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[GlyphGryph]

On another note, I taught a friend of mine programming over the last two months (he did putter around on his own a bit for a couple months before that), and now's he got a programming job making more than 60k.

Just to give you an idea of how this is supposed to work.

[Truean]

Aqizzar, they are paying you a pittance and expecting 60 hours. They have every intent of burning you out for what little your worth and then tossing you out on your ass. Don't kill themselves for you.

Basic entry-level programming is 40k and up. If they're paying you less, its because they don't expect you to be able to do any real programming. So, just chill, and most importantly don't let them destroy you. You may be salaried, but this doesn't mean your a slave, and it SOUNDS like the sort of job where they are going to fire you as soon as the product gets finished or your up for a pay raise anyways, so use it for the experience but don't kill yourself for them.

And try to avoid picking up bad habits, I guess...

^^^^^^^^
This.

Sounds like they want a codemonkey on the dirt cheap. Look at it as a way to get hands-on training and make a few bucks to boot. You'll probably be asked to do a lot of the drudge work, which isn't all bad, because it will drill certain skills and knowledge into you by sheer force of repetition.

Agreed. Get whatever you can out of them because they will take everything from you if you let them.

Expect guilt trips about being "salaried." Even if you can't get out of their bullshit demands, never, EVER feel like you owe them shit on a personal level. They can make you give them stuff, but don't let that "salary" get you down on the inside. Don't take it personally, because they're screwing you, you're not "failing to meet their demands." Their demands will be per se unreasonable, and there's shit all to be done about it unfortunately.

-moronicness-

if you work on a no-win-no-fee basis, then that can be a large problem.

if you don't, at least the repercussions won't be as bad.


oh god, I fail at attempting optimism.

I do appreciate the concern truly. Though honestly that's  called a "contingency" basis and it's illegal/you get disbarred for it if you do it in certain cases like criminal defense or if its tied to getting someone a certain amount of child/spousal support (I'm pretty sure the Professional Rules of Conduct forbid it under one of the subsections of Rule 1.5 or something. I dont' remember the code off the top of my head.)

Contingency cases are often disfavored except in certain types of cases and they usually aren't offered unless either A.) There is a fairly high chance of winning, or B.) The lawyer's entire practice is set up so he has 10 cases at a time and as long as he wins 3 of those ten, he gets paid a good compensation.

Contrary to popular belief, contingency cases usually end up bad for the client in practice.

That's a bit like saying "It's the lion's fault for eating him, not the fact that he wandered into a nature preserve while wearing a coat made out of raw meat." I get what you're saying, but c'mon...the world is like that.

*fist shake*

I fail to see how either of those apply. I wasn't making a moral judgement, nor attempting to justify it from any perceived (a)morality in the natural world.

I wasn't saying "Lions eat anything too dumb to run away from them, therefore con-men ought to swindle anyone dumb enough to fall for them."

It was more of a "Lions are an environmental danger (in some locations), and cognizance of that danger is the responsibility of the individual. Likewise, being tricked by those with nefarious intent is essentially an environmental danger (in pretty much any location with more than a couple of people in it), and cognizance of that danger is likewise the responsibility of the individual."

Redking basically has it, except add to that being told not to do something and explained why it would be a terrible idea to do that thing. Then you do it anyhow, all the bad stuff you were warned about happens, and you then complain that life isn't fair and you were tricked. Also it is clearly the fault of the person who warned you because they... "didn't do anything...."

This is how shit always seems to go:

1. I explain the law; it is complex; people don't seem to get it or why it is necessary.
2. They then say something along the lines of, "why can't we just do [simpler thing]?"
3. I explain why simplier thing won't work, which is partially me repeating myself about why we need to do the complex legal stuff.
4. They either ignore me and do the stupid simple stuff, or bitch about me not doing it the [simpler way] they really want. Then they complain about how I spent "way too much time on this" and how the bill is thus too high (even after I've really already knocked off some time, because if they really paid me for my time like they should, they'd be broke.

People: "But it's just [insert incredibly hard thing here]! Why does it have to be so complicated?"
[facepalm].

[Frumple]

... however much the reality of it reflects this, it is a terrible axiom to hold that your fellow man is incapable of exerting more control than a lion. Man preying on man should be seen as a moral and societal failure -- of the predator in the former case, of the society that allows it to happen without punishment or prevention in the latter -- not an environmental hazard

Yes, I'm well aware that's "not how the world works," but simply accepting that as how the world must work...? I refuse. We're supposed to be aiming for better than that.

But yeah True, blaming someone else for not stopping you or the person who takes advantage of you doesn't really fly, either. The only personal level condemnation to be leveled is against the person taking advantage of others, anything else is misplaced.

[freeformschooler]

I picked up a book at the library advertising itself as a political thriller set in the modern world. For the first ten percent that is exactly what it was. For the next ninety percent it was a long tract of unashamedly proselytizing a literal interpretation of the Bible - especially Revelations - from the mind of an evangelical Christian writer.

I'm not even knocking evangelical Christians here, I just don't like being mislead. It's a good thing it was a library book so I only wasted my time, not my money.

[kaijyuu]

Some of that stuff can actually be good if they go about it the same way they'd adapt, say, Greek Mythology. Not so much a foretelling of things to come, but a "what if" scenario.


Filed under fiction for a reason.

[fqllve]

In general I think we're too close to the evangelical trend for a fictional interpretation of revelation to be acceptable. There's not really a market for it. Believers want something that will appeal to their beliefs and non-believers seem to generally want something more parodic and satirical. I've entertained the idea of writing a serious exploration of the Rapture ideas but decided that it'd probably just end up offending both sides of the aisle.

