Dot-Com Work Culture Making a Comeback?

jeebus writes "This week a Deloitte study has shown that high on the agenda of CEOs around the world is the shortage of tech talent. Is a shortage of talented geeks in the market seeing a return of the dot-com culture with foosball tables, beanbags, and inflated salaries used to entice talented workers? Welcome to Web 2.0 work culture, the future of yesterday. 'Global recruitment companies were telling prospecting employees that they were no longer going to be employed just because they were a technical guru. They were going to have to learn to dress, communicate, and adapt all the traditional corporate ideals that IT has been exempt from during the dot-com boom. Fast forward to Web 2.0 and while workplaces aren't as cheesy with their decor as they were were in the late '90s, and developers aren't getting paid $100K for being HTML and JavaScript jockeys, geeks just aren't chuffed with corporate culture.'"

sigh

[wwmedia]

yea cant wait for DotComBurst 2.0

I still do good

[Saint Stephen]

I can get as much done as 20 Indian outsourcers. They let me work from home.

Clothes are a cost

[paladinwannabe2]

Having to wear nicer (read: more expensive) clothing is a cost, both in terms of purchasing clothes and the time it takes to put them on and iron them (it takes more time to button up a shirt and tie a tie than to toss on a T-shirt). Plus, it's more comfortable. It's probably worth 1-2% of my salary to avoid wearing such things. (Of course, it's a personal preference- it's probably worth 10-20% for my boss, who's picky about such things, and ~0.5% to another coworker, who doesn't mind dressing up, but still sees a slight advantage to not doing so).

Re:It's not THAT good yet...

[Kainaw]

There's no heady optimism about the future, and that, really, when you think about it, the collapse of the dot net boom and worse, the later ruling about expensing stock options, and then the war, this decade has been utterly depressing.

In my opinion, it all depends on perspective. During the dot-com boom, I was sitting on a stool in a tiny backroom doing electronic repairs on video equipment. To make ends meet, I spent all my free time going house-to-house doing computer repairs. Somehow, I found time to take college classes and get my B.S. in Computer Science. The entire time, I was continually told that I needed to move to California and get in on the big paychecks. Now, I have a nice office at the top of one of the tallest buildings in town, looking across the city and into the bay. I work pretty much when I want to - as long as the work is done, nobody complains. I make enough that my wife doesn't have to work and she can stay at home and raise our son. I don't work evenings or weekends. I'm still taking classes here and there to get my PhD. For me, there is optimism.

Re:Cost

[Drew McKinney]

the common perception that IT people are 'geeks/nerds' who are willing to take compensation in the form of casual wear and beanbag chairs instead of in salary.

I don't think that perception is entirely true. I think IT professionals are a bit more demanding than your average business folk. We want our beanbag chairs and our big salary, "because without us, you are nothing".

The one thing I've heard from business folk time and time again is that IT professionals "Don't know the business". That is, we deep-dive so much that we don't come up to see the "big picture" and are then seen as low-level in the eyes of the business. In that way, they often don't know how to justify our high wages in comparison to their own - "Why am I, a business manager, only making as much as an IT geek??"

If there's a shortage

[Colin Smith]

Then there will be a corresponding increase in salaries to attract good employees... Which strangely hasn't happened, so it can't be much of a shortage.

 

Bah

[Renraku]

"They were going to have to learn to dress, communicate, and adapt all the traditional corporate ideals that IT has been exempt from during the dot-com boom."

IT was never exempt from communication, as IT is all ABOUT communication. Learning to dress usually means adhering to an arbitarily strict dress code that interferes with the nature of IT work to begin with. Ever try to set up a work station while wearing a suit and tie or something similar? You end up fighting your clothes more than the probelm at hand.

And corporate ideals aren't exactly something that I feel good about taking part in. Corporate ideals, for the most part, are trying to figure out how to save the company millions while keeping your mouth shut about anything shady the higher ups are doing. If we went by what people do rather than say, most corporate ideals could be summarized as 'looking for the golden parachute' or 'going to the company picnic to weasel my way into a promotion'.

There's a good reason the dot com companies didn't adhere to most of these. One, if you're working with an open minded crew, dress code doesn't matter aside from a few very basic rules. Two, ideals mean NOTHING if they aren't followed. You can bitch about how its all for the workers all you want, but when you give yourself a nice fat bonus over your workers, all of that just went out the window.

I call it breaking tradition. Tradition is you sit down, shut up, and do your job and whatever else they can trick you into doing. You're to dress up like good little sheeple and make sure not to look any of the higher ups in the eye.

IT people by nature are used to being different. They're used to thinking for themselves, because its probably the only reason they've survived into the IT field far enough to be employed for it. We aren't used to keeping our mouths closed while being treated like shit, or putting on four layers of expensive clothes just to dirty them up by rewiring the networking cabinet.

