Temp jobs are a double edged sword. On the one hand, you only have to put up with these people for a specified amount of time, but on the other hand, you have to put up with these people for a specified amount of time. Aye, there's the rub.

And I'll go one step further and say that temp jobs in IT are the worst kinds of temp jobs. Oh, you can go on about data entry all you like, but have you ever put up with the same person asking how to "do" an attachment ten times a day?

Now I graduated with honours in Computing Studies, I could build a server from scratch with little more than an Apache framework and a thimble full of Javascript. I don't tell you this because I'm proud, I tell you this because I'm murderously angry.

For instance, I should have spent the last week working on a better solution for our company's internal security protocols, in regards to power outage scenarios. But in fact, found myself resetting passwords, and telling people that shutting of their monitor did not equal restarting their computers. The point is my job is very, very beneath me. And yes, I know that all our jobs are beneath us, and yes I know I'm a nerd, and yes I know I'm an angry nerd, but to quote the esteemed scholar, Mr Geoffrey Lebowski, this aggression will not stand.

Now, it should be mentioned at this point that my boss is not a bad person. He's an old man, walks with a cane - looks like an older version of the posh british guy from The Great Escape. He also is very good at giving the appearance of being lovely, like your grandpa, or father christmas. The fact remains however, that the job stank.

Sorry. I should be more direct. I work at an amusement park. A fairly big amusement park. You've heard of it. Well I worked there. And my job - which really twelve people should have been doing - was to set up, debug, maintain and oversee the park's security. A pretty important job, you might say? Something worthy a decent paycheck perhaps?

Something worthy of realistic operating hours, perhaps? But no. Being a new park, the startup costs were simply to great to afford such luxuries as operating hours, fringe benefits or human loving decency. The cost of the garguantuan attractions alone precluded the idea of any of us mere staff drawing anything approaching a fair wage for a fair day's work.

So, I got approached by a competitor. This is surprisingly common in my field of work. Industrial espionage is depressingly par for the course in the American amusement park industry, despite what anyone might tell you. I'm not saying this is secret agent poo poo, I'm saying that frequently what you know is worth more than what you do.

Now I'd already signed a non-disclosure act and I'm sure a lot of armchair lawyer-goons are going to scream that what I did here was illegal or maybe even 'morally wrong', but try to understand I was being underpaid, overworked and hosed upon all for a company that was not only jeapordising my safety but, arguably, the safety of the park's patrons with cost-cutting, rationalisation and unnecessarily unsafe standard working practices. Cunts.


So in this environment, try to understand that when a competitor makes contact offering me much needed rent money in exchange for some information - really in exchange for some experienced consultation, nothing more - I'm going to consider the proposition. In fact, a reasonable company wouldn't even see anything wrong with this. They own my work, not my future work, not my experience, certainly not any work that was directly born from my contributions to our IP.

And yes, I took with me some of our new tech - some of the embryonic research that made our company unique. I appreciate this stuff has value. I'm not saying I wasn't actively seeking to make back some of the money these guys owed me. But the fact is that Six Flags would kill for the kind of tech we're working on, and if my boss isn't going to pay for the hours or even use the technology responsibly, I'm going to have to take it elsewhere. Free market, right?

So that is exactly what I do. It was pretty easy given that the cite was to be visited by outside consultants a couple of days beforehand, and every one was so distracted enough with this circus that I could leave my desk without too much bother.

But in order to get out of the park, the electric fences that kept in some of the living exhibits needed to be shut down. After that it would be a quick trot through the rain and a car drive to safety. I took the chance, took the embryos and in a whipped-cream can, fled them through the gates. What I didn't realise was the creatures were breeding of their own accord, and all because of the frog DNA. We thought we were gods. I was later killed by one of those spitting dinosaurs. You may have seen me in seinfeld.

2/27/2010 5:03:01 AM

My fiancee just edited my post.

[Edited on February 27, 2010 at 5:08 AM. Reason : BECAUSEHESAWESOME]

2/27/2010 5:06:37 AM

I know, it's an awesome story, right?

2/27/2010 5:08:51 AM

2/27/2010 5:13:21 AM

I have no idea what I just read.

2/27/2010 5:51:14 AM

I have no idea what I just read.

2/27/2010 5:51:14 AM

C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!

2/27/2010 5:53:13 AM

cool story, brah

2/27/2010 6:11:58 AM

yo holmes to bel air

2/27/2010 6:13:36 AM

You need to chill out bra...

2/27/2010 6:18:59 AM

BARBASOL BEARD BUSTER

2/27/2010 6:20:13 AM

Newman.

2/27/2010 7:09:33 AM

the new company bringing u on as a scapegoat for the technology the real spy already stole. u got recruited for u ego, not ur brains.

2/27/2010 7:38:20 AM

http://i.imgur.com/E0oS8.jpg

2/27/2010 8:19:18 AM

man, someone is going to spit in your face for that

[Edited on February 27, 2010 at 8:30 AM. Reason : i need to stop posting after only reading things halfway through]

2/27/2010 8:28:28 AM

i stopped reading after

Quote :

"Now I graduated with honours in Computing Studies, I could build a server from scratch with little more than an Apache framework and a thimble full of Javascript."

2/27/2010 8:33:57 AM

I realize this thread is about those who have degrees in Computing Studies... which I do not.

2/27/2010 9:02:50 AM

Quote :

"Geoffrey"

2/27/2010 9:06:47 AM

I realize this thread is about blogging on TWW....which I do not. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

2/27/2010 9:11:57 AM

2/27/2010 9:13:16 AM

Once I started seeing british english words, I assumed it was a copypasta meme and stopped reading.

Who the fuck says "aye" in america?

2/27/2010 9:48:53 AM

2/27/2010 11:25:54 AM

who the fuck actually read all that?

2/27/2010 11:53:40 AM

i did...because i love jurassic park. i love OP.

2/27/2010 12:09:55 PM

Quote :

"Who the fuck says "aye" in america?"

OJ da Juiceman, for one.

2/27/2010 12:17:15 PM

2/27/2010 12:23:56 PM

Nedry wasn't underpaid, he was a greedy fat fuck

2/27/2010 3:19:01 PM

newman

2/27/2010 3:31:17 PM

Hold on to your butts

2/27/2010 3:36:21 PM

damn it djeternal

2/27/2010 3:41:46 PM

bahahahaha i read the whole thing

gg

2/27/2010 3:42:09 PM

evan ITT

2/27/2010 3:43:30 PM

yo holmes to jurassic park

2/27/2010 3:45:22 PM

how did he have even less of a neck/chin boundary

2/27/2010 3:45:25 PM

2/27/2010 3:54:14 PM

^^^ lol

3/3/2010 8:37:37 PM

I, too, read the General Bullshit section of the Somethingawful.com forums.

3/3/2010 10:06:54 PM

7.7/10

3/3/2010 10:09:59 PM