Aristotle, Dilbert And The Working Life 310
Decisions about work may be the biggest ones many of us ever make, And though career decisions are perhaps the biggest ones we face, we often make them unthinkingly, ignoring or perhaps unaware of the enormous consequences for our happiness, our peace of mind, the meaningfulness of our lives.
Our paradoxical culture -- particularly the tech part -- both celebrates work and continually strives to eliminate it. While this employers value efficiency above all other work traits, workers seek creativity -- interesting jobs that are lucrative and satisfying, that offer fulfullment and identify.
So Joanne B. Ciulla's very fine book The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work, tackles a timely and nearly universal conundrum: Ciulla argues that many people have moved beyond a simple work ethic to let work engulf them and deprive them of a lot of the good things in life. It's dangerous, she says, that so many contemporary workers depend on their jobs as the primary wellsprings of individual self-esteem, when all the job asks of them is more work with less security.
This profound emphasis on work, says Ciulla, who has taught at Harvard and Oxford and is now an ethicist at the University of Richmond, is dangerous.
Companies have no qualms laying off, downsizing or exploiting thousands of workers but, contrary to popular belief, have not generally cut their management ranks. While companies savagely root out low and mid-level workers in order to stay lean and mean, executive salaries have shot through the roof. Ciulla cites research showing that U.S. managerial staffs have grown without interruption despite the loss of employment for millions of workers. What drives many workers to be more productive, Ciulla argues, isn't loyalty, a fierce work ethos or new tools of the booming hi-tech economy, but fear. They know they are vulnerable.
Commitment, loyalty and trust as bonds between employers and employees have nearly vanished. General cynicism about work permeates culture -- that's why "Dilbert" appears in 1,700 newspapers in 51 countries. The strip makes its way onto bulletin boards and refrigerator doors around the country; it's the voice and spirit of contemporary tech and office workers.
The reality is less amusing. Many workers feel exploited by their employers, writes Ciulla -- overworked, subject to dismissal or reductions, forced to work for idiots who are overpaid and perform too little. They face fundamental new issues about work and life. If the old social contracts of corporate America have been obliterated by the competitive demands of the new economy, where does that leave workers like Ciulla's character, identified only as Mary, whose company forces her to choose between putting in more time at work with no guarantee of reward, or working nine-to-five and having time to spend on things like her children and her church. "To do the latter may mean risking her job. More and more people find themselves in this bind," says Ciulla. And Mary's lucky she's not working for a Net start-up. "Such choices require reflection on what is important and how one wants to live his or her life."
In the tech world, as in others, these choices prove particularly tricky. Industries offer lots of jobs, many high-paying, so people tend to plunge into high-intensity employment before they even have a chance to consider life's other dimensions or the alternatives they might want to explore. Once employed, workers are tethered as never before to brutally competitive work environments and all sorts of techno-devices which keep them bound to their desks or jobs much of the time. Ciulla says many will come to regret not having considered their work choices more deliberately or seriously.
But they may not have had much time. Technology links people to their jobs more than was possible before. People are expected to remain constantly available via e-mail, cellphone and wireless gadgetry. The lines between work and "other things" people like Mary want to do grows blurrier over time, which means the consequences of choosing work poorly get bigger.
The Working Life looks at workplace innovations like flex time programs, which Ciulla calls the most radical management innovations of the century. Most management initiatives have been geared towards helping people fit their lives into work. Flextime promises some opportunity to shape work around one's life, if that's what workers want to do -- some opportunity.
The machines that Aristotle fantasized about have become the commonplace tools of everyday life in industrial society, Ciulla points out. Among other changes, technology means that work no longer involves being at a particular place at a regular time. Theoretically, we can be where we choose, although few companies trust their workers to do that.
Companies have betrayed their workers by making efficiency their paramount concerns. Workers can alter that reality by getting pickier about the the work they do and valuing non-work related activities more highly. We can, if we wish, choose to consume less and be less dependent on salaries. We can choose work that gives us mobility and independence. We can pursue other interests as intensely as we pursue job success.
Ciulla points out that this involves asking fundamental questions:
Do we know what kind of life we want? Are we willing to give up something for it? Is the life we have now worth what we are sacrificing for it?
Meaningful work is rare, says Ciulla, but it's there for people who really want to find it. A work-dominated life is perfectly acceptable, she says, if it satisfies the worker. But if it doesn't, "Then we should start thinking of how to fit work into our lives instead of fitting our lives into our work."
Then find a better small town. (Score:2)
However, it doesn't have the downsides you mention. The neighbors don't give a sh*t if I go to church (I don't think they do either). Heavy metal? There're often heavy metal bands playing in the town square; I haven't heard a single complaint. I've talked to exactly one bible thumper since I first moved here, and even she wasn't that persistent at all.
Oh, and CSU Chico spent some time holding the "#1 Party School in America" title (as awarded by Playboy). Walk around a few blocks on any Friday night and you'll run into a party. Unless you and whoever's running it are already on bad terms, you (even as a stranger) are welcome to walk right in and make yourself at home. Come by on Halloween and you'll find the streets full... I won't even get started on what happens 'round here on St. Patty's Day or Labor Day.
So stop complaining and find yourself a better small town. Trust me, they don't all suck.
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:2)
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:2)
Let me assure you: in very static businesses, like insurance and the phone company (which is what Dilbert is based on), this kind of idiocy is ROUTINE. It is the NORMAL way of doing things. It's exaggerated a bit for effect, but Dilbert is based on truth. No individual company could have ALL the things wrong with it that Dilbert's does and survive -- but almost any individual company could have one or two of them and still make it.
Static companies don't attract much talent, and incompetent people hire incompetent subordinates, and as the incompetence is gradually promoted within an organization, eventually most of the organization becomes incompetent. This is a first-order extension of the Peter Principle, which you should go look up if you haven't heard of it.
The fact that you can disbelieve Dilbert means that you have been very lucky indeed in your working life, and I hope you continue to have that kind of success.
Re:Quit Complaining (Score:2)
Your management situation sounds fairly dismal, but your skills leave you with a ton of employment options. You're probably making enough cash to pay for your own training in whatever you desire, even if it's unfair that your manager sucks up whatever opportunities the company is willing to offer.
I'll never say that Scott Adams doesn't hit the nail on the head, tho'. He does! I just feel that I'm well enough rewarded that I can take those situations in stride.
Maybe you can set your boss up to embarrass the company for using pirated software and get his ass demoted. If it's really a government job, tho', good luck. The chairs in those jobs are covered with Crazy Glue!
Good luck, cheers and all that.
-k
Re:Damn right. (Score:2)
But that is the news.. (Score:2)
P.P.S. Marx was an awful writer (Score:2)
who said a lot of important things but few of them well. Ciulla isn't making a political argument, but a personal one. Not a fair comparison, I don't think. she's not calling for an end to the system, just for considering how to live well within it. And I think you're way overromanticing Marx..
