls, all of them? Of course, they all deserved to be fired. Nobody likes a smart-ass, right?
You came close to saying that it's better to work for yourself
I suppose that's true if you have no choice. But it is much more difficult. It isn't much easier to sell something to a bunch of cynical liar cheats than it is to work for them.
Until you need capital. Then you're right back at the table with a fuck cheat liar from TallDollars Bank Inc., only now it's with interest and monthly payments. The (only) time I went to a bank to discuss a business loan they called people in from OTHER ROOMS to tell me to fuck off.
So not only do you have to work for yourself, you have to volunteer, AND build a business from nothing.
"'Get an education and work hard' isn't enough anymore," and I'm glad you can see that.
It's not a statement of discovery. It is an observation of misery. When the education and honest hard work of a person is considered valueless, we have lost pretty much all that matters to an economy. What shall we say in the classroom?
"The education you are working to earn right now isn't very valuable in the workplace."
"Hard work isn't enough."
Students might ask "what else can I offer?" and they would have asked a very good question. "what will my future be like if I have nothing to offer?" is an even better question. How shall we answer?
I have watched dozens, if not hundreds of people being told with various words that they, and their work, are valueless. They don't bring enough short-term cash profits "to the table" so they are fired and replaced by replaced temp workers on a short-term part-time assignment while they wait for their other three part-time short-term temp jobs.
The result: nobody has any idea what is going on from day to day, and management doesn't care because they are too busy stuffing their pockets while holding the door open with their foot and ignoring the ringing phone.
If you continue to stew in your own resentment
I have long since moved on from the cubicles. I no longer care if some blow-dried bean-salad-ordering middle-manager thinks I'm qualified to attend meetings, and I have given up resentment. I am simply stating fact. Educated, intelligent hard working people are no longer welcome in the modern workplace.
I think he represents the very worst qualities in a computer science major.
I didn't major in Computer Science.
What they don't realize is that nobody really cares about your skills when it comes down to it, they care about how well you get things done for them.
A fascinating statement in response to this particular article.
"But he often seemed to undermine himself with his brusque manner and boastfulness."
In other words, the people he worked with were more interested in a "team player." Of course, team players don't generate billions in value and change entire industries, but that's alright. I hear the buffet is great.
I've seen plenty of people get fired, and they get fired for reasons.
Well, I've seen plenty of people get fired for no reason.
well, not understanding your deficiencies and being able to work around them is probably part of why you got canned.
That's it! If only we were perfect. Then we would never get fired. Please.
they're generally quite comprehensible, even without all the self-pitying cynicism.
Sure. They lie and fire a thousand people, then order from the buffet menu. Sounds great. The bonus check should be here by the cheese course.
I'm WAY past cynicism and self-pity. This is simply realizing the truth: Intelligent, competent, hard-working people are not welcome in this job market. Period.
The flip side is that, in such states, the employees are accorded the same prvilege.
Which would be fair IF it were as easy to get hired as it is to lose a job. Getting hired now requires 2-4 interviews, credit checks, resumes being crammed into a toilet by the gross, and several hours of unpaid time taking various technical "tests" for each job. Companies are looking for any reason to disqualify a candidate, right up to and including simply not believing what is included in the resume.
I couldn't rent a job with a coupon. I'm overqualified for minimum-wage and I'm either a) not a "team player" or b) unemployable because I've been out of the "job market" for too long (another in a long list of horseshit reasons to disqualify someone). There is no job I have ever interviewed for that I have not been qualified to do.
It takes weeks to get hired. It can take as little as a half-hour to lose a job. Oh, and getting fired usually disqualifies someone from getting hired again at most companies. Oh, yes. The liar cheat fucks have control over FUTURE employment as well! Let's all have cake in the conference room!!
The advantages are clearly with the employer.
If you walk out the door and they can't ship on time
Companies rarely are unable to ship products based on one employee. They also have the advantage of Chapter 11, an entire legal staff to renegotiate contracts, etc. Individuals have no such ability. When the bank comes to take the house, that's it. Someone who can't make a mortgage payment can't hire a legal staff.
As far as I can tell, you are providing no new information, just a bitter attitude that almost all of us can see at a glance is likely to impede your progress.
Sure. Everything's fine. Why complain? Qualified, well-educated, intelligent people are being thrown into the street by the thousands on a daily basis for no reason at all. They lose their homes, careers, savings, cars, educations, and nobody cares. Why should we complain? We spend years and years building a career, and some liar fuck comes along and steals it. What are we supposed to do? Why, we should smile and start sending resumes again!
