These days I try to make a point of only working the fixed 40 hours unless something goes boom. Back when I did consulting as a BA you were often committed by a sales drone to deliver analysis and findings in a timeframe that wasn't consistent with a sustainable work/life balance (you'd estimate 80 hours work they'd say to the client you could deliver next week kind of thing).
I don't do that sort of work any more for a reason.
I've worked plenty of long hours setting up system s in data centres or away from home contracting gigs where working in the hotel room at night going through the days results was more interesting than the crap on tv.
I was actively discouraged to pursue senior maths and physics at high school in the late 80's by male teachers who thought I should either a) be doing typing or b) learning how to cook and sew. These would say this to my face. I was the top student in these classes.
I was the only girl in the maths/science stream in my year. Given the crap I had to take from the teachers, it's hardly surprising there weren't more of us.
While I get the concept, in practice the reason why agencies start their own in house teams is that if the FBI, the DHS and the IRS all placed a call at the same time to access the IART in their zone, you can be pretty sure the IRS wouldn't get the priority on the call out. If their target was a flight risk, they may be long gone by the time it's their turn to get the guys with the bang sticks.
I think that a privileged group (in this case athletes) will always be given more 'rights' and be seen to be above the law when compared to an under-privileged group. To quote Terry Pratchett - the origin of "privilege" is private-law.
I think you have misunderstood what I was trying to say. I don't think every woman is a delicate flower unable to withstand even the slightest breeze. I have worked in predominately male environments, first in construction and then IT for over 20 years and have stood my own ground any time I've needed to.
There is however a problem that most women face where the blokey culture can be excluding to women or derogatory and on rare occasions threatening. I've worked with people who thought that on face value that I would be incompetent based purely on the contents of my underwear even though I was generally the team leader of the relevant team based on experience and merit.
I've had colleagues about whom I've struggled with the decision on whether I should tell them their behaviour was offensive and whether telling them would make any difference. They were the type of guys who would make quite explicit comments about other female coworkers, clients or vendors in front of me and made me wonder what they said about me behind my back.
As a team leader I've had to talk to team members about bullying of a young coworker who was gay. I've mentored young female graduates who have had older coworkers make suggestive comments and persistently ask them out when they've said no. In most cases I've dealt with it within the team without involving HR - though these days they prefer to have everything on record just in case.
The point I made in my previous post was that we don't know exactly what she heard - or thought she heard. We weren't there. And that it is always difficult to judge at what point to say "No, Stop". Maybe she pulled the trigger early and Twitter probably wasn't the smartest move. As a result people will dismiss other complaints like hers in much the same way people joke about the woman who sued McDonalds for spilling coffee on herself without knowing the facts of the case.
There are serious issues in how women are treated in IT and other male dominated businesses. A lot of them are to do with male entitlement and are expressed in the form of sexual harassment. There is no clear litmus test that defines 'this is acceptable' but 'that is not acceptable' and the boundary can vary from person to person and how they are feeling on the day. This will probably always cause conflict, or at least for many years to come. Certainly most guys are working to improve how they behave around women in the workplace, but there are also plenty of neanderthals still out there and coming to the party fresh from college and university.
While women may not be charged with adultery after rape in the US (or other parts of the western world) like they are in predominately muslim countries, the way they are treated by law enforcement, the courts and the public in general isn't far removed.
The girl involved in the Steubenville rape case I mentioned in my previous post was threatened with death and physical harm on social media for the 'harm' she was doing to the local football team by pursuing charges. She didn't initiate the rape, she certainly didn't actively participate in carrying herself around unconscious and penetrating her on video and uploading it to youtube - but she was the one getting threats for derailing the lives of those fine upstanding you men.
I'm not trying to conflate off colour comments with rape - but they are all part of the same spectrum (opposite ends) which says men can impose their sexuality on women in whatever form they want at whatever time they want and if a woman complains she's at fault, humourless or contributed to provoking the men to act that way in the first place.