[Truean]

... however much the reality of it reflects this, it is a terrible axiom to hold that your fellow man is incapable of exerting more control than a lion. Man preying on man should be seen as a moral and societal failure -- of the predator in the former case, of the society that allows it to happen without punishment or prevention in the latter -- not an environmental hazard

Yes, I'm well aware that's "not how the world works," but simply accepting that as how the world must work...? I refuse. We're supposed to be aiming for better than that.

But yeah True, blaming someone else for not stopping you or the person who takes advantage of you doesn't really fly, either. The only personal level condemnation to be leveled is against the person taking advantage of others, anything else is misplaced.

Issue: working out a plea deal is the practice of law (which you can only do for yourself, "pro se," not for someone else without a license), because there is and must be a complex legal system. (We had a simpler one, people took took unfair advantage of it). The system is adversarial, because we think that's the best way to figure out the truth and give everyone a fair chance to tell their full side of the story. 

Legal matters are at least as complex as working on a car mechanically, probably moreso. If you need your brakes fixed, then you can do it yourself, but you will probably fuck it up if you don't know what you're doing. If you need your ... legal matters... fixed, then you can do it yourself, but you will probably fuck it up if you don't know what you're doing. The problems with you fixing your own brakes come from your not knowing the laws of physics and mechanics. The problems with you fixing your own legal matters come from not knowing the laws of the state. It's your fault if you don't hire a mechanic or lawyer who does know the relevant law or if you don't listen to them when going off and doing it yourself. Reality kicks you in the ass if you screw up your own brakes. The prosecutor kicks you in the ass if you screw up your legal matters.

[Frumple]

Ah, sorry True, the trigger issue for me was the whole 'naivety gets preyed upon, is just how world is' (with the possible implication that that's not a horrific state of affairs ) thing, not so much what you actually ran in to. Yeah, that's what happens, it's just... not a thing I can accept for myself to be nonchalant about. The predator in that case is very strongly in the wrong, the prey not in the wrong at all.

The situation'd be more like a mechanic going around sabotaging other people's brakes and then blaming the people victimized for not being fully cognizant of that act happening. There's a lot of that basically happening nowadays, but instead of coming down on the victimizer like a hammer, people point fingers at the victim, or just shrug it off as 'how the world works.' We should be trying to do better than that, y'know? I know we don't, but the state of things isn't sufficient reason to not be troubled by the situation.

Things are a bit more complicated when you hire a mechanic to fix the brakes you know are broken and then you go in the next morning, bugger everything up, and then try to blame the mechanic for the brakes buggering up later

[Bauglir]

I think, again, I'm gonna blame the use of the same word to describe "Incorrect, unwise" and "Malicious, evil". There's two very different meanings there.

[scriver]

...What word do you mean?

[Darvi]

[kaijyuu]

In general I think we're too close to the evangelical trend for a fictional interpretation of revelation to be acceptable. There's not really a market for it. Believers want something that will appeal to their beliefs and non-believers seem to generally want something more parodic and satirical. I've entertained the idea of writing a serious exploration of the Rapture ideas but decided that it'd probably just end up offending both sides of the aisle.

True Art (tm) doesn't care who it offends!


And it's a bit more acceptable than you might think. One of my favorite video games is essentially all about killing a Jesus analogy. Controversy would've been sure to abound if something similar came from a Western source of course, but still.

[Darvi]

I see your Jesus analogy and raise you a God.

[scriver]

Ah.

Also, I never objected to anything you said, Truean, just people going "lol he's so stupid" afterwards. Your situation, what with you actually being concerned by it and it making your job harder, is quite the different thing.

[Aqizzar]

Aqizzar, they are paying you a pittance and expecting 60 hours. They have every intent of burning you out for what little your worth and then tossing you out on your ass. Don't kill themselves for you.

Sounds like they want a codemonkey on the dirt cheap. Look at it as a way to get hands-on training and make a few bucks to boot. You'll probably be asked to do a lot of the drudge work, which isn't all bad, because it will drill certain skills and knowledge into you by sheer force of repetition.

Expect guilt trips about being "salaried." Even if you can't get out of their bullshit demands, never, EVER feel like you owe them shit on a personal level. They can make you give them stuff, but don't let that "salary" get you down on the inside. Don't take it personally, because they're screwing you, you're not "failing to meet their demands." Their demands will be per se unreasonable, and there's shit all to be done about it unfortunately.

Thank you, guys.  I accept the situation as what it is, and it'll work out one of two ways.  Either all this smoke they're blowing up my ass is actually true, and it'll be a good job and I'll have equitable pay in fairly short order, or it'll be as much bullshit as I think it is, and I'll take my body of experience elsewhere after like a year.  I've got the rest of my life ahead of me, I'm not going to let myself be tied up in knots because of one shitty job.  The fact that they are willing to train me goes a long way towards making it worthwhile, it's just a question of how it plays out a few months down the road.

The main reason I'm reticent about the overtime is, aside from the fact that my will-be boss said the parent company is constantly overloaded (I don't know why he thinks I'm not paying attention to this), is that he himself is a severe workaholic.  Works 9-5 from home, then works extra hours in the evening and a full Saturday on side contracts, then spends his entire Sunday running a church group or something.  And has absolutely no awareness, let alone sympathy, of me having to commute across the entire DFW metroplex at rush hour (an hour drive, each way, and that's on the tollway).

Oh yeah, he's also a diehard Newt Gingrich supporter, which a treasure trove of witticisms and rebuttals straight from AM radio, and we haven't had a lunch yet where he didn't want to talk politics.  Where are all those lazy, grungy, hipster boardjockeys I'm supposed to be working with?