The educations of millions of people are being made worthless in this job market.
almost every adult you know works in the same world as you,
They don't. Most of them just keep their mouths shut and do as they are told. They agree, even when middle management is wrong. Anything to keep their jobs.
I suspect that what you call "listening" is merely someone else sharing your attitude
No. I call "listening" actually discussing the problem.
I hope you'll discover the amazing opportunities of such a flexible employment system
Oh yes. The one meal a day. The destroyed credit. The ruined opportunities. Watching former co-workers sob in the parking lot after being fired for no reason. Having to put off luxuries like electricity and water for days at a time. Standing in line at the utility company to hand over half my net worth so I can have light again after three weeks of eating dinner by the light of a streetlamp. It's a great system. Can't complain at all.
and learn how to use them to advance your career
Impossible to advance your career when you are powerless and a liar cheat has total control over your job and income.
letting a few failures convince you that you can't win.
It's a lot more than a few failures. Failure is one thing. The systematic destruction of someone's career and education is entirely different. Phrases like "put your degree last" and "team player" are simply metaphors for taking the dignity of an honest day's work and trading it so some cheat fuck can stuff their pockets.
Working a W-4 job is a lose-win situation. It leaves employees with no power except to quit and deprive themselves of an income.
Normally I'd ask what's the BFD? but most people would just LOL. Then other people would probably want to know if it comes on DVD or FTP, but the FAQ will explain it JIT. Now what would be really cool would be a PDA that would run it with an RGB display, but it might need extra RAM.
Business is nothing more than trying to get others to advance your personal agenda by finding ways whereby you can advance theirs.
Office politics, on the other hand, is nothing more than someone advancing their personal agenda by destroying someone else's career.
Call it politics or just call it business. So what?
Because it is wrong, unfair and counter-productive. Businesses spend large amounts of money to hire qualified people. Their co-workers then waste that money by coming up with some horseshit reason the new qualified person isn't a <voice="whine">team player</voice>
And when you say that there is "no such thing" as a company that appreciates you, I'm sure that either you are wrong or it's your attitude that makes you right
I've worked for a couple of decent companies, but the overwhelming majority of jobs have been in corporate shitholes with incompetent, overpaid middle management.
you probably can too if you change your approach.
Sure, if I can get a job with a guaranteed contract, great. As long as middle management has the power to fire people for no reason, then I can't see how to make a career out of a cubicle job. What bank is going to approve a mortgage for an employee who could lose their job at any moment for absolutely no reason at all? Answer: none.
This is the basic inequity of W-4 employment: All sources of income are temporary. All expenses are contracts. If a person could simply walk away from a car loan or a mortgage, that would be fair. They can't, at least not without destroying their credit (which will eventually cost thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars in interest penalties, deposits, points, etc.)
But a company can walk away from that employee's paycheck any time they feel like it. W-4 employment is so unfair that no business would EVER agree to its terms as an agreement with another business.
And since it never improves, it's never a career. It's always a day-to-day temp job. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING the employee can do to PRACTICALLY improve their career either. No combination of education, skills, seniority, knowledge, experience or anything else can prevent some liar cheat fuck middle manager from simply firing an employee any fucking time they feel like it. That is the problem.
I don't have a solution either. I simply choose not to pursue a career working for some liar cheat fuck middle manager, because it is pointless. I can explain the problem, but very few people listen.
There are greeters, tellers dressed in colorful shirts who escort customers to the kiosks, a separate cash machine, plush olive and maroon- colored chairs and sofas, and funky blueberry-colored lights hanging from the ceiling.
NSF fees have increased to $500 coming and going, and customers will be required to provide five forms of picture ID to make a deposit. Interest on our SUPER-SOCCER-SUV-VALUE-PLUS-CD accounts is now a whopping ONE PERCENT (subject to Federal, State, Local and street-by-street taxes), and you get a free book of generic-bear-on-pastel checks!
Free checking is now only $20 a week, but you get two free deposits!*
*average balance of $15,000 required
Don't forget to ask about our interest-only mortgage where we own your house until your payments quadruple! Don't forget to finance a RIDING LAWN MOWER, DUMBASS!!! MAYBE IT CAN TOW A CAMPER!!!!
"Some people walk in, and they walk out. That's why we have a concierge there."
NO!! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE!!!
Sounds like a great idea. Confuse the customers, then PATENT IT.
The strategy behind the Occasio decor is not only to make banking fun, but also to make it more efficient.
Yeah? How about hiring more than three tellers so we don't have to order out for lunch AND dinner waiting to cash a check?
They might not tell you what it is, or write it down anywhere, but there's going to be something in their head that makes them decide who it is that needs to go.
