Radio Shack E-Fires 400 Workers 512
KingSkippus writes "You've got mail! ...and no job! The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that RadioShack has notified 400 workers by e-mail that they are being laid off. The e-mails state, 'The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.' Nothing says thank you for your years of service to our company quite like an e-boot out the door."
HAHA... (Score:5, Funny)
Lost Verizon contract? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lost Verizon contract? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lost Verizon contract? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lost Verizon contract? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:HAHA... (Score:5, Funny)
Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
I do know of a guy who was fired at some company (not nameing names) and was left to finish his shift. He wasn't escorted out or monitored and decided to place clear scotch tape over a few dozen opticle sensors on the production line after his shift. This was on friday and it took three weeks to get the production line going again. Every section was registering an obstruction when there wasn't, the computer was replaced two times and you couldn't see the tape on the sensor heads. Eventualy someoen decided to replace everthing on the control and safety circuits and found the causes later. I don't know how much it ended up costing them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
(or both?)
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Funny)
This kind of thing and the people that perpetrate it deserve all the ridicule that they get...
inhumane firings, the American way? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Insightful)
Techie 1:- Have you checked the sensors for dust?
Techie 2:- No, but they can't all have got dusty at the same time, surely it must be something they all have in common. Let's check the computer again.
I know I've missed the apparently obvious through a very similar argument.
Moo (Score:5, Funny)
Worse than... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sign of the future (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of "Office Space".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
(I'm unplugging my computer. There, now my job's safe.)
Re:Sign of the future (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently at this company, whenever a decision was made to fire an employee, they would send someone out to remove your desk from the premises
Re:Sign of the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, it sounds like the company won:
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sign of the future (Score:4, Insightful)
New slogan (Score:5, Funny)
My only question is if they outsourced the e-mail pink slip processing to an Indian firm. That would have given Radio Shack double plus style points. I would not be too shocked if someone goes e-postal over this.
I know what my reply would be (Score:4, Funny)
I'd reply with, "Ha Ha, joke's on you. I've been working from home for the past 8 months, and have been selling the store's LED flashlights on eBay."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
e-fired? (Score:4, Funny)
In other news ... (Score:5, Funny)
Have you (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to want to work there, back when they sold computers and gizmos for hobby electronics instead of being a glorified cell phone store (though I do suppose cell phones are a type of radio, so it is more fitting...)
Re:Have you (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Have you (Score:5, Interesting)
The company has a hate/hate relationship with electronic parts. Radio Shack soooo desperately wants to be Best Buy or Circuit City, but with their lousy prices on high-end stuff, they just can't pull it off. The electronic parts section that the company despises is the only thing that keeps them afloat. If they could find a way to BE circuit city, the parts section in the back of the store would be eliminated overnight. I'm sure that the future of selling electronic parts keeps the Tandy executives from sleeping soundly at night, but with a 300% gross profit on that stuff, they just can't let go of their only really profitable business.
Thanks,
Mike
Here's some irony for ya (Score:4, Insightful)
- Radio Shack Canada no longer exists
- Radio Shack Canada is now "Circuit City: The Source"
- They now carry more electronics components than they have in 5-10 years
At least there is some place local where I can buy SOME components again. I'm happy. Digikey is great, but you just can't run out and grab something you suddenly need when your main supplier is mail order.
I just wish they still carried those little Archer PCBs etched for a single ~14-pin DIP. I used my second-last one last weekend.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I know there are at least a dozen employees in the company that can handle just about anything you can throw at them, because I trained them to be able to do that.
Unfortunatly, I didn't even get an email that my job was gone, I picked up my company cell phone to make a call on my da
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sur
How the #%$K is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
Make sure you don't have any beverage in your mouth when you read this: All members of Radio Shack management and all of their top sales people from the entire company, plus most of the corporate staff (thousands of people) just returned home from an all-expenses paid 3 to 6 day drip to Las Vegas, NV for a "Peak of Performance" rally. More like a valley of performance, but to hell with it.
