--- On Sat, 11/14/09, Pinnacle <[email protected]> wrote: From: Pinnacle <[email protected]> Subject: Re: IBM driving mainframe systems programmers into the ground To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, November 14, 2009, 4:02 PM -------------SNIP----------------------------------------------------------
Ah, the unbridled capitalism über alles, laissez-faire, let-them-eat-cake, Marie Antoinette post. Thank you Bill, for focusing the discussion. First off, I'm all for capitalism, supply-and-demand, and so forth. We've all seen bill rates rise and fall over the years as the economy ebbs and flows. I have no problem with that at all. The main problem I have here is that IBM is using its purchasing power to subvert the supply/demand curve. They have lowered rates and salaries to unheard of levels. $20/hour for an experienced system programmer is an absolutely unprecedented bill rate. On the other hand, IBM is claiming that they face a shortage of experienced z/OS system programmers, so they re-started the previously failed academic initiative and SHARE started zNextGen. So if IBM is telling the truth, and there is a shortage of experienced z/OS system programmers, then bill rates should be going up, not down. At the very least they should be static. ------SNIP------------------------------------------------ Some very good points and some weak ones. I have seen the "cheap" people come into a place play havoc with the installation (and maintenance). They "do their job" but in the long run they will cost the company a lot of money as they always bring in their "tricks of their trade" tools and when they leave they either take the tools with them or they break with some OS code change. Then you have to hire them back to get them to fix the "tool".We had one programmer (not systems) do this very thing. When it broke they had to hire the guy at over $100 an hour to fix it. I have seen similar tricks by sysprogs. That is why I do not allow any "tools" that are brought in given to any outside department. I have my own tape of goodies but I keep it an a library that is under my control and it doesn't go out to anyone else as I do not want to be accused of doing this very thing. Where I am different is that I never let anyone know what utilities I have or where I got them. So even if they were able to run them the utilities are essentially unusable except for me. I also demand source code from any person that wants to give anything to anyone outside the department and I look through the listing to make sure that there isn't some nasty hidden code breakers in it. IBM IMO doesn't like being stood up to by GUIDE (and/or then SHARE). IBM doesn't like people who will not take no for an answer. Most good sysprogs I know will standup to IBM (at the appropriate time) and get the duty manager involved if needed. Although I suspect now days Duty Managers are a pale white of what they used to be, so I am not sure they can do what needs to be done within IBM. I would suspect that their duties have been cut back to the point of pushing paper, and not looking out for the customer. This is just one more step in IBM to eliminate the enemy. Ed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