To be fair, we don't know if it was a once off event. It's possible the guy who was fired had previously been warned for similar behaviour. It's also possible that the whole thing has been blown hugely out of proportion. Ultimately we're relying on incomplete second hand accounts of what went on both during the initial event and during the aftermath.
Years ago I used to work with a guy who had a habit of putting a hand on your upper arm or shoulder to get your attention when he started talking to you. There was nothing sexual about it, he used it to capture your undivided attention and did the same to guys or girls.
On of the other guys at work complained that it could be seen as sexual harassment, so the first guy was made to go around and apologise to all the women at work in case he had made them feel uncomfortable. None of the women had even complained.
I once had to clean a computer that kept shutting off due to overheating. It was used to do the administration at a cattle ranch in central Victoria (semi-desert regions) in Australia. About 2 inches of bulldust had accumulated in the case.
She's doing this because she can. She didn't have to listen, didn't have to be offended by something that's utterly inoffensive to anyone with the thinnest of skins, and didn't have to go on a crusade that would obviously bring down a disproportional penalty to the guys.... Only desperate kids will want to work in a place where they have to police their thoughts and can't even make an innocuous joke to their friends once in a while.
We weren't there. We didn't hear what was said. We don't know how offensive it might have been.
Women live in a culture where the NORMAL response to reporting rape or sexual assault is to be asked what they did to provoke it (what were they wearing, were they drunk, did they lead him on, were they out by themselves after dark). If you follow the press coverage of the recent case in Ohio, most of the concern was about the damage being done to the lives of two promising football players and not the damage that have been done to the 15 year old girl who was pack raped over a number of locations by a number of guys and broadcast on social media.
The constant difficulty for women in predominately male environments is when do I speak up and say "you are making me feel uncomfortable with what you are saying/doing" without coming off as a jerk. Say it too early and you risk being called thin-skinned and are consequently ignored if you want to raise things later (crying wolf), say it later and you run the risk of everyone thinking you 'gave consent'.
They were all best selling novelists, predominately in the crime genre such as Sara Paretsky, Kathy Reichs, Richard Castle, Charlaine Harris, so not particularly obscure.
They are absolutely available through pirate channels, but I was trying to be supportive of the authors and obtain through legitimate channels first if possible.
The bit I couldn't get through to the support person was the english language versions were not available and Australia is an english speaking country. I think they've confused us with Austria maybe. They just kept giving me the line that if I want something new then put a note in the virtual suggestion box.
I understand that publisher licensing might be an issue but I'd be astonished to hear that someone had bothered to negotiate distribution rights for the German version of the latest Kathy Reichs book to Australia but not the English version.
Does Apple force upgrades on you? I don't believe it does but I don't own the device so I could be wrong.
My husband is still running iOS5 on both his iPhone and iPad because he hasn't gotten around to updating them. So no they don't 'force' you to update. However the updates are bundled and once you say yes you will get every interim update to the current version without the ability to pick and choose which updates you apply.
Personally I have no issue with keeping my phone 'jailed'. I have no urge to jailbreak it, there's nothing I want to do with it that requires jailbreaking and it is theoretically less vulnerable in it's unbroken form.
I may not represent the typical slashdot user in that respect. I'm quite happy to pay for apps I believe are worth it, I will generally seek out a cheap or free alternative first if one exists - but from the 'approved' channels.
No chance of a failed download, no accidentally grabbing the German version, no screwed up subtitles.
I spent part of the last week or so exchanging emails with Apple support trying to tell them that quite a few books on the Australian iBooks store were only available in German/Polish/Spanish/Italian and that I suspect it's in error. They keep sending me messages back saying if I want to request new titles I should use the Suggestion form in the iTunes application/website.:(
Slashdot Mirror
I'm always surprised the USA isn't full of hairdressers, middle managers and telephone sanitizers.
I thought it was.
These days I try to make a point of only working the fixed 40 hours unless something goes boom. Back when I did consulting as a BA you were often committed by a sales drone to deliver analysis and findings in a timeframe that wasn't consistent with a sustainable work/life balance (you'd estimate 80 hours work they'd say to the client you could deliver next week kind of thing).
I don't do that sort of work any more for a reason.
I've worked plenty of long hours setting up system s in data centres or away from home contracting gigs where working in the hotel room at night going through the days results was more interesting than the crap on tv.
Why are you assuming only guys work long hours?
you mean like this?
I was actively discouraged to pursue senior maths and physics at high school in the late 80's by male teachers who thought I should either a) be doing typing or b) learning how to cook and sew. These would say this to my face. I was the top student in these classes.
I was the only girl in the maths/science stream in my year. Given the crap I had to take from the teachers, it's hardly surprising there weren't more of us.
While I get the concept, in practice the reason why agencies start their own in house teams is that if the FBI, the DHS and the IRS all placed a call at the same time to access the IART in their zone, you can be pretty sure the IRS wouldn't get the priority on the call out. If their target was a flight risk, they may be long gone by the time it's their turn to get the guys with the bang sticks.
This is beginning to sound parroty
I think that a privileged group (in this case athletes) will always be given more 'rights' and be seen to be above the law when compared to an under-privileged group. To quote Terry Pratchett - the origin of "privilege" is private-law.
NO CARRIER but you sank my submarine?
Don't you mean:
Why geeks like computers: unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes,fsck,fsck,fsck,umount, sleep.
I think you have misunderstood what I was trying to say. I don't think every woman is a delicate flower unable to withstand even the slightest breeze. I have worked in predominately male environments, first in construction and then IT for over 20 years and have stood my own ground any time I've needed to.
There is however a problem that most women face where the blokey culture can be excluding to women or derogatory and on rare occasions threatening. I've worked with people who thought that on face value that I would be incompetent based purely on the contents of my underwear even though I was generally the team leader of the relevant team based on experience and merit.
I've had colleagues about whom I've struggled with the decision on whether I should tell them their behaviour was offensive and whether telling them would make any difference. They were the type of guys who would make quite explicit comments about other female coworkers, clients or vendors in front of me and made me wonder what they said about me behind my back.
As a team leader I've had to talk to team members about bullying of a young coworker who was gay. I've mentored young female graduates who have had older coworkers make suggestive comments and persistently ask them out when they've said no. In most cases I've dealt with it within the team without involving HR - though these days they prefer to have everything on record just in case.
The point I made in my previous post was that we don't know exactly what she heard - or thought she heard. We weren't there. And that it is always difficult to judge at what point to say "No, Stop". Maybe she pulled the trigger early and Twitter probably wasn't the smartest move. As a result people will dismiss other complaints like hers in much the same way people joke about the woman who sued McDonalds for spilling coffee on herself without knowing the facts of the case.
There are serious issues in how women are treated in IT and other male dominated businesses. A lot of them are to do with male entitlement and are expressed in the form of sexual harassment. There is no clear litmus test that defines 'this is acceptable' but 'that is not acceptable' and the boundary can vary from person to person and how they are feeling on the day. This will probably always cause conflict, or at least for many years to come. Certainly most guys are working to improve how they behave around women in the workplace, but there are also plenty of neanderthals still out there and coming to the party fresh from college and university.
While women may not be charged with adultery after rape in the US (or other parts of the western world) like they are in predominately muslim countries, the way they are treated by law enforcement, the courts and the public in general isn't far removed.
The girl involved in the Steubenville rape case I mentioned in my previous post was threatened with death and physical harm on social media for the 'harm' she was doing to the local football team by pursuing charges. She didn't initiate the rape, she certainly didn't actively participate in carrying herself around unconscious and penetrating her on video and uploading it to youtube - but she was the one getting threats for derailing the lives of those fine upstanding you men.
I'm not trying to conflate off colour comments with rape - but they are all part of the same spectrum (opposite ends) which says men can impose their sexuality on women in whatever form they want at whatever time they want and if a woman complains she's at fault, humourless or contributed to provoking the men to act that way in the first place.
To be fair, we don't know if it was a once off event. It's possible the guy who was fired had previously been warned for similar behaviour. It's also possible that the whole thing has been blown hugely out of proportion. Ultimately we're relying on incomplete second hand accounts of what went on both during the initial event and during the aftermath.
