In my location (Colorado, USA) there is a policy known as "right to work" so unless I have a binding contract saying otherwise, I can terminate my employment at any time, for any reason with no notice. That same privilege extends to my employer. So there is in effect, no recourse if I get fired for not doing unpaid overtime because I really got fired because they wanted to fire me, no reason required. I would still reap such benefits as unemployment insurance payments at a whopping $350/wk maximum, but nothing else and no liabilty on my employer to provide any other compensation beyond our initialy aggreed upon arrangement.
Another point is that as a salaried employee, it is very hard to indicate what is "overtime" and what is simply the expected work hours.
And lastly, puninshing workers who do not kick in extra hours is just bad management. Reward those who help your bottom line, but if someone meets the expectations that you originally set and nothing more, then they are doing exactly as you asked them to do. If anyone was deserving of punishment, it would the jackass who wasn't able to properly figure the amount of work required for a given task that they ought to be familiar with.
I bought Quarto several years ago and have enjoyed it often with people ranging from my (at the time) 5 yo son, to colleagues from work.
"Quarto has a 4x4 board and 16 pieces. Each piece has four dichotomous attributes: color, height, shape and consistency. So each piece is either black or white, tall or short, square or round, and hollow or solid. The object is to place the fourth piece in a row where all four pieces have at least one attribute in common. The twist is your opponent gets to choose the piece you place on the board every turn." - From: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid= 681
Whenever I see words like forecast and prediction buried, I wonder what the motivation of the writer is.
I dug around a very little bit and found this link to an IDC ress release that this is based on (I think).
IDC - Press Release http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=pr2004_1 1_02_093312
Reading the press release, I could only think to myself "uhm, duh, who couldn't see that coming."
I do wonder how they came up with the time frame though. Four years seems like a long time to predict anything in the IT business with any accuracy.
I got laid off two years ago from Avaya. I'm a mid carreer engineer with a string of cert's and lots of experience in commercial *nix, linux, and M$. I am divorced and my son lives with his mom here in Denver, so I don't really want to leave the Denver area.
I have sent out roughly eight resumes per week to unique job openings every week for the past two years. I have landed a few short term contracts, but nothing long term or perm yet.
I have watched the response level to my resume blitz steadily increase over the past two years from one response every few months to almost weekly responses in the past few months.
Freelancing isn't getting me much as the competition for it is fierce, we are constantly undercutting each other here in the Denver market and it makes it harder for all of us geeks to get something good.
Management is not helping as they have been pushing understaffed IT departments too hard for too long and with everyone continueing to put up with it out of fear of losing thier jobs. Entry level people were kept and now that they are looking to expand (finally) to cope with new problems, they don't really know what to look for.
Proactive, forward looking engineers of the old school (me) are having a tough time convincing employers that proactive solutions, while cost intensive in the short term, more than make up the difference in the long term. Hence we are out of jobs while employers, who don't seem to know any better, are looking for people with lots of experience who will work for very little, have tons of responsibility and damn little authority.
I keep looking and try to stay optimistic, but two years of rejections do take thier toll. Hopefully, things will change for the better in the near future.
Slashdot Mirror
In my location (Colorado, USA) there is a policy known as "right to work" so unless I have a binding contract saying otherwise, I can terminate my employment at any time, for any reason with no notice. That same privilege extends to my employer. So there is in effect, no recourse if I get fired for not doing unpaid overtime because I really got fired because they wanted to fire me, no reason required. I would still reap such benefits as unemployment insurance payments at a whopping $350/wk maximum, but nothing else and no liabilty on my employer to provide any other compensation beyond our initialy aggreed upon arrangement. Another point is that as a salaried employee, it is very hard to indicate what is "overtime" and what is simply the expected work hours. And lastly, puninshing workers who do not kick in extra hours is just bad management. Reward those who help your bottom line, but if someone meets the expectations that you originally set and nothing more, then they are doing exactly as you asked them to do. If anyone was deserving of punishment, it would the jackass who wasn't able to properly figure the amount of work required for a given task that they ought to be familiar with.
I bought Quarto several years ago and have enjoyed it often with people ranging from my (at the time) 5 yo son, to colleagues from work. "Quarto has a 4x4 board and 16 pieces. Each piece has four dichotomous attributes: color, height, shape and consistency. So each piece is either black or white, tall or short, square or round, and hollow or solid. The object is to place the fourth piece in a row where all four pieces have at least one attribute in common. The twist is your opponent gets to choose the piece you place on the board every turn." - From: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid= 681
Whenever I see words like forecast and prediction buried, I wonder what the motivation of the writer is. I dug around a very little bit and found this link to an IDC ress release that this is based on (I think). IDC - Press Release http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=pr2004_1 1_02_093312
Reading the press release, I could only think to myself "uhm, duh, who couldn't see that coming."
I do wonder how they came up with the time frame though. Four years seems like a long time to predict anything in the IT business with any accuracy.
I got laid off two years ago from Avaya. I'm a mid carreer engineer with a string of cert's and lots of experience in commercial *nix, linux, and M$. I am divorced and my son lives with his mom here in Denver, so I don't really want to leave the Denver area. I have sent out roughly eight resumes per week to unique job openings every week for the past two years. I have landed a few short term contracts, but nothing long term or perm yet. I have watched the response level to my resume blitz steadily increase over the past two years from one response every few months to almost weekly responses in the past few months. Freelancing isn't getting me much as the competition for it is fierce, we are constantly undercutting each other here in the Denver market and it makes it harder for all of us geeks to get something good. Management is not helping as they have been pushing understaffed IT departments too hard for too long and with everyone continueing to put up with it out of fear of losing thier jobs. Entry level people were kept and now that they are looking to expand (finally) to cope with new problems, they don't really know what to look for. Proactive, forward looking engineers of the old school (me) are having a tough time convincing employers that proactive solutions, while cost intensive in the short term, more than make up the difference in the long term. Hence we are out of jobs while employers, who don't seem to know any better, are looking for people with lots of experience who will work for very little, have tons of responsibility and damn little authority. I keep looking and try to stay optimistic, but two years of rejections do take thier toll. Hopefully, things will change for the better in the near future.