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Trouble In Cubicle Nation
Running your own business is not always peaches and cream. Like right now - we're in the annual financial no man's land between December and March where NOTHING is going on. I used to freak out about it, but this year I am taking a week off instead. It will pick up in March. It always does. And by June, we will be crazy busy again.
I've been working in the "technology sector" since shortly after I graduated from college with an English degree. When I got out in '91, my only marketable job skill was ten-key data entry by touch. Five years of college at a prestigious, if contentious, University for a BA, and data entry was my best career option. Anyway - that led to being a system operator, which led to learning networking, and then tech writing, and then IVR programming, and then project management, and then speech recognition. Aong the way, I been employed by some good companies (Birkenstock, SSG) and some bad companies (Fireman's Fund, Eclipse Networks). And since I've spent the last 10 years or so as a consultant, I've worked on site for dozens of other companies. What I've found is that it sucks even working for good companies, and the bad companies aren't much worse.
I went through the dot-com bubble working at various sites in the Silicon Valley, Telecom Alley, and a variety of mini tech boom areas all over the country. What a great time to be in tech! Long hours, but the work was rewarding, and you really felt like your creativity and hard work would lead straight to the good life and not having to work very much. It felt like every hour you put in at the office or working at home at night was going to subtract five hours from the back end of our careers. We would all retire at 35 to manage our personal portfolios on eTrade, book our vacations on Travelocity, collect old computers and Star Wars action figures on eBay, hook up all of our home electronics to our lap top, and then really get in to those extreme sports.
I worked at ShopTalk and a few other places where it was a big perk when someone came around at 5:30 or so to see what you wanted for dinner. Not to see IF you were staying for dinner, mind you, but what you wanted to eat. They would order food for about 2/3 of the staff on any given day. I thought that was great because I could pocket my per diem. I also thought, "How nice to have work for employers that show their appreciation for our hard work by buying us dinner." I was getting paid by the hour there, so it was fine by me. In fact the good company I worked for even gave me a raise when I started that project because they signed me up for a contract with 10.5 hour days five days a week while on site in Chicago for 3 months.
I remember thinking how cool it was to work at TellMe because they had a big open workplace, arcade games, pool tables, a kitchen with several cafe quality espresso machines, and people zipped around the space on Razor Scooters. If you were one of the first few dozen employees hired, you spent your first day on the job assembling your own desk and building a bunk bed over it. It was expected that you would be sleeping there. So they made it convenient for you to do so. I thought that was the greatest thing ever.
Does anything about this strike you as odd yet? Wouldn't it be nice to maybe go home to your family? Wouldn't it be nice to put in a strong eight hour day and go home to your family without looking like a slacker compared to your co-worker who slept over? Picture where you work. Is there anything appealing about sleeping there instead of at home in your own bed?
At the time, we all thought that putting in the extra time would make us insta-millionaires. Stock prices kept going up and up and up, and even the most ridiculous internet ideas got funded and often went public. Sure, there were Porsche Boxsters in a lot of parking lots - but not many. Just about everyone I worked with at the time is still working. Or at least looking for work.
The stock options are gone, the free dinners are gone. What's left? Long hours, if not longer hours. More work. Less pay. And the big reward? If you're lucky, you'll get to keep your job and your company won't go out of business or send your job overseas.
Health insurance? Not likely. And if you're lucky enough to have it, it probably isn't very good. Vision? Maybe a discount card. Dental? Don't make me laugh - I've got a loose filling.
A retirement plan? Forget about it. A secure retirement is another, often overlooked causalty. They got us all thinking our stock options would pay for our golden years.
A lot of people worked hard, and a lot of people died for the fair labor practices we enjoy today. And those practices have been eroded in the last ten years or so. And we are caving iin on what's left of them for fear of unemploymet. If you've got some time, look in to some of the history of the labor movement. Most of us don't consider ourselves "laborers," we consider ourselves professionals.
Profitablility is up. Executive pay is up. Productivity is up. All for the same reason. A lot of people have been laid off and the rest of us still get the same amount or more work done for the same lousy wages.
Why do we settle for a mere two weeks vacation a year? And good luck trying to get that two weeks off in a row. You're lucky if you can swing a four or five day weekend. And even then, you're probably checking e-mail or taking calls on your cell phone.
If you happen to get sick, you are often guilted in to coming back too soon. That is if you aren't guilted in to going to work anyway.
It's sick. It would be criminal, but the laws and the government don't favor those who work for a living. And it's taken me a while to realize how sick it is.
If I had known how hard it is to start a business back in 2001, I may not have done it. But at the time, the way my last employer treated me made me so angry that I vowed never to let anyone do that to me or my family ever again. Over the years, I've often thought that I should take a safer route and take a job with one of the fine companies that I have performed consulting services for or with. But I don't think that route is any safer than this one anymore.
And those of you who work for somebody else should take the time to read about the history of labor in America. I encourage you to do it from your cubilce on your lunch break or at 5:01 on any given work day. Google is great for this. Or pick up Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States." Then get organized. Band together and take back what has been taken from you.
I had no intention of this post being so long. I think there's some worthwhile stuff in here, but I probably won't ever get around to an edit to make it better.
I'll probably go back to recipes for a while. And I'm sure I'll take a lot of pictures when we go to Disneyland.
