I'd suggest reading Mythical Man Month and then going to talk with the program manager. You can point out that it will take more time to bring all these new people on board rather than continuing to build out the project yourself. The book should provide you with a bit of ammunition.

It does sound like the program manager is trying to get his/her name associated with the project, ie riding on you coat tails. There isn't anything particularly wrong with this, but it requires you to manage the resource rather than becoming managed by their "help" If you don't have the skill to do so, you will need to find a mentor to give you advice. Most large companies operate as much on politics as they do on actual products. Solicit advice from senior engineers and others that you feel have the knowledge and skills to work in the political landscape. Not much else I can tell you.

Most companies won't even look at you if you don't have a degree. Are you saying that your company is different?

IBM's consulting works or did work that way as well. I guess if you ask for money that would make you sick to the stomach because you are overcharging ends up to be about right as to what you can get.... Heh

When I was in business doing software development and computer maintenance I found that raising my rates had the surprising result of more customers and less complaints. Apparently when you don't charge a lot people assume that you are incompetent when faced with a challenging problem; however, if they are paying a lot more, then suddenly you are considered extremely competent and therefore the problem is very difficult.

It's just one person's experience, but I figured I would chime in on the subject.

Ummm no,

From the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service

Steve Jackson Games was raided because Loyd Blankenship, who was writing the role playing game supplement GURPS Cyberpunk for the company, was a target of a crackdown. Blankenship, known in hacking circles as The Mentor, was a former member of the Legion of Doom hacker group. He had run a Bulletin board system (BBS) from his home called The Phoenix Project, which had helped distribute the popular underground ezine Phrack.

As it was the raid was eventually deemed illegal and Scott Jackson Games was awarded compensation, but that really doesn't do much for a company that lost it's flagship product and had to start over from scratch. They had to lay off a bunch of people over the incident as well if I remember correctly.

Nevertheless, it's a bit more complicated than an employee answering a forum question.

When Time/AOL joined there was a requirement that they share the lines with smaller ISPs, but eventually they got around that stipulation because there was enough competition without it, iirc.

Oh and 8 track

Unfortunately, this is the court of we are one of two internet providers in the area so if you want service you better just bend over, or something like that. I rue the day that AOL/Time Warner joined forces and started the slippery slide which resulted in most small ISPs getting forced out of business. It used to be that there were a dozen small isps to chose from in most major markets, now, since ISP services are considered unregulated, iirc, the bend over court seems to be the only one available and yes these results hold up in that court very well.

It's enough to make me want to move to Kansas City.

As noted, this is a management issue. If there is no checks and balances system to check on someone's work, then there will be issues. Heck, the greatest guy in the world can still make a mistake or enter unsafe code, that's why you have code reviews. Also, other than emergency situations, why is a coder working on production machines? It's a matter of not adequately staffing the positions in reality. Again, a management problem not really something you yourself can fix as a co-worker. Problems like these suggest a problem in the entire system not the one small place he is working on. If the business is dependent on the person themselves to report how well they are doing without any oversight, then the issues are not just with one person, he's just the one that got caught due to poor personal grooming and lackluster political skills. Without a policy to double and perhaps even triple check what is going on, then the business takes risks. It's up to management to decide if those risks are worth the gains.

Okay,
    So how does that differ from a chinese worker or a robot taking jobs? Trying to hold back technology because of the fear of what it may do is self defeating in the long and probably short run. Currently, education, connections, money all contribute to an unfair job market anyway. Those that are in "secure" positions don't want to rock the boat, yadda, yadda yadda.

The truth is that eventually something will give and we'll see things work out for the betterment of everyone and not just a few. For those that are interested in pursuing a sharper mind, more productivity, more insight, I say go for it. Like another poster said, we don't know where our next invention is coming from and personally I'm all for clearing the way for innovation which includes helping those that innovate any way possible.

I don't really think these drugs will help those that don't put the time forth to become better by training their minds to learn. I think the good ol' boy network will do it's best to keep these folks down, but eventually someone will recognize those that take their brains seriously and hire them. Look at Google and it's PhD program. Too many times in computer science those that have a master's degree are more highly sought than those with PhD's. It's like folks don't recognize the effort behind going the extra yard, or for some reason don't want it. Inferiority complex? I don't know but Google seems to have done well so far valuing those that value their minds/education. Once people see an effect they will all probably jump on the drug bandwagon, but they won't have the mental skills that it takes so the checkbox for doing drugs will be as meaningless as it is now.

You've lost me there. I'm not sure that I trust any theory at the moment as far as brain responses go, but I'm willing to examine new data if you have a few articles on the matter that you care to post I'll read them.

Selective memory more than likely. There are plenty of jobs that don't focus on time stamps today, I'd say even more than used to be. That being said, the talent pool for computer jobs has expanded so I assume there are more people to fill those positions so some places might be more stringent than they used to be.

IBM definitely has gone the other way, where they used to have a strict dress code and time requirements, that has relaxed significantly over the last 20-30 years. AT&T is a totally different company where some divisions are more strict and others less so than they used to be. Other companies I know of are hit and miss. Without doing a full research project and without numbers from years gone by, I think your impression is more based on the jobs you see around you than the market as a whole. Perhaps someone somewhere has done this research, but I haven't seen anything mentioned.

Sorry but what?
      As far as I know brain workings are still experimental, but you are saying that there always has to be a negative along with a positive. That somehow doesn't sound correct, in fact it sounds more like intelligent design than evolution. Evolution isn't smart, it just randomly affects things, some things work, some don't it doesn't have a mind to "balance" anything. Saying that there has to be a trade off for getting the mind to operate better, is the same as saying, we shouldn't cure cancer because people will just die of something else. Or even, we shouldn't educate people because we will suppress their own natural intelligence.

As to the main article, personally I couldn't care less if others are able to make themselves smarter, having more people smarter than me would be a boon. I assume the article is trying to say that norms shouldn't be taking drugs because it gives them an unfair advantage, but I would think the only people that would care about that are those that want to compete with others and probably unfairly. I don't care if John is smarter than me, if he is more productive, doesn't that help me in the long run?

Hmmm?
      Real sysadmins in general are paid more than the programmers. Sure the hotshot program leads get paid more, but a non-toy os sysadmin makes decent money.

That may be for some firms, but when it becomes endemic to the entire industry is what I was trying to point out.