I dunno (Score:2)
Don't believe any of that crap. Believe the #s. (Score:2)
That doesn't sound like unhappiness to me. And I know *I'm* happy.
Why the techno-leisure life is a myth (Score:2)
Re:Symbolic hours (Score:2)
Worked with a guy once in a shop with a few talented folks and a bunch of clueless incompetents (mostly former IBM big-iron programmers transplanted into a unix shop). My friend referred to the incompetents as "strap-ons". He'd say "Yeah, you get to work in the morning, strap on a couple, carry them all day, take 'em off before you go home."
--Jim
Re:Symbolic hours (Score:2)
- Got in at 10/10:30
- My boss gets in at 11/11:30
- We go to lunch at 12:00
- We come back at work at 15:00
- Everyone leaves at 17:00
- We leave at around 20:30/21:00, having done the work of 1.5 days.
That good life ended up when my boss grew tired of supporting 14 people in the company with his and my work... He just slammed the door one day. You should have seen the other turkeys running around like freshly beheaded chickens...He fixes everybody else's problems that have been accumulating in the morning...
Then we go around in technical bookstores and libraries
My boss then fixes everybody else's problems that have been accumulating in the afternoon...
We start to REALLYwork.
--
Americans are bred for stupidity.
Re:Tax structure and consumerism promote overwork (Score:2)
PERIOD.
--
Americans are bred for stupidity.
Re:The Peter Principle? (Score:2)
--
Americans are bred for stupidity.
American Culture == Puritans (Score:2)
Tax structure and consumerism promote overwork (Score:2)
Second, people constantly want to buy more stuff, whether it is due to greed or consumer brainwashing. Our basic house and car is 50% larger than a generation ago. There are a zillion more techno-gizmo "necessities".
Re:Tax structure and consumerism promote overwork (Score:2)
The European Union tries this, particularly France. Because many companies try to get around this, there is a "work police" that fines companies that make people work too long. Even if it is voluntary.
I have a great job! :) (Score:2)
I'd say if you have a shitty job and your a geek then look for a new job and switch. Keep switching til you find a job you like. If a company can't keep workers they'll either eventually get the message or go out of business. Remember Real Genius -- When you're smart people need you.
Re:The Dilbert Principle (Score:2)
Hardly. The majority of the "right wingers" I know (including myself) think Dilbert is hilarious. Before you get off on a tangent, no, we're not amused at the pain of The Workers of The World. Dilbert is just plain funny, mostly because the situations in the comic are so freakin' unreal that it's impossible to imagine yourself putting up with them... but Dilbert, Alice and Wally do, day after day, and that ol' congnitive dissonance kicks in and you laught yourself silly because when all is said and done, no matter how bad things are, hell! - at least you're not one of those loosers!
Re:Don't be silly. (Score:2)
Too late.
Re:Working longer due to technology ??! (Score:2)
The problem is it is often very hard for a large organization to realize what is and is not 'non-productive' work. Sure, its easy to say after the fact that when a 80-man month project gets scraped it was a huge waste. But conditions change with time and a project that made sense when started might be counterproductive by the time it is completed.
What is easy to identify as waste work is the huge amount of time people spend in meetings and sending/answering emails. I want to see a company where the CEO decrees only 10% of your time max can be spent in meetings and you are limited to 20 internal emails a day (with a 5 person CC: max). That company's productivity would explode.
-josh
Re:Nothing here that wasn't said better by Karl Ma (Score:2)
Space exploration has made SIGNIFICANT impact on all our lives. The list of spinoffs from "the space race" is huge and includes:
CAT scanners
MRI Machines
Dialysis machines
Cordless power tools
Water purification systems
Freeze dried foods
Infrared Cameras
Weather forecasts
Low cost long distance (Comm Sats)
GPS
Check out the Nasa Spinoff Database at http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinselect.html
Re:So it's a choice we make... (Score:2)
Which is why I mentioned that there is a disparity in job to job comparisons, but when you look across all employed people there is a much, much greater disparity. I am theorizing that the reason for the overall disparity is life choices.
As for job to job disparity, I do find that fairly offensive. I am firm believer in equal pay for _equal_work_. Remember though, it's quality that counts, not quantity.
Maybe that's the biggest overall problem in the workaholic rat race - people confusing quantity with quality...
Chris
Flextime & Social Status (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to brag. I have friends at other companies that I have worked for who work long hours under draconian bosses. Four ex-coworkers regularly put in 80+ hour weeks and have an Dick for a boss. They don't get overtime or comp time, they only get paid salary, and they RARELY get to sit and eat lunch without being disturbed. They also are on pagers and cell phones 24/7/365.
Funny thing is, I find that many people choose the jobs they have as a result of the percieved "social status" that surrounds their job or who they work for. Examples: In many of the places I have worked programmers are considered to be lower in status than a sysadmin or you're better if you work for a hot, internet startup than if you work in an established company. My ex-coworkers are very status conscious and have bragged many times that they are the best LAN team in a major telecommunications company (Worldcom).
We met up the other day and got to talking about work. They have made it clear that they look down on what I do (AIX/Linux/Windows Administrator, Network Engineer, Jack-of-All-Trades) because of who I do it for (Lockheed Martin) and that I work in support of the military. They started comparing salaries and laughed when I revealed that my salary is about $10K less that theirs.
I had the last laugh though; I simply asked the question of how much they make per hour. One of them did some quick figuring and discovered that they made (on average) about $17.00/hour versus the $30+/hour that I make because my employer doesn't work me 80+ hours per week.
Re:So it's a choice we make... (Score:2)
Who's This "Aristotle"? (Score:2)
/.
Re:The Betrayal of Society and the older Generatio (Score:2)
My father was the same story: he worked for the Santa Fe rail road for most of his working life, and retired not all that long ago during a resizing/early retirement package offer when the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific were in merger talks.
But before my father retired, he worked about a dozen other jobs bouncing from one career to another right out of college. My understanding is that this was typical of my father and his friends: most of them didn't hold a stable job for years after college, and finally found a company to make their career at after bouncing around several other jobs.
Re:So it's a choice we make... (Score:2)
I want to speak up on behalf of the book, not because I disagree with you, but because I concur. You're quite correct that it is a choice, but I still meet many people in the working world who don't seem to understand that, especially young people, especially men.
You comment that men seem more likely to choose "pay over lifestyle", and that fits my observation. But it seems to me that that itself is a product of our culture's sexism. Boys are raised to interalize values of material success, to see themselves as men only in so far as they make much money and wield power. That's vile! That's terribly inhumane: the value of no person is solely in their ability to make money or get promoted. That we still do this to our sons is evidence that there's still lots of work on eradicating sexism yet to do.
It's a good thing for young people, especially young men to question their values -- the ones they may not even realize they received and internalized as children.
