That should make everyone happy, I would think.

he provides and interesting point for us all to learn from: there are plenty of people with great skills, but the big cheese doesn't want to hire them because they are "too expensive" so they outsource. Too expensive? So when you are making millions (billions?), the guy who wants 100 hr for consulting is "too expensive."

f you, I got mine, I'm going to india .. for the cheap labor...could never set foot over there... gosh no. That will never come back to haunt me!

wib: So when you are making millions (billions?)

I don't think that guy makes that much.

Great post in the comments section:


I'd give more credibility to "Mr. Small business owner" if he weren't also:

Weekly Columnist: New York Times
Weekly Columnist: Forbes.com
Bi-Weekly Columnist: American City Business Journals
Periodic Columnist: Businessweek.com

Author: In God We Trust: Everyone Else Pays Cash - Simple Lessons From Smart Business People, Small Business Book of Lists, Complete Idiot's Guide To Successful Outsourcing, Small Business Desk Reference, Outfoxing The Small Business Owner.

Here's a clue. If you write a book called "Outfoxing the Small Business Owner" and "Successful Outsourcing" you are NOT on the side of small business owners

Sybarite: Great post in the comments section:


I'd give more credibility to "Mr. Small business owner" if he weren't also:

Weekly Columnist: New York Times
Weekly Columnist: Forbes.com
Bi-Weekly Columnist: American City Business Journals
Periodic Columnist: Businessweek.com

Author: In God We Trust: Everyone Else Pays Cash - Simple Lessons From Smart Business People, Small Business Book of Lists, Complete Idiot's Guide To Successful Outsourcing, Small Business Desk Reference, Outfoxing The Small Business Owner.

Here's a clue. If you write a book called "Outfoxing the Small Business Owner" and "Successful Outsourcing" you are NOT on the side of small business owners

The internet - screw the point of the article, just attack the source and declare victory.

Here, learn this skill and then try to undercut third world workers. Why aren't you working yet? Lazy.

Dancin_In_Anson: wib: So when you are making millions (billions?)

I don't think that guy makes that much.
sorry, pluralized it... got ahead of myself.

Nabb1: The internet - screw the point of the article, just attack the source and declare victory.

Screw the point, you say? Sort of like when someone snidely writes about "hey Google made a lot of money, you should bring them down hyuk hyuk hyuk". I won't argue that Google is a pristine, America-loving company, but it's almost as if the author is intentionally missing the point of the protests. Huh.

Oh, look, here's the description of "Outfoxing the Small Business Owner" on Amazon:

Whether you're an account manager for a large corporation or a fledgling entrepreneur, the small business market is one you can't afford to ignore. Your bottom line depends on it. Yet to capture this market, you need to adopt a new strategy-a strategy that recognizes the limited budgets, intense competitors, oppressive taxes, and inadequate resources that plague most small business owners.

Outfoxing the Small Business Owner shows you how to tap the heart, mind, and pocketbook of these cagey customers. You'll rethink your usual approach, tailoring it to your customers' individual challenges and idiosyncrasies. You'll learn what works for small business owners-and how it's different than what works for your larger accounts. Most important, you'll find innovative, effective ways to:

Get your product or service noticed
Foster long-term partnerships
Identify and address their true business needs
Collect payments in a timely manner
And much, much, more!

And here's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Successful Outsourcing:

In this clear-cut guide to outsourcing, business owners and managers will learn the historical and global issues of outsourcing, whether they really need to outsource at all, how to decide the costs and benefits of outsourcing, tips on hiring and managing outsourced help, and how to keep in compliance.
-Outsourcing has become one of the biggest trends in business today
-The only consumer-level book available on how to evaluate and successfully implement outsourcing
-90% of all U.S. businesses now outsource some work (from payroll or IT to business development or financial management)
-Some small businesses are reporting up to 30% in cost savings by outsourcing large portions of their work

I mean, you do understand if you have Paychex or someone doing your payroll, you are outsourcing, right? If you hire an IT consultant from an outside firm instead of having in-house IT, you are outsourcing. It doesn't necessarily mean shipping jobs overseas. It took no effort to look those up, either.

FTFA- Wasn't he (and President Bush) the ones who pushed those low interest loans to sketchy borrowers that ultimately caused the bubble that crashed the banks and resulted in government bailouts and high unemployment.