I wish it could be a wakeup call for all jobs that don't deal with customers/clients face-to-face. Just because the person processing your invoices is wearing a suit and tie doesn't mean he isn't forwarding your account information to his shady cousin. Nor does it mean he isn't talking smack about his co-workers or fantasizing about the new girl down in Advertising. All it means is he's wearing a suit beacuse someone made a policy saying that he had to.

It doesn't even look better than business-casual.

IT

[gullevek]

the blue collar workers nowadays. In the old days it were only coal miners, poor factory workers. But nowadays its the IT too. Not very high pay, long working hours. Very seperate sitting place, never included in most normal activities. Always stick together, etc etc.

I think going into IT was the worst decision I could have ever made.

Oh PLEASE GOD NO

[eno2001]

If there's one thing that bothered me about the dot-com culture, it was all the wasted money on crap like foosball tables. I don't like corporate culture either, but for god's sake people have some perspective and MODERATE! Here are some plain truths that few people want to admit to:

1. Someone who actually knows what they're doing when it comes to computers is not a business person or an executive. A lot of people who dream about jobs in the technology sector always imagine that it somehow leads to the top of the glass tower and a corner office. It doesn't and it shouldn't. If you want that and you have middling to poor technical skills, then you're not cut out for technology. Instead you should go straight for that MBA now. Sure, there's the very rare and occasional individual who is very good with computers and also has business acumen, but you really have to look far and wide to find these strange hybrids. Most business people just aren't that good at computers other than using Office, maybe some SQL and that's about it. (This is not meant to insult anyone BTW)

2. A good software developer writes applications that are meant to be run as binaries. Sorry web folks, you're not software developers. At the very best, you are WEB application developers. At worst, you're still coding static HTML pages and trying to get that six figure job. Yes, web developers are necessary. Yes, web developers are quite talented. But web developers are rarely well versed in C or C++. However, many web developers have a leg up on software developers in the visual department though. Not always, but more often than not.

3. Everything I said about the web developers above? It all applies in reverse to the software developers. As always, there are some exceptions, but they are rare. Software developers should typically not try to write web applications. At best, you'll wind up re-inventing something some other web developer has already done that's ten times better. At worst, you'll wind up with some ugly monstrosity of a web page that isn't user friendly and while the backend might be super efficient, it won't actually do a lot. Stick to software development, it's a different creature altogether. If you are dead set on becoming a web developer, then try REALLY hard NOT to bring much of what you know about UI design (which tends to be little) to the web app side. Remember that the web is primarily a visual medium, including the text. It has to look at least as good as it works.

4. Microsoft based developers are totally different animal. A lot of you are quite talented within your own realm and can whip up some fantastic stuff much faster than your Java and Unix based C using counterparts in terms of look and feel and reusable objects. (The only possible exception being the QT/KDE folks in Unix land) And the subsets of development apply to you as well. There are those of you who develop web apps and those of you who develop applications for use on the desktop. Once again, it's a rare person who can cross those boundaries and do well on both sides. So stick to your side of the development space, unless you want to make a major career change and can actually let go of what you know and take on a totally different mindset.

5. IT computer and network admins are also not executive or "office" positions. A lot of people seem to think that working in IT means a clean office, and you get to wear suits or at the very least business casual. You're wrong. Computer and network admins tend to be the grunts who crawl under desks in a lot of small to medium sized businesses. If you happen to be lucky enough to work in a large or global business, then it's possible that your position will be considered close to but not quite "suit"-ish. Again, if that's what you want, you're better off focusing on the MBA with a minor in CS.

But the bottom line here is that people who really know what they're doing with computers are rarely business people. They are rarely cut out to function within c

Re:misconception about salaries?

[Stochastism]

No, I don't think the average salary is 100k USD. But I do think that companies like Google, MS, Yahoo, Amazon, are massive contributors to the shortage of good technical people. Just think, Google will just about on principle employ any computer science graduate from the top 10% of the good universities. Yes, they have to pass some tricky interviews, but that is what discriminates the top 10% from the others. Google don't need a position for them to fill, they just want to hire them, and for more that 100k. It stops other companies getting those students, their over-inflated work ethics, and their current and future ideas.

And imagine what these companies are doing to the long-term future of CS education. All over the world the best graduates are being sucked up this Web 2.0 straw, leaving the old-farts, and the not quite top notch newbies to teach the next generation of computer scientists and IT professionals.

As an engineer

[minorproblem]

I am not an IT person but an electrical engineer and all I can say is why would you care about beanbags and pinball machines? It is more about the attitude of the people you are working with as well as the company. I would rather work hard, enjoy my work and come off with some sense of achievement than dick around all day.