There's nothing wrong with deciding that you want to commit yourself wholly to a project, a job, a company that you believe in -- if, in fact, you are making a decision. But there's everything wrong with employers using a young man's (or woman's) insecurity in his adulthood to manipulate him and to exploit him. The question is: are you working 60hr weeks because {you love what you're doing | you're meeting your personal financial goals | you believe in the worth of the project}... or are you doing it because you feel like you're not really a grownup if you don't, because you have a need to "prove something" and you don't even know to whom, because you have a subconscious contempt for anyone who doesn't try to win the rat race?
Young people hate asking that question of themselves, because merely humoring the question of whether or not one has been manipulated is so distasteful.
Anything which encourages young people entering the workforce to think about these issues is a good thing.
Re:Random probability is not foolishness prone (Score:2)
I knew a guy with serious mental problems, who graduated with a 4.0 degree.
A 4.0 degree doesn't mean you're smarter. It means you know how to study.
And a BANK? Good lord! A bank is the EASIEST thing in the world to run in the US.
Later
Erik Z
Re:Solution to loved ones/co-workers problem (Score:2)
Re:So it's a choice we make... (Score:2)
Why is that worrying, and why does it have to be "social" conditioning? Genetically, men are more predisposed to be hunters and providers, and women are more predisposed to be nurturers and caretakers. (Yes, these are generalizations. Yes, there are many exceptions.) The point is that you can't just disregard the effects of millions of years of evolution.
Re:Union! (Score:2)
Nobel Prize in Economics this year concerns this (Score:2)
Re:The Dilbert Principle (Score:2)
Talent, experience, a tight labor market, a location with a higher cost of living. Pick one or more and explain it yourself.
Re:So it's a choice we make... (Score:2)
Most of my male friends faced with the same options look at the higher pay and jump on it.
The thing to keep in mind when people point out gender disparity is not that it is the disparity itself which is wrong; i.e. women don't just get paid less (although they often do), but also largly choose to be paid less for other reasons; but that it is the disparity which is a symptom of what is wrong.
If the claim is that men and women should in all respects be treated equally, something which may or may not be a realistic goal, then there should not only be no disparity in pay, but also no disparity in the choices made by 50% of the population. It is equally worrying to consider that women have been socially conditioned to think of the quality of their and their (possible) family's life as opposed to the level of pay that they get [which undoubtably also affects quality of life], as it is to consider that men are conditioned to neglect anything and everything in return for greater pay.
-Daniel
But It Seems To Be True... (Score:2)
Technology has allowed people to do far more work than their predicessors with far more accuracy. Unfortunately, this comes at a price.
Take McDonald's for instance. They came up with methods for putting out more hamburgers in minutes. What was the result of this? Did the workers at McDonald's suddenly have more free time because they were making more buggers faster and easier? Not really...it drew in more customers who wanted more fast burgers. This caused the owners to push the managers to keep up with the pace of sales which caused the manager to push the workers. It also slightly devauled the the worker. With new methods came a reduction in the skill set needed. Instead of requiring someone who half way knew something about cooking, you just need someone who can mechanically watch timers and move stuff around at the right time. You can't convince me that the average worker at McDonald is working in a stupid fashion any more than their predicessors.
The same thing happens in the high tech sector's of our economy. Someone comes up with a nifty way to increase productivity, the customers will want more, which in turn push the manager to drive the workers just as hard if not harder.
You are the system (Score:2)
Any complaints about where you are and what you are doing should be left at the door. Corporations are run by people, like you. At the least, if you are in a company, you are part of the system. You are "they" and you have some control. Really, you do. If you don't like that, or you think the system sucks, leave and start something yourself. Every day, every minute, you can make that decision.
Otherwise, welcome to the Borg. (Would you like Microsoft fries with that?)
- John
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com [webword.com] -- Industrial Strength Usability
Re:The Dilbert Principle (Score:2)
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:2)
Paperwork gets done because of middlemanagement. Real work gets done in spite of it.
Re:Quit Complaining (Score:2)
Damn right. I've decided to move transatlantic and so handed in my notice (on a friendly basis). My company has offered to make me a telecommuter, paying for my equipment and matching competetive local salaries (being higher in the USA than UK). I agreed. If you're worth recognition and you're not getting it them move jobs!
Rich
Re:I Am Compelled To Say Something Nice About MS (Score:2)
Wow, I think I want to go and sign up now. I can hardly resist the possibilty of having an excuse to land BG a good right hook to the nose :)
Rich
Re:Actually Russians didn't have communism (Score:2)
Sort of. It's actually "state capitalism", which is an economy that operates like market capitalism, except that the state is the only corporation.
The SU retained many capitalist artifacts like the separation of the producers from control of the means of production, insatiable capital accumulation, erection of artificial barriers to entry into any market, exploitation of monopolistic power, the corporation/state deciding what's best for you based solely on what's best for them, etc.
Remember, Stalin was originally a bureaucrat, not a general.
Re:Symbolic hours - In Praise of Idleness (Score:2)
Bertrand Russel wrote a great esay on the topic called In Praise of Idleness [geocities.com] (you can get rid of that stupid GeoCities javascript by getting to it via fly.to/russell). [fly.to]
The Peter Principle? (Score:2)
Not really, in my experience. For the last year I've been working at a large blue company. Over the course of this time I was informally introduced by a co-worker to the Peter Principle, which is apparently a management model (or a model of management, depending on your flavor of cynicism).
I think the basic idea is this: in an organization, people tend to be promoted when they do their job well enough for a long enough period of time. Eventually, this will lead to some sort of managerial position. People will be promoted until they are no longer fit to be promoted by whatever standards are applicable. The problem lies therein: people are promoted until they are no longer fit to be promoted. This means that the positions that people achieve (and stagnate in) are those positions which they are simply not quite competent to hold.
This leads to a gradual accumulation of incompetent mid-level management, which (being to some degree incompentent) promotes more of the same. If your organization has some luck, the incompetency will level off at some point below the lead executive level, but that still means that there's a line of stupidity that must be crossed before anything of any real importance gets done.
You end up with a whole class of management that is interested solely in maintaining their position and appearing to make numbers appear to be in their favor... but not too much, because then additional responsibility comes along and the fact that they just don't know what they're doing is obvious to higher-level management, not just the people below them. In a worse scenario, upper management will knowingly keep these mid-level incompetents because they're not threatening.
It's a vicious cycle, and I'm not enjoying it terribly much.
Re:Union! (Score:2)
Try explaining to your average Slashie sysadmins that they're a modern eqivalent of railroad brakemen or cotton gin operators, and should be organized accordingly. See what reaction you get.
We in the IT field, no matter where in the IT field you are, are in a very sticky spot. We are not exactly "white collar workers" because we get on our hands and knees, from time to time, and do hardware/cabling work. We're not exactly "blue collar workers" either because we code, create databases, solve application/user problems (PEBKAC, generally), and other varying intellectual aspects of the career we have chosen.
