Perils of Instant Gratification

After years of failed attempts by various companies to market electronic books, Amazon looks like to be the company that has finally gotten it right with their Kindle device. The first Kindle had the unique quality of not sucking to read from, which was the sticking point for all previous devices. the Kindle2 was thinner, could read .pdf files, and could download books, some newspapers, and Wikipedia articles wirelessly anywhere you could connect to the same Edge network that wireless phones do.

This latest one now has a bigger screen that makes reading the newspapers and wikipedia content easier. But now, some people are so upset that this was released so quickly after the latest iteration of the Kindle that they have written whiny articles that makes me want to search my closet to see if I can still find the World's Tiniest Violin and play them some suck-it-up music.
Here's a wonderful little quote:

An Amazon spokesperson, in response to my tirade, told me "Well now you have a choice." The key word being "now." But when I bought the product three months ago, I did not have a choice.

I counter that statement with one from Rush:

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

You didn't have to buy the thing in the first place, but could have waited. People that buy the latest model car in July don't complain when a newer better version comes out soon after. Just because this was the latest/greatest at the time, doesn't not put an obligation on the seller or manufacturer to never sell or create a comparable item that's better than yours, or ensure that you're item is the best for a guaranteed amount of time.

The whole thing reminds me of a similar complaint of another reputable company.

When the iPhone hit the street a few years back, all of the iFaithful were outraged by the announcement that the iPhone was going to drop in price by 33% less than 3 months after it was released. The iFaithful were shocked - shocked!! - that Steve Jobs wasn't their geeky buddy giving away his nifty toys, but was in fact an executive of a publicly traded corporation that has a desire to make a profit.

The complaint was that the price cut was too soon; they would have delayed their purchase if they knew it would drop by that much in that short of a time, Apple doesn't value it's most loyal worshipers customers, etc.

The way I see it is even if Apple had announced before it inital launch that the price would have been cut by $200 in 10 weeks, people still would have lined up outside of their stores to throw money at them. For being without iStuff is to be incomplete as a person. People were willing to pay $600 bucks for one of these things, and no functionality was added to the $400 phone, or subtracted from the phone they purchased. People who waited just got a better deal.

I personally believe that the early adopters, while vital, or at least very important to the adaptation of new technologies, think that they are getting something more than the latest and greatest gadget on the bleeding edge of science. They are buying a membership into the upper crust of their social circle. The people that have the iPhones can discuss iPhone apps, hacks, settings, troubleshooting, etc. and have all the nifty little applications that can make life in the urban jungle easier to navigate, or at least more fun.

But more importantly, they can look down upon those that don't have these things. I'm not saying that iFolk actively think that they count more as a person than someone that uses a Nokia or Sony phone, but I would bet that buried in the parts of their brain that deals with social justice, a thought pops up from time to time: "You're still using a RAZR? You poor wretch. Do you have a tin cup that I can drop some change into? Maybe you can get one of those discontinued 4GB iPhones from eBay or something."

It kinda feels good to be on the inside track, and I guess that the iFolk thought there was some sort of handshake agreement that if they paid the premium for the device, their iClique would be protected by that pricing scheme for at least six months. Then the price came down quicker than imagined, and their heads were filled with visions of the great unwashed with their Wal-Mart grooming and technolgical ineptitude buying up their defacto Badge of Honor now that they were more affordable.

The lesson is, if you don't need it right now, wait. and if you do buy it now, remember that the maker of your gadget is probably making improvements to it, and will want to get those improvements out as soon as possible in a bid to increase market share. This means your device will be obsolete rather quickly. Especially true for any technical device.

And for all of you that doubt the blind devotion of the iFolk to their company, let me share with you an Instant Messenger quote from my Brother-In-Law shortly after purchasing his iPhone on the launch date:

"Jesus has come back, except he's a phone now!"

Yeah...

End Year One of the Western Experience

Early on, I was asked by family to not make direct references to my employers, lest their HR/PR/Marketing Scanbots find this blog and give the company grounds for my termination. I still believe that these fears are unwarranted, but it's better to be safe than sorry, and besides, anyone who Googles "Mountain View WY" and "telephone company" can figure out who I work for. (At least one commenter figured it out with no other information than the Occupation, Industry, and Location listed in my Blogger profile.) So for this post, I'll refer to them as the Onion Phone Company. You all know who I really mean.

I walked through the doors to Onion Telephone on October 15th excited, nervous, and hopeful of my new employer. I've been told by the locals that this was a great company to work for, but one can never tell; they may just want to drag others down into their employee family of misery. thankfully, I learned that everyone was telling the truth, and that I think these are some of the greatest people to work for. Sure, they have at least a few dumb policies and procedures, but that's true of any company you'll work for, and certainly less than my previous employer.

