Message-ID: <BC287C15.2174%marukka@mac.com>
From: marukka at mac.com (Matt Burnett)
Subject: Professional Groups

Forgot to include this in my previous post. I am personally wondering if
thoses tech jobs going overseas will come back.  Im not sure if it has been
discussed on this list, but what about the quality of the software written
overseas? We all know that American made software typically has a few
security issues, but what of software made overseas? Are we going to see
exploits come out on a obsecene basis. Could this result in jobs coming back
to the US? Also we have seen a few jobs come back, take Dell's Enterprise
Tech Support as a example, tons of people with money complained to Dell and
now we have a few more jobs back. What if we all started to complain about
the quality of products (even if there isn't a problem), and threaten to
switch vendors?

On 1/12/04 2:31 PM, "Daniel Sichel" <daniels@...derosatel.com> wrote:

>> 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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