Where does this leave us? Somewhere in the middle. Will unions help? Yes and no. Yes because it will provide us with a united front, a basis on which we can say "Okay, this is where I am, I have X certifications, Y experience and Z outside knowledge." No because there are people out there that feel we are paid too much for not enough *enter variable here*, and most of all... People fear what they do not understand.
We are the people who know more than they do about things that are becoming more prevalant in their lives. The average person does not understand what we have come to learn through trial and error, through long nights of sheer curiousity and through months of dealing with the collective idiots of the world (for those of us who have ever been unlucky enough to pull tech support).
We are not artists. We are not intellectuals. We are not grease monkeys. What we are is a combination of the above, with a bit of curiousity, hunger and determination thrown in.
--Lise
We are the people our parents are terrified of... Until they want on call tech support.
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:2)
Typical duff decisions, and I assure you these are all true:-
1) To start with, in spite of the fact that we all had PCs, all had WordPerfect (the company standard word-processor) and were mostly pretty fast on the keys, all specs had to be written in draft form and then given to the typists to retype into a template.
2) Eventually this stopped, and we were allowed to use WordPerfect for generating documents. However, storage (and retrieval and reprinting) of documents was paper hardcopies in filing cabinets, plus microfiches for archiving.
3) At some point, the notion of electronic storage hit management. But instead of keeping the electronic version of the document (at maybe 50-100K), they decided to print the document and then scan it in at 50dpi, single-bit! Text was just about readable, but diagrams were hosed, and the documents took up many times the space the would have done otherwise. Incidentally, they didn't (AFAIK) zip them up to reduce storage space either.
4) We stayed with WordPerfect. Of course we kept the DOS character-based version and didn't move to the WYSIWYG version, so all new hires cursed it and we couldn't read a lot of customers' documents. Eventually the global decision was taken to change to Word 6, so we did, breathed a sigh of relief, and then found that no-one had thought to upgrade the document templates, so we couldn't write specs in Word 6 for the next couple of months.
5) We used the Transputer as a platform for our work - a worthy chip in its time, but sadly past it even by when I started. No work was done on finding a new platform until Inmos decided they'd finally close down Transputer production, at which point all hell broke loose, and we had to order a mass shipment of Transputers to cover all jobs for the next 2 years. Incidentally, that also means that any old project is unmaintainable - BTW these are running the national grids in several countries (including the UK).
6) The classic, I'll save until last. After surviving a round of job cuts (25% of the ppl there), I decided to jump ship. In the meantime, the organisation had floated, and the company newsletters were talking about new management styles and improving employee relations, but none of us thought it'd happen. Anyway, the day I was leaving, I looked for my managers, to say goodbye and tidy up some loose ends. It turns out all the managers in the company were being sent on a course, and none of them had told the ppl working for them - they just didn't turn up that day! The kicker - the course was about improving communications in the company....
Is this ancient history? I'm afraid not. This all happened between 1994 and 1999.
Incidentally, if you are still there (you know who you are!
Grab.
Re:The Dilbert Principle (Score:2)
Interviewers have asked me: "What do you consider the ideal job?".
I have always wanted to answer: "The one where I do nothing and get payed the entire Gross Domestic Product.". (or Gross International Product, if such a metric exists).
Re:Working longer due to technology ??! (Score:2)
The other thing I find fucked up about many people is that they, in one way or another, live in utter terror of whatever society or community they belong to. There are less and less people willing to stand up for themselves or speak their mind. So many people are afraid of what will happen if they don't toe the line. Ugh. I can't live that way. I need the freedom to live my life as I choose.
That's why NT rules and Linux Sucks.
Re:Random probability is not foolishness prone (Score:2)
I believe what the poster was saying was not that a 4.0 GPA necesarilly was the only qualification one needed to be hired, but rather that this institution had a specific rule against hiring anyone who had achieved such success. While I may not hire you because you have a 4.0 GPA, I certainly would not let your 4.0 GPA stop me from hiring you. As to your comment on banks.... I don't think he was talking about a teller or even branch manager type position here. Certainly those do not require great skill or smarts (Well, branch manager might, I really don't know what their responsibilities are). I think he was refering to high skill jobs like broker (You do realise that banks invest your money rather heavilly right? Where do you think that your interest comes from? They make loans and invest in other areas.), or perhaps a tech position (would you really want an idiot running Bank One's national computer network if you kept your money there?)
Re:Random probability is not foolishness prone (Score:2)
Work to live or live to work? (Score:2)
Since then, I've tried to keep the above saying in mind. I think it helps to think clearly about what you're doing - do you exist on this planet just to do your job, or is your job just a way to support your lifestyle, and allow you to enjoy other things?
Of course, there are grey areas, and it's nice to enjoy what you get paid to do, but I think it boils down to this. Life is short, and my time is limited. When you sell your time to someone else for money, you are selling a part of your life. So my point of view is, don't sell any more of it than you have to. There are lots more interesting things that you can do with it.
Although, if someone is willing to pay you to do something you truly enjoy, then the joke is on them.. ^_^
Re:Working longer due to technology ??! (Score:2)
I love it. Man, you made my day. I know people who have their entire lives planned out - from the schools they attend to their job to their vacations, clothes, car, you name it. I have to ask - is that really living?
The other thing I find fucked up about many people is that they, in one way or another, live in utter terror of whatever society or community they belong to. There are less and less people willing to stand up for themselves or speak their mind. So many people are afraid of what will happen if they don't toe the line. Ugh. I can't live that way. I need the freedom to live my life as I choose.
My only worry is - what if the percentage of people who think for themselves becomes so small, that there becomes virtually no escape from the prying eyes of the government, of society in general, for those who can? Say it gets to the point where you can't shop in certain stores because you didn't go to the right school or something equally as egregious. If our society is headed toward being a borg-like collective, I'm heading for the hills.
I watch the sea.
I saw it on TV.
Re:He was not!!!! (Score:2)
Re:The Betrayal of Society and the older Generatio (Score:2)
The point is: some corporations used to take care of their workers and that has stopped. Stock options replace salary. Telecommuting replaces vacation time. All of this is a change away from the simpler 40 hour weeks.
When I signed on with my company, the contract said 40 hours a week minimum. The company may call on you to do more than this. Now, I work an average of 52 hours a week. Hideous, but true. This was not the case for my father, nor his father. Funny how that works.
Have we evolved? Is it a good evolution?
Re:The Betrayal of Society and the older Generatio (Score:2)
Having spoken with my uncle about this, they didn't force him to get married, tell him where to put his kids in school, when to do this, when to do that...None of that was there.
Exploiting the workers is not a new trend. Corporations only "take care" of their employees when times are good.
