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The Joel on Software Discussion Group (CLOSED)

Onerous management practices towards programmers are often discussed here, and rightly so. As mentioned in a previous thread, staff at EDS in Australia put their foot down after failing to get pay rises for up to seven years.

Staff want EDS management to negotiate with their union, but EDS management are shit scared of doing that. They prefer dealing with programmers they can push around, and offered a shonky deal they thought would suck the programmers in.

The latest news is that staff rejected EDS's dodgy deal, and continue to want EDS to negotiate with their union negotiators.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/eds-workers-reject-agreement/2005/08/29/1125167585498.html

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,16420140%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

Final proof that programming is blue collar work.

>> Final proof that programming is blue collar work.

It is if you work for EDS.

The only thing worse then EDS management are the f*cktards who actually work there.

I've had several professional dealings with EDS people and very few of them were at all competent. Most of them just knew how to keep their white shirts pressed, their black shoes shined and their hair cut short.

They also complained about their managers and EDS policies, but none of them seemed to be interested in finding a better job. It's the old factory mentality - 'As long as their paying me, there's no reason to leave the security and try to find a better job.'

Teachers have unions.

Airline pilots have unions.

Nurses have unions.

All blue collar work?

We are the blue collar workers of 2005 but Rich is correct too.  However, they also need to look at what else are unions by another name.  No one complains about doctor's doing collective bargaining.  Of course, it is the American Medical _Association_ or the American Bar _Association_.  Even the teamsters stopped calling themselves a union.  (They are the "Teamsters")

Maybe what programmers need is not a union but a guild.  This way poor practices can be negotiated at a more mature level.  While it may just be "wording," that seems to work.  The problem is that programming has been staffed by people with real issues of self importance. 

We can fall prey easy to the idea that if you enter any type of collective agreement, then people who are "terrible" will have the same benefits and pay as "you".  Add to that the lure of transitioning to management if you "work out."  And many programmers are willing to take slave wages and beatings at the chance of an opportunity to get ahead.  It also means that in America we use only 61% of our vacation.  The #1 reason stated?  Fear of being replaced while gone.

Personally, I think a lot of money is spent giving guilds/unions/associations bad press to build the idea that they help the poor get ahead and only take your money.  But I also see an environment run amok like industries of the 1910 in the US.

This guy wrote about how unions developed from the guilds of the middle ages, and how "capital" went out of its way to destroy both the guilds and the unions.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300078668/

Of the last 3 guilds remaining in the US: education, lawyers and doctors, the doctors guild has been effectively neutered by the "managed care" movement. Until the 60s and 70s, departments in hospitals were run similar to departments in universities, and were almost separate companies.

The teachers guild is currently slated for destruction, particularily with the attacks on tenure, Unintelligent Design, demands for affirmative action/hiring of unqualified conservatives, and public ridicule of the few outlying kooks like ward churchill (who stands, in the minds of the eduluddites, as the representative of all that is wrong with education in America). At colleges and universities (until recently), the tenured professors were basically partners in (and co-owners of) the university. That changed slowly into the tenure system we have today.

I predict that the lawyers guild will never be touched, since they are the ones writing the laws. Further, with non-compete agreements/covenants (for example, the MS-Google broohaha over one employee quitting to work for Google), the profession will slowly creep back into the feudal area: you can't quit unless we let you, and if you do, we'll use the state to prevent you from working in the future.

> , the MS-Google broohaha over one employee quitting to work for Google),

Come work in california. We have laws against such things.

And thanks for the analysis.

Working in California would not really help much.  In this case Google hired Kai-Fu Lee last month to lead a new research and development center in China and serve as president of its Chinese operations.

Further, the "right to work" is getting more and more limited.  If you work for a multi-state or multi-national company, they can sue your employer from any state they wish to file.  Historically, it was the state the company was headquartered within, but the court has been wishy-washy on that, since your company could claim it's headquarters in Delaware, and you work in California.

In the end thou, even this does not matter.  They are not claiming he cannot work for Google, they are claiming his work for Google will result in the direct or indirect sharing of Trade Secrets.  This is a difficult task to disprove unless you are entering another market completely and that is disturbing. 