...and it's usually something arbitrary, having absolutely nothing to do with that employee's qualifications or experience.
If they think firing you is part of what they need to do to best earn the company money, then that's exactly what they can and should do
...and middle management took all the money home. What a sad, sad world.
I'm fixing this mail server now, but we could've prevented this crash with a small investment of hardware and free software, thereby avoiding client downtime
No, you aren't, because a) you don't have the authority b) the person who does have the authority won't approve it and c) the suggestion causes several people to complain that you aren't being a team player because everyone else in the department agrees that management was brilliant for approving the current mail server.
I've spent a few minutes in the cubicles. I know the basics.
If you can do that - increase shareholder value and make sure your boss knows you do it - you will/always/ land on your feet, even if you do happen to lose your job for a while.
I automated a job that saved our company about 2,000 man-hours once. The resulting shitstorm of office politics led to one of the managers screaming hysterically at us in a five-hour process improvement meeting saying that if we ever made the management team look stupid again they would dock our paychecks.
The controversy continued for four months. The database team decided my idea was good enough to include in the next set of test procedures. The other teams all disagreed. Upper management had to be called in from their golf games. My guess is that half a million dollars was spent in meetings and overtime over those four months.
It was later explained to me, two of my co-workers and the entire database team (in a very slow, politically-correct voice) by an HR representative (unspoken threat: open your mouth again, and you're fired) that we should write a memo explaining our idea and send it to our immediate supervisor for approval before starting any new work.
We later found out that the Department Director (a Senior VP) with the unanimous approval of the entire senior management committee and several members of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS SPECIFICALLY ORDERED all of the group managers to ignore all such requests no matter how simple or worthwhile they may be. Those who made more than three suggestions in a month were told, in writing, to stop "wasting time on non-core projects" or re-assigned.
Two dozen people quit. Five were repeatedly threatened with their jobs, one to the point of having to go on disability for depression. Everyone else just kept quiet. The atmosphere in the office from that point forward was indescribably gloomy.
That was one of my few successful attempts to really do anything useful at a large company, or "increase shareholder value." I personally saved the company about $100,000. The company spent over half a million $ arguing about it and treating us all like idiots.
It is just further proof that competent, smart, skilled employees are not welcome in the workplace.
If office politics are the problem then start learning how office politics work.
I already know how office politics work:
Day one: New employee is hired and is viewed with some combination of envy and ambivalence by the smiling co-workers in the nearby cubicles.
Day Four: New employee dares to open their mouth in a meeting, offering a new idea for some problem the current workers haven't been able to solve. Management idiot nods his fat head. Co-workers' envy turns to burning hatred and hostility while their smiles grow ever-wider.
Day Five: Co-workers begin to plot eventual firing of new employee, constructing an elaborate campaign of complaints, both formal and informal, political backbiting and openly challenging the new employees' ideas in meetings.
New employee is a) powerless to stop the inevitable, because they have no friends at the company yet or b) hopelessly naive, believing the liar cheat fuck bastards who smile and invite them to lunch at the local yuppie grill, where they will feign interest in the rest of the new employees' worthless ideas.
Day Eight: Constant complaints have begun. New employee becomes isolated and useless, since nobody will work with them. Management begins to complain. The words "team player" are slowly beginning to slither into conversations, like wet submerged shit.
Day Eleven: Lunch invitations have ceased. New employee is no longer invited to meetings. HR begins to complain about the new employee having shown a "continuing pattern of lateness to work" (a pattern somehow established in only ten days) while ignoring the average 75-hour workweeks the new employee is working. Management is now showing open contempt for the new employee, while offering no suggestions other than "please show up on time." Co-workers refuse to speak at all.
Day Fifteen: At 8:07AM, new employee is greeted by no fewer than three security guards at their "desk" which has been dismantled completely (to enhance the indignity, of course). They are hurriedly forced to gather whatever meager posessions they have (being instructed in writing, nobody speaks to them at all), they are escorted to the door and physically shoved into the parking lot.
Four months later, they are mailed their only paycheck.
This was a company of several hundred people and a department of more than 70. I saw this happen to THREE people before I quit. One of those fired had just closed escrow on a new house.
That is office politics, and there is no way I would ever participate in it.
She didn't listen because she was an idiot. She was hired by an idiot, and she worked for idiots. The company folded. I was right.
People who can spot problems and help to change them are valued employees.
Why do you think I spent two hours of unpaid time trying to explain the problems? I had friends working there. I didn't want them to lose their jobs too.