Corporations have the responsibility to keep their employees healthy. They provide the services that the corporations need in order to continue making money. Yes, that means a lower bottom line, but it means happy people and that's a good thing for the company.
and I escaped the destiny of becoming a corporate slave. Being forced to switch jobs, and to upgrade our skills is price we pay for escaping the fate corporations would otherwise choose for us. I still wouldn't go back. I am not a corporate slave. I am not some mindless cog in a large machine. How can you assume that if you're not a consultant you're a corporate peon? Have you learned nothing from the dot-com revolution? Consulting may provide the ability to change careers nearly seamlessly and a continuing education, but what downfall is there? That you'll be cut loose at the drop of a hat (possible as a consultant) that your product may be worthless (definite possibilty) and that you may be put out of work by someone who's hired permanently. There's even less security in consulting, and security is something, as a society we value.
Damn right. (Score:2)
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:2)
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:2)
Sounds like you found your own solution. "push" yourself into a better position. Go buy some books, get an MCSE or just a MCP, submit resumes, perfeably at a LARGER company that has more of an upward track and stop bitching about it. The only reason your in this position is 'cause you won't leave it.
Re:Come to Milwaukee der hey (Score:2)
Re:Nothing here that wasn't said better by Karl Ma (Score:2)
He was not!!!! (Score:2)
I'm not expecting any reply from Jon, but in case anyone's tempted to believe him in this calumny, here's a favourite passage from Marx:
Awful writer? Like hell.When you might want to think of a new job... (Score:2)
We are pleased to announce that we have currently hired a new Human Resources director that will help us create new productivity and higher profits. Lets all welcome Mr. Catbert.
Dilbert's kin (Score:2)
Which planet is this? (Score:2)
Work longer hours for less
apparently Katz hasn't noticed the skyrocketing salaries of the past few years. Longer hours? Yes, someone can choose to work at a job where you work longer hours. On the other hand, I have plenty of friends who work 8:30-5 (with hour lunch) and never think about their job during off-hours.
And please explain to me why your company owes you one shred of "security". They are not your parents. If you are looking at anyone but yourself for your security, be it government or company, you are a fool. Unfortunately, people have been brainwashed since the new deal to think everybody owes them something.
--
Re:Quit Complaining (Score:2)
I currently work for a government agency. For a few weeks in a row I can go without having more than an hour's work a day, then bang, I go a week where I'd need to put in 20 hours a day to keep up. In a perferct world, I'd have 8.5hrs of work to do a day, but I can handle having a few rough days and a few lax days. But literally 3 weeks of sitting on my ass doing nothing? Do you have any idea how long these days are?
Now I do admit that techies are fairly well paid. However, in the few jobs I've had, I can't just go to work for my ~8 hours a day and expect to be able to get any new job that pops up. I have to try and keep up with technology on my own time. Sure work helps with some things that we specifically use, but not with things coming up in the future, yet I'm supposed to have working knowledge of them when they show up on my desk and need to be installed ASAP.
Then there's the stress. In the last 1.5 years, I've taken about 6 days of for stress. I've snapped at people at work who had done nothing wrong to me because others don't do their work, and thus screw up the work I have to do. I complain about it and nothing gets done!
And you know the biggest problem I have with my job? My boss. I like most of my coworkers, but we got one of those techies that was promoted to management. Whoever hired him as a techie in the first place should be shot. He thinks he knows what he's doing, but doesn't. Then he forces me to install software that doesn't meet our needs, and when our clients complain, he just picks something else out of the air, even when I've done up pro's and con's for various packages. Instead of using his training budget to send himself on Managerial courses, he takes tech classes. We were offered a seat in a tech class for a product I support every day, but have had absolutely no training on. He takes the seat. He asks me to install warez'd software in a production environment. I confront him, he apologizes, and then we go back to the same thing.
Okay, the last bit was a rant, but let's face it, Scott Adams does hit the nail right on the head, and just because we get paid a bit more, doesn't mean we give up the right to a decent work environment!
Re:One part obvious crap, ten-thousand parts blah. (Score:2)
Typically, I read Katz articles because I keep thinking eventually, sometime, somehow, he will accidently let slip a little bit of an original thought. But all I've ever seen from him is the same thing, over, and over, and over, and over. The guy just doesn't seem capable of original thought.
If his writing were interesting, or original, or inspiring, I could understand how he keeps his job. But as it is, I just find it extremely interesting how someone so full of hot air (with absolutely no thought process other than 'regurgitate') can keep a 'creative' job.
As for the whining, fuck off! I have just as much right to whine as everyone else does. And god knows I'm not the only one doing it. Just don't read my comments if it hurts you that fucking bad you loser.
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:2)
I stick to my guns outside of work. But in order to keep my job I pretty much just bend over and walk in backwards. It's the only way to keep paying the bills.
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:2)
I am not going to give up all of my training and throw it away for an MCSE (I know Unix best, and believe me, the time I spent working for Windows based companies was even more of a pain in the ass than this job).
I've steadily moved into better and better positions believe it or not. And thus far this is the best I've found. It isn't perfect, but it beats the holy hell out of my previous jobs.
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:2)
As to small town life/quality of living: Personally, I have only one thing to say to that, "FUCK OFF!"
I lived in small towns most of my life. I now live in Sioux Falls, the largest small town in the world. 120,000 people and not one goddamned signed of civilization (unless you want to call that backwardass mall civilization). Everybody wants to be all friendly, but only if your willing to play the game of, "YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED!"
Believe it or not, I don't like small town bullshit. Sure, neighbors are friendly as long as you go to church every week, carry your goddamned bible with you everywhere, and completely avoid having any personality at all. I've spent my fair share of time in Minneapolis/St. Paul and found the people up there to be far, far more friendly than the people around here if you don't 'fit in'. The reason? There's security in the slightly anonymous lifestyle up there. There is no way for them to get to know every detail of your life, so they can't badger you every second over your 'great mistakes'. In Sioux Falls, I get all the great ones. My nieghbors think I'm a satanic fuck because I play heavy metal guitar. I get badgered with bible thumpers at least once a week. I get told that I 'need' to come to every city event from the junior miss pig calling contest to the little league playoffs. I really couldn't care less.
Pardon my rant. But seeing people spout off about how great small town life is because they aren't comfortable just living without having to 'fit in' with the great idiot masses just pisses me off to no end. Add to that it's my birthday and people are acting like I'm some kind of faggot because I don't make a huge ordeal out of it and I think you can just start to understand why this 'know your nieghbor' small town bullshit gets under my skin.
Grow up. Small town spirit is for the weak minded. If you need it, great for you. But don't tell me I'm wrong just because I'm sick of putting up with the nosy idiots that think my life isn't my own. That's small town life. Get me the hell out of it!
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:2)
But at least I finally found a company where I can run whatever software I want. That makes things a LOT easier than it ever was for me before. Now, if I could just find a way to convince them the Internet is not some big evil consipracy.