Um no a55hole- The banks and mortgage companies (you know, those organizations that are supposedly run by the financial professionals) are the ones that gave out those shaky loans. They knew they were bad and didn't care since they didn't plan on holding on to them. And once they had written the loans, they repackaged them with a bunch of other loans and sold them, then resold the Credit default swaps, and created a pyramid of bad trades that was doomed to failure.

But a lot of the time you're hanging out, waiting for the next opportunity to do your protests. So while you have that down time can you maybe study up on a couple of programming languages like C Sharp or Visual Basic? Or maybe learn some advanced SQL server techniques?

Hey, cool, I have a friend who's pretty badass at C, perl, and SQL. She's currently unemployed, but running my domain gratis for resume filler. I'd hire her, but my company would only hire her for 28,000 a year and she would need a "good" degree in Computer Science (which she lacks, she was too poor to afford college).

But hey, if you'd like to give her a job, I'll write a glowing recommendation. Oh you don't? You'd LIKE to hire more but can't right now? Yea, I kind of figured. I also kind of figure that's why there's so many folks squatting in Wall Street.

palladiate: But hey, if you'd like to give her a job, I'll write a glowing recommendation. Oh you don't?

I'm assuming that you contacted him regarding your friend and got a reject.

I know you don't like the stock market, but trust me: at some point in your life, a rising stock portfolio becomes better than sex.

i can't take someone with priorities this screwed up seriously.

Nabb1: Sybarite: Great post in the comments section:


I'd give more credibility to "Mr. Small business owner" if he weren't also:

Weekly Columnist: New York Times
Weekly Columnist: Forbes.com
Bi-Weekly Columnist: American City Business Journals
Periodic Columnist: Businessweek.com

Author: In God We Trust: Everyone Else Pays Cash - Simple Lessons From Smart Business People, Small Business Book of Lists, Complete Idiot's Guide To Successful Outsourcing, Small Business Desk Reference, Outfoxing The Small Business Owner.

Here's a clue. If you write a book called "Outfoxing the Small Business Owner" and "Successful Outsourcing" you are NOT on the side of small business owners

The internet - screw the point of the article, just attack the source and declare victory.


You need some Preparation H for that butthurt?

So while you have that down time can you maybe study up on a couple of programming languages like C Sharp or Visual Basic? Or maybe learn some advanced SQL server techniques?

Visual Basic? Listen, I know good programmers are expensive, and your entitled to affordable labor, but the ability to program isn't just from learned skill, one needs some inherent quality. Research in this area show only about 10% of people can effectively learn to program [citation needed] (can't remember the exact figure).
--------
Because of the bloated administrations and tenured professors that have created this system,

Tenured professors? No, professor salary is not part of the rising cost of education.
--------
I know that you guys are against corporate greed and that makes sense. So besides the banks can I put in a request for you to rail against some other greedy companies? Like Apple and Google? Last year Apple earned $14 billion and Google earned $8.5 billion. That's a lot. You should bring them down!

'Greed' does not mean "made a shat ton of money." The problem with Apple is their monopolistic stranglehold on app distribution to their products. Google doesn't have that problem. So I could see them protesting the app store, but not Google.
--------
Wasn't he (and President Bush) the ones who pushed those low interest loans to sketchy borrowers that ultimately caused the bubble that crashed the banks and resulted in government bailouts and high unemployment.

You're confusing Presidents with investment banks and mortgage brokers.

Nabb1: Sybarite: Great post in the comments section:


I'd give more credibility to "Mr. Small business owner" if he weren't also:

Weekly Columnist: New York Times
Weekly Columnist: Forbes.com
Bi-Weekly Columnist: American City Business Journals
Periodic Columnist: Businessweek.com

Author: In God We Trust: Everyone Else Pays Cash - Simple Lessons From Smart Business People, Small Business Book of Lists, Complete Idiot's Guide To Successful Outsourcing, Small Business Desk Reference, Outfoxing The Small Business Owner.

Here's a clue. If you write a book called "Outfoxing the Small Business Owner" and "Successful Outsourcing" you are NOT on the side of small business owners

The internet - screw the point of the article, just attack the source and declare victory.

The point being that if the source is suspect, then so is the motive behind the deed, and perhaps the deed itself. They pull this stunt in court all the time to prove the credibility of a witness.

