Comment congratz on a beautiful article (Score 1) 1143
I usually don't bother posting, nor subscribing to anything because that is/was my life phylosofy.
Before obviously stating I completely understood what your article is all about I have to congratulate you on a very well written article. You have put a lot of effort into this it seems. I wish I had your skill.
I used to be a coder to, I was young and "had this dream" of programming a game some day. But I had no credentials nor anything (I liked/like to play games to much :P)and after working my way up from support etc I made it as far as a coder for a commercial software company.
along that path I encountered quite some strange employment practices.
I didn't get involved in a social control my first employer finally went through because I resigned just before it started, but I had to finish my term so I did get to see how it evolved. My well paid collegues covered my bosses tracks (while getting a better paycheck, again) and they still do whatever it is they do untill today. My testimony represented nothing and my collegues hated me, I almost made them loose their jobs.
I worked for a government instance (that got privatised, woohoo) for a couple months as a techy. I got a couple calls in my mailbox evry day that got distributed by the lasiest drunk in the office. From the 15 (yeah 15) calls I would get I would solve 5-10 on the phone (thank god for our over-qualified help desk) in 15 minutes. I started my day at 8.30 and would usually finish it around 10, after solving the remaining calls. My collegues hated me and another even younger kid like me who were 'endangering their jobs' so I left, I was bored anyway.
I started as a helpdesk monkey after that, outsourced by my new company. It wasn't the original job I applied for but they didn't get the contract so they had to do 'something' with me. I foolishly accepted hoping for a better tomorrow (hey not all companies you work for are the same right?) i actually attended extra courses and made it very clear I wanted something else. Unfortunatly, I was so good my manager wanted to KEEP me while all the good jobs became available to other managers of that company. Meeting a new kid who a. had a better paycheck then me while I was convinced EVRYONE started at the same paycheck while b. he was doing the job I wanted while c. having no experience that all, I told myself again : it's time to go. And go I did... on top of that, changing jobs like this and working for more and more 'respectable' companies, my resume started to look 'interesting'. Being married with the intention to build a house, I wanted a stable well paid nine to five job like I heard about in fairytales, for my own and to please my wife. So the next step came very unexpected : I applied for a prestigeous job as a programmer, and I even got selected. Being young and having no coding credentials I was a sitting duck for my project manager. Not only that, but I ended up in a team of people just like me, who had no credentials what so ever and wanted to proove themselves. We worked close to minimum wage but did get a car to drag ourselves through endless traffic jams to get to work. After six months we would get our first evaluation and after that we would get an evaluation evry year that would allow us to get a better paycheck. We were all very happy monkies. I admire the cruel genius of our project manager. In a time the company was doing it's worst HIS team of loosers got the most praise. Not amazing, we worked twice as hard at one third the pay generating good revenus. And what kept us going was the team itself. We didn't stab each other in the back, we did no job protection and communicated vocally and resolved issues internally. Evry managers dream, an autonomous self managing team ( we hardly ever saw mister project manager, besides the one time upper management made a remark he didn't work over with 'his team' and he kept us company on a 'build-day', making himself usefull (and Oo so popular) buy bringing us some pizza (while whining about how costy they were ^^) and the few times something did go a bit of track, in a very suspiciously defined project. My first evaluation came after 4 months (unlike the 6 predicted) and I felt happy and proud. From the total noob I had started I had grown into a usefull team member in very short time, just like my team members. Riches and better times were smiling our way, because the long hours, constant stress and minimum wage were slowly killing me physically and mentally. I can summarize the next year in these sentences : me : 'Uhm, how do you mean I don't live up to what you expect of me?' *I know you are pulling my leg but ok I'll wait till the next evaluation* me : 'Yes, I do understand the company is going through rough times, but I don't have a fancy paycheck to start with, so' management : 'No' me : 'I'm not doing this anymore' management : 'It is your own fault, you pull to much work to yourself' management : 'Someone evaluated your file, you have been sick to much. It's not my decision, I feel really sorry' me : *how surprising, and so totally unexpected* I ended up being discusted, unemployed, divorced, lost, confused... Made some stupid decisions in my life who made it all worse... or not? I haven't had a decent job in quite a while, I am a toy of the stream of powers that be, I mostly do hand labor now, I don't care about the so called 'Intellectual resposability' I am supposed to have, and I work close to whereever it is I live, I am healthy, I work nine to five, I am growing increasingly happy and I don't care about anything anymore. We are bums in suits, we are leeches, lazy, I am the shame of my family... but I have always been called that, the only difference is that people used to envie me and now they don't anymore. And that is all just fine with me but I will never become a slave again. But it is true that something should be done about all this, then again, this is the game of life no? People have been playing it repeatedly over the last centuries, millenia even, and money remains in power supported by the law, who will only help in certain occasions to create a couple hero's who will appease the pain for the bigger croud that sits inside it's temple praying for salvation. We all know darker times are coming, if not for us then for our children, but all we do is enjoy our riches while they last while mothers are crying over their starving children in this overpopulated world. But hey we all have the right to reproduce and overpopulate the world some more, god forbid we accept would degenerate back to times where nature would balance things out. We'll even keep the weak alive to present them a life of agony and make them be happy about it, god forbids they would die in peace rectifying natures mistakes. We will provide cruises to our rich while we don't have the time to aid the dying in the streets, while we are so busy entertaining our rich. And yes I am just whining and repeating what so many others have told before so you can forget about all this and just carry on now, I'm sorry you lost that precious time to me.
