On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:19:40 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
wrote:
"flipper" wrote in message
.. .
Depends on whether everything the company does actually 'needs' a $70k
level of skill, don't you think?
I'll take two "overqualified" $70k/year engineers who can do the job of three
$50k/year "decently qualified" engineers any day... at worst, they get bored
and leave, at best (and very likely), they'll conjure up even better solutions
than what they were originally asked to implement, saving the company even
more money.
In actuality, the typical choice is more like "two decently qualified
engineers at $70k/year" vs. "three not-quite-qualified engineers at
$50k/year": Even if management knows their people aren't quite qualified for
the job, they figure tossing more people in will surely fix the problem.
There's certainly some truth to this stategy, but it's just not a good one for
the long-term health of a company IMO: All the really good guys leave because
they don't want to work with all the mediocre guys, who'll hold onto their
jobs as long as possible because it's that much harder for them to *find*
alternative employment. (The logical extension of this managerial strategy is
outsourcing, e.g., your programming staff to some low-wage nation... they may
not be very good, but they're so cheap you can hire a whole bunch more of them
to "make up the difference!" Some companies believe this is a profitable
strategy... but I sure don't. Case in point: ORCAD Capture 15.7, which is now
"maintained" in India *broke the ability to copy and paste within the symbol
editor!* It took them a handful of months before they released a service pack
to fix this, but I just can't understand how any "qualified" programmers could
*ever* break something that "fundamental" *and not even notice!*)
Not that I'm trying to bash Indians/etc. here... plenty of them are very good
programmers, and I wouldn't necessarily even claim that on average they aren't
as good as U.S. programmers -- I just don't know -- but they definitely are
cheaper. And if your management themselves isn't qualified to tell the good
programmers from the bad anyway, they might as well go with "cheap!"
And, consider, if companies were inclined, and able, to execute your
scenario every $50k level, or less, engineer would be unemployed.
This is the same argument I heard a little old lady making in line at the post
office yesterday: "I don't like using the automated postage machine, because
it puts someone out of a job." Sure, it might, but I'm confident that the
economy can grow without limits (it's not a zero sum game!), so there will be
new jobs created when the old ones are dissolved. Additionally, those new
ones -- while they'll often require more/different skills than the old one --
will tend to be more interesting and less "mechanical" than the old ones.
Life-long learning and being able to jump around a bit from industry to
industry is a Good Thing. :-)
---Joel
After Obama is elected everything will change. Most non-management
engineers will be laid off, due to overhead/benefit costs. Then
consultants will be contracted. I generally make out like a bandit
during hard economic times... but you leftist weenies deserve what you
vote for ;-)
...Jim Thompson
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