Years ago I used to work with a guy who had a habit of putting a hand on your upper arm or shoulder to get your attention when he started talking to you. There was nothing sexual about it, he used it to capture your undivided attention and did the same to guys or girls.
On of the other guys at work complained that it could be seen as sexual harassment, so the first guy was made to go around and apologise to all the women at work in case he had made them feel uncomfortable. None of the women had even complained.
Did Netcraft confirm it was dead?
I could go on, but I'm catching up on the Jericho TV series
Nuts!
It might not even have been dust. A small amount of oil from accidentally brushing a fingertip across the lens would be enough.
I'm constantly amazed that phone cameras don't suffer more than they do from a degraded image capture due to fingerprints.
I once had to clean a computer that kept shutting off due to overheating. It was used to do the administration at a cattle ranch in central Victoria (semi-desert regions) in Australia. About 2 inches of bulldust had accumulated in the case.
Wooooossssh
It should either have been 'worse' (less good) or 'wurst' (mmm.... wurst).
I believe that you sir have won teh interwebs.
She's doing this because she can. She didn't have to listen, didn't have to be offended by something that's utterly inoffensive to anyone with the thinnest of skins, and didn't have to go on a crusade that would obviously bring down a disproportional penalty to the guys. ... Only desperate kids will want to work in a place where they have to police their thoughts and can't even make an innocuous joke to their friends once in a while.
We weren't there. We didn't hear what was said. We don't know how offensive it might have been.
Women live in a culture where the NORMAL response to reporting rape or sexual assault is to be asked what they did to provoke it (what were they wearing, were they drunk, did they lead him on, were they out by themselves after dark). If you follow the press coverage of the recent case in Ohio, most of the concern was about the damage being done to the lives of two promising football players and not the damage that have been done to the 15 year old girl who was pack raped over a number of locations by a number of guys and broadcast on social media.
The constant difficulty for women in predominately male environments is when do I speak up and say "you are making me feel uncomfortable with what you are saying/doing" without coming off as a jerk. Say it too early and you risk being called thin-skinned and are consequently ignored if you want to raise things later (crying wolf), say it later and you run the risk of everyone thinking you 'gave consent'.
They were all best selling novelists, predominately in the crime genre such as Sara Paretsky, Kathy Reichs, Richard Castle, Charlaine Harris, so not particularly obscure.
They are absolutely available through pirate channels, but I was trying to be supportive of the authors and obtain through legitimate channels first if possible.
The bit I couldn't get through to the support person was the english language versions were not available and Australia is an english speaking country. I think they've confused us with Austria maybe. They just kept giving me the line that if I want something new then put a note in the virtual suggestion box.
I understand that publisher licensing might be an issue but I'd be astonished to hear that someone had bothered to negotiate distribution rights for the German version of the latest Kathy Reichs book to Australia but not the English version.
Does Apple force upgrades on you? I don't believe it does but I don't own the device so I could be wrong.
My husband is still running iOS5 on both his iPhone and iPad because he hasn't gotten around to updating them. So no they don't 'force' you to update. However the updates are bundled and once you say yes you will get every interim update to the current version without the ability to pick and choose which updates you apply.
Personally I have no issue with keeping my phone 'jailed'. I have no urge to jailbreak it, there's nothing I want to do with it that requires jailbreaking and it is theoretically less vulnerable in it's unbroken form.
I may not represent the typical slashdot user in that respect. I'm quite happy to pay for apps I believe are worth it, I will generally seek out a cheap or free alternative first if one exists - but from the 'approved' channels.
No chance of a failed download, no accidentally grabbing the German version, no screwed up subtitles.
I spent part of the last week or so exchanging emails with Apple support trying to tell them that quite a few books on the Australian iBooks store were only available in German/Polish/Spanish/Italian and that I suspect it's in error. They keep sending me messages back saying if I want to request new titles I should use the Suggestion form in the iTunes application/website. :(