Re: -I- Greetings...

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Nathan Dykman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > "Puma" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [snip]
> >> Of course you may have to move to India or China to find a job with the
> >> current over-seas-sourcing of jobs in the computer field.
> >> http://www.msnbc.com/news/947478.asp?cp1=1
> > I'm actually coming around the idea that we need a IT union. And H1-B
> > reform. And so on. I do believe in free markets, but I'm not sure that
means
> > the free exchange of labor and jobs.
>
> because labor and jobs aren't part of the market.  ;)

Oh. Right. I'm just so used to being a resource, albeit a human one.

> i think a union would be a pretty bad idea for IT.  you don't really need
> it to be paid decently with benefits, and it could have the unpleasant
> side effect of making software even shittier.  let's face it, there are
> enough jerkoffs who don't really know what they're doing in this field,
> just faking it.  how many times have you seen programs in use that are
> just ridiculously inefficient and hard to use [1]?

I was thinking less of programmers and more of jobs like technical support
and manufacturing, etc. Technical support is bad enough without it being
shipped off to the lowest bidder. And oddly, many factory positions in IT
are non-union.

It could work, if both sides keep up with the bargain. Unions can really
work if they maintain a excellent and skilled workforce. I agree that many
unions are happy to just take the benefits with doing none of the work.
Maybe that's an unfixable flaw in the idea.

What worries me is that there is talk of shipping off R/D jobs overseas. It
seems that nobody remembers that it didn't really work all that well in the
80s at all.

> workers, sometimes they just suck dues out of the members without doing
> squat for them [2].  there are good unions and bad ones, and you'd likely
> end up with a bad one given the situation, plus you'd have one more hunk
> o'cash being sucked out of your paycheck.

I agree. But, collective baragaining is awfully useful at times. And, we do
have professional societies. ACM and IEEE, for computing and engineerings.

> [1] jason had hernia surgery a few weeks ago, and the hospital's software
> was *hideous*.  they needed to get some information, so they called me,
> and first thing apologized that it would take a long time because of
> their new software.  so i'd answer one question, the woman would enter
[snip...]

Medical IT is in bad, bad shape. The problem being is that most of the
companies that do it are being swallowed up by insurance companies, and
classic IT companies won't touch healthcare with a 10 foot pole. I did some
volunteer work at a hospital in Roseburg, and they were in the middle of an
upgrade to "state-of-the-art" software. When I saw it, it took all I had to
not scream "Are you kidding me! That sucks!" It was so, so bad. What's
worse, it was *better* then what they had.

The problem is that medical/nursing informatics is often a part of the
medicial school. And doctor's have about as much business programming as I
do examining patients. Cripes.

It will change, when the healthcare system is just about ready to collapse,
I fear.

> [2] i got kicked out of the grocery union years ago because i refused to
> pay dues to a union that forced me to go to boring meetings and let the
> company routinely violate our contract.  they would actually try to shut
> me up in meetings when i brought up contract violations.  you can imagine
> how well that worked.

Snort... 8-)

Nathan Dykman