/I know, because I watch Law & Order
//the author of TFA did make some valid points, though

Dancin_In_Anson: palladiate: But hey, if you'd like to give her a job, I'll write a glowing recommendation. Oh you don't?

I'm assuming that you contacted him regarding your friend and got a reject.

If I do I'm absolutely posting it on Fark. But I know he won't because he says he can't find qualified IT candidates for the right price. Yes you can, we have little problem usually, until this quarter.

But this year our division HR decided that since the job market sucks so bad, they could up the requirements. Now our basic analyst positions require a 4 year college degree. You know those college degrees everyone here likes to crap on and say aren't necessary for a job like that? One of those.

I'm supposed to hire a 25k a year peon analyst that has a CS degree? The MOMENT the market improves that guy is bolting to a better job. My farking ass. We're going to either have them change it or start making more exemptions, and I'll hire her then. But if he's advising folks to learn Visual Basic and can't find IT folks, he's either a moron or he talking out of his ass. I just assumed he's talking out of his ass.

That said, email away to their only point of contact I could Google up. No postings under their company name on Dice or Monster.

palladiate: Hey, cool, I have a friend who's pretty badass at C, perl, and SQL.

Web programmer? Find a web service or industry people need, code that shiat up, and pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

...

I'm actually semi-serious here. You make valid points, but this lady is also in a position where she can make herself a shiat-ton of money. of course, though, she'd need backers and a good idea. :-/

And if she had the motivation to learn all that stuff herself without a "proper" education, odds are she's got the chutzpah to do it, too.

xanadian: And if she had the motivation to learn all that stuff herself without a "proper" education, odds are she's got the chutzpah to do it, too.

She kind of did. She was a contractor for a game news company until recently. She doesn't like the whole "living at dad's home, working as a contractor, with a 3 month income horizon" thing, and wants something a bit more stable.

"hey OWS.. could you, you just, just get wall street to do all those things you don't like them to do for me? that would be great"


author is a farking entitled asshat who is a member of the 1%

/no economic system can long sustain this level of economic disparity, the system inevitably collapses
//fark you greedy biatches in wall street - 90% of what you do is skimming off the top, YOU DON'T MAKE ANYTHING.

palladiate: If I do I'm absolutely posting it on Fark

Why if? Let's see your (and his) stuff!

palladiate: No postings under their company name on Dice or Monster.

Sounds like he's looking really hard.

palladiate: xanadian: And if she had the motivation to learn all that stuff herself without a "proper" education, odds are she's got the chutzpah to do it, too.

She kind of did. She was a contractor for a game news company until recently. She doesn't like the whole "living at dad's home, working as a contractor, with a 3 month income horizon" thing, and wants something a bit more stable.

That's understandable.

I had a pretty damn good idea for a website a while back...never pursued it, because I don't have the coder-fu that would be required to pull it off.

At the very least, your friend can keep developing her idea(s)...even with a 3-month income horizon...until something stable comes along. It's better than nothing. And maybe she can use her project(s) to help get her hired.

I'm really interested in computers. I think programming is a fascinating subject and I've vaulted myself into classes and books on the subject ever since middle school. But I can't pick this stuff up, no matter how I try. I make through learning the language itself and the basic concepts of what you can do. I picked up at least enough rinky-dink knowledge to let me program for a few MUDs. Once it comes to the more advanced stuff I honestly can't follow anything being taught. So, how do I bootstrap my way out of this one?

Like companies will totally hire you if you just say you know a language. The next question is always "When did you take a class on it/when did you learn this at work..." and when the response is "I taught myself and have never used it at work" your resume gets thrown in the trash.

I don't see any job descriptions posted on his web site. I bet he isn't even a plumber.

Dancin_In_Anson: palladiate: If I do I'm absolutely posting it on Fark

Why if? Let's see your (and his) stuff!

Good afternoon,

It has come to my attention, via Mr. Marks' column in the Huffington Post on Tuesday (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gene-marks/how-the-wall-street-occup_b_ 1016731.html), that he is chronically short on finding skilled and experienced employees. He made no direct mention, but seemed to imply, that self-educated and self-motivated youngsters who take the time to learn programming languages would be the sort of folks that could help you out, especially if they're not demanding unreasonable salaries.