Re:How the #%$K is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be so Victorian and naive! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like the word 'union' then pick another, but you need some sort of collective ability to organise and respond when the big guys put the pressure on. They screw around with your workmates, you all stop work and threaten to take the company down if they don't start behaving better. Drastic, sure, but the USA is *proud* of its free market hire em and fire em attitude, you aren't going to get some middle manager to change their way by asking them to remember the unwritten rules of Lord's cricket ground and the British Raj. They are watching over their shoulder as well...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
you must be kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
What kind of phantasy world do you live in? Labor rights and relations have come a long way since the 19th centuries; companies didn't use to fire employees by E-mail, they used to work them to death and kill them.
You're confusing a company with a thinking, feeling person. Companies are like big, impersonal machines, and they have always been. Complaining about being fired by E-mail makes just about as much sense as taking the BSOD or a washing machine malfunction as a personal insult. The company doesn't want you anymore, so just move on. If people get fired too often in your opinion, then the solution is to fix the system (by working for more labor rights), not to whine about the form in which you get fired.
What a sociopathic view... (Score:5, Insightful)
Human interactions are not measured just in how many dollars they make for your (or their) bottom line. Sometimes you can take 5 minutes off your busy schedule just, you know, for the sake of making someone's day less shitty. Just because it's the humane thing to do. Someone has just been fired, and it won't kill you to just say a few soothing words and show (or fake) some compassion. Or just show that someone at least remembers their name, or that they worked there. Put a human/humane face on the whole deal, you know.
Yes, being fired is just normal and just part of how the economy works. It's not the end of the world. Etc. But it's still a stressful event in someone's life. It won't kill you to lower someone's stress a little.
It's also an awakening to the cruel reality that, for all the bullshit "we're all a big family" speeches, you're just a nameless disposable cog in the corporate machine. A cog that's served its purpose, produced all the profit that could be made, and now is disposed of when no longer profitable. All the "we're all a big family" idea not only flies out the window, but it turns out that it's never been true anyway. That's not how families work.
And that's not a cheerful thought. Humans aren't robots, and the millions of years of evolution have sorta hard-wired us to be social beings. Our brains are wired for person-to-person relations, not for a nameless-cog-to-faceless-entity existence. That's too why we build father figures in the sky (i.e., religion), or conspiracy theories with a few people responsible for all this or that, or anthropomorphise our computer/boat/gun/whatever. Because that's the kind of thing we're wired for, and the kind of thing we understand: _people_, not faceless machineries.
And the kind of email oozing an "you're one of the nameless drones we're discarding today" tone, like these people received, only serve to amplify that to the maximum impact possible. It's just twisting the knife in the wound. In the ammo arsenal of unpleasant human interactions, this is the dum-dum.
And if you're willing to advocate that just because the humane alternative is "just a total logistical nightmare"... well, as I was saying, you have some serious upper management potential.
Re:What a sociopathic view... (Score:5, Funny)
Heh... I can just see it now.
"Son, I called you here to tell you that, after a long and mature discussion with your mom, we decided that we no longer need you and your sister. With the economic downturn and all, we have to trim the unneeded fat and cut down on the unnecessary expenses. I'm sure that you'll understand the little work that you occasionally do around the house is hardly justifying the expenses of feeding and clothing two children. Maybe we could keep one, but not two.
"So instead of you two, we're outsourcing your job to a chinese kid. As I'm sure you've heard, not only they work cheaper down there, but unlike you American kids, they take school seriously and have skills that you and your sister will likely never have. While you two only ever used school as an excuse to run amok and learn nothing, the chinese kid we found has straight A grades and runs his own gold farming business in his spare time. Whatever gold farming means. That's the kind of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit that, sad to say, is also lacking in America's youth these days. And it's certainly not the kind of spirit that you and your sister ever showed.