Even people who don't like Onion Telephone Company and may or may not have a legitimate grievance against them, they'll say that the family that runs is are good, honest, friendly folk, and they do right by their people.

The first two months were difficult, not because of coworker conflict or corporate BS, but because I was a bit overwhelmed with tasks, most of which I was learning for the first time. 90% of what I do now, I learned on the fly in those first few months. All the way through January, I had awful visions of termination due to incompetence or an epic screw up, and returning to my hometown as a broken and beaten man. After over a year of twiddling my thumbs at my previous employer, I had to get used to having job duties of import, or any job duties at all.

By about February, I had begun to understand how things worked, including our vast database of customers, version control, how our systems worked, and how to fix those systems when they failed. I began to get into a work routine, and relax. I'd receive encouragement and commendations from my supervisors rather than discouragement and condemnations from them.

By the end of the year, I no longer worry about trying to look busy when my Supervisor or Director walk by, because usually, I am actually busy. I don't try to overcompensate to prove my worth, because I know that I add value to the company. They've told me this themselves. I no longer worry about first impressions, because I've already made them, and have done so with great success. Even the few people that are notoriously difficult to get along with, I have a good working relationship with. I guess in short, what I'm trying to say is "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"

This April will be what I consider the final test my new job after having been there for 18 months. 18 months was about how long it took my attitude toward my previous position to slide down from "Shiny New Job! WEEEEEEE!!" to "I'm Satisfied" to "I hope I'm not here in 5 years" to "I'm just here for a paycheck". (The slide from "I'm just here for the paycheck" to "I MUST ESCAPE!" happened within the last four months of my previous employment.) Right now I'm still on "I'm Satisfied" level, with no visible end in sight to that.

We're about to undertake the daunting task of choosing and implementing the replacement of Onion's curent customer managment software. This is going to be a HUGE deal, especially when we're working in the shadow of the previously implementation project, which by all accounts was a Dark Time for the department. Me and the two other newest people on our team have been tasked with with creating a Data Warehouse for the company, which is going to be a new experience for all of us. The company is still hiring people left and right, including several openings in the IT department (If any of you want to work in IT while living it up mountain man fabulous, let me know). I'm not going anywhere for the forseeable future, and for once, that fact doesn't cause sadness.

And so ends Year One at Onion Telephone Company. Year two begins now.

I ♥ My Job

Monday was review day at work. I was dreading the scrutiny of my superious but I left the directors office in a really good mood. Basically, they rate you on general metrics which is 35% of the score (plays well with others, loyalty, work ethic, etc), your general job duties specific to your job title, which is 40% (does this IT thing, does that IT thing), and the last 25% is how well you achived your goals specific to this year (in my case, learn how to do A, B, and C). They rate each metric on a scale of 1-4.

• 1 means you suck, and need to straighten up and fly right
• 2 is satisfactory, in other words, your not screwing it up
• 3 is above average; "hey! we're glad we hired you! Hooray!"
• 4 is supurb; they start chucking fat rolls of currency at your head until you argee to be their BFF.

all my numbers were 2's and 3's including 3's in interpersonal skills, Help Desk tasks, and Organization(?!). Anyone who knows me will know how unusual that last one is.

All of it brought up just about every reason why I didn't like my last job. BEGIN BITCHFEST:

• I don't think they analyzed the need for the position before they posted the job. They Could've gotten away with hiring a part time person for data entry and some light filing, while my supervisor did most of the more interesting stuff.
• When they finally DID hire a part time person to take over several of my job duties, my boss who was going to redefine my job description left to take another job, leaving me to mostly wonder what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Basically, my job was too look busy, which I am very bad at when I don't have anything to do.
• My new boss' previous experience was managing data, which she was very good at. Her skills at managing people was GRAVELY LACKING. She made it clear that she didn't want me to do much more than breathe or blink without her written approval, then frowned on the fact that I didn't take more initative.
• When I did something she didn't approve of, she didn't point it out or correct it, but rather added it to a list in my file until she complied enough of the little things to do a formal write-up of how I was a horrible employee and needs to focus and blah blah blah, which was sent to HR, the VP, and if she could have gotten away with it, probably my mother as well. She was like the fickle girlfriend I never had. I can't prove it, but I suspect that this was part of a goal to marginallize me until I left (if true, then SUCCESS!!), or just to eliminate my position without having to pay unemployment.
• The technical duties that I had, which I think were a little overstated in the interview, were reduced to almost zero after two years there. I thought that if I stayed there for another year, my skills would lapse badly enough that I wouldn't be able to get a job in IT. This is probably what I was afraid of most.

END BITCHFEST;

Another reason why I really enjoyed review day was... well...