Trouble In Cubicle Nation
Running your own business is not always peaches and cream. Like right now - we're in the annual financial no man's land between December and March where NOTHING is going on. I used to freak out about it, but this year I am taking a week off instead. It will pick up in March. It always does. And by June, we will be crazy busy again.
I've been working in the "technology sector" since shortly after I graduated from college with an English degree. When I got out in '91, my only marketable job skill was ten-key data entry by touch. Five years of college at a prestigious, if contentious, University for a BA, and data entry was my best career option. Anyway - that led to being a system operator, which led to learning networking, and then tech writing, and then IVR programming, and then project management, and then speech recognition. Aong the way, I been employed by some good companies (Birkenstock, SSG) and some bad companies (Fireman's Fund, Eclipse Networks). And since I've spent the last 10 years or so as a consultant, I've worked on site for dozens of other companies. What I've found is that it sucks even working for good companies, and the bad companies aren't much worse.
I went through the dot-com bubble working at various sites in the Silicon Valley, Telecom Alley, and a variety of mini tech boom areas all over the country. What a great time to be in tech! Long hours, but the work was rewarding, and you really felt like your creativity and hard work would lead straight to the good life and not having to work very much. It felt like every hour you put in at the office or working at home at night was going to subtract five hours from the back end of our careers. We would all retire at 35 to manage our personal portfolios on eTrade, book our vacations on Travelocity, collect old computers and Star Wars action figures on eBay, hook up all of our home electronics to our lap top, and then really get in to those extreme sports.
I worked at ShopTalk and a few other places where it was a big perk when someone came around at 5:30 or so to see what you wanted for dinner. Not to see IF you were staying for dinner, mind you, but what you wanted to eat. They would order food for about 2/3 of the staff on any given day. I thought that was great because I could pocket my per diem. I also thought, "How nice to have work for employers that show their appreciation for our hard work by buying us dinner." I was getting paid by the hour there, so it was fine by me. In fact the good company I worked for even gave me a raise when I started that project because they signed me up for a contract with 10.5 hour days five days a week while on site in Chicago for 3 months.
I remember thinking how cool it was to work at TellMe because they had a big open workplace, arcade games, pool tables, a kitchen with several cafe quality espresso machines, and people zipped around the space on Razor Scooters. If you were one of the first few dozen employees hired, you spent your first day on the job assembling your own desk and building a bunk bed over it. It was expected that you would be sleeping there. So they made it convenient for you to do so. I thought that was the greatest thing ever.
Does anything about this strike you as odd yet? Wouldn't it be nice to maybe go home to your family? Wouldn't it be nice to put in a strong eight hour day and go home to your family without looking like a slacker compared to your co-worker who slept over? Picture where you work. Is there anything appealing about sleeping there instead of at home in your own bed?
At the time, we all thought that putting in the extra time would make us insta-millionaires. Stock prices kept going up and up and up, and even the most ridiculous internet ideas got funded and often went public. Sure, there were Porsche Boxsters in a lot of parking lots - but not many. Just about everyone I worked with at the time is still working. Or at least looking for work.
The stock options are gone, the free dinners are gone. What's left? Long hours, if not longer hours. More work. Less pay. And the big reward? If you're lucky, you'll get to keep your job and your company won't go out of business or send your job overseas.
Health insurance? Not likely. And if you're lucky enough to have it, it probably isn't very good. Vision? Maybe a discount card. Dental? Don't make me laugh - I've got a loose filling.
A retirement plan? Forget about it. A secure retirement is another, often overlooked causalty. They got us all thinking our stock options would pay for our golden years.
A lot of people worked hard, and a lot of people died for the fair labor practices we enjoy today. And those practices have been eroded in the last ten years or so. And we are caving iin on what's left of them for fear of unemploymet. If you've got some time, look in to some of the history of the labor movement. Most of us don't consider ourselves "laborers," we consider ourselves professionals.
Profitablility is up. Executive pay is up. Productivity is up. All for the same reason. A lot of people have been laid off and the rest of us still get the same amount or more work done for the same lousy wages.
Why do we settle for a mere two weeks vacation a year? And good luck trying to get that two weeks off in a row. You're lucky if you can swing a four or five day weekend. And even then, you're probably checking e-mail or taking calls on your cell phone.
If you happen to get sick, you are often guilted in to coming back too soon. That is if you aren't guilted in to going to work anyway.
It's sick. It would be criminal, but the laws and the government don't favor those who work for a living. And it's taken me a while to realize how sick it is.
If I had known how hard it is to start a business back in 2001, I may not have done it. But at the time, the way my last employer treated me made me so angry that I vowed never to let anyone do that to me or my family ever again. Over the years, I've often thought that I should take a safer route and take a job with one of the fine companies that I have performed consulting services for or with. But I don't think that route is any safer than this one anymore.
And those of you who work for somebody else should take the time to read about the history of labor in America. I encourage you to do it from your cubilce on your lunch break or at 5:01 on any given work day. Google is great for this. Or pick up Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States." Then get organized. Band together and take back what has been taken from you.
I had no intention of this post being so long. I think there's some worthwhile stuff in here, but I probably won't ever get around to an edit to make it better.
I'll probably go back to recipes for a while. And I'm sure I'll take a lot of pictures when we go to Disneyland.
posted by Eric Soderstrom at 1:59 PM
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Thanks for the feedback. Who are you? And how did you come across this little blog of mine?
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