[svlug] Russian programmers

[javilk@polly.mall-net.com]

> > >
> > > Hi. I hate to put something like this out on svlug, but the economic
> > > situation in Russia has deteriorated to such a state that I think it
> > > justified.

>   More programmers than money at this time.  Sorry.
> 
> But hey, we ship soon, so maybe my funding level will change in 6 months.

    It is up to the Russians to get their own economy together.  One does
not do that by removing from their arena the best and the brightest, but
by encouraging and helping them to develop their own economy OVER THERE.
Will bringing their best here, make their lands better?  

     Ed Yourdon wrote a book, "The Decline and Fall of the American
Programmer", decrying, among other things, the influx of foreign national
programmers destroying part of our domestic programmer's income base.  He
even has a newsletter that is against the importation of underpaid foreign
national programmers for the purpose of laying off Skilled older American
programmers. HP has been sued over this issue in the past.  These are
cheap mental grunt workers, the mental equivalents of cheap "wet-back"
laborers "wet-mind" laborers. 

     I grew up among immigrants, I am the son of an immigrant engineer and
freedom fighter. Many of my friends are "Americanizing" engineers and
other professionals who are learning what makes America the international
success story that it is, and investing in it.  (Despite the Hilly and
Billy Washingtoon show...) I am not opposed to capable and decent people
who are investing in America with their own blood, sweat, and tears in
effort to improve this nation and themselves.  Many are my friends, like
Raffi, and others.  Even Linus is one of them. I know that there are a lot
of entrepreneurial foreign nationals here who could not have done over
there (wherever "there" may be,) what they are doing here.  Many of them
are taking risks a lot of us don't have the courage to take.  These are
NOT the people I am against!  They are more American in the heart than
some of the lazy native born SOB's I see in the streets.  More power to
them and this society for their investing in it.

     BUT... a number of my older friends have been marginzlized by the
rampant importation of sub-wage foreign national wet-mind workers.  These
Americans are wonderful people whom I have worked with on and off, people
who teach more than they learn because they have been around forever, and
often pull strange things out of their experiences that really help
projects.  I am alive today because one of these older gents flew me out
here for medical treatment twelve years ago when I was dying.  That is
friendship and loyalty!  We still talk every now and then on the phone. 

     Industry is giving these people the boot, "laying off" these people
just before their retirement plans vest, without any regard for them. Some
times it is the economic cycles, sometimes it is the pain killers and
prescription or over the counter medications that fail them in drug tests.
(Many companies have a NO EXCEPTIONS policy -- you get tested the day you
took Aleive, bam! You are out the door!  NO EXCEPTIONS!  Even Federal
documents say those tests have a 20 percent false positive rate on KNOWN
Government supplied reference samples!) It is pathetic seeing some of my
former co-workers trying to eak out a living at Fry's, Radio-Shack and
other places that are... not so much below their dignity, but Really below
their WORTH to SOCIETY in general!  They have EARNED their place in this
society a hell of a lot more than I have!!! They fought in our wars,
weathered our financial storms, natural disasters, helped build this
valley and other places, scrimped and saved to put their kids through
college; and now Industry imports cheap wet-minds so they can kick them
out sans retirement plans, and sometimes sans their ability to make
mortgage payments on homes that are so Excruciatingly close to paid for! 

     I have also seen several companies nearly go out of business because
of the reliance on inexperienced foreign nationals, as well as management
failures due to the excessive use of mixed groups of foreign nationals. 
(If you use foreign nationals MAKE SURE THEY ALL SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE
and DIALECT!!!!  Is that a secret some managers don't understand???) 
Conditionals are the last thing foreign nationals learn. They are the core
of programming.  If they can't talk to each other about uncertainties and
nested conditional groups clearly, the project is DOOMED! As a consultant,
I've seen it happen more than once.  I have also worked with some
tremendous foreign nationals as well; I have nothing against them as
individual people.  I am against the tide sweeping many of us out of work. 

     I urge each of us to think carefully about the impact of importing
wet-minds.  Help them in their nations, yes!  DO help them!  But if you do
not help them IN THEIR OWN LANDS, we will just unleash a torrent of
sub-wage wet-minds that will wash us out of work just as they have washed
a lot of other highly skilled and highly experienced people out of work. 
And devastate THEIR OWN LANDS in the process! Many of us are next. 
Between the warping of our culture faster than we can help the newcomers
adjust to, the tax games they play with independent programmers, and the
immigrations games... we American Programmers are being marginzlized
across the nation, especially the Older American Programmer. Many are
giving up, sliding away to live in cheaper places. And depriving this
society of what, with their vast experience, they could create had we
shown our own kind a little more faith, and a little more kindness. 

     Think about the consequences of what you are doing, for in the end,
you will end up done to as you did to others.


- javilk at mall-net.com -----------------------------
-------- MS asks "Where do you want to go?" -------
------- Linux asks "What do you want to do?" ------
-- It is doers, not goers, who built this world! --
--------- Member: http://www.svlug.org/ -----------




     

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