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:2)
Who's to say I'm not trying to get out? I'm always looking for work elsewhere. But the one problem I run into is the problem where 'it takes money to get anywhere'. Believe it or not, that is the truth.
So, I'm working at saving money, and I am going to find a way to get the fuck out of here. The midwest is a goddamned nightmare. I've lived in Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. The only time I really enjoyed where I lived was the few months I spent in the metro area of Minnesota. The bigger the town, the easier it is to get along. And don't tell me I just haven't found the right small town. Having lived in five of them in various states, I'm quite sure I've had enough of a sampling. Bible thumpers make me sick, and that seems to be the majority of people in midwestern small towns.
I always wanted to live in California, but seeing as how my wife doesn't enjoy that idea, I probably won't end up there. But anywhere has got to be better than here. Actually, living in Fairmont Minnesota (a town of only 10,000) was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than Sioux Falls (a town of 120,000). It's just a matter of time. And in the meantime, like it or not, I'm gonna do some bitching. It's the only way to get through the day without slitting my wrists.
Or are all of you amteur psychoanalysts the type that believe you should just 'bottle up' everything? Yeah, that would pretty much describe midwestern philosophy. And people wonder why kids are shooting up schools.
Union! (Score:2)
well, marx said more (Score:2)
What I vaguely remember (I wasn't reading for political content at the time) was that the "revolution" espoused by Marx was not a revolution as the term is described today; the revolution was the end result of capitalism, in the sense that "if capitalism goes down that path this is what will happen."
The basic question was "if scarcity doesn't exist then how does capitalism survive?" The answer was "it doesn't," at least not in its current form.
What I don't remember is how capitalism is defined in Marx's worldview, as at that time capitalism was not quite as it is today. While his ideas -were- enough to spark the 1848 revolutions, it's unclear to me what the deal was anymore; I suspect, but am not sure, that it was mainly the beginning of industrial dislocation brought on by the attack on the guild system and urbanization.
Let's face it - back then, large-scale capitalism wasn't the norm by far...and the bourgeoisie weren't the ones revolting, it was the poor. The poor can only revolt if there are enough of them around (in an agrarian society, the poor are too busy farming). But the poor, by definition, are inert until sparked. So who sparked them off? The people who could understand Marxism, of course! Those elite who either rejected their elite status or had some kind of grudge against the current order or wanted to grab the reins of power without going the Long Way.
Heck, in 1848 there weren't a lot of people who could spell, much less spell capitalism.
So where does this leave the above quote? In the land of "not quite accurate fantasyland." You can have your
Re: A dumb manager cares about kernel code... (Score:2)
grievous managment errors, but the way to avoid that is not to have a manager who knows the differences between private inheritance in smalltalk and C++. That is the point I'm making.
I hear all the time people bitching and moaning that "their boss doesn't even know Perl" or whatever. I think that shows a real tunnel vision on the part of the technical worker.
A manager's skill set definitely does include being able to effectively place talent, how to estimate the scope of projects, etc. But that's a different ballgame than what the guy who is writing the actual code needs to know. The "He can't even declare a variable!" argument is totally unconvincing. "He can't estimate the scope of a project" is a real complaint. I've suffered plent of mismanagement as a tech guy myself, I know all about it. But I also get sick of the hollow complaints about the boss who doesn't spend time coding.
Aristotelian Machines (Score:2)
What are these machines?
Why is today any different than yesterday? (Score:2)
Why is it that people forget that innovating demands time? Why is it that people forget that those on the new frontier of anything tend to have an obsessive-compulsive attitude toward their work? Why is it that people forget that what seems mundane and everyday yet constantly evolving (i.e., the principles of management) is done exceedingly well by only a select few?
We are compensated for our time by our salary. Those who do difficult jobs--tech, management, etc.--get the highest pay. Those who do difficult jobs often spend hours upon end at the job or doing work--business dinners, entertaining clients, etc.
I think tech people whine because not enough of them have been to college and tried to keep a job at the same time. See what that does for you. The real world seems easy after that...
--
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:3)
2 months ago, one of our top techs, Dan, told him he was tired of the long hours, low pay and lack of respect. The manager told him to either "suck it in or get out." So Dan went out and got another job.
3 weeks later when we were having some perplexing network problems the manager came into the room and started yelling about why wasn't this fixed yet and who the person was who's supposed to be responsible for it. We told him it was Dan's responsibility but that he had quit and hadn't been replaced. Our manager's answer? "Page him and get him back in here, NOW!" (Dan moved several hundred miles away and his pager sits on his old desk.) When we tried to explain that wasn't possible our 'genius' manager just waved his hand and said "I don't want to hear excuses, I only want to hear results." (One of his favorite phrases.)
One of the software developers told him that if he wants Dan back, HE should be the one calling him up and kissing Dan's ass, not us. He's now an ex-developer for us (fired on the spot).
We did finally get the system back up, but it took all day. And no, neither Dan nor the software developer have been replaced yet and we're still falling behind schedule for some reason.
As for me, my resume's in the mail.
If Dilbert had no bearing on reality, no one would be able to relate to it. It's nothing new, the Peter Principle covered the same issues (incompetency, stupidity, etc.) a LONG time ago.
Re:Nothing here that wasn't said better by Karl Ma (Score:3)
Oh yes: the capitalist economy in the Soviet Union gave it the technology edge so that they were first into space and the only country with a permanently manned space station. Getting to the moon was just an attempt by the US not to lose face completely.
I would suggest that war leads to greater technological advances than capitalism. But then, it's hardly a sensible solution.
Come to the Midwest.... (Score:3)
So it's a choice we make... (Score:3)
These are all about balance of choices. The better paying (remember risk/reward?) and more challenging jobs generally require more dedication.
People complain about the gender wage gap. There are genuine problems here with pay disparity, but a significant percentage is probably based on life choices.
Most of my female friends when faced with a choice between high pay and long hours versus reasonable pay and reasonable hours make a life choice decision towards a reasonable job (40-45 hours/week).
Most of my male friends faced with the same options look at the higher pay and jump on it.
There are no absolutes and all men and women are different. I am suggesting that, in general, men prefer pay over lifestyle, women prefer lifestyle over pay. The cynic would say that men still think that money can buy lifestyle.
So make your choice... just understand that you do have a choice.
Chris
Re:Random probability is not foolishness prone (Score:3)
Let me know when you get into the real world or out of middle management. My company is a case study of "Peter Principle" and idiots hiring idiots. Thats why I am getting out. BTW, it is an insurance company, no surprise there.
Simple fact, current management ideals of 'the supervisor is there to manage people and doesn't need to know the job' is full of ____[choose your own name for a pile of dump]. Up until the last three years, I was supervised and managed by folks who were trained in IS AND management. These folks knew how to handle both people and the machines. There was no BS. There was just a work ethic and understanding. There was also a career path within IS. Management was not a hated item.