As someone who owned a stake in and worked hard at a small, 9-employee business for a decade, I would like to help out his small business. No, I'm not offering my services for your employ, as my current employer values me an awful lot. But I can offer you a list of many under-employed acquaintances that fit his description. They're hard-working, flexible, willing to relocate on their own money, and very self-starting. Many lack a formal education in Computer Science or Information Technology, but their informal education is certainly more valuable, if my personal experience between college life and business life holds true universally. However most aren't able to obtain steady, non-contract work as experience with programming projects and self-education aren't valued by many HR recruiters, including our own, who tell us they can never find candidates. But our department is more savvy than that, we know where to look, and we know what works for us. It's probably why our staffing will be growing by 400% in the next three months.

But that's in three months. For now I'll offer you the best one I know. She manages my personal custom domain, gratis, in order to gain experience and keep her skills current. She's learning Perl and SQL, and I've even turned to her on occasion for answers to questions on both. If she doesn't know the answer, I'm confident in her abilities to find out and get back to me faster than I could have done it myself. I trust her and respect her despite her youth.

Her current employer, [Redacted], is changing their structure and won't need her contract work much longer. But she has been learning the skills that Mr. Marks says could do him favors. So I'll do him the favor of passing along her resume, which you'll find attached.

I wish Mr. Marks the best of luck in his search for qualified and reasonably-priced labor.


Thanks,


Nicholas A Spangler
Sr Systems Analyst, East Region
[Redacted]
(336) [Redacted]
(336) [Redacted]

GAT_00: Like companies will totally hire you if you just say you know a language. The next question is always "When did you take a class on it/when did you learn this at work..." and when the response is "I taught myself and have never used it at work" your resume gets thrown in the trash.

Well, that's a major benefit to a labor market flush with overqualified workers. 50 years ago you'd totally risk hiring a low-cost but high-potential employee. Now you can get a proven employee for less.

HEY LOOK, a response.

genepuorgskra­mn­e­t genepuorgskra­mn­e­t to me
show details 1:59 PM (1 minute ago)

Thanks Nicholas!
.........
Gene Marks
The Marks Group

Sending one back.

Thanks Gene,

As a fair warning, I'll need a Document Analyst when we move into our new command center. This person would need excellent writing and analysis skills to tear apart and document all of our custom software and processes. If she's still available, I'm highly encouraging her to apply.

Also, I did enjoy the column. You made some fairly excellent points, especially with the role of capitalizing business and the stock market's role in that.

Thanks again,

Nick

palladiate: Sending one back.

Thanks Gene,

As a fair warning, I'll need a Document Analyst when we move into our new command center. This person would need excellent writing and analysis skills to tear apart and document all of our custom software and processes. If she's still available, I'm highly encouraging her to apply.

Also, I did enjoy the column. You made some fairly excellent points, especially with the role of capitalizing business and the stock market's role in that.

Thanks again,

Nick

Oh, now this is interesting.

FTFA: So while you have that down time can you maybe study up on a couple of programming languages like C Sharp or Visual Basic? Or maybe learn some advanced SQL server techniques?

The reason why I ask this is that my company does a lot of work with technology and we can't seem to find skilled people to do the work that we have. And when we do find experienced people they tend to be too expensive and our clients refuse to pay for them.

In other words, can you please flood this job market with a lot of skilled, desperate people willing to work for peanuts. We still won't hire you for the job because you still won't have the "experience" but what you will do for us is devalue the labour of the skilled and experienced worker so we can justify paying them peanuts and tell them if they get uppity "yeah, well I can easily put out an ad and get 100 other people begging me for your job for less than half the pay so just be glad you've got any work at all".

FTFA: Hey, if you can convince those greedy Wall Street guys to invest in as many companies as possible that could be a huge benefit to the stock market too. I know you don't like the stock market, but trust me: at some point in your life, a rising stock portfolio becomes better than sex.

