I mean, who enables remote management of their router?

I get the fact that sometimes you gotta open stuff up remotely; but in that case, you'd hop onto your jumpbox and then launch a browser to log into your router.

You are absolutely correct; it's the only way they can measure easily: your attendance. Timelines, deliverables, e-mail replies, etc are the other easier ones. Determine the quality of work, leadership, innovation, efficiency, etc need proper analysis and most managers are not able to do it.

I'm finding more and more job descriptions explicitly stating that they expect the employee to be on site and working the regular schedule.

I currently have a handful of people reporting to me and I have no issues of allowing them to work a day a week from home. I do it myself. Only time when I can get some peace and quiet to get proper work done. Life is too short, commutes are too long, and don't have budget to give people raises.
I do get the occasional comments about my team and I just ignore those.

~ newly freed pervs ~

Not all SOs are perverts.

Take a leak in an alley when you're 15? You can get on the list.

Get a little drunk at a football game your freshman year and decide to streak across the field? You can get on the list.

... that the journalist contact Adams a day or so after his father passed away for a story?

As distasteful Adams comments may be about wanting people dead, it's completely inappropriate to hassle someone who just his father pass away? He's mourning and probably not in a good place.

I'm sure Adams had his PR person filter the request, but still, give the guy some time!

~ it's right up there with the theory of gravity. I want to see these bozos go roof-side and test that one out for us.

The High Prophet Tim Minchin said it best (NSFW).

Otherwise you will DIAF.

I'm pretty sure the guy at the top was in on the ruse too.

By your comment, I'm pretty sure you've never worked a contract for government at a high level.

For a reality-based perspective, understand that silos are DEATH to most projects, and government structures are ALL SILOS. The fact that every single one of the "senior political figures" refused (make no mistake--it is always an active decision) is just par for the course.

So, how to change this? There are two key policies that must be implemented from the top:
1) The career of anyone who lies or fails to report bad news up the chain to those who need it is over, regardless of that person's position.
2) The reporting of bad news is to be treated as a problem to be solved, not an issue with the messenger (or the person who caused it).

Example: at a major metropolitan newspaper, a tech made a mistake and rm -rf * the website's home directory. He immediately reported it up the chain and the team dropped everything and worked on restoring the files. They then sat down and discussed how to mitigate the problem so that human error could not cause the same situation or how it could be restored quicker when it happened again. No retaliatory action was taken against the tech.

Every heard of Free Trade; e.g. NAFTA? Why should it only benefit American corporations?

No argument about CGI's incompetence. Seen it myself first-hand.

Cool it on the jingoism though.

Heh, I was referring to Project Management, as the "new line of work".

You're right though, I have about 8 outlook rules that make it very simple. I only really care about what 4 or 5 people have to say, the rest is just noise or done on a best effort basis.

When dealing with PMs I usually have one rule; one reply every four hours in an eight-hour shift, during one of my three e-mail checking windows.

Some people I reply at the end of the week, setting a delay to send the message at 5pm Friday when I know they have skipped work early.

If you don't have the skills to route my daily BS update somewhere more appropriate then your inbox maybe you should look for new line of work.

Project Management?

Seriously, one could make the argument that for a comprehensive communication skill-set, knowing who you should be engaging is as important as the actual message.

No, they used "sarcasm". The deadliest attack of them all.

Hm, /. may have a valid case to chase after.

After all, they duplicated the site/logo/etc without the permission of the actual copyright owners.

Hey, it could be your workplace next.

Um, I've been through enough M & As to know that businesses blow out all the time. I could care less, because it just means my commute and officemate wage slaves are going to change.

Whenever I get the memo that we're merging with someone else, that's when I start updating the resume and putting out feelers.

If I time it right, I can pick up the earlybird package before I leave for my next job, but if not, that's okay. The important thing is to get out before the water starts lapping at the Mezzanine deck, because that's when the panic sets in and the company starts prematurely pulling the trigger.

THEY WILL NOT SWITCH. Got to use what you like good for you.

Folks who live on the festering edge of technology will forever be in reactive mode.

They most likely live there because they don't know any better and have become "accustomed" to wearing their hair shirt.

There are a lot of customers of mine that love windows XP and there [sic] blackberrys.

Sure, and when Blackberry goes belly-up, they can suffer through a protracted outage while they scramble for a replacement. Nothing says success like a decision made in fear in panic. Or, they could start their planning and migration now and move as soon as they're ready.

Finally a use for tinfoil other than on my head: a GPS that cannot see the sky won't work. Or I could give it a nice coat of paint that has some aluminum powder mixed in. Or the wire powering the system could "wear out" by "rubbing" against another "moving part". ---- If they want to raise enough funds, all they have to do is eliminate all free curbside parking in the city. They don't even have to charge that much: $.25/hour will do it.