I can see plenty of motive to force the workers to pay for their own work stations. You can simply fort up the servers and dump the headache of dealing with the &*^%$# programmers and their work stations. The data entry and administrative systems will still be locked down and controlled; but, all the others will have to fend for themselves.

I was wondering if anyone saw the irony. Thanks :-)

If the can't morph a show into alien abduction, an old fashioned monster movie, or a search for the supernatural, they aren't interested in. They have their formula and their sticking to it.

OS/2 based servers did all of MCI's Internet Provisioning in the 90s. Systems worked quickly and efficiently with a good array of system services. If you wanted to play games, choose from a wide range of business software, or work with a solid development plan, Windows was your system.

They are already looked down on by the other services because of their lackadaisical discipline. Now they will be less well informed.

See what I mean about writing skills, "short sighted" not "short sided", although it is a pretty funny malapropism. :-D

When I went to school, they did not have a computer science degree. I was able to take some computer courses while getting a math degree. I've been a professional computer programmer for 40 years now. (I do not want to retire!) I think that my initial computer courses were necessary in order to get me going. After that initial university work, most training has been self or job driven. I've had some thoughts over the years about computers and school:

1) If I could do one thing over again, it would involve improving my writing and communication skills. In the end you must communicate your ideas in order to get the best work. You must listen to your users and really hear what they have to say in order to do the best work.

2) Group projects and your ability to work in groups are part of the corporate landscape. Schools that teach people real techniques for working in groups give their students a real leg up in corporate work environments. This is not the same as giving 5 mismatched students a group project.

3) Education should give you a human perspective that gives the semantics of your work lasting relevance. Training will teach you the syntax.

4) HR in most companies takes care of government employment regulations and delivers internal management guidelines. HR does some recruiting work that filters on your credentials. HR is not generally capable of figuring out if you can do the job; but, they can prevent you from getting the chance.

5) If your love for the work does not come across in the interview, only a short sided fool will hire you.

Please decide to do both training and education.

I think it is a lot more significant when you talk about missed deadlines. If you are doing a lot of that in your are, then something is not right. It is not unusual for people presented with tough problems to take a break and then come back with a new perspective. Missing deadlines means that people are not estimating their work correctly and not taking those esitmates seriously.

In the end your leadership is responsible. Have a serious talk with your boss. Make it positive and ask about his/her relationship to the total work of your area. Find out how you fit in, the history of the group, and what the career posibilities are. Couched this way, you will perhaps get a clue as to what is going on. If you've diagnosed a true problem and no one is interested in fixing it, you might want to be looking for a company that will be in business the next couple of years--your current one may not be around.

Imagine having to belive something on faith and work in a career based on facts and logic. Maybe that produces unbearable tension in some people, leading to total breakdown and insate activities.

Engineering on is own is tension filled, building sturdy bridges that are cheap, fast programs that don't use a lot of storage, and all the other contradictory requirments that must be meshed, questioned, implemented, or ignored. I suspect the pressure may be just too much for some people when you add cultural pressure to "just believe".

Personnel will offer up interns with the objective of locking in people who will eventually become important contributors. Most of the time they are not used well. It is hard for a working department all involved with their day to day challenges to get people trained and involved. But, they will look at how you respond and interact with other professionals and perhaps give you a leg up when it comes time to apply for a permanent job. You could also get some real work that is interesting and challenging. It is sort of the "luck of the draw".

I'd say offering you 8 bucks an hour is an insult. I am betting that they have some really crappy work that they need done. They aren't interested in attracting anyone long term with that kind of investment. You will be telling them that they can continue to abuse you when you graduate. But, my bet is that this is just an example of folk wanting a temp and not wanting to pay them full value.

The IBM communications controllers of the 70s and 80s pushed data onto and off of coms lines by executing instructions that pushed from internal buffers to external buffers or vice versa. I think that is pretty much part of any basic communications setup. The IBM mainframes used channel programs that did the same thing but more elaborately.

That's it! I am patenting use of letters in recognizable patterns to represent spoken language!

No need for bankruptcy, just require that every used car lot with a rusted Chevy pay a little stipend to GM when they finally sell the turkey. You could expand the idea to include a charge for replacing components with non-standard parts (violation of reverse engineering clauses). Maybe you could even get tow companies to pay.