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The Machine Fired Me

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Re: The Machine Fired Me

#281

Post by jsoc815 »

rectang wrote: post #45

> I missed 3 weeks of pay because no one could stop the machine. Why has this company not made their loyal worker whole? He stayed there when they needed him even when their system was trying to lock him out. They need to fix this. If they don't, they are not a company anyone should work for. Perhaps the worker did not want to risk making a big stink, but a manager should have taken the initiative. Humans were involv…

> Why has this company not made their loyal worker whole?

IMO because the generally demonstrated position of the labor force is that companies do not have to (which I hate, to be clear).

IMO, employees buy into the employer/owner-propogated myth that they are "lucky to be employed." As a result, employees greatly undervalue their labor and give up any leverage to make employers do the right thing.

Having been around the block a few times, I view 'work' as a transaction in which my employer and I need to realize fairly mutual benefits: most people don't. Employees generally see jobs and titles as a way to assess their societal value. And employers, knowing that, can do pretty much anything they want to people, dangling the occasional carrot to encourage higher worker output, but mostly working w/sticks.

This is also contributes to the zero real wage growth in a supposedly tight job market.

TLDR: power dynamics and poor 'game play' on the part of employees

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#282

Post by rspeer »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #226
paulie_a wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think you will enforce that contract? Hire a lawyer? You might as well go to the ATM grab as much cash as you possible. Then put it all in a garbage can and light a match. It will be far less costly and more productive then attempting pursue that contract.

Sue in small claims court for week 1. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Sue in small claims court for week 2. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Repeat as necessary. Offer settlement in return for not suing anymore.

Is this just wishful thinking that, if something went wrong with your paycheck, the world would be just and there would be an easy legal remedy waiting for you?

From what I understand, you can only sue for $1000 or less in small claims court. An IT contractor who is making $1000 or less per week has bigger problems.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#283

Post by blauditore »

Wow, it seems like every single ERP software out there is nothing short of shitty. I've seen into a couple of fairly large companies now, and everywhere people were complaining about theirs.

My suspicion is that decision makers are bad at evaluating those things. They see a list of features and hear that "everyone's using SAP", so they want it too. And no one gives a damn about user experience.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#284

Post by PaulRobinson »

A colleague has a story from a former boss of his that I am now telling everybody when the chance arises as it does now:

Software engineers often think their job is to build a killer robot, this automation machine that destroys everything in their path.

But killer robots are expensive, prone to mistakes, and forget about the humanity in a situation.

Our role is to actually build something more like the Iron Man suit: a tool that helps humans do things they could not do otherwise.

In this case, the tooling sounds great as a killer robot. But it's the wrong thing to have been built. Somebody should have been able to approve and decline each step and over-ride it.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#285

Post by pbhjpbhj »

letsgetphysITal wrote: post #269
vvanders wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That show was incredibly on the mark, if Black Mirror was a comedy it would have been that show. The episode about the black engineer who isn't detected by the motion sensors is basically straight out of HP's webcam fiasco[1](although the show takes it to the logical and hilarious extreme). [1] http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2009/12/hp-webcam-c...

This has been a real problem with facial recognition. Faces used to train engines are typically Caucasian, so the ability to distinguish other ethnicities is quite sub-par. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/the-u...

Isn't there a problem with shadow contrast which makes features more difficult to pick out on darker skinned faces? I vaguely recall an East Asian developer giving that reason for why he developed on Western data-sets.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#287

Post by icebraining »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #76
isostatic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely a 3 year contract means the company is in breach of it by not paying you?

Sounds like he's contracting at a huge company. His contracting company isn't going to make waves over this. I would guess the contracting company is making $300+ an hour off this guy, paying him $50 an hour, and they have 200+ other contractors in the building.

If he's working for a contracting company, why would he lose wages? Wouldn't he still have a contract with that company? I work for a contracting company (in the EU), and if the client lets me go, I still get paid until a new project can be found.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#288

Post by nailer »

jacques_chester wrote: post #142
perl4ever wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...you never know these days if you are talking to someone on the Internet who believes "code is law".

Judges, taken as a whole, tend to believe that law is law.

I had a similar situation where it was proven that law is law while contracting at nab, a bank in Australia, years ago.

- When I first started, it took months to get me added to the project phase to bill my time.

- When I was finally added, I couldn't bill it because that project phase was over

- Then a few months to find a solution, then I was asked to bill to the new project phase

- I couldn't bill my old time to the new project phase as it wasn't running in the time I first started.

The bank kept promising they'd work out a way for me together compensated for the time. They continued to do this after I ended the contract.

I kept chasing them, and they went quiet. Then they said they weren't paying me for the time I worked because I hadn't entered my time correctly, then blamed me for walking out the door before I'd been paid the money they owed.

I called a lawyer. nab responded as above. The lawyer told nab that Australian law doesn't care about their billing system - mentioning the specific law helped.

They paid all the money a week later. I should have asked for costs and interest too, but oh well.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#289

Post by Rjevski »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #285
letsgetphysITal wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been a real problem with facial recognition. Faces used to train engines are typically Caucasian, so the ability to distinguish other ethnicities is quite sub-par. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/the-u...

Isn't there a problem with shadow contrast which makes features more difficult to pick out on darker skinned faces? I vaguely recall an East Asian developer giving that reason for why he developed on Western data-sets.

Most likely it’s an issue with contrast and overall darker skin colour.

Can be solved by illuminating the face with IR though, which should work across all ethnicities.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#290

Post by probably_wrong »

rspeer wrote: post #282
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sue in small claims court for week 1. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Sue in small claims court for week 2. Win. Obtain judgment. File lien against company assets. Repeat as necessary. Offer settlement in return for not suing anymore.

Is this just wishful thinking that, if something went wrong with your paycheck, the world would be just and there would be an easy legal remedy waiting for you? From what I understand, you can only sue for $1000 or less in small claims court. An IT contractor who is making $1000 or less per week has bigger problems.

I have good news for you: the small claims limit varies by state and, according to data from this website[1], the average upper limit is $8K (median is $6K, with the lowest being $2.5K).

[1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-h...

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