[CLUE-Talk] Job web sites to visit

[Kevin Cullis]

Jeffery Cann wrote:
> > and if current trends continue (why wouldn't they?),
> > pretty soon if you're not a doctor, a lawyer, a C-level executive at a
> > major corporation, or a star entertainer, you can forget about aspiring to
> > even a middle-class lifestyle.
> 
> Here, I disagree.  Although we (the technologists) as educated and 'skilled'
> labor believe or assume that we are insolated from the perils of those
> laborers (formerly) working in the 'manufacturing' sector.  The fact is they
> were skilled and trained and now are replaced (for example in the automotive
> industry) largely by automation and robots.

OK, where in history are the above statements true if you go back 100
years?  Huh?  Come on guys, quite whinning!!  Yes,  I agree that it
sucks that PHBs move stuff overseas to "cut" costs, but I can blame part
of the problem on the techies: they don't want to get out of the server
room and into the Boardroom to see how they can do better!!  I mean,
don't think of your coding skills as a job, but how can you make your
skills make someone's job/business/life better?  Solve something!!! 
Yea, American PHBs are short sighted for sure and greedy (and GREED is
bad, but profit is not), but let's get off our butt and use what God has
given us and THINK our way out of this problem. Come up with some new
solutions to problems, band together with some out of work PHBs (like me
;-) ) and solve something with code, write better code, find out a
better way of doing things, see what else you can do with your life.

> 
> Here's another example -- Sun's goal of putting all sysadmins out of work (N1
> technology).  Read the first paragraph of this article and you'll get Sun's
> point of view:
>  + http://www.serverworldmagazine.com/monthly/2002/11/roadmap.shtml
> 
> According to Business Week (Nov 25 issue), all of the other big firms (HP,
> MSFT, Oracle, etc.) have similar goals.  Why are these firms proposing such
> plans which will obviously hurt all our future career aspects?
> 
> The main reason is that the majority of the cost of running a business is
> labor.  In my 400-person business unit at Standard & Poor's, over 80% of our
> operating costs are labor.  So:
> 
>         fewer laborers --> lower operating cost = higher profit
> 
> Note that only about 100 of our 400 employees actually work in technical
> fields (DBA, Development, QA, QC, SA).
> 
> Believe me, if my company could live without us, they would whack our jobs in
> an instant.  Right now, they cannot and our benefits to the company outweigh
> the costs.  30 years ago, we used to distribute our data in books, published
> twice a year.  If my company could get away with still publishing books, they
> would do it, simply to save the never-ending costs of technology.  But, their
> customers demanded monthly, then weekly, then daily, and now real-time access
> to our financial data.  So, the company puts up with all of the computers and
> geeks like us because they _have_ to -- either use computers or go out of
> business.

Hear, hear!!  Find out what the customers are wanting and fill the
need!!  What a concept!!

> 
> Unfortunately, those of us who thought that 'getting a college education' or
> 'getting a technical job' would protect us from the cold facts of capitalism
> are fooling ourselves.  We are no different than dedicated factory worker of
> the 1960s who was laid off in the 1980s because his job was automated out of
> existence.  It will happen to us too, so be prepared for it.  The fact that
> most of us have college degrees does not matter.  To a business, we are all
> labor -- or to use the latest assine term - we are all 'human capital'.

Yea, it sucks, but we have to use our brains to fight back the
PHBitist!!

> Ironically, I think that technology has enabled things like 'free trade' to
> come to fruition.  Were it not for a global communications network and
> sophisticated software to track and ship orders, what use is world-wide
> trade?  We (the technologists) are victims of our own success.  We have
> enabled our business leaders to consider the elimination our jobs because we
> have became too good at improving / automating business processes.

Jeff, the real question is: think better than the PHBS!!  I remember
when your wife's talk to CLUE about seeing ideas for solutions in a
company that you contract with and then taking that info and creating a
product even though the company didn't see it, that's what needs to be
done, not sitting (although it's easier) and blaming everyone.

Jeff, I don't mean to pick on you in this, but your email hit a nerve,
so I apologize up front. However, the more difficult thing AFTER you've
solved a problem is selling it ....

Kevin