Of course, I'm just a troublemaker. I'm not being a "team player" because I don't smile and agree when some plant-watering moron does something stupid that fucks up my job and fucks over my co-workers. FURTHER PROOF that only the employees get fucked over. Management gets a bonus.
Yes, it seems this guy is very poor at choosing a company to work at
You mean the companies who tell you how wonderful your "permanent" job will be, then fire you (and several other people, most new hires) a few weeks later for absolutely NO REASON AT ALL? Those companies?
I know I wouldn't hire him.
You know absolutely nothing about my qualifications. Proof that employment is an arbitrary popularity contest, and has nothing, absolutely NOTHING to do with education, experience, or skill.
Now, if they would tell people that before they invest in a degree and years of experience, I wouldn't have one word of complaint.
You write this message full of vitrol and then dare to complain that office politics diminish positive thinking?
Office politics don't diminish positive thinking. Office politics make positive thinking impossible. There's nothing political about what I wrote. I'm not trying to destroy other people's careers. Like it or not, it's reality for the overwhelming majority of employees in this economy.
I'm a great positive thinker. Item one for positive thinking: properly explain the problem. The problem is office politics.
Here, you are expected to make something for yourself if you have good ideas.
I did.
Here you are expected to make something for yourself, and then not complain when MIDDLE MANAGEMENT STEALS IT FROM YOU.
Start your own company
With what capital?
or go to one that appreciates you.
No such thing.
Might I ask what kind of job made you bitter like this?
The kind of job where I was lied to, repeatedly. Cheated, repeatedly. Fired, repeatedly, for no good reason.
Where did you work, what did you do?
I was a programmer, like most of the other people here. I was very good at my job, and very knowledgeable. I contributed a great deal, I worked extra hours constantly, and I completed numerous valuable projects.
I got fired anyway. It was then I realized that just about everything I had been told about hard work, education, etc. was a big, fragrant sack of shit.
I went to school. I got an education, and I worked hard.
I got
fired.
anyway.
But I'm still a positive thinker. I just don't pretend that the workplace is a productive place for a career.
Well, I lost five jobs in about 14 months. I once spent over two hours in an exit interview explaining why the 200 people still working there would be unemployed within a year. The happy oversized-coffee-mug-swilling, plant-watering HR blimp smiled and stream of consciousness-vomited some PC horseshit about "enterprise paradigms." The hairpieces in management were too busy scheduling their afternoon golf games and bean salad lunches to listen.
The company folded abruptly in about seven months. Millions of dollars in capital, value and wages were destroyed in the process. Management was incredulous. They were also WRONG.
I spent hundreds of hours in meetings trying to convince lying rat-bastard cheat fucks that treating employees like shit wasn't good for the company. Nobody listened. They were way too busy stuffing their pockets and shopping for new driveways so they would have a nice place to park their new SUVs.
So, I have since left the cubicle-shithole. I'm happy to explain to those who will listen why forcing a person to forfeit every last shred of their dignity in exchange for a piss-wage sucks, but few people listen.
I think it is time we all faced the facts. The times when one could walk out of University with nothing more than a shiny new diploma and into a well paying job are gone.
...and with them went our communities, neighborhoods, being able to sign a mortgage before starting to withdraw from the (probably non-existent) retirement fund, families, hope, joy, careers, the value of our educations, and everything else that makes working a 40 hour week important.
But that's alright. Don't complain too loud. There's cake in the conference room.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you should have purchased that insurance?
would be very easy to just neglect U.S. developers in the console market but this is certainly a foolish thing to do in the long run...
Not when it costs $20,000 a week just to get them to answer the phone.
So, basically, Nintendo sux, right?
I never stated that Iwata is a failure, just that he naysays the console industry with little basis in fact other than Nintendo not doing well personally.
Rules of Business, #47A:
Anyone who complains or points out deficient businesses who does not have 70% market share is a whiner and should therefore be ignored.
Rules of Business, #47B:
Anyone who has 70% market share never complains.
At the same time it is there to reward you for your outstanding work.
lol Ok.
You might want to draw up your work contract a bit different.
My at-will, W-4, underpaid, overtime and weekends, take-it-or-leave-it contract? These jobs have no contracts. Getting hired is valueless, since the layoffs could begin the next day.
I am willing to work 80+ hours for any firm that I can do business with, but at the same time, I want to get a big fat check.
I'd be happy with a job that lasted past lunch.
Birds of a feather, and all that. At the risk of seeming flippant here, maybe you need to cultivate some better friends. ;-)
So now it's all of us, not just me. Do you see my point? That the (former) employee NEVER gets the benefit of the doubt? First, I'm just a smart-ass know-it-all, so that must be why I get fired.
