From: daniels at Ponderosatel.com (Daniel Sichel)
Subject: Professional Groups

> It's time we as a professional group start talking and walking like
> adults (at least more than in the past), I think. Just playing with
> computers is fine, but not enough.

>Agreed.  And believe me, I have spent many an hour trying to figure out

>how to approach the problem.  Unfortunately, every solution I can come 
>up with involves educating the masses . . . many of whom don't want to 
>be confused with facts . . .  ;>

This is off topic but I couldn't help myself. What we need is a union.
Why? Well right now, management generally buys the software that has the
cutest infobabes, the best promise, or safe branding (Microsoft). If we
had a union that negotiated a contract that paid us extra for fixing
software failures or broken installs, so that the bottom line got hurt
by the crap these people sell, it would take about 5 minutes for the
priorities to change in purchasing decisions and for SLAs and tech
support to be ratcheted up where they belong. 

Speaking as a US citizen, if we were Teamsters and honored their picket
lines think of the leverage we would have. Scab truck drivers are
available, but imagine the chaos of scab sys admins or firewall
administrators? And of course when the Teamsters honor our picket lines,
that wouldn't hurt a bit. 

Be nice to keep our jobs from going to third world countries where tech
professionals are even more exploited than here. 

But of course, all my technical professional colleagues will pooh-pooh
the idea of a union. They always do. Think about this, a union for us
could be like the bar associatio for lawyers or the AMA for doctors. We
could impose stringent professional abilities, certifications, and
requirements to ensure we are a professional, capable body of people. We
could institute apprenticeships so we have  a supply of people who are
more than paper MCSEs or CCNAs.

I am very fortunate that I work in an enlightened company that pays more
than lip service to standards and security. Management totally backs us
up on secure and safe computing. No IM, no HTML mail, no user installed
software. A budget for security and training. It is wonderfule.  It is
also the first employer in my 15 years of IT experience that follows
through on these things. But I remember the pain and anguish from
before. If we are going to change our industry so that we can succeed at
our jobs, we need a union. Period. 


Dan Sichel, Network Engineer
Ponderosa Telephone Company
(559) 868-6367

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