Roll the clock forward to the present.
I am now looking to leave my job of 15 years because I can no longer handle the stupidity. My boss, third in three years since the reorg, has no idea what I do and can not even give me a proper review. Oh, and he is leaving for another position just in time for my next review. I have not gotten a promotion in five years because they all change supervisors a mont before the review and the response is, 'I need to see how well you work before I promote you.'
Also, a boss that doesn't know your job can't represent your concerns at management meetings and leads to ridiculous projects and requests. IE, 'this department has decided to move up its move date from January 1 to October 15, can you get a router and T-1 installed by then. Sorry for the short notice.' That was an actual I question I got two days ago. Don't laugh. The order for the T-1 had only been placed on Friday, when I first heard about it.
Management is full of idiots who lead because they can not do. So many of them were promoted because they are good at one thing, BS'ing. These ARE the same people who can't use thier laptops. These ARE the same people who think they can get email in the car without a modem[we don't have wireless]. These are the same people who I can go and guess their password without even asking becuase it is usually written on a yellow sticky on the screen. I'm not making this up. Its too stupid to make up.
Evry bloody reorg, the idiots take more control and run off the intelligent ones. I guess I am an idiot for hanging around so long; but the idiots have finally got me.
If you are so niave to think it doesn't exist or is not very bad, you must be one of them or have a lot to learn.
Oh, one last shot.....A supervisor here was busted for having a gun on property, a major company violation. Do they fire him, no. They place him into a IS Tech position as punnishment!!! He had never had any tech experience! They had a job posted for the opening and told two very well qualified candidates that it was filled when hey did this. Idiots hiring idiots, need any more proof??????
Bad management... (Score:3)
Ok so why is there so much shitty managment and boneheaded HR moves then? I have a theory, at least for the technology sector. Most professional managers, good or bad, don't have an understanding of the geek subculture, they don't know how to motivate us and keep us happy. At first they fall back on what works for "norms" standard bennie packages, bizzare sports related pep talks, lame incentive programs, and finally in frustration slip either into a comatose state where they make no decisions and play solitare all day or become fire breathing assholes who drive off all the best workers. On the other side you get some very talented geek types that start their own business, they can code like the devil but know nothing of running a business. Maybe they do well at first when it's just a small group of friends sweating out all nighters together to get the first product out the door. The success begins to take it's toll, and these very talented programmers find themselves at the helm of a company with 50 other employees. Some turn out to be natural leaders, like Linus for example, who can herd cats and get a job done, others find they can't do it and fall back to coding. So instead of delegating specific tasks out to the staff the founders are still pulling all nighters working in one direction while the other employees are following suit by pulling all nighters working on what they think the company needs. Opps. Then they get frustrated and quit.
Anyway that's just my take on it. Sadly I havn't encountered any other full-fledged geeks in the management program here, but on the bright side alot of the other younger managment majors seem to at least understand that geek types have different motivations that other employees will and will hopefully do a better job than the current generation of management in the tech field.
Incidently I graduate in May if anyone has a PHB they want to replace
Re:Don't be silly. (Score:3)
REPLACE reading a book WITH writing a book
REPLACE talking WITH consulting
REPLACE playing games WITH writing games
REPLACE listening to music WITH playing music
...
People can leave their day jobs by being active and productive. Absorbing content, such as reading this post, is important. But, it won't get you rich and it won't spread your name around. By posting, for example, you build your reputation and name recognition. The transfer of energy becomes in>>out versus out>>in. There is no magic to this. Produce and build value. Turn value into dollars. Quit your day job. Or, continue to consume, and ultimately feed the producers.
- John
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com [webword.com] -- Industrial Strength Usability
Re:Quit Complaining (Score:3)
At my latest job, I get in at roughly 9:15 (my fiancee works a half mile from home, but has to be in at 9, so I drop her off there and then go in to work. Today I got in at 10:00 and no one blinked an eye. My uniform is a t-shirt and shorts. And I get to PROGRAM IN PHP ALL DAY!!
I'll take this over McJob any day of the week, thank you very much.
Modern Life and the Bottom of the Mountain (Score:3)
The world has changed radically with the explosion of the Internet. Information which was once hard to find is now harder to find, but easier to look up. (Search engines and spider engines help somewhat.)
Now, with the exponential growth of computers in in EVERY aspect of corporate life, the white-collar world is changing the same way the blue-collar world changed in the 1970's with the introduction of robotics to assembly lines, and automation in lower-eschelon tasks.
It used to be that computers were something of a novelty except for number-crunching. Desktops were word processors and Rolodexes with Solitaire. Big iron was written in COBOL to figure out the numbers so the shareholders would look and say, Gee, the company made a profit this term, good job, keep it up, and I'll buy ten thousand more shares.
Now, everything is computerized. Accountants use spreadsheets and overglorified adding tapes for the books. The media uses computers to help shape the images on the screen, the words on the page, the pictures in the two-page spread. Managers can type their own memos and torture their departments with OneOS mentality (Aka You use Vin-dose!)
The corporate towers are changing. Cat5 is required in every office. The jobs of today will be gone or radically altered in less than a decade, some estimates say in as little as 5 years. 95% of the jobs will be different or gone. (The other 5% is the Top Escelon Positions, the CxO's VP's and Presidents and Chairs of the Board.)
Here endeth the lesson.
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:3)
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:3)
Re:Come to the Midwest.... (Score:3)
Poor pay for technology worker, and I'm the only IT person in the company.
I'm expected to be on call 24/7 because 'I'm the only IT person in the company'. So even if I take time off, I'm not really off, and half of the time I get 'called-in' because some moron spilled coffee on his keyboard and wasn't smart enough to know how to plug in a spare.
I get told by the technophobes in management that this 'Internet' thing is just a fad and I should not pursue any internet related projects because it isn't important. This is the one that really pisses me off. If they had any clue about technology they wouldn't say it. If they had no clue (as they obviously do) AND they were willing to admit they had no clue and were willing to listen to me and the two or three other people in the company that understand the importance of the Internet, and be willing to learn something, then it wouldn't be a problem. I call this, Ignorance by choice.
Now, tell me to find another job? Most of the people I know in positions like mine are in the same boat around here. I'd like to know how far I'd have to move to find a technology related job that wasn't this worthless, but thus far haven't been pushed 'quite' far enough to work that hard at it.
Just don't make the mistaken impression that only on the coasts are there problems with jobs (in technology or outside of technology jobs).
Corporate Meritocracy? (Score:3)
In many, if not most companies, executive management is much like a social club (usually a Boys' Club). Ability and intelligence is not irrelevant, but the selection of executives may have more to do with the personal comfort of peers than anything else. Will you be politically reliable? Will you identify completely with "the club" and not your own subordinates? Are you good company on the golf course? Are you someone who the other execs will enjoy hanging with? Are you likely to represent a threat to them or their status in some way?
