What users hate about IT pros; Microsoft campaign goes after cybersquatters; Sophos offers free rootkit detection tool; Recruiting solution: invest in U.S. workers
What users hate
Regarding “What users hate about IT pros”: I remember a dear friend, now long passed, who listened while I ranted and raged about a user who not only successfully removed his own root directory while attempting to delete the data on a floppy, but then came and did the same thing on my PC while I was occupied elsewhere. After patiently listening to me for a very long time, she said, “But if everyone knew as much about PCs as you do, then we wouldn’t need you.” It put it in perspective for me and I have not forgotten this sage advice. I enjoy helping my users and find the vast majority of users to be grateful for the help I give them.
Bill Sedgwick
Juno Beach, Fla.
Regarding “What users hate about IT pros’”: One of the really serious problems is that programmers and network engineers, and other (introverted) machine-oriented people, are having to work help desk as IT grows and staffing doesn’t. Many of us have no interest in social interaction with frustrated users — we studied programming and math, not psychology and social science. So we hate this part of our job, and that spills over to hating the users, too. Help desk sucks. If you can find someone who likes doing it and is good at it, hire him. Programmers, especially, hate help desk and don’t make good help desk guys. Ironically, if they sat help desk for their own programs’ users, it would probably improve the programming process and result. But they’d still hate every moment of it.
Geoffrey Rarick
Database/network administrator
Thoracic Cardiovascular Institute
Lansing, Mich.
Property claims
Regarding “Microsoft campaign goes after cybersquatters”: Microsoft is a member of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, aka Coalition for Patent Piracy. This is a group of companies known for their appetite for other’s intellectual property. Based on their pattern of conduct, I cannot help but wonder if they are asserting trademark in inappropriate ways. Perhaps Microsoft is trying to take domains away from critics. Based on their conduct in the Eolas case, namely being caught red handed foisting manufactured evidence on the court, reasonable people have little choice except to look at these claims critically. Microsoft most certainly would not be the first company to make grandiose claims while coveting someone else’s domains.
Ronald Riley
President
Professional Inventors Alliance
Washington, D.C.
Not a freebie
Regarding “Sophos offers free rootkit detection tool”: This “free” tool really is not free at all. The price is agreeing to a multi-page “legally binding agreement” and an e-mail address. You could save me (and others, I’m sure) a lot of time by mentioning these requirements in print.
Gary Lavery
Executive vice president
G.A.F. Seelig
Woodside, N.Y.
Invest in American labor
Regarding Linda Musthaler’s column, “Recruiting solution: invest in U.S. workers”: I agree completely. I constantly hear U.S. technology CEOs say they can’t find qualified employees in the United States. I believe this is to reinforce their pleas to Congress to raise the H1-B quotas. Of course it’s easier to find highly educated employees in India and other countries since the currency exchange rates often works in the U.S. favor: $40,000 a year goes a lot farther in India than in the United States. Why don’t we just extrapolate the equation and hire foreign CEOs? That would cut millions from the payroll.
Furthermore, if Red Hat is committed to hiring two-thirds of its new employees from abroad, then why should the U.S. government enforce Red Hat’s intellectual property rights? If a majority of its growth in employees is from India, then let Red Hat seek its copyright protection from India.
Gary Tsuchiyama
Chicago
In reading Linda Musthaler’s column, “Recruiting solution: invest in U.S. workers,” I was struck by the line in which she appeals to Bill Gates to put his money where his mouth is and develop the next generation of computer scientists. I am with her on Red Hat’s lack of interest in local investment, but I’ve always thought Gates (and by extension, Microsoft) had foundations and grant programs set up to distribute money and software to the technology-needy. In fact, a quick search of Google turned up a site with a splash page saying, “Microsoft is committed to building the pipeline of future computer scientists.” From previous employment, I know first-hand that Microsoft is one of the major providers of low-cost software to charitable organizations. Others partners include Adobe, Intuit and HP, to name a few. Sadly, Red Hat is not among them. We also should be dismayed to find that Red Hat does in fact have a scholarship program — in India. I guess Matthew Szulik wasn’t complaining as much as he was explaining.
Mitch Enright
Network administrator
Orange County Employees Association
Santa Ana, Calif.
Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik says his biggest problem is recruiting. He should have been honest and said his biggest problem is recruiting U.S. workers who will work for $10 per hour or whatever it is IT workers get paid overseas. Szulik’s problem is not a lack of talented U.S. labor; his problem is a lack of talented U.S. labor he can exploit at bargain-basement prices.
David Wrisley
Lincolnshire, Ill.
When I was growing up, it was commonplace for companies to invest in their local communities in order to develop the proper skill sets necessary to help both company and employees prosper. Of course, this was before the latest version of greed that permeates corporate America today. Now, instead of investing in the communities in which they operate, companies find it cheaper to develop talent overseas. They then use the sorry excuse of a lack of skilled talent in this country to meet their needs as the reason for outsourcing. It is American dollars that are destroying America.
I just don’t understand why companies don’t see that these actions will effectively destroy this country by eroding the technical lead we currently enjoy. We are well on our way to becoming a third-world country – all in the name of greed. We don’t need an external force to destroy us; we are doing it ourselves.
Anthony Davis
Director, production operations
NextAction
Westminster, Colo.
