I usually don't bother posting, nor subscribing to anything because that is/was my life phylosofy.
Before obviously stating I completely understood what your article is all about I have to congratulate you on a very well written article. You have put a lot of effort into this it seems. I wish I had your skill.
I used to be a coder to, I was young and "had this dream" of programming a game some day. But I had no credentials nor anything (I liked/like to play games to much:P)and after working my way up from support etc I made it as far as a coder for a commercial software company.
along that path I encountered quite some strange employment practices.
I didn't get involved in a social control my first employer finally went through because I resigned just before it started, but I had to finish my term so I did get to see how it evolved. My well paid collegues covered my bosses tracks (while getting a better paycheck, again) and they still do whatever it is they do untill today. My testimony represented nothing and my collegues hated me, I almost made them loose their jobs.
I worked for a government instance (that got privatised, woohoo) for a couple months as a techy. I got a couple calls in my mailbox evry day that got distributed by the lasiest drunk in the office. From the 15 (yeah 15) calls I would get I would solve 5-10 on the phone (thank god for our over-qualified help desk) in 15 minutes. I started my day at 8.30 and would usually finish it around 10, after solving the remaining calls. My collegues hated me and another even younger kid like me who were 'endangering their jobs' so I left, I was bored anyway.
I started as a helpdesk monkey after that, outsourced by my new company. It wasn't the original job I applied for but they didn't get the contract so they had to do 'something' with me. I foolishly accepted hoping for a better tomorrow (hey not all companies you work for are the same right?) i actually attended extra courses and made it very clear I wanted something else. Unfortunatly, I was so good my manager wanted to KEEP me while all the good jobs became available to other managers of that company. Meeting a new kid who a. had a better paycheck then me while I was convinced EVRYONE started at the same paycheck while b. he was doing the job I wanted while c. having no experience that all, I told myself again : it's time to go.
And go I did... on top of that, changing jobs like this and working for more and more 'respectable' companies, my resume started to look 'interesting'.
Being married with the intention to build a house, I wanted a stable well paid nine to five job like I heard about in fairytales, for my own and to please my wife.
So the next step came very unexpected : I applied for a prestigeous job as a programmer, and I even got selected.
Being young and having no coding credentials I was a sitting duck for my project manager. Not only that, but I ended up in a team of people just like me, who had no credentials what so ever and wanted to proove themselves. We worked close to minimum wage but did get a car to drag ourselves through endless traffic jams to get to work. After six months we would get our first evaluation and after that we would get an evaluation evry year that would allow us to get a better paycheck. We were all very happy monkies.
I admire the cruel genius of our project manager. In a time the company was doing it's worst HIS team of loosers got the most praise. Not amazing, we worked twice as hard at one third the pay generating good revenus.
And what kept us going was the team itself. We didn't stab each other in the back, we did no job protection and communicated vocally and resolved issues internally. Evry managers dream, an autonomous self managing team ( we hardly ever saw mister project manager, besides the one time upper management made a remark he didn't work over with 'his team' and he kept us company on a 'build-day', making himself usefull (and Oo so popular) buy bringing us some pizza (while whining about how c
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I usually don't bother posting, nor subscribing to anything because that is/was my life phylosofy. :P)and after working my way up from support etc I made it as far as a coder for a commercial software company.
Before obviously stating I completely understood what your article is all about I have to congratulate you on a very well written article. You have put a lot of effort into this it seems. I wish I had your skill.
I used to be a coder to, I was young and "had this dream" of programming a game some day. But I had no credentials nor anything (I liked/like to play games to much
along that path I encountered quite some strange employment practices.
I didn't get involved in a social control my first employer finally went through because I resigned just before it started, but I had to finish my term so I did get to see how it evolved. My well paid collegues covered my bosses tracks (while getting a better paycheck, again) and they still do whatever it is they do untill today. My testimony represented nothing and my collegues hated me, I almost made them loose their jobs.
I worked for a government instance (that got privatised, woohoo) for a couple months as a techy. I got a couple calls in my mailbox evry day that got distributed by the lasiest drunk in the office. From the 15 (yeah 15) calls I would get I would solve 5-10 on the phone (thank god for our over-qualified help desk) in 15 minutes. I started my day at 8.30 and would usually finish it around 10, after solving the remaining calls. My collegues hated me and another even younger kid like me who were 'endangering their jobs' so I left, I was bored anyway.
I started as a helpdesk monkey after that, outsourced by my new company. It wasn't the original job I applied for but they didn't get the contract so they had to do 'something' with me. I foolishly accepted hoping for a better tomorrow (hey not all companies you work for are the same right?) i actually attended extra courses and made it very clear I wanted something else. Unfortunatly, I was so good my manager wanted to KEEP me while all the good jobs became available to other managers of that company. Meeting a new kid who a. had a better paycheck then me while I was convinced EVRYONE started at the same paycheck while b. he was doing the job I wanted while c. having no experience that all, I told myself again : it's time to go. And go I did... on top of that, changing jobs like this and working for more and more 'respectable' companies, my resume started to look 'interesting'. Being married with the intention to build a house, I wanted a stable well paid nine to five job like I heard about in fairytales, for my own and to please my wife. So the next step came very unexpected : I applied for a prestigeous job as a programmer, and I even got selected. Being young and having no coding credentials I was a sitting duck for my project manager. Not only that, but I ended up in a team of people just like me, who had no credentials what so ever and wanted to proove themselves. We worked close to minimum wage but did get a car to drag ourselves through endless traffic jams to get to work. After six months we would get our first evaluation and after that we would get an evaluation evry year that would allow us to get a better paycheck. We were all very happy monkies. I admire the cruel genius of our project manager. In a time the company was doing it's worst HIS team of loosers got the most praise. Not amazing, we worked twice as hard at one third the pay generating good revenus. And what kept us going was the team itself. We didn't stab each other in the back, we did no job protection and communicated vocally and resolved issues internally. Evry managers dream, an autonomous self managing team ( we hardly ever saw mister project manager, besides the one time upper management made a remark he didn't work over with 'his team' and he kept us company on a 'build-day', making himself usefull (and Oo so popular) buy bringing us some pizza (while whining about how c