Now, it's several college-educated, intelligent people who have a great deal to offer in several fields. But what's this? None of us can keep a job. So, now it's ALL of our faults. We're all smart-ass know-it-alls, so we ALL get fired, and you know what, darn it all, we SHOULD be fired. Nobody likes a smart-ass.
Then you read the business section. A Inc. lays off 4000. B Inc. lays off 8000. C Inc. lays off 12000. Stock market's up 35%. Economy's growing for several quarters. Earnings are all up. So how many of these college-educated, intelligent people are smart-ass know-it-alls, all of them? Of course, they all deserved to be fired. Nobody likes a smart-ass, right?
You came close to saying that it's better to work for yourself
I suppose that's true if you have no choice. But it is much more difficult. It isn't much easier to sell something to a bunch of cynical liar cheats than it is to work for them.
Until you need capital. Then you're right back at the table with a fuck cheat liar from TallDollars Bank Inc., only now it's with interest and monthly payments. The (only) time I went to a bank to discuss a business loan they called people in from OTHER ROOMS to tell me to fuck off.
So not only do you have to work for yourself, you have to volunteer, AND build a business from nothing.
"'Get an education and work hard' isn't enough anymore," and I'm glad you can see that.
It's not a statement of discovery. It is an observation of misery. When the education and honest hard work of a person is considered valueless, we have lost pretty much all that matters to an economy. What shall we say in the classroom?
"The education you are working to earn right now isn't very valuable in the workplace."
"Hard work isn't enough."
Students might ask "what else can I offer?" and they would have asked a very good question. "what will my future be like if I have nothing to offer?" is an even better question. How shall we answer?
I have watched dozens, if not hundreds of people being told with various words that they, and their work, are valueless. They don't bring enough short-term cash profits "to the table" so they are fired and replaced by replaced temp workers on a short-term part-time assignment while they wait for their other three part-time short-term temp jobs.
The result: nobody has any idea what is going on from day to day, and management doesn't care because they are too busy stuffing their pockets while holding the door open with their foot and ignoring the ringing phone.
If you continue to stew in your own resentment
I have long since moved on from the cubicles. I no longer care if some blow-dried bean-salad-ordering middle-manager thinks I'm qualified to attend meetings, and I have given up resentment. I am simply stating fact. Educated, intelligent hard working people are no longer welcome in the modern workplace.
I wish you well
I appreciate it.
I think he represents the very worst qualities in a computer science major.
I didn't major in Computer Science.
What they don't realize is that nobody really cares about your skills when it comes down to it, they care about how well you get things done for them.
A fascinating statement in response to this particular article.
"But he often seemed to undermine himself with his brusque manner and boastfulness."
In other words, the people he worked with were more interested in a "team player." Of course, team players don't generate billions in value and change entire industries, but that's alright. I hear the buffet is great.
No, he isn't.
For the article however?
QED
I've seen plenty of people get fired, and they get fired for reasons.
Well, I've seen plenty of people get fired for no reason.
well, not understanding your deficiencies and being able to work around them is probably part of why you got canned.
That's it! If only we were perfect. Then we would never get fired. Please.
they're generally quite comprehensible, even without all the self-pitying cynicism.
Sure. They lie and fire a thousand people, then order from the buffet menu. Sounds great. The bonus check should be here by the cheese course.
I'm WAY past cynicism and self-pity. This is simply realizing the truth: Intelligent, competent, hard-working people are not welcome in this job market. Period.
The flip side is that, in such states, the employees are accorded the same prvilege.
Which would be fair IF it were as easy to get hired as it is to lose a job. Getting hired now requires 2-4 interviews, credit checks, resumes being crammed into a toilet by the gross, and several hours of unpaid time taking various technical "tests" for each job. Companies are looking for any reason to disqualify a candidate, right up to and including simply not believing what is included in the resume.
I couldn't rent a job with a coupon. I'm overqualified for minimum-wage and I'm either a) not a "team player" or b) unemployable because I've been out of the "job market" for too long (another in a long list of horseshit reasons to disqualify someone). There is no job I have ever interviewed for that I have not been qualified to do.
It takes weeks to get hired. It can take as little as a half-hour to lose a job. Oh, and getting fired usually disqualifies someone from getting hired again at most companies. Oh, yes. The liar cheat fucks have control over FUTURE employment as well! Let's all have cake in the conference room!!
The advantages are clearly with the employer.
If you walk out the door and they can't ship on time
Companies rarely are unable to ship products based on one employee. They also have the advantage of Chapter 11, an entire legal staff to renegotiate contracts, etc. Individuals have no such ability. When the bank comes to take the house, that's it. Someone who can't make a mortgage payment can't hire a legal staff.
As far as I can tell, you are providing no new information, just a bitter attitude that almost all of us can see at a glance is likely to impede your progress.
Sure. Everything's fine. Why complain? Qualified, well-educated, intelligent people are being thrown into the street by the thousands on a daily basis for no reason at all. They lose their homes, careers, savings, cars, educations, and nobody cares. Why should we complain? We spend years and years building a career, and some liar fuck comes along and steals it. What are we supposed to do? Why, we should smile and start sending resumes again!
The educations of millions of people are being made worthless in this job market.
almost every adult you know works in the same world as you,
They don't. Most of them just keep their mouths shut and do as they are told. They agree, even when middle management is wrong. Anything to keep their jobs.
I suspect that what you call "listening" is merely someone else sharing your attitude
No. I call "listening" actually discussing the problem.
I hope you'll discover the amazing opportunities of such a flexible employment system
Oh yes. The one meal a day. The destroyed credit. The ruined opportunities. Watching former co-workers sob in the parking lot after being fired for no reason. Having to put off luxuries like electricity and water for days at a time. Standing in line at the utility company to hand over half my net worth so I can have light again after three weeks of eating dinner by the light of a streetlamp. It's a great system. Can't complain at all.
and learn how to use them to advance your career
Impossible to advance your career when you are powerless and a liar cheat has total control over your job and income.
letting a few failures convince you that you can't win.
It's a lot more than a few failures. Failure is one thing. The systematic destruction of someone's career and education is entirely different. Phrases like "put your degree last" and "team player" are simply metaphors for taking the dignity of an honest day's work and trading it so some cheat fuck can stuff their pockets.
Working a W-4 job is a lose-win situation. It leaves employees with no power except to quit and deprive themselves of an income.
GFS on the GPL? From RHN? WTF?
Normally I'd ask what's the BFD? but most people would just LOL. Then other people would probably want to know if it comes on DVD or FTP, but the FAQ will explain it JIT. Now what would be really cool would be a PDA that would run it with an RGB display, but it might need extra RAM.
HTH.
Business is nothing more than trying to get others to advance your personal agenda by finding ways whereby you can advance theirs.
Office politics, on the other hand, is nothing more than someone advancing their personal agenda by destroying someone else's career.
Call it politics or just call it business. So what?
Because it is wrong, unfair and counter-productive. Businesses spend large amounts of money to hire qualified people. Their co-workers then waste that money by coming up with some horseshit reason the new qualified person isn't a <voice="whine">team player</voice>
And when you say that there is "no such thing" as a company that appreciates you, I'm sure that either you are wrong or it's your attitude that makes you right
I've worked for a couple of decent companies, but the overwhelming majority of jobs have been in corporate shitholes with incompetent, overpaid middle management.
you probably can too if you change your approach.
Sure, if I can get a job with a guaranteed contract, great. As long as middle management has the power to fire people for no reason, then I can't see how to make a career out of a cubicle job. What bank is going to approve a mortgage for an employee who could lose their job at any moment for absolutely no reason at all? Answer: none.
This is the basic inequity of W-4 employment: All sources of income are temporary. All expenses are contracts. If a person could simply walk away from a car loan or a mortgage, that would be fair. They can't, at least not without destroying their credit (which will eventually cost thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars in interest penalties, deposits, points, etc.)
But a company can walk away from that employee's paycheck any time they feel like it. W-4 employment is so unfair that no business would EVER agree to its terms as an agreement with another business.
And since it never improves, it's never a career. It's always a day-to-day temp job. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING the employee can do to PRACTICALLY improve their career either. No combination of education, skills, seniority, knowledge, experience or anything else can prevent some liar cheat fuck middle manager from simply firing an employee any fucking time they feel like it. That is the problem.
I don't have a solution either. I simply choose not to pursue a career working for some liar cheat fuck middle manager, because it is pointless. I can explain the problem, but very few people listen.
There are greeters, tellers dressed in colorful shirts who escort customers to the kiosks, a separate cash machine, plush olive and maroon- colored chairs and sofas, and funky blueberry-colored lights hanging from the ceiling.
NSF fees have increased to $500 coming and going, and customers will be required to provide five forms of picture ID to make a deposit. Interest on our SUPER-SOCCER-SUV-VALUE-PLUS-CD accounts is now a whopping ONE PERCENT (subject to Federal, State, Local and street-by-street taxes), and you get a free book of generic-bear-on-pastel checks!