"So to cut a long story short, I'm affraid you'll have to pack your things and be out of the house until 5 PM. You will receive your allowance for the next 6 weeks, and I wish you the best of luck in finding yourself another family in that time.
"And, oh, mom and I decided to give ourselves a generous bonus for taking this cost-saving measure, and take a trip to a casin... err... morale-boosting seminar in Las Vegas."
Re:How the #%$K is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I still worked at Radio Shack, why should I give a shit about the company - and stuff like that shows.
Hey, I agree with you buddy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Working for corporations means you
I've been laid off once before, and if I had to choose between an email and having it done in person I'd take the email.
Feeling like you got special, personal treatment being laid off in person i
I'd still show up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Then your boss will send you a text message:
You've been fired. Go home.
Re:I'd still show up. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'd still show up. (Score:5, Funny)
sorry for the pun...
Follow it up (Score:5, Funny)
One of the guys who received that mail should have followed it up with a mail to everyone@radioshack :
"Pls ignore the previous mail.It was a prank mail by someone."
Re:Even better (Score:3, Funny)
Tandy Dandy (Score:4, Funny)
They got Radio Shafted.
Hope they didn't eliminate... (Score:3, Funny)
Whose idea was this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Severence pay (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, at least they are taking care of their upper management with up to 36 weeks of severence pay. Otherwise, they might have to actually give up a whole week of vacation in the Bahamas! Who cares about the nameless masses below them. That's why they are nameless masses!
Re:Severence pay (Score:5, Funny)
They might be nameless masses, but we know one thing for sure: each individual one of them has his very own, totally unique e-mail address.
HP fired me by email on Monday. (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you have a meeting? Do you have a meeting?
Um, yeah, in 30 minutes.
Oh man, that sucks. Only a few of us got it, and none of the boss' friends got the meeting invite. You're gone.
They were right.
Re:HP _did not_ fire you by email on Monday. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure I agree (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't feel at all good about the precedent of firing people using email, but I'm reluctant to make an assumption based on the tone of a slashdot story. The article states:
If this is true, it at least means that the company had given employees some warnin
I could be worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Zorg works for the RatShack? (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Kim: You got a message.
Korben Dallas: Yeah.
Mr. Kim: You're not gonna open it? It might be important.
Korben Dallas: Yeah, like the last two I got were important. The first one was from my wife, telling me she was leaving. The second was from my lawyer, telling me he was leaving... with my wife.
Mr. Kim: Aigh, that is bad luck. But grandfather say 'It never rain everyday'. This is good news, guaranteed. Hey, I bet your lunch.
Korben Dallas: Okay, you're on.
Mr. Kim: Come on. [opens message, in a excited voice] 'You are fired'. Oh, I'm sorry.
Korben Dallas: At least I won lunch.
Mr. Kim: Good philosophy, see good in bad, I like.
Oh, and P.S. (Score:5, Funny)
Actually This Is A Good Thing (Score:4, Insightful)
This means that eventually expert systems and other AI based systems will execute all firings in a fair and objective fashion. If you fail to meet your quotas, the "Virtual CEO 9000" will fire you with a nice little trite email. If you meet your quotas, then the "Virtual CEO 9000" may indeed give you a raise. No performance review will ever again be necessary where you have to interview for keeping your own job every year through kissing up to your former human manager, rather the "Virtual CEO 9000" will instead be constantly evaluating your usefulness to the corporation in real-time and compensate you objectively.
Just imagine what this would do for a company like Oracle that has about 10 maybe 11 engineers doing all the real work in the company with about 50,000 managers whose idea of work is schmoozing with other like-minded individuals on a golf course all day long. The "Virtual CEO 9000" could cut out so much bloat that profits would go so through the roof that Larry Ellison could pay down the entire United States national debt of 65 trillion dollars or whatever it happens to be right now.