Re:I still do good

[stonecypher]

And when you start costing 30x as much, suddenly you'll be able to out-do 35 of them, right?

One thing I've learned is that when someone starts saying they're better than programmers from (insert country here,) they're just trying to tell me either that they've never worked with programmers from that country, or that they have wildly inflated notions of self worth. I'm curious: given that among 20 programmers you'll have two or three successfully completed large projects, where are your fourty to sixty? ... or, hell, even just where's your one big project? Anything? I mean, if you're worth 20 of them, surely you have something to show for all that enormous skill?

When you have some numbers to back up that you're actually worth 20 of them, let us know; until then, it's hollow dishonest bragging. The only people you're impressing are other people like you.

The comming screw

[Anon-Admin]

Lets face it, many of the IT people were burned during the dot com bust (I still think it was the Y2K bust more than dot com's) We have grown and learned from our mistakes. Many of us have learned how business works, where things can go wrong, and just how the system works. Now it is our turn ;)

I know I have a list.

#1) Do not take options in place of pay.
#2) Do not accept the 50% of your salary now and 50% based on a bonus when the company is profitable.
#3) Do not accept titles in place of raises. Titles are useless.
#4) Make sure the company has a business plan, funding, and a clear way to become profitable.
#5) If something smells funny in accounting, RUN!!! ( If we pay you 45% of your pay as an employee, 40% as a 1099 contractor, 10% in stock options, and 5% in cash, you get to keep more of your money. Or my favorite your pay is $93,000 and your first check comes in and the math only comes up to $85,000. When you ask you find that it is $93,000 - ($1788*3 weeks vacation) - ($1788x 1 week sick leave) In other words, they are not paying for your vacation or time off but offered it when you were hired. )
#6) Do not work more than 55 hours a week unless they are paying overtime.
#7) Document EVERYTHING! Every offer they make needs to be in writing, every promise, everything.
#8) If you want it, negotiate it when being hired!

Any one want to add to this list?

As a person who thinks for a living...

[tomstdenis]

What I wear is the least of my [and my employers] worries. I show up, work a mostly honest full day, and get results. All that matters. How I'm dressed, how many free sodas are in the fridge, etc, shouldn't matter.

And honestly, there is nothing wrong with perks at the office. You spend 1/3rd of your day there, might as well be a place you feel comfortable and can relax when need to.

Wish my office had an air hockey table :-)

tom

Re:Cost

[Xentor]

Hey, don't underestimate the secretaries!

In a big firm with a lot of red tape, a good secretary can be the difference between something getting done today, and it taking three to six months. A good one will know who to call and what to do to Get. Things. Done.

If we had a secretary in this department, I would be writing code, instead of trying to coordinate with support people and filling out forms just to get a few computers moved around...

HTML and JavaScript "jockeys"

[suv4x4]

and developers aren't getting paid $100K for being HTML and JavaScript jockeys

Yes, now they're being paid $100K for being HTML and CSS and JavaScript jockeys. What a huge difference.

I hope the author recognizes the differences between a taxi cab driver and F1 driver. Because HTML/JS has low entry bar doesn't mean you can pay 50 bucks to a random college kid and have Google maps with draggable/adaptable routes in a week.

Re:misconception about salaries?

[hkgroove]

It wasn't just the salaries if that was the main problem at all. It was more general mis-management of money and lack of responsibility by upper management or project managers. I made 40k right out of the gates, but in about 3 months I expensed nearly that in travel (first class), hotels (The W in SF, HoB in Chicago, etc). I had no limit / per diem for food placed on me. Instead of returning home on the weekends we would take trips to Vegas or Tahoe or LA. Other project managers would fight to goto lunch with us and normally we'd end up with a group of 10 and daily lunch bills of nearly $400. It was one big college party with catered breakfasts and dinners, fully stocked bar and kegs (usually of Guinness) refilled once a week.

I heard stories of people asking for books of cab receipts and filling them out randomly just to get an extra $10 or $20 here and there.

Multiply all that by the 5 or 6 people they would shuffle around to create the team it adds up.

When you add that to all these companies wanting to get the big accounts / clients and ignoring the smaller ones that could keep them afloat, yes, you're going to bleed money. $150 million in funds gone in 17 months. I still can't fathom it.

Re:Bah

[cowscows]

Don't pretend that geeks are somehow special in a way that no one else ever was. Your average early twenties liberal arts major is no more interested in dressing up in a suit and a tie every day than you are, it's just that by that age, most people have realized that for better or worse the world works in particular ways, and while you can try and fight it, some fights really aren't worth the struggle. That doesn't mean that everyone who's willing to wear a nice pair of pants to work is some roll-over drone happy to give up their humanity for a paycheck, it means they've got other priorities and realize that wearing a shirt with buttons on it is not some callous insult against their soul.

