Yeah, but how much does it pay?

July 3, 2003 11:04 AM

Verbal Attack:Dave Suthibut ignores the crappy job market and applies for positions like it's 1999. He uses his blog to keep track of e-mail exchanges between himself and H/R personnel. (via handcoding)
posted by Ufez Jones (34 comments total)

This has to be my favorite entry so far.

Again, I'm highly
>qualified, have experience in the erotic industry
>(client-side, not server side), and am interested in
>the job.

I do wish he'd customize them a bit more, but with a bit more effort on his part, this could turn into a weekly read.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:09 AM on July 3, 2003

Posting them from top down rather than bottom up would sure be nice. Editing out the >'s would be nice. But it's good for a chuckle.
posted by Outlawyr at 11:14 AM on July 3, 2003

This appears to be a lot like fuckthatjob.com, but is still highly amusing. I've had to deal with this kind of crap from potential employers for the past year now, and worse. At least he's getting responses back -- I'd say 60% of the time I go through the efforts of writing a cover letter and sending a resume I recieve nothing in response. Not even an automated "thank you for sending your application, we'll look it over".
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:20 AM on July 3, 2003

rofl.
posted by woil at 11:33 AM on July 3, 2003

A few laughs, but nothing stellar. If the point is stringing HR people along for the amusement of your blog-viewers then this falls short, IMHO.
posted by Fat Elvis at 11:40 AM on July 3, 2003

My point would be stringing up HR people...
posted by websavvy at 11:49 AM on July 3, 2003

Nice blog. But what is more interesting is the collecting of personal resume information for database selling purposes. Bye bye privacy..and according to our database all the posters in this message are highly creative, devastatingly unemployed people that can be paid $5 hour for mopping floors. You need dental works too (we checked your cc records you didn't pay for any dentist in the last 10 year, gross !)
posted by elpapacito at 11:57 AM on July 3, 2003

Sorry, just seems stupid and pointless to me. I'm an easy mark for a decent joke and not a single laugh was emitted while reading.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:08 PM on July 3, 2003

Well, FWIW, I liked it. Thanks for the link.
posted by internal at 12:23 PM on July 3, 2003

Question: why do organizations let HR people be the employment gatekeepers? I don't know if they're this unqualified to judge applicants in other fields, but in I/T, these are the same people who are asking for 5 years of J2EE and .NET experience when applying for technical positions....

I've only been a part of one organization where I felt like the HR folks did anything but harass me (and at that organization, they were absolutely great!). Conversely, I've always felt like things were handled well at organizations that had no HR person per se, but had their functions handled by various other employees or outsourced.
posted by weston at 12:31 PM on July 3, 2003

Even in 1999, companies might have liked their applicants to be able to spell piqued.
posted by stefanie at 12:47 PM on July 3, 2003

Civil, yeah, myself. And when I do get a response, the offer is so low that it's beyond ridiculous. Low enough that some of them are less than I was making before I went to college...in the late 80's. For instance, a recruiter for a well known hotel reservation dot com, offered me a job as a project manager. They wanted 60 hour weeks, full business (read skirts, heels, hose, designer wear, makeup and hair) dress, and they wanted to pay the equivalent of $10.00 an hour.

At that rate, I'd be losing money to take the job. Daycare costs more per hour than they were offering to pay me, for goodness sake. When I mentioned that the rate was way too low for the education and certification levels they required, the response was "Well, we have foreign workers who will be glad to work for that."

And it would seem that TI, ATT, Sprint, Verizon, Yahoo and all the other major employers in this area feel the same way. Microsoft is laying off it's entire workforce in Dallas, and moving the jobs to India and H1b visa workers. One of the programming managers told me that MS can hire coders for less than $10k in India, so they see no reason to pay coders here 60k.

We've discussed this on Mefi before (sorry, no time to find the thread), and the fact is, that US high tech workers are screwed right now.

I've started boycotting companies that replace US workers with lesser paid foreign workers, or by shipping the jobs overseas. I need to find (or start) a list of companies that are doing it...although, I'm willing to bet that the list of companies not doing it would be considerably shorter.
posted by dejah420 at 12:51 PM on July 3, 2003

I actively support companies that replace 1st world workers with their poorer counterparts. Global redistribution is where it's at.
posted by signal at 1:19 PM on July 3, 2003

I'm not in high tech, myself -- could you really get jobs this way in 1999? I mean, I've ALWAYS had to be really polite, send in the resume first, not discuss benefits and salary until the interview, etc. Was there really a glorious time in the high-tech industry when you could just send a jerky e-mail and still get a job? I'm fascinated.
posted by JanetLand at 1:37 PM on July 3, 2003

signal, what do you think will happen when all the displaced American workers quit consuming because they can't afford to anymore?

