BEING UNEMPLOYED FUCKING SUCKS!!!

[Taverner]

Note to all contractors: if you ask for more pay, they WILL fire you

In short, that's why I am here. Of course, it's also because they are moving the whole operation to India, and the teammate on an H1-B is on board so he can shut down everyone else's jobs.

Capitalism, don't you just love it?

Fuckall....

And guess what, this company consistently gets "Most Ethical Company" award. Because of how they treat the ten or so people who are full time, rather than the hundreds of contractors, well. That is, until their jobs go to India.

Do I hate India? Fuck no.

Do I hate the H1-B workers? Hells no.

They are practically slave labor. They can't complain about unpaid hours, shitty treatment or anything because they do not have the same protection a green card holder would have. And life as an H1-B is WAAAY better than any job in India. They're scabs, but I understand.

I fucking hate Capitalism.

John Steinbeck summed it up best in "Grapes of Wrath"

If a bank or finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank – or the Company – needs – wants – insists – must have – as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them.

“Sure, cried the tenant men,but it’s our land…We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours….That’s what makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it."

"We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man."

"Yes, but the bank is only made of men."

"No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.

[Taverner]

1. We Can't Make it Here

[LiberalEsto]

2. +100 nt

[Boomerproud]

3. Yes, it does.

[lastlib]

4. AA-Fucking MENNNN!!!

[bike man]

5. The interview didn't go well?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018393120

[hollysmom]

6. I was an IT contractor because I was tired of companies taking advantage of employee me

I competed against H-1B visa people,. Some of them became my friends, most of them were less qualified than the employees. Companies think they do better, but they lose a lot
1. client contact - when the job is over seas, they are on a different time line, in India 12 hours apart. makes meetings difficult
2. Cultural differences cause problems - In India, they don't want to question a senior worker (at least the people I knew) and errors would compound because of this.
3. India cheaps out as well, we constantly had to retrain people because after the people got experience and expected raises, they were let go.

All told the work cost less and worked better when done in the US, but companies only care about buzz words and how their statements affect the next quarter, Stock goes up when companies say they will be outsourcing.

To fix this problem and to get companies to see the long range picture, we have to get control of the corporations back in the hands of the stock voters and out of the closed old boys network it is in now.

[Taverner]

12. Or in the hands of the very workers who know best

[hollysmom]

18. truthfully, I had to deal with employees who bought the buzzwords as well

and fought unions in the 70's when they could have done something then came whining about them in the 00's. Would push stock investment schemes and day trading ( bad stuff, no interest in the long run) and not invest in education for themselves. Not everyone in IT belong there. I have counseled people to change careers when I let them go in my few non-consultant jobs. As a consultant, I saw programmers who gave the job a bad name and sat on their butts most of the day. I saw consultants lie about their experience because companies demanded stupid rare experience that no one has, certainly not H1B people.

Just like there are republicans who believe what they read on the internet - just had to call someone on it who was outraged

[Taverner]

19. I disagree in a big way with almost everything you said.

I respect you,

But damned if I didn't disagree with everything you said....

[hollysmom]

21. what do you disagree with?

1) people who lie on their resume, almost every one did. I happen to be a lousy liar, so stayed my lane.
2)or people who sat on their butts (AT&T had a people who could have been better with better guidance but there is a lack in management, When I was at blue cross for a short while, I met someone in the cafeteria who asked for help, when I saw her work, I was appalled, she had been in the business 10 years + and coded worse than a beginner. We started having lunch lessons about order and logic, she really blossomed, her manager was shocked when her work improved. he came to talk to me and I asked him about a mentor program in the office. never happened - no training, no mentoring) Many people at work in large corporations are never trained or exposed to self starting. The are never reviewed fairly, in many it is who you know, in one department it was who you slept with, but that is another story.
3.) My boss was a republican and I was acquainted with a ditto head libertarian, they both trashed unions and mocked me because I did not hide my feelings on unions and corporations. When the outsourcing became apparent to them ( must have had their heads up their asses because it was apparent way earlier to me, but them I talked to the H1Bs . Granted that is only 2 people, but I can see where my brother's republican family is heading as their jobs get put on the line. They are ditto heads, as well.

4) I had a worked who did not understand that you did not need to put a read statement in for every record on the file, evn though he was told over a 3 month period and given examples, I spent an entire hour with him alone in a room trying to get through to him, I liked him a lot, lousy programmer but he was a great carpenter,


what exactly do you disagree with here?

I am not trying to be a pain, but I just am curious exactly what every thing is.

[Taverner]

23. Give me a fortnight...Johnnie Walker has pickled my brain

And what can I say?

[hollysmom]

26. black or red?

I lurve scotch on the rocks, but have been denied since I take so many medications I am afraid to add alcohol to the mix

[Taverner]

27. Red tonight. I am a poor boy - nobody loves me...

He's just a poor boy - - from a poor family

[hollysmom]

29. if you were poor you would be drinking Dewers.