Before obviously stating I completely understood what your article is all about I have to congratulate you on a very well written article. You have put a lot of effort into this it seems. I wish I had your skill.
I used to be a coder to, I was young and "had this dream" of programming a game some day. But I had no credentials nor anything (I liked/like to play games to much
along that path I encountered quite some strange employment practices.
I didn't get involved in a social control my first employer finally went through because I resigned just before it started, but I had to finish my term so I did get to see how it evolved. My well paid collegues covered my bosses tracks (while getting a better paycheck, again) and they still do whatever it is they do untill today. My testimony represented nothing and my collegues hated me, I almost made them loose their jobs.
I worked for a government instance (that got privatised, woohoo) for a couple months as a techy. I got a couple calls in my mailbox evry day that got distributed by the lasiest drunk in the office. From the 15 (yeah 15) calls I would get I would solve 5-10 on the phone (thank god for our over-qualified help desk) in 15 minutes. I started my day at 8.30 and would usually finish it around 10, after solving the remaining calls. My collegues hated me and another even younger kid like me who were 'endangering their jobs' so I left, I was bored anyway.
I started as a helpdesk monkey after that, outsourced by my new company. It wasn't the original job I applied for but they didn't get the contract so they had to do 'something' with me. I foolishly accepted hoping for a better tomorrow (hey not all companies you work for are the same right?) i actually attended extra courses and made it very clear I wanted something else. Unfortunatly, I was so good my manager wanted to KEEP me while all the good jobs became available to other managers of that company. Meeting a new kid who a. had a better paycheck then me while I was convinced EVRYONE started at the same paycheck while b. he was doing the job I wanted while c. having no experience that all, I told myself again : it's time to go. And go I did... on top of that, changing jobs like this and working for more and more 'respectable' companies, my resume started to look 'interesting'. Being married with the intention to build a house, I wanted a stable well paid nine to five job like I heard about in fairytales, for my own and to please my wife. So the next step came very unexpected : I applied for a prestigeous job as a programmer, and I even got selected. Being young and having no coding credentials I was a sitting duck for my project manager. Not only that, but I ended up in a team of people just like me, who had no credentials what so ever and wanted to proove themselves. We worked close to minimum wage but did get a car to drag ourselves through endless traffic jams to get to work. After six months we would get our first evaluation and after that we would get an evaluation evry year that would allow us to get a better paycheck. We were all very happy monkies. I admire the cruel genius of our project manager. In a time the company was doing it's worst HIS team of loosers got the most praise. Not amazing, we worked twice as hard at one third the pay generating good revenus. And what kept us going was the team itself. We didn't stab each other in the back, we did no job protection and communicated vocally and resolved issues internally. Evry managers dream, an autonomous self managing team ( we hardly ever saw mister project manager, besides the one time upper management made a remark he didn't work over with 'his team' and he kept us company on a 'build-day', making himself usefull (and Oo so popular) buy bringing us some pizza (while whining about how costy they were ^^) and the few times something did go a bit of track, in a very suspiciously defined project. My first evaluation came after 4 months (unlike the 6 predicted) and I felt happy and proud. From the total noob I had started I had grown into a usefull team member in very short time, just like my team members. Riches and better times were smiling our way, because the long hours, constant stress and minimum wage were slowly killing me physically and mentally. I can summarize the next year in these sentences : me : 'Uhm, how do you mean I don't live up to what you expect of me?' *I know you are pulling my leg but ok I'll wait till the next evaluation* me : 'Yes, I do understand the company is going through rough times, but I don't have a fancy paycheck to start with, so' management : 'No' me : 'I'm not doing this anymore' management : 'It is your own fault, you pull to much work to yourself' management : 'Someone evaluated your file, you have been sick to much. It's not my decision, I feel really sorry' me : *how surprising, and so totally unexpected* I ended up being discusted, unemployed, divorced, lost, confused... Made some stupid decisions in my life who made it all worse... or not? I haven't had a decent job in quite a while, I am a toy of the stream of powers that be, I mostly do hand labor now, I don't care about the so called 'Intellectual resposability' I am supposed to have, and I work close to whereever it is I live, I am healthy, I work nine to five, I am growing increasingly happy and I don't care about anything anymore. We are bums in suits, we are leeches, lazy, I am the shame of my family... but I have always been called that, the only difference is that people used to envie me and now they don't anymore. And that is all just fine with me but I will never become a slave again. But it is true that something should be done about all this, then again, this is the game of life no? People have been playing it repeatedly over the last centuries, millenia even, and money remains in power supported by the law, who will only help in certain occasions to create a couple hero's who will appease the pain for the bigger croud that sits inside it's temple praying for salvation. We all know darker times are coming, if not for us then for our children, but all we do is enjoy our riches while they last while mothers are crying over their starving children in this overpopulated world. But hey we all have the right to reproduce and overpopulate the world some more, god forbid we accept would degenerate back to times where nature would balance things out. We'll even keep the weak alive to present them a life of agony and make them be happy about it, god forbids they would die in peace rectifying natures mistakes. We will provide cruises to our rich while we don't have the time to aid the dying in the streets, while we are so busy entertaining our rich. And yes I am just whining and repeating what so many others have told before so you can forget about all this and just carry on now, I'm sorry you lost that precious time to me.