And there's no way Americans can compete with foreign workers because the cost of living is so high here. You may be able to have a nice house and raise a family for $10k in India, but it's a starvation wage over here.

What do you expect the American workers to do? No industry is safe.... tell me, what should they retrain for?
posted by beth at 1:43 PM on July 3, 2003

Janet, I was wondering the same thing as you, until I read the blog's front page (which isnt linked from any of the post pages so don't feel bad).
posted by contessa at 1:58 PM on July 3, 2003

Janet, i'd agree that i've always considered it necessary to send off very respectful cover letters and then spend tons of time calling and attempting to make it past the HR people. Having just gotten a job in engineering (structural, thank god!) in san francisco (straight out of school) it is possible to get a job, it's just a matter of showing the people that get work done in the office that you can get your interest to them behind the HR beaurocracy (ie: HR is a challenge that employers put in the way of employee seekers to figure out who's aggressive enough to make it past HR).

As for the globalization of high tech jobs that is going to be a MAJOR new issue that people haven't started to recognize. In the end there's nothing america can do except start to hope for deflation. Why don't people understand that globalization is like socialism, everyone makes more so those who had more have less (come on, basic conservation here (though money is not a conservative system)).
posted by NGnerd at 2:10 PM on July 3, 2003

And there's no way Americans can compete with foreign workers

Could you kindly explain if that is the case, why is Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW, and a few other manufacturers, started auto plants in the U.S., if Americans cannot compete with foreign workers? Why aren't they starting plants in China or India and shipping the cars over here?
posted by gyc at 2:19 PM on July 3, 2003

everyone makes more so those who had more have less

No, everyone makes more so that everyone has more. As a non-tech worker who buys a lot of tech services, I for one would far prefer all of my software to be developed by those $10k-a-year Indians beth mentioned.

Efficient resource allocation, people.
posted by mbt at 2:40 PM on July 3, 2003

gyc - Because we are a much larger buyer of their cars, because our labor force is cheaper, because our government gives them enormous tax incentives; there are a plethora of reasons, but I think this excerpt from Downsize This about Mercedes-Benz sums it up nicely:

"So what is Mercedes getting? Two hundred fifty-three million dollars' worth of incentives. The state and federal government will buy the property for them and use the national guard to clear the land. The state will then build roads, enlarge the airport industrial park, develop the factory site, exempt imported components from tariffs, grant tax breaks to suppliers for the plant, provide educational facilities to train managers and teach German families to speak English, purchase 2,500 Mercedes sport vechicles for the state at a cost of $75 million, and rename the freeway between Birmingham and the Mississippi state line the Mercedes-Benz Highway. All this at a time when the state is facing across-the-board budget cuts."
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:40 PM on July 3, 2003

gyc & Civil_Disobedient: there's also the fact that most tech services, unlike the average Mercedes, can be shipped across the Pacific for free.
posted by mbt at 2:43 PM on July 3, 2003

we are not interested in hiring people who only request about perks, pay and vacation

That gave me a giggle. Basically saying they aren't at all interested in hiring someone who is at all interested in what working for them will bring the employee.
posted by Orb at 3:29 PM on July 3, 2003

beth: what do you think will happen when all the displaced American workers quit consuming because they can't afford to anymore?

I think 3rd world workers whose incomes increase will also increase their consumption. The US economy will probably suffer.

What do you expect the American workers to do? No industry is safe.... tell me, what should they retrain for?

If things get bad enough, I expect some american workers to move to other countries in search of better opportunities, the way millions of people already do each year. I don't know what they should retrain for, whatever the job market needs, I guess.
posted by signal at 3:42 PM on July 3, 2003

But I'm still interested in these lovely perks high-tech workers were apparently getting at the end of the 90s. Can someone share some true stories please? Did anybody really get a Porsche from the company for agreeing to work there?
posted by JanetLand at 3:58 PM on July 3, 2003

Signal: My god man, you're like a broken record. . . Thank God! I've nearly prostrated myself before you in response to previous comments made by you to myself, but this is the one. When the revolution comes, can I get a tee-shirt with a picture of your face on it.

beth: what do you think will happen when all the displaced American workers quit consuming. Well maybe the companies which force whole coutries into poverty will go away, and those countries will be able to get back to feeding, clothing and healing themselves properly.

dejah420: US high tech workers are screwed right now. Yeah it's a fucker when money which should go into gadgets and Tivo subscriptions ends up in the pockets of people struggling to pull a country out of poverty.