Free checking is now only $20 a week, but you get two free deposits!*
*average balance of $15,000 required
Don't forget to ask about our interest-only mortgage where we own your house until your payments quadruple! Don't forget to finance a RIDING LAWN MOWER, DUMBASS!!! MAYBE IT CAN TOW A CAMPER!!!!
"Some people walk in, and they walk out. That's why we have a concierge there."
NO!! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE!!!
Sounds like a great idea. Confuse the customers, then PATENT IT.
The strategy behind the Occasio decor is not only to make banking fun, but also to make it more efficient.
Yeah? How about hiring more than three tellers so we don't have to order out for lunch AND dinner waiting to cash a check?
They might not tell you what it is, or write it down anywhere, but there's going to be something in their head that makes them decide who it is that needs to go.
...and it's usually something arbitrary, having absolutely nothing to do with that employee's qualifications or experience.
If they think firing you is part of what they need to do to best earn the company money, then that's exactly what they can and should do
...and middle management took all the money home. What a sad, sad world.
I'm fixing this mail server now, but we could've prevented this crash with a small investment of hardware and free software, thereby avoiding client downtime
/always/ land on your feet, even if you do happen to lose your job for a while.
No, you aren't, because a) you don't have the authority b) the person who does have the authority won't approve it and c) the suggestion causes several people to complain that you aren't being a team player because everyone else in the department agrees that management was brilliant for approving the current mail server.
I've spent a few minutes in the cubicles. I know the basics.
If you can do that - increase shareholder value and make sure your boss knows you do it - you will
I automated a job that saved our company about 2,000 man-hours once. The resulting shitstorm of office politics led to one of the managers screaming hysterically at us in a five-hour process improvement meeting saying that if we ever made the management team look stupid again they would dock our paychecks.
The controversy continued for four months. The database team decided my idea was good enough to include in the next set of test procedures. The other teams all disagreed. Upper management had to be called in from their golf games. My guess is that half a million dollars was spent in meetings and overtime over those four months.
It was later explained to me, two of my co-workers and the entire database team (in a very slow, politically-correct voice) by an HR representative (unspoken threat: open your mouth again, and you're fired) that we should write a memo explaining our idea and send it to our immediate supervisor for approval before starting any new work.
We later found out that the Department Director (a Senior VP) with the unanimous approval of the entire senior management committee and several members of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS SPECIFICALLY ORDERED all of the group managers to ignore all such requests no matter how simple or worthwhile they may be. Those who made more than three suggestions in a month were told, in writing, to stop "wasting time on non-core projects" or re-assigned.
Two dozen people quit. Five were repeatedly threatened with their jobs, one to the point of having to go on disability for depression. Everyone else just kept quiet. The atmosphere in the office from that point forward was indescribably gloomy.
That was one of my few successful attempts to really do anything useful at a large company, or "increase shareholder value." I personally saved the company about $100,000. The company spent over half a million $ arguing about it and treating us all like idiots.
It is just further proof that competent, smart, skilled employees are not welcome in the workplace.
If office politics are the problem then start learning how office politics work.
I already know how office politics work:
Day one: New employee is hired and is viewed with some combination of envy and ambivalence by the smiling co-workers in the nearby cubicles.
Day Four: New employee dares to open their mouth in a meeting, offering a new idea for some problem the current workers haven't been able to solve. Management idiot nods his fat head. Co-workers' envy turns to burning hatred and hostility while their smiles grow ever-wider.
Day Five: Co-workers begin to plot eventual firing of new employee, constructing an elaborate campaign of complaints, both formal and informal, political backbiting and openly challenging the new employees' ideas in meetings.
New employee is a) powerless to stop the inevitable, because they have no friends at the company yet or b) hopelessly naive, believing the liar cheat fuck bastards who smile and invite them to lunch at the local yuppie grill, where they will feign interest in the rest of the new employees' worthless ideas.
Day Eight: Constant complaints have begun. New employee becomes isolated and useless, since nobody will work with them. Management begins to complain. The words "team player" are slowly beginning to slither into conversations, like wet submerged shit.
Day Eleven: Lunch invitations have ceased. New employee is no longer invited to meetings. HR begins to complain about the new employee having shown a "continuing pattern of lateness to work" (a pattern somehow established in only ten days) while ignoring the average 75-hour workweeks the new employee is working. Management is now showing open contempt for the new employee, while offering no suggestions other than "please show up on time." Co-workers refuse to speak at all.
Day Fifteen: At 8:07AM, new employee is greeted by no fewer than three security guards at their "desk" which has been dismantled completely (to enhance the indignity, of course). They are hurriedly forced to gather whatever meager posessions they have (being instructed in writing, nobody speaks to them at all), they are escorted to the door and physically shoved into the parking lot.
Four months later, they are mailed their only paycheck.
This was a company of several hundred people and a department of more than 70. I saw this happen to THREE people before I quit. One of those fired had just closed escrow on a new house.
That is office politics, and there is no way I would ever participate in it.
No wonder she didn't take his comments on board.
She didn't listen because she was an idiot. She was hired by an idiot, and she worked for idiots. The company folded. I was right.
People who can spot problems and help to change them are valued employees.
Why do you think I spent two hours of unpaid time trying to explain the problems? I had friends working there. I didn't want them to lose their jobs too.
Of course, I'm just a troublemaker. I'm not being a "team player" because I don't smile and agree when some plant-watering moron does something stupid that fucks up my job and fucks over my co-workers. FURTHER PROOF that only the employees get fucked over. Management gets a bonus.
Yes, it seems this guy is very poor at choosing a company to work at
You mean the companies who tell you how wonderful your "permanent" job will be, then fire you (and several other people, most new hires) a few weeks later for absolutely NO REASON AT ALL? Those companies?
I know I wouldn't hire him.
You know absolutely nothing about my qualifications. Proof that employment is an arbitrary popularity contest, and has nothing, absolutely NOTHING to do with education, experience, or skill.
Now, if they would tell people that before they invest in a degree and years of experience, I wouldn't have one word of complaint.
Where do you intend to work, if not in the workplace?
And that's all? Out of eleven paragraphs?
The "workplace" is a colloquial term for "W-4 employment"
they have no reason to fire you.
They don't need a reason.
If you are draining the companies money, why do you expect to stay employed?
I don't expect to stay employed, regardless of how much I'm earning/spending. That's the point.
You write this message full of vitrol and then dare to complain that office politics diminish positive thinking?
Office politics don't diminish positive thinking. Office politics make positive thinking impossible. There's nothing political about what I wrote. I'm not trying to destroy other people's careers. Like it or not, it's reality for the overwhelming majority of employees in this economy.
I'm a great positive thinker. Item one for positive thinking: properly explain the problem. The problem is office politics.
Here, you are expected to make something for yourself if you have good ideas.
I did.
Here you are expected to make something for yourself, and then not complain when MIDDLE MANAGEMENT STEALS IT FROM YOU.
Start your own company
With what capital?
or go to one that appreciates you.
No such thing.
Might I ask what kind of job made you bitter like this?
The kind of job where I was lied to, repeatedly. Cheated, repeatedly. Fired, repeatedly, for no good reason.
Where did you work, what did you do?
I was a programmer, like most of the other people here. I was very good at my job, and very knowledgeable. I contributed a great deal, I worked extra hours constantly, and I completed numerous valuable projects.
I got fired anyway. It was then I realized that just about everything I had been told about hard work, education, etc. was a big, fragrant sack of shit.
I went to school. I got an education, and I worked hard.
I got
fired.
anyway.
But I'm still a positive thinker. I just don't pretend that the workplace is a productive place for a career.
Well, I lost five jobs in about 14 months. I once spent over two hours in an exit interview explaining why the 200 people still working there would be unemployed within a year. The happy oversized-coffee-mug-swilling, plant-watering HR blimp smiled and stream of consciousness-vomited some PC horseshit about "enterprise paradigms." The hairpieces in management were too busy scheduling their afternoon golf games and bean salad lunches to listen.
The company folded abruptly in about seven months. Millions of dollars in capital, value and wages were destroyed in the process. Management was incredulous. They were also WRONG.
I spent hundreds of hours in meetings trying to convince lying rat-bastard cheat fucks that treating employees like shit wasn't good for the company. Nobody listened. They were way too busy stuffing their pockets and shopping for new driveways so they would have a nice place to park their new SUVs.
So, I have since left the cubicle-shithole. I'm happy to explain to those who will listen why forcing a person to forfeit every last shred of their dignity in exchange for a piss-wage sucks, but few people listen.
I think it is time we all faced the facts. The times when one could walk out of University with nothing more than a shiny new diploma and into a well paying job are gone.
...and with them went our communities, neighborhoods, being able to sign a mortgage before starting to withdraw from the (probably non-existent) retirement fund, families, hope, joy, careers, the value of our educations, and everything else that makes working a 40 hour week important.
But that's alright. Don't complain too loud. There's cake in the conference room.
The best way to do it is an internship.
... And then middle management took all the money home.
Work for free so they can hire you for a "permanent" job later.
ROFL
I would suggest you attend a Linux User's Group in your area.
The average middle manager wouldn't know a Linux User's Group if it jumped out of their ass and did the tap number from 42nd street.