I wish him well too. He'll need it. The problem is not the workers, it's who they work for. The large companies in the field have gotten so blood thirsty that common sense has gone out the window. To "succeed" in the trenches, when you have a choice between doing something that will reduce expenses and taking care of the customer, you better forget about the latter. Executives make decisions that "maximize shareholder wealth" which is nothing more that maximizing the short term stock price. The original concept of maximizing shareholder wealth was VERY different - it was actually long term oriented. Since everything has to be measured these days, that got "translated" to what happens to the stick price but what executive is going to go for having their compensation based on what the stock does 3-5 years later? They're doing exactly what they are measured on because that's what's best for their wallet. What it does to the company, industry and the workers in the long run is irrelevant. Over two decades in the industry, I always knew folks in some area that were unhappy. That's almost something you have to expect in a big company. The big change over the last 5-8 years was that it spread to be practically everywhere. I never could get used to how unhappy folks were. It didn't matter what country, what division or what position. Folks were being asked to do too much for too little. They were burned out from cut after cut, reorg after reorg. And then the recession hit. We used to joke that when you bacame a manager, you'd go to "new manager school" to get your lobotomy. These days, they remove your spine. I knew more than one manager on meds ( or that needed to be) because of the job stress. As one put it, all you ever do anymore is destroy. A co-worker chose not to reveal the fact that they had a terminal recurrance of cancer not out of a desire for privacy but because they fully believed that they would go to the top of the list for the next round of cuts if management knew of their condition. They worked up until two weeks before they died in order to protect their family (think medical coverage and finances). When management learned they the employee had died from cancer, their first concern was what was the last day that the employee had actually worked. Several years back, there was a manager a few levels up that had different concept of "effective communication". Folks that weren't in his reporting chain actually went so far as to list him in the IM app as someone that wasn't allowed to see them when they were online. Those that were had no choice. I worked one weekend on a matter with a manager who had just been on a conference call with this guy. They were in tears - literally. Oh he eventually took a "leave of absence" a few years later but left a lot of damage behind. We all know about how large companies started off-shoring much of their work to reduce costs. Well, when that went well, you had about one out of three of these new workers that could actually do the job. The rest couldn't deviate from the "script" and were lucky if they could actually follow it. Customers quickly started including a requirement in their contracts that support had to be based in North America. The latest move was to redefine the "skill levels" needed to do these jobs so that these new workers could be classified in positions that paid one third to one half of what was paid previously. You can try working for smaller companies that try to survive in the niches but don't expect any medium or long term stability. I could go on but enough is enough.

Well, I hear the same kind of stories from other IT companies too but I'm not sure that it's limited to the IT industry. Maybe it's just me getting old but I really don't envy the kids starting out these days. I really don't like the direction the business world is headed. Too many companies see their employees as nothing more than another expense to be managed (read cut). They seem to have no concern about the investment it takes to find, hire and train an employee. They seem to have no concern about treating employees with respect. Productivity is something to be forced out of employees. Oh there are still places out there that still see employees as human beings but they seem to be a dying breed. Small businesses have long been the real engines of growth and innovation but I have to wonder if the financial industry will ever give them the light of day once the economy picks back up. Risk is inherent in the business world but no one seems to be able to deal with that any more. In their attempts to eliminate risk, the financial industry self-destructed and now suffers from numerous neurosis and outright paranoia. The smaller banks that are left will take years to recover and small businesses will struggle in the meantime. Their only alternative will be to find growth from cash flow and liquidity which will slow growth but might prove to be a blessing in disguise in the long term. The new graduates these days will have jobs. Careers are a thing of the past. If you only work for 2-3 companies, you'll be seen as defective. We all need to be skilled financial planners since things like retirement planning have been completely pushed off onto the individual. Not that a person's retirement isn't their own responsibility but now you have to manage all of the risk, the investment decision and planning. Yes, there are businesses out there willilng to help - for a fee of course - but how many of us have the skills to make the right choices about who to choose. What will retirement look like in another 50-100 years? Like I say, maybe I'm just getting old.