Whoah. That was angry. And completely off Topic. I think I'll shut up now.
posted by seanyboy at 4:01 PM on July 3, 2003

dejah, where do you live? i routinely see ads for project managers in san francisco in the $85K to $120K range and they're not biotech jobs, either.
posted by centrs at 4:07 PM on July 3, 2003

yeah it's a fucker when money which should go into gadgets and tivo subscriptions ends up in the pockets of people struggling to pull a country out of poverty.

You know what, I agree. In fact, it seems a bit hypocritical that the same people that want to take more money from people that make more than them to help the less fortunate are screaming now that the tables have been turned and poor countries are getting good, high-paying jobs at the expense of the richest nation. Shouldn't we be applauding this? Isn't wealth distribution a worthy goal?

posted by gyc at 5:21 PM on July 3, 2003

I thought the whole point was that the poor countries aren't getting good, high paying jobs, they're getting good, shit-paying jobs that other people are probably better qualified for.
posted by cohappy at 6:02 PM on July 3, 2003

But I'm still interested in these lovely perks high-tech workers were apparently getting at the end of the 90s. Can someone share some true stories please? Did anybody really get a Porsche from the company for agreeing to work there?

well, there was the lego desk...

Yes, in a lot of places, tech workers could get away with being pretty arrogant and asking for quite a lot, because they were in very high demand. A lot of programmers went into interviews as if they were the ones doing to the interview, because they essentially were - they were deciding which company would get them, not the other way around, because jobs were in surplus. Now employees are in (massive) surplus, so the power switches back and HR people can be as rude or dismissive as they like, if they feel like it, since there are dozens of people desperate for the job.

This guy's being a jerk, as he admits, but not that much of one, and the responses are different than they'd have been a few years back, I think.
posted by mdn at 7:58 PM on July 3, 2003

Okay, that's ONE, could I have another story please?
posted by JanetLand at 8:03 PM on July 3, 2003

JanetLand, I've only got limited firsthand experience with this, I worked at a startup late in 2000 when the writing was on the wall. But even then $3000 reference bonuses were common, so if you referred someone to the company and they got hired, boom instant account inflation. And if the person you referred could code Java, the bonus was $5000. I knew one person who referred three people within the space of a month.

But more to the point of your question, check out this article from the now defunct and emblematic Industry Standard.
posted by jeremias at 8:16 PM on July 3, 2003

I thought the whole point was that the poor countries aren't getting good, high paying jobs, they're getting good, shit-paying jobs that other people are probably better qualified for.

I have a feeling that $10 an hour in a country were everything costs much less is probably not a bad salary. Remember, a cup of coffee didn't always cost four bucks.
posted by NGnerd at 8:37 PM on July 3, 2003

janetland, if a lego desk doesn't convince you - well, then I got nothing.

But really, it's simple supply and demand. There were more positions than qualified people for a while, so underqualified people got paid more than they were probably worth (lots of people picked up a semester of programming or web design at a continuing ed. school and started making twice their previous salary). And sometimes payment in the form of more creative things was a better way to lure the hot shots - instead of raising their salary by $2000, give them a pool table and free beer friday night, eg. It happened all over the place.

Then the bubble burst, and now the employer is in charge again. They have the surplus - there are more qualified people than positions. Therefore, they can cut a lot of perks from the job and still most applicants will be kissing ass. A few years ago, any photoshop job was pretty much guaranteed to pay at least $25/hr; now, there are listings for $6/hr! It's a totally different market.
posted by mdn at 11:49 AM on July 4, 2003

I thought the whole point was that the poor countries aren't getting good, high paying jobs, they're getting good, shit-paying jobs that other people are probably better qualified for.

I have a feeling that $10 an hour in a country were everything costs much less is probably not a bad salary. Remember, a cup of coffee didn't always cost four bucks.

Sure, but I was responding to this:

In fact, it seems a bit hypocritical that the same people that want to take more money from people that make more than them to help the less fortunate are screaming now that the tables have been turned and poor countries are getting good, high-paying jobs at the expense of the richest nation. Shouldn't we be applauding this? Isn't wealth distribution a worthy goal?

Is paying someone $10/hr to do work that they'd get paid much, much more to do in the states really wealth distribution? I don't think so.
posted by cohappy at 12:12 AM on July 5, 2003