If there were justice in our industry ...

Wed Jul 16 07:08:26 PDT 2003

Decision makers are rarely going to put themselves at risk.  The same
holds true for just about anyone in that position.  That is human nature.

Its been my experience that when the layoffs happen, middle management is
at high risk for the axe.  I would also put a grain of salt in what Salon
writes.  Its like saying something on newsmax.com is reliable.  (IE political
agenda)

Market forces are whats best for the long term health of the economy.  
Societies have proven that protectionism doesn't work.  The longer you wait 
the harder the pain is.  Change is painful, but inevitable.

And besides outsourcing, what about the current generation of kids that
have grown up on computers and are soon to be entering the work force.  Some
of these 18 yr olds already have a few open-source projects under their belt 
and I bet they are willing to work longer hours for much less coin than most 
30+ programmers.

Long and short, being in tech and over a certain age (haven't figured the
exact figure yet) you are at risk and should significantly invest in your
skill set in order to show value to an organization.  Otherwise I think its 
time to find a new career.  

Cheers,
Dave

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003, Roy S. Rapoport wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 02:30:03PM -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote:
> > http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/print.asp?id=855
> 
> There were several articles on salon.com recently about the offshoring of
> IT; someone, in the flurry of letters that responded to them, pointed out
> that the most expensive Corporate resources -- Management -- are the least
> likely to get outsourced for cheaper resources, 'for some reason.'
> 
> This is eerily similar to the argument that CEOs should be paid a lot of
> money because they take a big risk managing a company, since their fortunes
> are tied to it, even though it seems that the last person to typically get
> laid off by a company is the CEO.  
> 
> -roy

-- 
David Smith <dsmith at financialengines.com>
Voice: 650-565-7750 Fax: 650-565-4905