Seriously, I have not figured out why the board of directors at our largest corporations has not already outsourced or automated away executive management yet, when they happen to be the least efficient and least accountable group of people in your typical corporation these days. The "Virtual CEO 9000" doesn't need stock options to the tune of 400 million dollars like one of Exxon's former CEO's, instead it just needs some electricity to make the kind of decisions that your typical corporate bean counter makes based solely upon some Microsoft Excel spreadsheet calculation where they say "AHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA THERE IS THE FAT WE NEED TO CUT. THAT DARNED IT DEPARTMENT IS NOT SELLING ANYTHING AND INSTEAD IS JUST COSTING US A LOT OF MONEY, LET'S FIRE SOME EXPLOYEES AND SLASH THEIR BUDGET!".
Oh wait, I forgot that modern corporations usually have a board of directors that also just happens to be personal friends of the executive management they are supposed to be directing. Nevertheless, my point still stands that being managed by a cold, unfeeling, computer application like the "Virtual CEO 9000" is still better than being managed by the sociopaths that typically run our public companies today.
Squeeze 'em out (Score:3, Interesting)
This is nothing new... (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, at least these people got an e-mail.
The next spam (Score:5, Interesting)
email is a bad way to fire people. (Score:5, Insightful)
Email isn't reliable either. There's no guarantee that people read their email on a regular basis, and even if they did spam filters can filter out an email like this.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's okay because... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a former shacker and NOT surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
I found this organization to be utterly classless, morally bankrupt, and totally incompetent. The sole exception to this was that INDIVIDUAL store managers and a couple of reginal guys were fantastic sales people and had solid retail skills. The entire corporate profile is designed to mass produce cheap crap and sell it at a huge margin, sucking every ounce of effort and creativity from the few good sales kids and retail level managers who give huge efforts to eek out a poor living.
The times I was in Ft. Worth for one reason or another the level of waste and incompetance was stunning to behold.
-- Please forgive the poor spelling and typos. I'm typing on a small keyboard and have limited editing here.
Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Their entire management structure is irrepairably flawed. Most of their top guys were promoted from store-level positions with absolutely no formal training on how to run a fortune 500 corporation. These 'executives' know only how to lead through threats, intimidation, and constant turnover.
In the 1980s and early 90s, they went from being one of the largest and most respected computer manufacturers (Tandy) to almost zero computer sales. In 1990, there was a RadioShack store in every neighborhood, yet they completely missed the boat on the Internet boom. In about 2000 they happened to be in the right place at the right time and lucked into the cell phone boom, hence their good stock performance during this time. They soon (within months) screwed that up and their stock fell to a third of its former value almost overnight.
Now they've been doing nothing new, with the exception of several scandals involving their former CEO, Dave Edmonson. I'd imaging their long term strategory at this point is simply circling the drain long enough for some conglomerate to buy their name at a firesale price for use in some branding strategy
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the largest? Sure. One of the most respected? No way. Why did we call it a Trash-80?
RS was known for selling substandard computers and parts all along... we knew, but accepted it because they were so cheap. Kind of like a Yugo.
Here's the actual e-mail exchange: (Score:5, Funny)
>> On xx/xx/xxxx xx:xx The Management <lickmyboots@thecompany> wrote:
>> Knock, knock!
>>
> Who's there?
Not you anymore! Hahahahahaaaaa!
something in contrary (Score:5, Interesting)
Due to my trollish habits, I am always inclined to say something in contrary.
At the last company I worked for, there were 3 waves of firing people. In all of them a top level manager talked to them, thanked them and explained to them why they are fired. That it has nothing to do with them, that it is related to the products performance which is very little to do with them. Of course, people were not happy anyway, and they rightfully should not be: well, they were fired, but there was an effort from the company to alleviate the pain.
The company I am talking about is not the best, and it has a bad reputation in the IT industry for their cold and mindless approach to people, so I assume the situation with graceful firing is better in other IT companies.
I have to admit though that people who were fired were seasoned professional programmers, many with PhD in physical, chemical and biological sciences.