IT nerds found themselves temporarily immune to such things due to the explosive growth of computers/networking/etc. in the business world, and the seemingly magic nature of the internet and all of that. But those days were a fluke, they're mostly over. The good news is that, in general, there seems to be a slow shift towards more casual dress in a lot of places. I work downtown in a decent sized city, and I see way more people without ties than with. But I respect my employer, my coworkers, and our clients enough to dress better than than I would going to see a movie with my friends. It's not a hard thing to do, it's not even expensive.

Loyalty

[Colin Smith]

Is paid for in cash.

 

Re:misconception about salaries?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Indeed. What these management types think of as inflated salaries is a perception problem on their part, not the developers'. It is well documented that a really good developer can be at least an order of magnitude more productive than the average. Do they get paid 10x as much for their time buy a business employing them? Of course not, that's "not the market rate"...

...Unless you take a leap of faith and go self-employed or start your own business. Now if you're a talented developer, your greater productivity benefits you directly or a company that you own, and you really can get the financial benefits that your skill level deserves on merit.

Realistically, most managers aren't smart and knowledgeable enough to understand this and offer salaries that really are attractive to people good enough to have the other option open to them. That's why they keep bitching about a shortage of talent, yet in the next breath refer to the "inflated" salaries of the dot com boom (where despite all the failures, quite a few small companies made an awful lot of money very fast using good people).

Re:It's not THAT good yet...

[SatanicPuppy]

I've worked at a number of places where they used oddball naming conventions. as long as they're grouped correctly, and LABELED, what does it matter?

I mean sure, if you take greek gods and name every fricking server after one and don't label them, you're going to have problems.

But if you name the accounting servers after demons, the web servers after presidents, the file infrastructure after animals, etc, then label them clearly, set them up in alphabetical order within their category, you're good to go. The names are easy to remember, the "role" of the machine is obvious from the name, and you don't forever have to recheck the name you scrawled on your hand while you're wandering through the server room looking for a machine with a hugely unpronouncable name.

Now this only flies if you don't have to worry about 1000 machines all doing the exact same thing...That's really what the "standard" naming system is meant for. But since most businesses aren't in that situation, it doesn't make sense to get all gestapo on the naming conventions for a few dozen machines.

Re:misconception about salaries?

[Lumpy]

Problem is they want to pay the other way. Almost ALL Tech jobs I see are incredibly underpaid and the managers in charge of it wonder why they cant keep the position filled.

guess what, $18.99 an hour is ENTRY LEVEL, yet these guys want to pay $13-16 an hour and then wonder why they only get high school kids or fresh college grads that only work there for 6 months and leave.

If you want good tech people then you have to PAY for good tech people. Yet this incredibly basic bit of understanding seems to elude Americas CEO's and managers.

Hell the job I left 2 years ago is STILL open because they refuse to pay for what the position demands and only get under qualified people because of the pay offered.

the whole article is nothing more than posturing by Executives whining there is a shortage of cheap and competent labor.

I complain that there is an incredible lack of competent executives running the companies out there.

Re:Oh PLEASE GOD NO

[joss]

> A good software developer writes applications that are meant to be run as binaries.
er.. wtf ?

> Software developers should typically not try to write web applications
well who should ?

Ok, you seem to think that there are two distinct species of developers,
scripting and compiled, where a software developer writes in compiled languages
and a web developer writes using scripting languages. It's not that simple.
Any decent developer knows a selection of tools. A web developer is a particular
type of software developer. If by web developer you mean someone who knows
a little javascript/php/asp and some design stuff but not enough about software
development to be considered a software developer [and that's a fairly common
useage of the term] then they should not be writing web applications.
They can customise/configure existing web applications, or collaborate with software
developers in the creation of web applications, but writing web applications
definitely needs people with enough knowledge to be considered software
developers.

Re:Cost

[umghhh]

and this somebody is as good as you? Can you improve then? If they are merely at your level it usually does not pay for the company to employ somebody else only to get 1k savings on your salary. There are of course exeptions - the moron manager getting bonus for a 1k$ saving and moving along before the competence gap hits etc. But if they act in a responsible way they usually need experienced people to do core activities. Such experienced people do not grow on trees and tend to piss off if treated badly.

I admit that knowing this does not help by salary negotiations. If you hit the wall the only way to get more money is to get another job. My experience is that this is the only thing that helps. I do not discuss to much with them. Simple questions are answered simply as in following work instruction:

1.ask the boss:"can I get more money? "
2.if answer is yes CONTINUE
    else find another JOB.
3.work a little
4.GOTO1

There is no point in arguing with morons. By doing so anyway you run into danger that you get so low as to their intelectual and moral level. They are like politicians - good boss is difficult to find the rest of them are simple parasites able to come up only with ideas of others.