This is one of the things they're trying to do. You see, one of the problems with capital investment right now is too much of it is being invested in things like hedge funds and money markets which produce nothing. One of the things the OWSers are saying is that capital needs to flow into production because production means jobs which means more wealth for everyone. It is better to have capital flowing into businesses that produce jobs which feed consumption which increases wealth than it is to have capital go into hedge funds and money markets and other "investments" which produce nothing. The OWSers are not against stocks, they're not against wealth, they're not even against the wealthy per say. They're against uncompromising greed. They're against a system where a very very small percentage of the people make massive amounts of wealth on the misery of the rest of us. They're for a system where not only do the rich get richer, but the poor get richer too. They're for a system where wealth comes from the bottom up because that's the only healthy way to stimulate long term economic growth. Trickle down is a failure, there are short term gains for the uber-wealthy but even that won't be sustainable in the long run eventually there will simply be nothing left to own because the people who aren't in the 1% will be too poor to contribute to the economy in any meaningful way.

The upper class grows best when it has a large, thriving, growing, middle class to put more money into the economy and a lower class that is well to do enough that they can pump money into the economy through consumption too. Slaves don't spend much.

FTFA: I know that you guys are against corporate greed and that makes sense. So besides the banks can I put in a request for you to rail against some other greedy companies? Like Apple and Google? Last year Apple earned $14 billion and Google earned $8.5 billion. That's a lot. You should bring them down!

OK, full disclosure: my company sells Microsoft products. I know, they're just as guilty of corporate greed. But those guys at Apple and Google have become huge competitors and if you could get the world focused on how greedy they are then maybe Microsoft can stand a chance against them. And I can sell more Microsoft products. I hope I'm not asking too much. .

Wait... I thought you were for capitalism. Maybe part of the reason your business is having so much trouble is because you're not giving the consumer what they're demanding and then blaming the consumer for not demanding what you're selling. If everyone is buying Apple and Android products and you're selling Windows then you might want to consider selling Apple and Android products as well. Or you could simply realize that what you're selling is a niche product and find a way to thrive in that niche. There's no shame in that. Believe it or not, there are still companies that make a decent profit selling products for Atari and Commodore computers. They've identified a small niche that is not being catered to by the rest of the market so they're exploiting that niche market to make a living. They'll never be a huge mega corporation like Apple, Google, or Microsoft (I'm sorry, but just because Microsoft is no longer the biggest kid on the playground it hardly means they're a 99lb weakling) but that doesn't matter. They're making a decent enough living doing what they're doing.

You see this is part of the problem. Not every business needs to become a huge mega corporation. There's no shame in being a small business, successfully catering to a niche market. Somehow people have got it in their mind that the only value that matters is the bank balance. People have bought into this idea that every business needs to continually expand and multiply and consume like a mindless amoeba. People seem to believe that rankings are binary and if you're not Number One then you're Zero. It's this kind of greed that is causing the problems we have now because it encourages the sociopaths in the business world to see their fellow humans as nothing but zeros.

If your business is in a market with limited growth than accept that and try to find a way to work the best you can within that limited market. There's no shame in that.

Not that I'm necessarily a huge fan of OWS, but isn't "we want to hire highly skilled, educated people -- but we [or clients] don't want to pay them very much, so we're offshoring to India" the very kind of they're upset about in the first place?

He's right about finding people who know more than jack squat about programming. Hell, learn jQuery and you can probably bill at a minimum of $60/hour.

ultraholland: kbronsito: I know you don't like the stock market, but trust me: at some point in your life, a rising stock portfolio becomes better than sex.

i can't take someone with priorities this screwed up seriously.

because of Wall Street's shenanigans many portfolios tanked; so if this guy is equating a rising portfolio to great sex, it only stands to compare a failing portfolio to violent rape.

C'mon, baby. Let's not turn this downtrend into a bankruptcy.

Kazan: author is a farking entitled asshat who is a member of the 1%

Nah, more than likely he's part of the 99% who thinks they're one of the 1% or will be some day.

palladiate: Thanks

Cool! I'm interested to see how this plays out. Let's hope she scores a jerb!

Dancin_In_Anson: palladiate: Thanks

Cool! I'm interested to see how this plays out. Let's hope she scores a jerb!

I hope so too. I'm also glad the columnist isn't your average internet tough guy journalist.

Another "let's just pretend that 10% of the workforce suddenly got too lazy to go to work at the same time Wall Street raped the economy, and it was all just a huge coincidence" argument. How original.

The sad truth is that the only thing that anyone in the 99% can do to feel like they aren't in the 99% is to smugly look down on other people in the 99%, or actively work on behalf of the 1% to sabotage them. It makes them feel important.