Another important comment is that the waves were about 50-100 people. When the amount of people to be laid off is larger it becomes a logistic problem to fire them at once, in one take to minimize the effect on job. It might explain the "e-mail" twist of it, but in no way it explains the "no-thanks" angle. So yes, Radio Shack sucks.
Oh the humiliation (Score:5, Interesting)
This is heartless (Score:3, Insightful)
layoff notice via disable user account (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the person's manager/supervisor would be too cowardly to show up on time on the day the employee was being let go. The employee would show up at say, 8:00 a.m on the boss would show up at 9:15-9:30 (deliberately late). When the employee couldn't log into their account, they would phone the system admin (me) and ask me to reset their password. I told them I couldn't do that (because their name had been on the termination list the previous day) and they were annoyed at me for refusing to do so. I asked them to talk to their manager (who wasn't there). After a while people had heard about this. The next time they couldn't log in, they would phone me and when I told them I couldn't enable their account, they would say "am I getting let go", and I would hear the "I just bought a house", "my wife is pregnant", etc. They shouldn't have to hear that they were being let go from me. It just shows you how cowardly the local manager of that person was.
Once we had people with the same first initial and last name (such as Carol Brown with login name of cbrown and Christine Brown with login name of crbrown). Lets say that Christine (crbrown) was being let go. The computer operators disabled cbrown (Carol's account) instead. Carol Brown thought that she was being let go when she couldn't log in.
Someone later told her "sorry for the incovenience".
My boss works two hours from my site. I had been with the company for 30 years. When it was time to let me know that I was history, my boss wanted to drive to where I work and tell me in person. My boss's boss didn't want to pay mileage so I got the info via phone.
What a company.
Companies are soulless and heartless. I am surprised more people don't go postal these days. Also, when people are let go, the workload doesn't go with them, its dumped on the poor suckers who remain behind.
layoff's can be a bitch (Score:4, Interesting)
Stole my idea... (Score:3, Funny)
"moyix has sent you an e-card! Click here to read it!"
*click*
"Yeah, I'm breaking up with you. Enjoy this cute picture of a kitten, though."
Quit Your Job Day - Sept 18th (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be noted that it is the employer that invokes at will termination in the vast majority of cases.
If you don't know the person who signs your paycheck, they don't know you. You're just a number on a spreadsheet. Quit now before they realize you're number is too big.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:yep (Score:5, Funny)
Now those employees can sue Radio Shack, because they can claim that every time they hear a "new email sound", they break down into tears. They won't be able to find a job working with computers.
Re:yep (Score:4, Funny)
These are Radio Shack people. They don't know anything about computers anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, while getting the axe is tough, I really fail to see what difference it makes in how your told.
Most people at one time or another, I guess, have been laid off/downsized/fired at some point in their career. It is something that is never easy to hear, but, really I don't think it would matter to me if it was by email, phone or in person. Actually, I'd almost think it would be easier to get by email...that way you don't
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
(while I kid I do know someone who was fired over the phone because the DM was a chicken shit. $10-15K in high end camera gear dissapeared overnight).
-nB
Re:yep (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was laid off by Unisys back in 1992 after working for them for almost five years, it helped cushion the blow to see how hard my manager (who is the one who told me) was taking it all. He was told from above to let three of our four-person programming team go that same day - our side of the Airline Center ended up laying off 20% of the staff all told - and it really shook him up, even though we all knew for months that it was coming.
When I was laid off by Northwest Airlines in January 2002 after eight years, hearing the news from my director also helped, since he was obviously not happy that the layoff was occurring, and again that helped a little to cushion the blow (and I needed it that time, since that was a layoff I *didn't* see coming since I'd survived the mass layoffs after September 11th. We thought they were done).
An e-mail message telling you you've been let go is impersonal as hell. I'd really be angry about something like that. Hearing it in person shows a little bit of class on the part of the organization, at least IMO.
