Holy shit! 

That is a terrible story. I was expecting some comic adolescent misadventure with concrete. Yeah. I wouldn't want anything to do with it ever again, either! 

And the thing with Buffett is that I bet he was still to busy most of his career to do the little old midwestern man hobbies that he would have liked to. 

I don't necessarily agree with Buffett or Gates or Zuckenberg - but I'm well aware that it is a misconception that the CEOs and captains of industry do the easy work while the laborers exchange their toil for a handful of dimes. Usually the business gives those guys the money to afford nice things, but the business owns the person. 

In most cases without the CEO, there is no company. no direction.   I have never understood people who yell 'they are not worth that much'  Sure, they are not out there on the line pounding iron beside you ( tho, many did at one point in the past ), but they are not disposable.

Sort of like where i work: "our customers are stupid and suck, i wish they would go away so we can get back to our job".. "um, you do realize we are only here due to them, right?"

Sun Apr 18 2021 12:50:39 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

And the thing with Buffett is that I bet he was still to busy most of his career to do the little old midwestern man hobbies that he would have liked to. 

I don't necessarily agree with Buffett or Gates or Zuckenberg - but I'm well aware that it is a misconception that the CEOs and captains of industry do the easy work while the laborers exchange their toil for a handful of dimes. Usually the business gives those guys the money to afford nice things, but the business owns the person. 

 

 

Yup. 100% agree. "He just sits in there and surfs all day." 

Then quit, and open competition - surely if he is asleep at the wheel, and you're the one doing all the heavy lifting at the company, you can outcompete him, right? 

And I often find that I need to center myself about the customers. Sure, they're a pain in the ass, they ask stupid questions, they're demanding and unreasonable. 

They're also the ones paying my paycheck. So... I smile and try to be helpful and patient and courteous. 

Sun Apr 18 2021 13:16:07 EDT from Nurb432

In most cases without the CEO, there is no company. no direction.   I have never understood people who yell 'they are not worth that much'  Sure, they are not out there on the line pounding iron beside you ( tho, many did at one point in the past ), but they are not disposable.

 

Sort of like where i work: "our customers are stupid and suck, i wish they would go away so we can get back to our job".. "um, you do realize we are only here due to them, right?"

Sun Apr 18 2021 12:50:39 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

And the thing with Buffett is that I bet he was still to busy most of his career to do the little old midwestern man hobbies that he would have liked to. 

I don't necessarily agree with Buffett or Gates or Zuckenberg - but I'm well aware that it is a misconception that the CEOs and captains of industry do the easy work while the laborers exchange their toil for a handful of dimes. Usually the business gives those guys the money to afford nice things, but the business owns the person. 

 

 

 

I have watched more than one fall apart.   Its never pretty.

One i saw coming and got out just before it..  Perhaps the largest service org on the planet at the time.  Destroyed by the board for quick cash. Most went to jail some 10 years later for securities fraud.

While working for that company, i was stationed at a local Ford plant. Once i saw what was going on and mentioned that i may not be around much longer, they offered me a plant engineering job to stay.   Next day corporate announced 'we are cutting you loose to be an independent operation'...    Um, better not, but thanks for the offer..  and 300 people retired the next week, so they could retire under Ford rules.  ( this was also the place where we were going to lose the national ford contract, and did a bunch of leg work and saved it. all the sales guy had to do was call up to Dearborn and tell them we still wanted it.   Didn't even bother to return my call until after " ya, i should have called you back " wtf. 

Another i was just the first wave and it caught me off guard.   About a year later it was sold. Lots of friends still there.   A new CFO came in, gutted the place " look at what i saved " got a bonus the left.  The they went under.  I really liked that place, and its people, i had hoped it was forever.  His idea of cost savings was fire everyone during annual shut down, or empty the maintenance crib of parts.. 

Hell, even the division i worked for with GM back in the 80s..  long gone.

Its the one reason im in the industry i am now. it wont go away. Or if it does, we are all screwed anyway and its academic.   But i do miss automotive :(

Mon Apr 19 2021 10:20:25 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I've had the experience of seeing a company completely collapse once I exited.
Unfortunately it was a family business. :(

Thankfully, my current employer is a midwestern-owned company that is always talking about "work/life balance" -- and they MEAN it. It's built in to the culture and I have time for family and hobbies *and* I am paid well for the work I do. I couldn't ask for more, really.

I worked for a company called the Byte Brokers. I left right as CompUSA and Fry's were arriving. They didn't survive. 

I went to MCI. *shrug*

I left MCI for a company called Fulltime that was really a conglomerate of Octok3rpus, Fulltime Cluster, Checkpoint and a couple other high availability solutions. They ended up getting bought out by a company called Legato, that eventually became absorbed into EMC. 

I left them for Intel. I left Intel in 2003 - shortly after the first time in their history where they didn't recover the price of their stock after a split. They just got above water around 2017 where I could dump all my underwater stocks. 

Then I worked for a company in Ohio called Matrix Management solutions. They host EMR/EHR solutions. Or they did. NextGen EMR - a struggling bay area EMR/EHR solutions company bought them. They're no longer there. 

I seem to be the kiss of death for a company. Or at least, once I leave. 

I'm not saying it IS me... but... if I were the boss, I'd pay me whatever I asked for and put me in the basement with a red stapler and call it good - just for superstition's sake. 

Mon Apr 19 2021 10:58:30 EDT from Nurb432

I have watched more than one fall apart.   Its never pretty.

 

I think its just the industries we have chosen.  

Mon Apr 19 2021 21:44:39 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I seem to be the kiss of death for a company. Or at least, once I leave. 

I mean... I suppose it has all been IT... 

But it was retail, telecommunications, high availability software support, Datacenter engineering, Hosted Server Management in Healthcare. 

So... it isn't the industry - it is the niche of IT in the industry that sucks. :) 

Tue Apr 20 2021 07:19:39 EDT from Nurb432

I think its just the industries we have chosen.  

Mon Apr 19 2021 21:44:39 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I seem to be the kiss of death for a company. Or at least, once I leave.