On (13 Nov 93) Paul Edwards wrote to Anthony May...



 PE> 5) wages of computer people are going down (not far enough for my

 PE> liking).

 

 oi, cut that out, some of us still have morgages to support!



 PE> 6) the more we get of 5), the more we will have the arena being

 PE> enthusiasts only.

 

 god help us   8-)



 PE> PE> operators doing programming too (with deadlines), and if 

 PE> PE> they can't program, then I'd sack them.  BFN.

 PE> 

 PE>  AM> Dunno about that - few people are cut out for programming.  

 PE>  AM> What sort of operators are you referring to though?

 PE> 

 PE> There are a lot of people cut out to do some sort of programming.  As

 PE> a programmer I can look around and see all the total dickheads who

 PE> have jobs as programmers.  You may well not know what a computer

 PE> operator is.  On MVS sites (at least) there may be 50,000 tapes for

 PE> the site, and 20 tape drives.  Whenever someone needs to run a job

 PE> that reads from one file to another file, the tape needs to be

 PE> mounted.  That is the operators job.  Same as changing printer paper

 PE> when it runs out every 15 minutes or whatever.  Then there are more

 PE> technical things, like running the production jobs (programs

 PE> basically), and making sure they don't run out of space on the disk,

 PE> or tape errors, or program errors.  People forget their passwords,

 PE> people's terminals don't work, that sort of thing.  Anyway, it's a job

 PE> that requires a brain the size of a small monkey to do, and the

 PE> dickhead programmers should be redeployed as programmer/operators to

 PE> replace any operators who only meet the minimum qualifications of an

 PE> operator.



you're living in the past, most mvs sites are downsizing operations

staff as fast as they can push them through the door. one large site that i

know has got rid of 65% of them in the last 15 months. they are still a bit

heavy in the semi-ops areas, storage control etc, but they are running 5

major mainframes with 2 ops, plus one for a nationwide network. tape ops 

are a dying breed, most tape is square now and an increasing proportion of

that is going into stortek silos. printer loaders will always be with us,

but they are not usually the stuff of which programmers are made, in general, 

they are grunts, employed, and payed as such. anyway, there is an increasing 

movement toward outsourcing printing to specialist companies like hermes

precisa. help(?) desk staff are usually just clerks with a bit of extra 

training, which is why they are, in the most part, totally useless.



                keith



ps. of course you have forgotten the most dedicated people of all- the

hardware engineers. they not only fix the nasty greasy thing when they break,

they correct the configurations that the planning people stuff up, they fix

up software, show operators how to do the things that they should know

anyway, in fact they are knowledgeable, overworked, underpaid, and alround

nice guys.



... First, you put the lawyers up against a wall. . .



--- PPoint 1.64