Re:sigh

[EggyToast]

Yeah the problem had to do with CEO business culture, not tech culture. You know, the "make as much money as possible at any cost" idea, regardless of how poor of a long-term strategy it is. I don't think "able to play foosball during lunch or after long coding sessions, and wear shorts to work in the summertime" contributed much to the bubble bursting.

Re:Bah

[gad_zuki!]

Don't pretend that geeks are somehow special in a way that no one else ever was.

Very true. The problem is that slashdot caters to HS/college age people who have all sorts of rebellious attitudes (see the the rant posted by gp). At the end of the day most places have given in to casual dress, work is not as bad as you think, and life gets easier when you start shedding your inflated ego/snobishness/chip-on-shoulder.

If someone feels so strongly about work structures I suggest they attempt to start their own business, be all wavy-gravey, and try not to act too surprised when your customers hate your "in your face service" and your employees come in wearing stinky beach-wear over their obese bodies.

That said, I believe any position that involves moving heavy things should be allowed to wear jeans and regular shoes.

Wednesday off is the way to go.

[rAiNsT0rm]

In college I worked for a company who did 10 hour days, Monday/Tuesday, Wednesday off, and then Thursday/Friday. It was pure heaven. It makes life into short little two day weeks. Tuesday night becomes like a Friday since you don't have to work the next day, and then you get a weekday to either wear off what you did the night before or get errands and stuff done during the week when things are less busy. Then Thursday/Friday and the normal weekend. The only two days that kind of suck then are Monday and Thursday.

Absolutely the best work schedule ever, plus it cuts down on commuting since you are missing the standard rush hours, and since you are already at work the extra hour or two is no big deal when the reward is a full day off. I could care less about fluffy crap and I don't need to be treated like a superstar or anything, just let me work smarter and have an equal amount of time for my real life.

Everyone loves corporate culture

[athloi]

As a learned poster pointed out, it's cheaper to offer beanbag chairs and free soft drinks than it is to compensate people well, but it seems compensation is also rising somewhat. The real issue here is that quality minds detest the narrow appearance-based logic of corporate culture, and they're always cutting out toward the frontier. The same thing is true of writers, of space pioneers, and inventors as it is of computer geeks. When too many people get into the room, the job at hand becomes a secondary function to how it appears to others.

If geeks are smart, they'll channel FOSS ideology into corporate culture as a right and a demand. We want:

• Comfortable dress requirements
• Reasonable comfort food
• Sensible workweeks
• Some of what we do to be open IP, or FOSS-styled learning for the good of humanity

Right now, the corporates are hoping to buy us off with a bolt of fabric and a foosball table. Who's going to step up and articulate what all creative minds really want, which is a chance to work on interesting projects for the good of humanity, with all the fear, uncertainty, doubt and boring ties left behind?

Wheres the part-time/job shares?

[MrBandersnatch]

Having mainly worked part-time since the dot-com crash in order to look after my kids I recently started to think about returning to proper employment (Ive been consulting/freelancing mainly) on the 3 days a week that I now dont have responsibility for my children. You'd think that in 2007 a good proportion of employers would have worked out that family friendly working conditions (flexitime, part-time, telework) would be the key to getting and keeping skilled (20 years IT experience, 1st class honours degree) employees. However (from cwjobs) :-

- 11,607 jobs listed in London.
- 9 Jobs listed as part-time.
- 0 Jobs listed as offering flexitime.
- 3 Jobs listed as job-share.
- 0 Jobs listed as offering teleworking.

If pizzas and pool tables ARE making a comeback due to skill shortages; I'd suggest the skill shortage actually lies with HR who are unable to recognise the benifits they need to offer to get us "more mature" employees back into the marketplace.

Re:I still do good

[aldheorte]

I will take the onshore guy who claims he can be 20x productive over 20 offshore resources any day of the week because, if he is passionate about technology and has the confidence to make that statement, which could be quickly determined, he is probably right. You probably come from the school of thought that a new resource can only add productivity to a project. In your line of thinking, even if they are not very good, they will at least marginally increase productivity. In reality, most developers are net negative to project productivity and the median developer falls below zero.

It's not that offshore people are inherently inferior. It's that most offshore technical resources have little or no interest in technology. They simply want to make money. This is not bad in and of itself. However, like their onshore counterparts who are driven solely by the same interest, their technical skills are generally quite poor. As a result, hiring a scatter shot of 20 offshore programmers and incurring the managerial overhead will generally result in less overall project productivity than where you started, especially when you consider long term costs.

Re:misconception about salaries?

[Hal_Porter]

The smart "bosses" are more concerned about the holistic profitability of their business

Yeah right. Smart bosses are probably weighing up the cost/benefit ratio of keeping you on versus laying you off versus butchering you in the stationary cabinet and selling your organs on the blackmarket.