Back in the 80s I was the software VP for a small company that developed scientific software and systems, mostly because I was the technical cofounder. After a while I found myself in the position of being the only one in management with any computer or science background whatsoever, and believe me, it was no picnic. I was sensitive to the situation at the time, but in retrospect there's probably nothing I could have done about it; I was identified more as "one of them" than "one of us", and it was only a matter of time before I was forced out, to be eventually replaced by a manager who had no sci/tech background and therefore would not be a threat to management cohesiveness. I could get all self-righteous about it, but to be honest I don't remember hiring many people either with whom I felt threatened or uncomfortable. That's how you end up with technology companies run by managers who are clueless about what they are managing.
BTW, after that I was completely disillusioned with corporate politics and started my own company. Things went well for a while but it ultimately failed, largely because I spent nearly all my time on technology matters and gave short shrift to things like raising capital and building a sales and marketing apparatus. But just wait 'till next time...
Re:Don't whine (Score:3)
In the mid-to-late 70's, spending was at an all-time high, saving rates were lower than depression-era rates and people would quit jobs to go on vacations, certain another better one would be there after a few weeks.
Sound familiar?
BTW, you may want to do a search for the "Processed World" anthology for a different perspective on the temp worker situation in the '70's (and now). Big companies like HP *love* to paint the picture of the independent temp gunslinger, while making sure that over 60% of their workforce is temp. Gosh, no benefits or paid sick days, "work-at-will" contracts, and a workforce you can shrink at will (and still report "no layoffs"). Huzzah!
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:3)
New job opportunity (Score:4)
Working longer due to technology ??! (Score:5)
And here endeth the rant, for today anyway.
Symbolic hours (Score:5)
If you read books on software engineering (Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, Death March Projects) you'll see that the more people work, the less benefit to the company in terms of output there is - more than 1 60 hour week in a row, and you'll be LESS productive than you used to be with 40.
So most overtime, or early arrival and late departure, is in fact symbolic: it acheives nothing for the company. It only proves the devotion of the worker to the company. Worker devotion is not a tradable asset
Everybody recognises this, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. (Just as managers will sagely nod when someone says "adding more programmers will make a late project later", and then go ahead and put more on anyway.)
The best thing that the young and nerdy audience of Slashdot could do is excercise its collective discretion not to work stupid hours for little benefit. (See http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13813.html for another "High tech labour is scarce" story). Refuse to worship at the altar of the company: take a rational attitude to your life. Unless it's enormous fun, in which case knock yourself out.
Quit Complaining (Score:5)
I'm on the Hi-Tek Gravy Train and I'm NOT COMPLAINING! My job is blast compared to pretty much anything else I've done.
Try working at McJob for 7 or 8 bux an hour, with a trashy boss who fumes and threatens whenever you're 5 minutes late. There's plenty of folks who, for a variety of reasons, HAVE to rely on those jobs to survive, and have to say 'yes sir' to all the crap that gets thrown about them.
Nobody writes books or articles about THEM because they're not a good market. They don't make enough to buy books in the first place.
We 'poor techies' are a great market; trumpet one of our pet concerns on the cover of a hastily-thrown-together book or article and maybe now you'll cash in! Them techies got money and them techies buy books!
Re:A dumb manager cares about kernel code... (Score:5)
They give the upper management promises that are near impossible to keep, they take away budgets that are definately needed, they move people to where they don't belong (like moving your FreeBSD web site admin to administrating the NT servers, or taking a rookie VisualBasic programmer and trying to make him configure a Cisco router).. and because of things like that, the workplace becomes unorganized, hecktic, and even hellish.
Of course the REAL problem is not so much that the middle managers don't know what they're dealing with, but that they don't listen to their employees who are trying to politely(at least one would hope) show them what they're doing wrong.
They're so concerned about their advancement, and their newfound power, that they don't care if they're screwing over employees, or even the company itself... and those types of managers are bad.
In any case, if I just re-stated what Katz said, ignore me. I don't like reading Katz articles, just the comments.
The Dilbert Principle (Score:5)
The reason Dilbert is so funny is because it's true. I'd rather read that then a boring tome of how work sucks.
I Am Compelled To Say Something Nice About MS (Score:5)
The only way you can advance at Microsoft (at least in my groups) is that if your team agrees you would be a good leader. Nepotism is shot down pretty fast. So, look at www.microsoft.com/jobs. Go up for an interview. I've heard things are changing, and I left because of the current DOJ problems to go to a startup, but it does have a nonbullshit feel to the place. It values results and results only. --BlueRain
Re:Dilbert is complete BS (Score:5)
People invent things like Dilbert to caricature the following
I write database driven websites for a living, including e-commerce.
My boss does not know how to write website or database code.
My boss does not understand what the difference between http and https is and which should be used where.
My boss does not know what sorts of functions are done on the website side of things and what sort of things are done by the database
My boss does not understand what a database is for.
My boss has heard of Internet Explorer and Netscape but is incapable of installing them without my help.
My boss believes that the password field in a HTML form prevents anyone from intercepting your password.
My boss believes that if they change the password on the intranet administration website that the database developers will no longer be able to access and change their information without permission.
My boss does not realise that you must be connected to the internet to access a website.
My boss gets confused when his laptop stops working after a few hours, especially as I can fix it by plugging it in.
My boss believes that his first name is a great password for the company systems, it helps him to remember it (as does the post it note on his monitor).
My boss provides the client with an accurate estimate of how long a project will take and how much it will cost *without* consulting me - afterall my boss must know better than me - otherwise he wouldn't be my boss.
Now do you see why I have little confidence in my boss. The only reason that any money is made is because my boss multiplies the number of paragraphs in the specification by ten and quotes for that many hours, shows it to me for about ten seconds and if I don't yelp sends it to the client, afterall we must be a forward looking proactively leveraged organisation.
The Betrayal of Society and the older Generations. (Score:5)
I've just entered the employment market in May and I'm already on my second job. Granted I like this one and will stick with it for a while, but I can't see myself working for just one company in my life. Used to be that companies took care of their employees, now it's part of their bottom line to screw them over (working more hours for less) and try and get them paid less with less benefits. Enter the independent contractors who work for less and don't need benefits, the modern mercenaries.
Instead of caring for our workforce, we make them compete against each other. No longer are we a goal-oriented work structure, everyone has their own agenda, fighting back and forth to gain points with the pointy-haired ones who operate on a separate plane of existence from the very real one that dominates the real office.
It seems like there are more people who focus of cohesing (is that a word?) teamwork than actually do any work. Take for example this guy I work with. He is a fantastic teacher, but not the best manager. He works too hard at managing, setting too many rules, too many requirements of his fellow teachers. When we try too hard, no one succeeds.