[Taverner]

30. No if I was truly poor I would be drinking shit that tasted like it was denatured

[hollysmom]

31. I stand corrected. n/t

[darkangel218]

7. Capitalism is.not whats wrong.

Is the fact that is being exploited.

I grew up in Socialism, trust me, you don't want that. We barely had food to eat, clothes to wear. We didn't have freedom of speach. If anyone was to sat anything against the gov they were gone.
I have LIVED through those times and I remember.

[hunter]

9. That wasn't socialism. It was an authoritarian government masquerading as socialist.

There are plenty of nations where the excesses of capitalism are moderated by socialism, and the pitfalls of socialism moderated by free markets and free speech. Look no further than Canada.

The U.S.A. tends to be more authoritarian. I often think we have more in common with Mexico than we do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and much of "Western Europe."

[Taverner]

11. Marxism is Socialism, but a really bad version of it

I don't want Marxism

I want direct democracy, worker owned companies and jobs for all

[hunter]

15. Sounds good to me.

I think a good start would be generous welfare, education, and retirement systems, universal health care, and a good CCC/WPA style public works program. Crappy, abusive employers would have to treat workers better because workers would have no fear of homelessness, starvation, or lack of appropriate medical care if they quit.

Corporations that abused workers or didn't pay living wages would simply be unable to find employees willing to work for them. The older clerks and door greeters at Wal-Mart would retire, the single moms and people working two or three jobs to survive would go home to their kids, and everyone else would go back to school or take jobs with the civilian conservation corps.

Wal-Mart would have to offer something better than those alternatives, by paying more than a mere survival wage, and by creating a pleasant work atmosphere. Either that or their business model fails as it did in Germany.

Would there be anyone willing to work in dangerous coal mines? No. Would there be anyone willing to suffer repetitive motion injuries butchering chickens on an assembly line all day? No. And this would be a good thing.

[Taverner]

28. We need a new WPA - seriously!

Did you know the WPA employed artists? Painters, photographers, writers...

It really was an investment in America

That is what we need now

Not some token park or highway rebuild, but an outright REBUILD AMERICA movement

[darkangel218]

14. So Canada is 100% socialist? no capitalist ventured allowed? lol ok.

[hunter]

16. Did you read my post?

There is no black & white boundary between capitalism and socialism anywhere, there never has been.

There are governments that are more corrupt / less corupt, more authoritarian / less authoritarian, and more socialist / more capitalist.

The governments of Eastern Europe, Soviet style, suffered high levels of corruption and authoritarianism, their markets were not fully functional.

A functional market has capitalist aspects and socialist aspects. It is human nature to trade just as it is human nature to share.

[Taverner]

17. I am assuming you came from a Marxist-Lenninst (or Maoist, Hoxaist, etc)

Yeah that was Socialism, but Socialism is a huge tent, like Democracy, Republicanism and Liberalism.

Socialism can encompass anything from the mutualist employee owned companies, the autonomous collectives of Nestor Makhno in Ukraine (that is, until Trotsky killed the Black Army...something they probably did not include in your history book. (It's cool - they didn't include him in ours either.)

I am for Socialism. But right now, we need a Social Democracy.

Something a little more to the left of Western Europe...

[datasuspect]

8. it's better than being in the joint

or in 'nam.

[Major Nikon]

10. The latter is not too bad these days

http://www.saigonist.com/content/cost-living-vietnam-its-really-cheap

[Taverner]

20. Ah yes, that is true

It's also better than being tortured for information we don't know, and a system that doesn't give a shit...

[Gidney N Cloyd]

13. As a nation we have to rework what a corporation's responsibilities are.

Now it seems that fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders trumps all but they should be equally responsible for working in the overall best interests of the country.

[Taverner]

25. A corporation cannot be a person

They lack the empathy that a person can have

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

22. What type of work do you do?

Where are you willing to work?

I'm a contractor; maybe I can help.

[Taverner]

24. IT - specifically storage

And I am at that point in my career where having too much experience can doom you...

[Locut0s]

32. Try being 31 with NO experience in almost anything...

just a few retail jobs and 1/2 a degree in IT. Not the best.

Not saying what you are going through is easy, it's not at all. I wish the best for you and hope that you get a job. It's just that I'm not sure I will ever have one.

[Taverner]

33. Dude, it sucks for all of us. That is why we have to unite.

Seriously!

[magical thyme]

34. hey, I worked in high tech marketing communications....in storage at my peak

StorageWorks from Digital Equipment. Those were heady days...

[Cali_Democrat]

36. Are you a DBA?

PM me.

I might be able to help you out.

I would love to help a fellow DUer that I like.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

37. You're profile says SF.

Are you willing to travel?
If so how far?

[Tom Ripley]

35. I love everything about it, but the lack of income

[In_The_Wind]

38. Waiting for jobs when you are self-employed sucks too!