Re:misconception about salaries?

[jafac]

I worked at a larger dotcom in the late 1990's, and sure, they coddled developers with all this nice stuff.

But you should see what they did for the salesweasels:

One year, they had an offsite conference - in South Africa. They went on a hunting safari, and each got a commemorative, engraved, gold Rolex watch, for the occasion. I think that was the most extravagant offsite I heard of; but they had a big one like that, every year, and additional quarterly ones that were at local (Bay Area) country clubs or resorts.

I think that, in light of what the idiot salesweasels do, as opposed to, you know, the smart people who actually produce the products, create IP, and innovate, I would say that you can't coddle developers enough. I understand that without sales people, there's no market, no revenue. But these are the people closest to the money, and the people whose professional skillset revolves around lying and cheating to get the most money, and frankly, that sort of coddling is far more corrosive to the health of a corporate budget than a fucking fooseball table, or letting someone come to work in shorts and sandals.

Re:Oh PLEASE GOD NO

[eno2001]

You're all missing the point. I've never once met a decent desktop application developer who was a good web developer. And I've never met a decent web developer who could write a desktop application to save his/her life. Period. End of story. There might be a very very few rare people who can cross between both worlds, but as a rule web devels can't code for a Windows desktop, KDE or Gnome and guys who write stuff in C, C++ or even VB can't make a decent web app. Whenever they try, they fail every time. They might not know it. In fact they might think they're great at both. But the users and other knowledgeable tech sector folks know it. That's the point. And it's not even the main point I was making. The main point in my original post was that truly talented people in the tech sector (I mean people who can make their computers do anything without needing to rely on tons of commercial products that do it out of the can) are nearly always bad at business. To attract this type of person, you need a challenging problem for them to sink their teeth into that is very interesting to them. That's why the dot-bomb era happened: Too much focus on business people and wannabe execs who couldn't code, come up with decent uses for technology, but knew the right buzzwords and wanted to be in on the party. The right people will produce something successful. And most of the time the right people aren't into business or aren't very good at it.

Re:IT

[Anarchitektur]

I think coal miners might be pushing it, but I'd agree that working in IT can easily be equated to being a car mechanic. In most organizations, computers and software are tools, and the people staffed to keep them operating are in a service-oriented position. These "dot com" operations have technology as their bread and butter, so that positions their technical employees to be the company's focus instead of something in the background that keeps things working. Compare a typical auto mechanic to someone who works at a car customization shop. The skill sets of the two mechanics are bound to have a lot in common, but the difference is that mechanic at the customization shop is probably being paid more due to an inherent level of "innovation" that goes along with his work, and is also challenged more than having to do oil changes again and again.

I regretted going into IT for a while, but I realized it wasn't working in IT that I hated... it was the mindless repetition of being in a service-oriented position that has to answer to technically-inept sales people.

Re:sigh

[Brad Eleven]

Yes. These are two separate effects, which are still being actively conflated. The dot-com bust was all about irrational exuberance, e.g., anything with a trailing ".com" became a target for the extra capital floating about in the late 90s. You didn't even need a business plan, just a catchy name. The absence of a plan, in turn, led to silly work environments, with a few extremes that got press (recall that there was a whole new press industry being born at the same time, e.g., online publication).

The other effect mentioned, the one that seems to have led to massive layoffs and restructuring--and the shift from offers for FTE to contract-to-hire becoming the norm--seems to have been a reaction to the lost investments in dot-com firms. That is, in the wake of major market adjustments, corporations of all sizes turned to the dreaded Short-Sighted Efficiency Experts. Add to that a sharp increase in health care costs and I think you have most, if not all of the factors responsible for tech jobs losing their allure. And by allure I mean high pay, stellar benefits, and possible perqs (even for non-management types).

The thing that we as employees really want, though, seems to be making a comeback. I'm hearing more and more from my colleagues who chose the management route that "Maximizing the return on cost-per-hire" is a fully-revived meme. This is the harbinger of "Increasing and maintaining employee retention," which the experienced folk among us will recognize as bottom-line justification for perquisites reaching even the newest of new hires.

The dark side of this revival is that it's employee-focused, e.g., the commodification [wikipedia.org] of our industry has led to highly populated ranks of contractors. Whether corporations will see fit to maintain the present balance of employees and contractors remains to be seen, but don't look for any change in the invisible-but-known-to-everyone line between employees and guest workers.

Re:misconception about salaries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, you and your friends are unethical assholes. Yeah, it is true that that management was kind of responsible for not having a little more oversight and control of your habits...but don't use their lack of responsibility to rationalize away all of your responsibility. You know you did shit with your autonomy that the company really didn't intend for you to do. You can't justify unethical behavior by saying that the policing should have been better. That's the excuse for too many criminals. For your own integrity, you are responsible for your own behavior...you can't transfer away guilt by saying "it's okay cuz no one caught us or stopped us."