Consider your first IT employer.  You were new, out of school and they showed you how they developed a search protocol for hospitals.  You then get another job offer, more money and it is for a hospital building a search system.  Could you really say you will not use any of the knowledge you gained from your first employer?  Unlike a criminal case, you are obligated to show you are not compromising NDA and trade secrets.  Your prior employer does not have to wait for a loss. 

I should have been a lawyer.  It appears to have an endless supply of work, even arguing the same case - again and again and again and again...

"I should have been a lawyer.  It appears to have an endless supply of work, even arguing the same case - again and again and again and again..."

That's funny, because the lawyers I've talked to HATE their job and say that the job market for lawyers is absolutely horrible.

Somebody also posted a link to a paper written by a law professor that gave some statistics on how depressed lawyers were (much more than the general population), the rate of substance abuse and suicide (again much higher than the general population), and the workload, combined with the relatively mediocre pay until you get to be partner. I can't find that paper again (I'd love to have it if anyone has the link), but it was very interesting reading. Law doesn't seem particularly glamorous to me anymore.

The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence.

Don't be an idiot, sloop. Lawyers do phenomenally well. If they enter a big firm, they can be earning half a million a year by the time they're 35. That's a normal career progression.

If they don't make partner, they will still earn salaries well above 100,000.

If they run a suburban practice, they typically make enough to buy their premises, invest in other buildings and provide real estate finance.

Sloop,

http://www.jd2b.com/VanderbiltLawReview.pdf

It's a great article.

"Lawyers do phenomenally well."

Look at the median salary for lawyers (less than I make right out of college), and look at how much they typically work (more than twice what I work). Doesn't look all that enticing to me, especially not given what I've heard from people that are lawyers who absolutely hate their job and are constantly worried about their future.

If I were willing to work that much I'd rather work as an investment banker or something like that.

HS,

Thanks, that's the one. I've been trying to Google for it for a while, but I could never find it.

sloop and HS, if you read that paper, you will see that the symptoms it classifies as dysfunctional include anxiety, hostility, obsessive-compulsiveness and hostility, among others.

Many of those are classic attributes of high achievers, and thus the entire paper could be suspect. (Although I don't have time to read it all.)

Further, while reporting on the presence of those symptoms, it also notes that they occur in the pursuit of what we here would define as success, including high salaries and prestigious roles. In other words, the layers have success, but these symptoms are held out as being the price of that success.

By comparison, a study of programmers would probably find many similar problems, but without the corresponding measures of success.

----"Don't be an idiot, sloop. Lawyers do phenomenally well. If they enter a big firm, they can be earning half a million a year by the time they're 35. That's a normal career progression.

If they don't make partner, they will still earn salaries well above 100,000."----

Anecdotes, particularly second-hand ones, are not data.

I know dozens of law graduates who aren't even trying to get a job in law because the job market is so bad, but are bumming around the world teaching English for salaries as low as $15,000 a year.

Half-a-million dollars a year is not normal career progression for a lawyer. It is normal only for a very small proportion of lawyers. If it were normal, why do you think there would be so many lawyers working for the Justice or Attorney General's Department or as judges for salaries well under $100,000 in most cases.

"I know dozens of law graduates who aren't even trying to get a job in law because the job market is so bad, but are bumming around the world teaching English for salaries as low as $15,000 a year."

Interesting you should mention that. My boss has a friend that went through law school and went to work as a lawyer. He quit within less than a year because he hated working as a lawyer. He's been teaching English in Japan or some such country ever since.

And I agree, only a very minor percentage of lawyers get to the $500k point. Most lawyers definitely don't make that salary at 35.

"sloop and HS, if you read that paper, you will see that the symptoms it classifies as dysfunctional include anxiety, hostility, obsessive-compulsiveness and hostility, among others."

Not surprising, considering the lawyer culture of 70-80 hour work weeks every week. 50 hours a week makes you a slacker who'll get fired.

"Not surprising, considering the lawyer culture of 70-80 hour work weeks every week. 50 hours a week makes you a slacker who'll get fired."

I've seen quite a few local law firms say that 2000 billable hours is the minimum expected from a first year associate, and getting 2000 billable hours out of a 50 hour week is probably not easy to do. So yeah, 50 hours a week is probably going to get you fired at the kinds of companies that pay well.