Monday Daily
?Whatcha doin??
?Codin?
?Whatcha codin??
?Video games?
I have been fairly bored at work as of late, mainly due to the holidays steadily approaching, so the above is an often repeated conversation vince and I have had recently. Poor guy. Eventually he shot me the look that meant, ?Seriously woman, I?M CODING,? and I went on to bother other, more available programmers with my annoyance. In one of my 'annoy the productive folk' downtime moments, vince sent me this link to Techs Unite. It?s a site devoted to the unionization of technology workers.
Last year when I was one of four IT folk who had their raise held up, I was simply told, the Powers That Be felt IT people were a dime a dozen and if we didn?t like it, we could move on. It?s a similar attitude that makes organizations like Techs Unite more common. Sure, there is quite the flood of IT geeks on the market, but how many are qualified and do their job well? Then again, does it really matter? Some IT jobs can be summed up with the simple word that is ?Reboot?. It?s a shame, but many people make a living off that word. Incidentally, I did get my due raise months later after Product Development got involved.
I?m not quite sure if I would approve of tech unions. Coming from a non-union state like Texas and later moving to a union infested state like Illinois, I can see both sides of the coin with a degree of knowledge. Unions played such an important role in this country when they first arrived on the scene, but now? Now it seems like it?s just another entity to take advantage of the old school rules. I?ll tell you one thing, dear reader, when I call Dell support and I?m connected to my personal Indian representative, it?s very clear in the forefront of my mind that some Texan lost their job to this far away individual.
A few Monster Monday notes?
Monster House: There's always one asshole.
Monster Garage: Dig the street lane lines at 91MPH
American Chopper (repeat): It kills me deep within my soul to see them paint beautiful chrome pipes.
Finally, this picture is on my security badge at work. I think I look like a precious, innocent 8 year old, but for some reason, the consensus seems to fall to the devilish, up to no good brat opinion. Me? Nah.
Comments
Obviously -- a previous, innocent 8-year-old.
Posted by: Kevin B. O'Reilly | November 24, 2003 10:25 PM
On unions, as you've amply proved on your blog, conflicts between labor and the corporation still exist and only in numbers does labor have any chance. I think the problem is unions haven't adapted to the times, but that's changing with the faster-groing unions like SEIU and Communication Workers of America (which underwrites that site, btw). Still, these haven't broken the old-style union mold. Maybe someone will.
And as far as the interruptions thing, here's an article you should read:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html
"The trouble is, getting into "the zone" is not easy. When you try to measure it, it looks like it takes an average of 15 minutes to start working at maximum productivity. Sometimes, if you're tired or have already done a lot of creative work that day, you just can't get into the zone and you spend the rest of your work day fiddling around, reading the web, playing Tetris...
...With programmers, it's especially hard. Productivity depends on being able to juggle a lot of little details in short term memory all at once. Any kind of interruption can cause these details to come crashing down. When you resume work, you can't remember any of the details (like local variable names you were using, or where you were up to in implementing that search algorithm) and you have to keep looking these things up, which slows you down a lot until you get back up to speed."
Posted by: vince | November 24, 2003 11:07 PM
Whatcha doin?
Posted by: Princess | November 24, 2003 11:20 PM
That picture reminds me of the "Here's Johnny!" moment in The Shining.
Posted by: baren | November 24, 2003 11:28 PM
thank god for country girls
Posted by: jojo | November 25, 2003 9:59 AM
Yeesh. What's the point of unions nowadays? What would you even hope to gain from forming a union? What, you don't feel disenfranchised enough already? Not enough pointless bureaucracy already?
Unions definately served a purpose at one point. When employees were worked to death, or allowed to be maimed or poisoned on the job on a regular basis, the power of being able to unionize and force corporations to change things made clear sense. But now? Unions are disgusting, corrupt and basically evil. Like many other things, they've worn out their welcome and don't really make a whole lot of sense anymore.
Unlike a lot of other corporations, Midway really can't be held hostage by the IT department. Let's face it, if worse came to worse, (and you won't want to hear this) we Red Capers could do a lot of the work, although obviously at the expense of getting our normal jobs done. I think if it ever came down to the department unionizing, I'd imagine that management would simply start to purge (for worse, not better, most likely) on the assumption that it's easily replacable work and there's a glut of IT workers out there (ignoring that most of said workers probably suck dog dick).
The IT department has it pretty easy, compared to most of us sorry Red Capers, to tell the truth. Other than the poor slob forced to wear the pager around their neck during off hours, the hours for IT are spelled out clearly, and seem to be kept by everyone (based on the tumbleweeds rolling by the IT cave at 5:58pm every day).
If there isn't a disaster taking place, or maybe an Exec review going on, the pace in IT seems pretty reasonable. I can see being extremely angry at not getting a raise when you're due one. Who wouldn't be. But if you guys had decent management who was willing to fight for you, it would probably never have been a problem in the first place.
Posted by: The Black Goat with a Lack of Patience | November 27, 2003 12:30 AM
That's my point exactly...the last thing I would welcome in my life is more red tape.
If we were taking our IT department as the example, a union is quite unnecessary. Bad management does not equate the need for more players in the pot.
I am well aware of the fact that IT could be completely wiped out due to the technological knowledge of the users; a fact so often pointed out by the user community on a regular basis.
My post states I?m not much for unions, as I think they are prone to taking advantage of their position of power, so I?m inclined to agree with you on your comments. Although, I find it rather difficult to compare your position as a Red Caper to mine, a lowly IT Chick very realistic. The differences are infinite, but we both continue to show up to work everyday, do our jobs to the best of our ability and go home feeling somewhat satisfied with what we have accomplished. Both of our jobs are nowhere near what pained Americans in the early years of this country when unions became a necessary force.
From time to time I use this site to complain about work, although let?s face it, its really just complaints about Management, not my quality of life, benefits or work hours. Those three are staples of unionization. Thinking Management is a tool does not warrant such measures.
Oh and by the way, I?ll have you know that I don?t skulk out of The Fort until at least 6:01! :)
Posted by: Princess | November 27, 2003 1:10 PM