Geez, that reminds me of a former colleague that, when asked for “the numbers,” would just send screenshots of tables in the ERP system instead of exporting them to a spreadsheet. What’s even worse, usually a lot of values were plain wrong, on one occasion more than half of them.
And let’s not forget politics. When you’re golf buddies with the right politicians, winning those extremely lucrative public tenders will become a cakewalk.
Some people are in for a rude awakening if they think that the slight nuisance of “being shown targeted ads” is the biggest issue with dragnet data collection.
That, and internet in the late 90s started to get really fast. Some blokes sat in their rooms for days on end, downloading music or movies, as there were no laws against it yet. Or at least they were not enforced. In other words, those were the days when average Joe could still be one step ahead of The Man. You know, before he turned against us with a vengeance, everywhere, 24/7.
Strange, just for the last few days, I’ve been thinking just what a big cultural turning point 2005 seemed to be. From then on, everything started to circle the drain, and I put the blame on globalization and the advent of large-scale social media. Which might have left an imprint on product design and fashion.
And, as I wrote earlier in a different thread, the shift from 1994 to 1995 was the biggest one I’ve witnessed, and it was very visible in public spaces. Audible as well: It went from Metallica and ZZ Top as supermarket background music (imagine this!) to “Easy Listening” or whatever.
Life is better down where it’s wetter.
A sixpack a day keeps the anal away.
Blame it on the rain.
Disinfotainment at its best.
At Google HQ:
Boss: “So… this Reddit integration you’ve been working on?”
Developer: “Yeah, I think the first milestone could be ready in about six months.”
Boss: “Sorry, that’s been decided, go-live is in 1.5 days.”
In my last company, everybody could easily obtain “manager” status… because that was just the title for everyone who was salaried. Which didn’t necessarily mean more money. In fact, usually not. It certainly meant more overtime… a lot more.
It’s all just scare tactics, they’ll say.
Also, that feeling of power.
Ah, the entire collection of S. Harris’ Global Warming cartoons, though lumped together with other environmental topics, is worth linking.
Midnight Oil made a song about it, “Power and the Passion.”
Few people realize that a) burn-out has a high probability of recidivism; b) it changes the body, too. You develop a plethora of new nerve endings that fire discomfort and pain and that take years to diminish once you’ve made it through the acute phase.
You totally, literally become crippled by the system, and some people set themselves up for it willingly, kamikaze-style, thereby raising the bar for all others as well.
See also: System justification
I use the wage filter on Stepstone because I don’t want to sift through more than 20 pages of job ads each week. Also, I’m seeing more and more companies asking for your expected salary when applying on their web page anyway. If they don’t, I just put in the number at the end of my cover letter. Cuts through the bullshit.
Sure, I’m getting an order of magnitude fewer interviews this way, but on the other hand, I’m not wasting hours on dressing up and preparing myself, potentially even taking a day off and travelling out to the fucking company because they insist on meeting me in person, only to stare into blank faces after having answered the final interview question about my salary expectations.
Rather recently, when I was in sudden dire need of a job, I could not pull that shit off, obviously, but I still managed to get more than in my previous job. Then again, it turned out to be the fucking worst job I ever had, by far, so there’s that, too.
Join some Whatsapp group that piques your interest and meet with them IRL. I wouldn’t have thought that drinking beer and shooting the shit with total strangers could be so much fun, but here we are.