And if you can't see things from this perspective, if my words have no meaning for you, then you are truly an asshole and I hope you get what you deserve someday when you get caught doing more shit like this.

Re:I still do good

[Speare]

I will definitely concur with your observations, from my work both with "offshore" Indian teams and "near-shore" Puerto Rican teams. The median developer on the team can definitely be counter-productive, so it takes a couple of miracle-workers to bring the mean developer positive and make things crawl along on the positive side of zero.

I will also concur that a great indicator of a highly-positive developer is a developer who is really interested in technology. It's not a litmus test, but it's a cumulative benefit. I always ask other folks if they code things in their spare time. In many cases, it's really easy to see the folks who will not benefit the team-- they have no imagination or creative urges to solve problems, they simply took the courses with a paycheck in mind.

However, I won't quite go so far as to say that this is a truism or even anything more than a stereotype with some "truthiness" to it. I have found some very determined, even dogged, worker-bee personalities who couldn't solve their way out of a paper bag if given a sharp sashimi knife. There are a LOT of this personality available in the workforce, and it's these types of workers that the average manager tends to hire for those offshore/nearshore teams. There is a way to get value from them: don't have them solve the problems. Demonstrate to them how to cut a paper bag with a sashimi knife, and then point them at the seven thousand paper bags that need cutting. If you can organize them in such a way as to not require too much problem-solving, they'll execute your job requirements deep into the night while you're at home with the kids.

In short, an outsourcing services team isn't for solving problems, it's for executing plans. If you have a local resource who behaves this way, see how you can make them part of the outsourcing services team, instead of the core team. If you have a great problem-solver in the remote team, ask your Legal department how you can poach them.

Re:The comming screw

[Aceticon]

#9) If there's a high emphasis when selling the job on soft rewards such as "relaxed work environment", "casual wear", "group outings" then they're probably trying to pay you less than average for the same position and trying to compensate for it by throwing you some cheap bones.
#10) "Opportunities for career growth", the "Potential for significant future increases in income" and in general any promises of future promotions are worth as much as the paper they're written on.
#11) "Flexible working hours" = "We expect you to work more hours per day than we are willing to pay you for"
#12) Any "payment" in things other than cash (for example, a company car) should always be converted into a cash equivalent when evaluating a position. Don't forget to apply an opportunity factor to non-cash offers: with plain ol' cash you to choose what to use that cash for and when to do it, while with non-cash beneficts (such as the above mentioned company car) the choice has been done for you already and often it comes with strings attached. An example: you get a Audi A4 as a company car, to be assigned to you 3 months after you started working for the company, which you cannot sell for 2 years and if you leave the company within those 2 years you loose the car. This is clearly worth a lot less than the equivalent amount in cash since:
- It's pre-chosen as a car of a certain brand (maybe you wanted to use the money for a house intead, or some extra nice vacations, or maybe you wanted a different brand of car, or maybe a cheaper car AND some nice vacations)
- The timing when you receive the car is fixed (maybe you just got a brand new car a month ago)
- You do not immediatly get full ownership of the car (maybe after one year you want to sell it to get a different car, or maybe you want to leave the company because you want to move to a different country/state or maybe because they didn't turn out to be what you wanted).

Re:Cost

[yog]

1.ask the boss:"can I get more money? "
2.if answer is yes CONTINUE

    else find another JOB.
3.work a little
4.GOTO1

I suggest first lining up a job offer, then going to your present employer to see if they are willing to match. It's better not to reveal the job offer, however, because it makes you sound like you're halfway out the door and have little loyalty. Just say something like "I have reason to believe that I am worth $XXXXX in this market. Are you able to give me something close to that?" and settle for something a little less in exchange for keeping your seniority, vesting, etc.

Re:Oh PLEASE GOD NO

[Valafar]

I call bullshit. Programming concepts and skills cross-pollinate whether you're dealing with Desktop applications or Web applications. There are 2 differences between a desktop application and a web application. 1) The rendering engine is different (GDI, QT, et. al vs. HTML et al.). 2) Web applications are (generally) stateless. If you can grasp those two concepts, then you can do either with equal skill and proficiency.

In regards to your point about business, generally you are correct, but I believe that the problem is that Tech people aren't "good" at business because it's not interesting, not because they're incapable of "being good at it".

Re:Oh PLEASE GOD NO

[Rycross]

You must work with exceptionally unskilled developers. Most devs I know are quite capable in both web and desktop development. Its just a matter of learning which architectures and patterns work well for different situations.

Bingo!

[tacokill]

Yep. You nailed it.