Re:yep (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Who ever did the e-firing, didn't do there job. Or at least avoided the hard part of it. If you're going to fire some one. If you're going to tell them they aren't needed anymore. It would have been decent to tell them in person.
Anyone who thinks this is no big deal, was either never fired or didn't like the job they were fired from. You also can't assume the ones being fired
Re:yep (Score:4, Insightful)
Not at all. If I'm ever in the position where I need to fire somebody, I would definitely do so in person.
I know this is a huge deal for the people involved, and I'm not excusing Radio Shack's actions; I'm saying that there could have been far, far worse mistakes than the one they made.
I don't see anybody endorsing this course of action; I know I'm not. I just think this is not the worst possible outcome. Employees could have not been given any warning; they could have been fired without a severance package, instead of up to nine months of free pay; or they could have been escorted off the premises by security instead of a manager. Radio Shack's blunder seems mild compared to what others have done.
Re:yep (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't mind when I got fired from a dollar store, on the phone no less, and they didn't even have the balls to tell me I was fired, just that I didn't get any hours that week. I only didn't mind because I hated that job. . . and that I got a job a few months later that pays more than twice what my boss was making. I also got a good laugh when I learned 2 months later that ex-boss got fired for being a dipshit.
If it had been a decent job (even Radio Shed would have been a better job) I probably would have been a little more upset with that kind of firing. Had I been fired by a company form letter (which I normally filter to my delete folders anyway) it would have been much more embarassing when I showed up for my next shift not even having read the letter. . .
Re:yep (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:yep (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd made a post earlier that I really didn't see the big deal of being let go by email. I actually thought it would be a bit easier in that you didn't have to sit there and feel uncomfortable in front of a person having to tell you in person. I just didn't get it, but, then I read your post and maybe I do. The part where you liken losing your job of 8 years to having your life 'flushed down the toilet'. Wow...I've just guessed I never associated my work/job with my life or self worth before as it seems you may do. I guess there are a good many of people out there that associate their job with their self worth or image. That's just foreign to me.
Don't get me wrong, I like my job...I'm often passionate about my interest in what I do, that happens to also earn me a living...a good one. But, it is just a job. Where I do it, and who for really isn't the biggest deal in my life. The second I leave work...I completely leave it (unless on call or something). I don't really think about it till I walk back in the door the next day. I don't have any loyalty really towards any company, because I feel in this age, they have none towards me. But, I've felt that for a long time. Currently, I'm in a semi-contract mode...W2 hourly employee for a contract company. Work is good, pay is good, benefits are good. I'm friends with the owner of the company and often have drinks with him. I'm a good employee and contribute to the company. But, if I got the ax tomorrow...and it could happen as that the area I'm in is New Orleans...well, I'd take a little hit on my pride, but, mostly just worry about getting the next gig.
But, losing my job, doesn't really mean I lost something that defines me. I work ONLY to make money...to enable me to buy and do things that make me happy. If I won the lottery tomorrow, trust me..I'd never work again, I'd do nothing but stuff that was fun.
I guess that explains a lot of the posts I read here...I was actually shocked that so many people described the firing process so emotionally...and took it so personally. I didn't realize that the job people hold defines them so much. And I think that is sad.
A job should be nothing more than a means to supporting your lifestyle. Sure...hopefully you can enjoy your work, but, really...does it matter who you do it for? Your job should not be YOU.
Re:yep (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of us aren't like that. I chose to work for Northwest Airlines, for example, because I had a few years of previous exposure to the airline industry and I wanted to work as a programmer FOR A MAJOR AIRLINE. Period. And while I worked there, I wasn't just a programmer, applications, one each. I was an applications programmer in the heart of their flight operations group. If my code failed, the airline didn't fly. Literally. And it felt good to feel like the stuff I was doing was a critical part of the actual operation.
