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  Feh..., 31 Oct 2002 @ 10:07am

  
  

  PLEASE...

  Give me a break...
  
  Millions of grunts spend their day doing manual labor. Millions of others spend their day in small cities all over America working twice as hard for half as much...not because they are any less talented, but because of the luck of the draw.
  
  Crying because people miss foozball tables and wearing jeans to work?
  
  As technology workers we were all spoiled rotten.
  
  Now complaining about having to actually work is like a rich spoiled Yale grad oil tycoon's son complaining he has to pay for his own automobile....
  
  FEH!

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  • 

    Mike (profile), 31 Oct 2002 @ 10:18am

    
    

    Re: PLEASE...

    I actually see both sides to this. Clearly, there are many many people who are much worse off.
    
    However, I tend not to put much weight in arguments that begin along the lines of "millions of people are suffering and you're complaining about..."
    
    The feelings and morale of the people in these jobs are still real feelings.
    
    People spend a significant portion of their lives at their job. What is wrong with someone realizing that they don't enjoy their job? Do people have to suffer to make their feelings legitimate? I'm all for helping everyone have a better life, but there's only so much a single person can do - and if it initially involves focusing on making their own life happier and more enjoyable, what's wrong with that?
    
    "I can't complain, because other people are worse off" isn't exactly a recipe for improving the world.

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    EMC Guy, 31 Oct 2002 @ 4:42pm

    
    

    Re: PLEASE...

    maybe I missed it, I didnt catch the part in the article where workers are crying over foosball and jeans?
    
    Not all tech workers are spoiled rotten- I call on a lot of tech companies and most people are worried about their jobs, they are concerned about the employees let go, and I think a lot of people are afraid its going to get worse. And its even worse in Telecom- its not alot of fun in the valley right now...

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    • 

      Jack0, 1 Nov 2002 @ 11:12am

      
      

      Re: PLEASE...

      "Sisyphus-like existences"????
      
      "the excitement of work is just no longer there??"
      
      "We miss fun work culture of the boom times"???
      
      Wahhh....work isn't fun....no more free mountain dew.....no more afternoons playing Counter-Strike in Greg's cubicle! Wahhh! I'm now forced to actually make the network work! I'm now forced to come up with a business idea that actually makes a profit. Wahhh!
      
      People should be happy their working, and if their job is such a drag and they actually have any talent to begin with, go find another job.

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  Chris, 31 Oct 2002 @ 10:16am

  
  

  RE: Please

  Luck of the draw my ass. Finishing high school, not getting pregnant at 17 or younger, going to college, continually striving to improve yourself have nothing to do with the luck of the draw. The fact is that for the vast majority of us (severly mentally of physically diabled excepted) we are where we are because of the decisions we made prior to today. And if we expect to be somewhere better tomorrow, it has to start with making better decisions. Its not rocket science.

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    2Lazy2Register, 31 Oct 2002 @ 10:35am

    
    

    Re: Please

    While I see where you're coming from, Chris, I have to partially agree with the previous poster, at least in my case. Yes, I worked my tail off to get where I am in the IT industry. I could just have easily worked my tail off in another industry (say aeronautical engineering, for example), and be just as successful relative to my peers, yet be making half what I do now. I sort of do consider this luck of the draw in that I happened to get into an industry that exploded salary-wise. Note that I was a pretty early entry to this industry, starting at $10/hr in 1989. I got into this work because I enjoy it (my first home computer was a TRS-80 Model I), not because I thought it would be lucrative. I just got lucky on that part. My job is not a cake walk, but there are certainly people working a lot harder for a lot less because they didn't make the somewhat lucky choice that I did.

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      Chris, 31 Oct 2002 @ 11:19am

      
      

      Re: Please

      I started with an Atari 800 - so I know what you mean :) Of course, there is some, maybe a lot of chance that dictated why we chose the industry that we did. But the fact that we made good with that chance is work - not luck. And I get very frustrated with people that write off anybody more successful than themselves as "just lucky." Hell, I've had stock options in 4 Internet companies and never made a dime from it. I know people who are millionaires that never made more than 50K in salary. Is it luck or were they just smart enough to seize an opportunity? I lean towards smart. You didn't have to be lucky to get a job with AOL or UUNET in 1996, mostly you just had to apply.

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        Jack0, 31 Oct 2002 @ 12:46pm

        
        

        Re: Please

        Actually it's luck and skill. I've known absolute geniuses that spent the dot-com boom teaching in schools. I've known complete boobs who were glorified car salesmen and developed massively popular websites that then collapsed. SOmetimes it's skill, sometimes it's luck....The dot-com boom was less about legitimacy than it was about hype, con-artists, and upper level managers with the technical savvy of a mud puddle.
        
        Location had a lot to do with it. Are programmers in Pittsburgh who never made more than 50k better than some schmuck in Silicon Valley with a liberal arts degree who happened to stumble into an IPO at the right time?
        
        The dot-com boom was jam packed with under-qualified, over hyped con artists, many of who over-estimated their own talent and began to believe their own hype....
        
        When the walls came down and legitimate business rules began to apply again, the wheel turned and shook the excess flour from the pan.
        
        Now they are all wondering what the smell is....and are upset that their company sold the HDTV in the rec room?
        
        I've watched countless losers over the past three years leeching off their families and whoever else (and complaining all the while) because they were too proud to lower themselves and consider other job possibilities...
        
        I rode through the boom and did very well for myself as a network admin and now a writer....very well....
        
        But for every one of me...there's twenty thousand people in other businesses (and many in tech) who think you people whining about perks and stock options are whiney b_tches. ANd quite frankly I agree with them.
        
        
        
        

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      • 

        martrom, 31 Oct 2002 @ 12:48pm

        
        

        Re: Please

        Just because there are those who have it worse, doesn't mean all of us can't hope to have it better. I never appreciated the "be thankful for what you've got" if what you've got ain't that great.
        
        Sisyphus-like = Sisyphian

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          dennis, 31 Oct 2002 @ 3:47pm

          
          

          Re: Please

          yah.. i was debating whether or not Sisyphian was a word, and it's not in dictionary.com, so I couldn't figure out how to spell it.. http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=Sisyphian -- either way, you know what i meant..
          
          ok, back to rolling my boulder up the hill.

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            foobario, 2 Mar 2004 @ 8:34pm

            
            

            Re: Please

            It is in Dictionary.com, you'd think the site would be small enough to recognize your query as a mispelling of 'Sisyphean'.

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