It wasn't the culture that brought these places down, it was the spending. I *was* a project manager during 1997-2001 and I, personally, had hundreds of $100/head dinners during that time. I flew (mostly) first class to client locations (Chicago, LA, San Fran, NYC, Houston) and I stayed at some great hotels (W, Hiltons, Marriotts, Sheratons, etc). I just got lucky on my project assignments being in great cities but that's another story. Since I was in Dallas, we had plenty of 4-star and 5-star restaurants and we definitely used them! Del Friscos, The Mansion on Turtle Creek, 3 forks, etc.

In all of that time, I can't remember a single instance of anyone questioning how much money was being spent. As long as (some) money kept coming in the door, this cycle continued until - duh - the company went out of business. It was no shock to ANYONE who saw the actual books and what we were spending. It was truly astounding (ie: $1300 of wine in one meal at the Mansion on TC, 8 ppl attending, not including food)

I will never understand, no matter how hard you try, why someone would spend $50K to go win a project that would make $15K in profit. It's kinda like selling dollar bills for $0.95 and making it up on volume...

So yea - poor management is the reason most of these companies failed. And by poor management, I really mean "just plain old bad business decisions". There is a reason 80% of startups fail. It's not because the market can not handle the supply, rather, it is usually because of a fatal business decision made early on. And the #1 culprit is: over spending.

Re:Loyalty

[naoursla]

You should assume the company is going to screw you if it is in their business interests to do so.

Re:The comming screw

[Ezzaral]

Exactly. Most people eventually come to value their time with family, friends, nature, hobbies, or whatever more than a bit of extra cash from working 60+ hour weeks. I enjoy my job just fine, but I think my wife deserves my time as well and I think 40 hours a week is enough for work.

I doubt you'll hear many people lamenting on their death bed, "Ohh, I just wish I would have worked more....".

Re:The comming screw

[chameleon_skin]

Your list is awesome.

BUT: to be fair, I think there are a few caveats for people to keep in mind.

#1) Do not take options in place of pay. Risk vs. Reward is the name of the game. True in general, but it really depends on just how many options. If you're offered 5% of the company's worth, it could work out great for you if it fits our current risk profile (side jobs, cash cushion, no mortage or kids, etc.). Of course, this isn't the level we're talking about for most people.

#2) Do not accept the 50% of your salary now and 50% based on a bonus when the company is profitable. See #1. But if somebody's offering you this, you should really be getting a fat options package with it to compensate you for the risk.

#3) Do not accept titles in place of raises. Titles are useless. True to a degree. A lot of companies will scan the titles in your resume and never get to reading the qualifications. But point taken - you can always make up the title of your choice on your resume to accurately reflect your job duties.

#4) Make sure the company has a business plan, funding, and a clear way to become profitable. I couldn't agree more - when evaluating whether or not #1 and #2 make sense for your personal position, this is the biggest factor in evaluating the risk/reward tradeoff.

And very importantly - an exit strategy does not equal a business plan! If the only path your company has to making your options worth something is to sell the company to Google or Yahoo before their financing runs out, look elsewhere. Any decent business should have a plan to profitability (i.e. making more cash than they pay out in expenditures); a good exit strategy is just gravy on top of that.

Re:I still do good

[stonecypher]

Yeah. And you know what that means? Virtually nothing, even if we choose to believe you. There are literally dozens of reasons that people on Team 1 might have a different production rate than Team 2, and it turns out that only some of them are about the engineers on that team. Bad specifications, bad communications, poor requirements documentation, poor access to the customer, and any number of other similar issues can affect teams extremely differently. Even being in a different building is enough to take these problems out of control in a way that would make naive programmers on the unaffected team think they were a whole lot better than they actually were.

On top of that, your manager obviously isn't very good; if he or she was, you wouldn't still be working with that particular group of offshores. I bring this up because the vast bulk of the problems an engineering team goes through are actually about the manager, and offshoring just makes those kinds of problems more difficult. There isn't a doubt in my mind that the productivity problems at the other end of the chain are about the manager in question.

But, back to what I was saying to you: one group of people is not enough experience for you to claim superproductivity. You don't have the knowledge. It could as easily be that the particular group of Indians in question are retarded, or more likely, that your manager is, and that it's killing the Indians' ability to work.

Frankly, when you say "I'm 20x the average programmer," the only people who believe you are other people like you. There are a bunch of phrases in business that tip their hat to this effect. The most telling in my opinion is "proximity breeds success; success breeds success." What that's about is that if you spend time with people, you'll end up achieving at their level.

There's a reason there's nobody onsite who's as productive as you are, and it's not because you're above average. It's that nobody who's above average wants to be dragged down to your level by your company.

Get a better employer, and you'll see your own productivity go up. Maybe then you'll get it.