Northwest was a company I felt very strongly about. I loved working there, and I'm still proud to know that I have something like 100,000 lines of code still running in their WorldFlight production system and handling a large percentage of their ACARS and surface weather traffic, as well as doing various other things. But it hurt me quite a bit personally when I was laid off because I'd invested over a decade of time (between contractor time and employee time) in that system, and I was really proud to be part of that particular group.
It hurt to leave, but I'm glad I was there. I do like where I am now, and I'm proud of what I do, but it's not the same.
I want to create software that actually MEANS something. I like working on projects that will have a real impact on some aspect of the company, and I sometimes put a lot of time and emotional energy into the designs I create.
Coding is a means to an end, certainly, but for me it's also an end in itself. The problem solving and design aspects are satisfying IN THEMSELVES for me, and I'm actually quite proud of some of the things that I've been able to accomplish so far in my short 18-year career as a programmer.
When I was at NWA, I would still be working there even if I had won the lottery. Why? Because that was a working and technical environment that I very much enjoyed being a part of, and solving problems in that context was a fun activity in its own right. I *WANTED* to go to work every day.
I believe that programming is art at a certain level, and I believe there is nothing wrong with an artist feeling some form of emotion over the works he creates.
If you don't get the kind of satisfaction that I do after coming up with a particularly elegant fix for a problem or a particularly efficient design, then I feel sorry for you because I think you are missing out on one of the really neat things about being a programmer. Our profession is to weave webs of logic and structure out of nothing! I think the whole virtual world of computing is an amazing thing, even magical in a way.
I agree that your job should not be you, but I don't have a problem with people who are willing to put some of their heart and soul into their work. It's one of the things which differentiates good software from great software, I think. For some people, passion is important. I was just going through the motions here, I'd be ready to find a different career. Instead, I'm doing what I love: writing software. I hope I'm able to do it for another 18 years, and hopefully until I retire...Re:yep (Score:4, Interesting)
When I then started complaining to the asshats in management about that, they informed me that they had sent the people emails about their impending loss of a job. I later found out that this email was sent about 5 minutes before they told me to delete it, thus none of them had actually received the email.
I was later fired as well, though I was pretty happy about the situation since I got a sweet severence.
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Let me guess... they gave you a list of accounts to disable, and your name was on it?
Re:If it works for dating . . . (Score:4, Funny)
How long until doctors just text-message the family: "The surgery seemed to be going well, but he didn't pull through. Sorry." Then the hospital can add a $2 charge for the text-message (yes that's ridiculously high for a text-message, but have you seen what they charge for an aspirin?)
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im sure people who work in stores make $7-8 an hour like most other retail workers.
Re:The real story (Score:5, Informative)
And no, they don't ask for home address anymore, only your zip code for marketing / store stock purposes, which you can decline with no argument. Addresses -are- needed in some situations though, for things like service plans and Answers Plus (in-store credit card) accounts though.
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Being the late 80's, I think you probably knew what this stuff is. Most radio shack employies i come across now think the radio stands for cell phone or remote controled cars. I was looking for a metal-oxide varistor a few months ago and the sales boy asked if i could use one made from plastic becuase most thier resistors are plastic. Well thats what
Radio Shack has become useless. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re: RadioShack e-fires workers (Score:5, Interesting)
it happens only in America
Nope.
One time, I was 1 week into a 3-month posting in Europe, and I got an e-mail from Australia telling me my 3-month notice period started immediately. I had to work through it of course. I was paid out the 4 weeks of vacation I'd accumulated, but lost the hundreds of hours of time-off-in-lieu. I'd been with the firm 8 years.
Trying to find a new job when you're 10,000 miles away from home isn't easy. And of course the customer, who had paid $$$ for my services, was not pleased, they wanted me to stay longer and work on other stuff.
Yes, I should have taken the time off in lieu, but that would have been cheating the customer. There's such a thing as professional ethics.
I took the firm to industrial arbitration, won, but the legal fees ate up nearly all of the 3 months pay I got.