Comment Re:Texas (Score 2, Funny) 281
You're one of the Dixie Chicks aren't you.
'It's better to out-smart an orc than to fight one.'
If you take it further, the same general principles that also works in business also works with women...
You must know my ex-girlfriend.
That might work when there are enough similarly minded people in the union. In my case, there were six of us in the shop, and oh....a couple hundred linemen who liked things the way they were. It would have taken an act of God to change things there.
Thats why there are job classifications and selectives (or even letters of agreement specific to a single person) that modify contracts. We have these in our contract (120 staff, an IT staff of 5). The Qwest and ATT contracts have similar provisions.
Since then, I have found that things are better when I negotiate my own terms of employment than when a union does it "on my behalf".
This is great. I'm not one of those people that believes everywhere should be union. Unfortunately very few places are like this, regardless of talent. If you work for a tech company you are likely to work under these sorts of conditions. If you are a tech person at a non-tech company then that is very often not the case. Unions though often bring benefits to non union positions. FedEx workers receive excellent pay and benefits because they have to remaind competitive with UPS which is union or else employees will leave for better wages and healthcare. When companies choose to do the right thing without a union (which unfortunately is rare) it has a similar impact without a union. An example is Costco and the impact their pay and benefits have on other retail stores. I hope Costco never becomes union because places like that I hope show to other employers that you can be profitable without being complete bastards and pay decent wages and benefits without the force of a union.
Or the TV unions in which you have your job and if you even touch a piece of equipment that's not on your list---even outside of work hours to lean how to use it---instant union grievance.
You obviously don't understand how union grievances work and what they are. It would be an instant union grievance because the union was fighting the employer for trying to reprimand the employee for doing this. *disclosure: I'm a Communications Workers of America local vice president at a non-profit and formerly worked unrepresented at a mostly non-union cable television company (those bastards!)
have they got monkeys in the patent office just blindly punching approve/disapprove buttons?
They couldn't afford the licensing fees as they had already approved a patent on monkeys that punch buttons.
hes been hard at work on a new iPancreas, which will not only produce insulin but will transmit blood sugar levels to his iPhone via bluetooth
If that is what it takes to get full bluetooth support on my iPhone I hope that Steve's other organs fail also.
but the Western world is too scared to do what needs to be done in order to win.
Killing civilians and creating further death and violence in order to end a war isn't really winning. In WWII there was an immediate and serious threat. In Iraq there isn't a clear immediate threat and debate over if Iraq was ever a threat.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion
