Corporate America (HELL) and Re: Returning Dell Products

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:04:56 -0500, "Clark Martin" <hpcm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Thanks for the "heads-up", journey - now I won't be disappointed if I don't
hear from the "king" directly.

I don't mean to pry but it appears from reading your comments that you are
very active with computers and perhaps Dell in particular. Sounds like over
time you've purchased a lot of computers. Are you a buyer/installer for a
company you work for? From your many posts, it appears you are very
well-informed.

Clark

Hi Clark,

I've been a Dell customer for many years, since the days of Pentium 3
500mhz. I don't know when that was, but that is when I bought my
first Dell system.

At one time, I had a Toshiba Satellite laptop. That is when they cost
$2,700 for a 10" screen at 800 x 600 resolution, and a 4G hard drive
was considered huge. I remember watching as everyone oohed an ahhed
as the screen size went up to 11", and then a whopping 12".

At the time I had the Toshiba, with the little pointy device, I saw a
Dell laptop and thought wow,the screen is awesome! That's one of the
things that drew me to Dells. Also, I really liked the "build
quality" and that they were all black (the Toshibas at that time were
an ugly gray).

So, I watched as things like actual CD drives (can you imagine that?)
got added to laptops ... wow :-)

Then I took the plunge and bought an Inspiron 4000 laptop, because of
the modular bays. While most people were still getting a few hours
out of their laptop, with dual batteries in the 4000 I was getting up
to 6 hours, or more if I carried a spare battery. At that time
(Synaptics <-- ?) was the track pad vendor and I really liked being
able to scroll and coast.

I bought and sold laptops at opportune times, upgraded to a 4100, then
a D505, 600m, 700m, and 8600. I got good prices for friends or from
ebay.

Right now I have mixed feelings about the new laptops. For the most
part I like them, but I miss the modular bay. It's less important on
the 630m that I ended up with, because with the upgraded battery the
battery life is more than enough for my use during a day. However,
for a 6000, E1505, or 6400, due to the larger screen (and who knows
about the Core Duo power requirments) a modular battery would be very
useful. There hasn't been a review yet of the E1505 on CNET which
would include some battery life tests.

So, my needs are a little different than others. I want / need
portability, good performance, and battery life, and I just happened
to clumsily stumble on the right computer for my needs.

I used to be a mainframe computer programmer for 15 years (and I
absolutely hate "corporate America" now). At the beginning, people
were people. Then came Tom Peters (the jerk) and terms like
reengineering, downsizing, right-sizing blah blah f*ing blah. Now
people are "units of production", and if you are the best employee in
the organization but happen to be attached to an area being downsized,
you get cut. I mean what the f*, what are we focused on now, where
are the values? Oh... I see, yes ... we need to exceed Wall Street
expectations bye $.02, make 36 cents per share rather than 34 center
per share, so let's cut this division and these 10,000 employess. Oh,
and who cares if it's a good long-term vs. short-term decision because
my $14 million compensation as CEO and options are dependent on this
quarter's results. What do I care if Japanese or Korean or Indian
company's make inroads with market share? Heck by that time I'll be
long gone and enjoying my one-thousand-lifetimes worth of
compensation.

Like Chrysler, no longer an "American" company -- their Dodge Neon
entry level car has remained the same while Honda, Toyota, and Korean
companies have upgraded their model several times.

Oops, I guess I got triggered a little there. After corporate america
I took time off and have been learning web programming. I've learned
Java, HTML / JavaScript, .NET, etc. I used to be a database analyst
so the database stuff was second nature. Then I interned at a company
this summer.

F***... everything is so damn complicated now. I was thrown into the
most complicated XML / XSLT transformation against goverment crime
data, with a mentor who would answer a question with "just go press
the green button". I'd say "OK, what does the green button do?".
She'd say "Just to press it, you don't need to know". So, I "made
waves" there by actually saying "No, I am a computer professional and
I just don't press buttons (but I'd sure like to press a lot of yours
lol) when I don't know what they do".

Anyway, I came away with the feeling that no, I don't want to be a
computer professional anymore. I don't want to have my head in books
learning the esoteric differences between Java 1.4.2 and 1.5.2 and the
new object model utilizing Composition over Inheritance, and how this
will only work on PC's that are updated to this level of Java, and oh
by the way, we need it to work on Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and AOL
web browers, which have different nuances of JavaScript -- oh yes, and
this works with Netscape 3.1 but nothing before that, and Microsoft
did it this way so now that it has most of the browser market (the
illegal judicially recognized but not penalized monopoly) then we have
to go that way because of course Microsoft wants to control all
standards and they can, because they have the monopoly and the
leverage, and yes, this all has to be done with 5 fewer resources or
"personnel units" because we've added Major Project 1 and Major
Project 2, and HERE IS THIS BRAND NEW BEEPER THAT YOU GET TO WEAR
NON-STOP FOR THE NEXT 14 MONTHS, taking an average of 8 calls in a
weekend, and developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because instead
of a Bomb going off in Vietnam, the BEEP BEEP BEEP sound of the pager
makes your heart beat twice as fast, and who cares that you have to
drive 3.5 hours each way several times a week and that you got up at
4:30am to arrive for an 8:00 am meeting in the Chicago office but they
cancelled it but forgot to inform you and now you are there having to
do production support but you don't have a computer at that location
because the budget won't allow it but you're still supposed to
magically do all your responsibilities and be creative about it (i.e.
walk around until you find a cubicle with noone in it only to be
accosted later by someone wondering
what-the-hell-are-you-doing-at-my-desk), and yes you now get to
support SQL Server 6 which requires Windows 95 or greater, but that
hasn't been approved by our standards department so your Windows 3.1
PC will have to do never mind that it's IMPOSSIBLE so you need to
purchase your own laptop in order to 1) have a computer that you can
use at remote locations and 2) support this new Database, and hey, we
expect you to be a team player so make sure you show up for the 6pm
Christmas Happy (wrong word) Hour, NEVER MIND THAT YOUR ROUND TRIP CAR
RIDE TAKES 7 HOURS, but hey, I'll buy you a beer, it's on me, for all
your effort, hey, you can even have an imported one, how is that?
...............................................................................................................................

No way, no corporate America for me. I got one hell of a good
severance package because I documented every single little thing, and
they didn't want to be sued. I haven't worked since Sept 2001 and if
I have anything to say about it I probably won't have to work another
day in my life but I am having a lot of fun volunteering. I set up
the computer lab at the local YWCA for example, helped Polish
immigrants learn computer skills, and facilitate some support groups.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it :-)

Journey
.