jobs

Is political correctness screwing up the workplace?

In 1964 congress passed the Civil Rights Act. Three years later came the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), followed by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. This litany of legislation proves that politicians can actually get things done when they put their minds to it, all recent evidence to the contrary.

As an engineering manager for Texas Instruments in the mid-80s, I was careful about discrimination. Then I got a memo explaining that sexual harassment would not be tolerated. I was terrified until I realized the memo went out to all employees. Whew, that was a relief. I wish the memo proves that executives care about their employees, but I think it was more about avoiding litigation. And my relief was all about keeping my job.

Regardless of how or why any of this stuff happens, it's exactly the kind of thing that distinguishes our nation. We've made great strides toward putting an end to job discrimination and sexual harassment. But lately, something seems to have gone terribly wrong.… Read more

Steve Jobs tops list of business power people

Five of Fortune magazine's top four most powerful businesspeople in the world are very familiar to the tech world--and one of the names you might have expected to crack the top five isn't there.

Yeah, I said five of the top four, but this is Fortune's list, so blame the magazine for the accounting. But we'll get to that later.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs came in at the top of the list, which was posted to the magazine's Web site Tuesday. The magazine noted that Apple's chairman and CEO "twice altered the direction … Read more

The Beatles' Apple vs Steve Jobs' Apple, part 2

A reader responding to my The Beatles on iTunes? Who Cares? rant came up with this great summation: "iTunes are to audio what McDonald's is to hamburgers, but if this is how the public wants to buy music, then let 'em have it." Right on! Sound quality doesn't matter anymore, just the so-called convenience of downloading 1s and 0s at the cheapest possible price, or better yet for free. Why buy the complete "Sgt Pepper" when you can just get "With A Little Help From My Friends"? That's where it's … Read more

How to snag your boss' job

How many of us have driven home in anger, after a frustrating day at work, and declared to our spouse or the nearest person who will listen, "I can do that incompetent jerk's job way better"? The incompetent jerk is, of course, the boss.

At that point you have three options:

Option 1: Realize that you're full of hot air and do nothing. Option 2: Quit and go to work for somebody else. Option 3: Try to get your boss' job.

This post will give you three tips for accomplishing Option 3. Just to be clear, I don't mean getting your boss fired and you getting promoted in his or her place; I mean getting a promotion to that job level, either at your company or elsewhere.

I've done it lots of times. Sometimes it works out; sometimes it doesn't. Six years ago, I was so frustrated with my CEO that I responded to a call from an executive recruiter. Before long, I was CEO of an optical networking company. This was the opportunity I was looking for, a chance to see if I really was better at my boss' job than he was.

Seven months later, my company went bankrupt, a victim of the dot-com bust. True story.… Read more

The Beatles on iTunes? Who cares?

Paul McCartney is now saying the Beatles catalog won't be available on iTunes until sometime next year. Yeah so? Maybe I don't get it, but didn't the "digitalization" of the Beatles catalog happen more than twenty years ago when they put out the CDs? So why are iTunes buyers a vast untapped Beatles market? The catalog is already online--if you have a hankering for Abbey Road buy the CD from Amazon and rip it right now.

I could give a hoot about the long-running legal feud between the Beatles' music label Apple Corps and Steve … Read more

Apple considering raise for Jobs?

After years of drawing just a dollar in salary, Apple CEO Steve Jobs could be in store for a raise.

Apple filed its annual report for its 2007 fiscal year Thursday afternoon, and hinted in a section about executive compensation that Jobs could be in for some real money fairly soon. "Because Mr. Jobs's continued leadership is critical to Apple, the Compensation Committee is considering additional compensation arrangements for him," the company wrote.

Now, it's not like Jobs is hurting for money. According to Forbes' most recent list of the world's billionaires, Jobs ranks 132nd … Read more

Fake Dan Lyons loves Linux after all

Dan Lyons, the erstwhile Fake Steve Jobs, has told Robin Miller that he doesn't hate Linux, after all. As Robin reports:

He told me that people who say he dislikes Linux are not being fair to him; that out of 70 articles he's written about Linux, 67 have been positive, and he absolutely denies that he is paid by Microsoft to write what he does about Linux, Apple, or anything else.

I think it's all in how he means "positive." "Positive" for Dan is somewhat different from positive for, say, 99% of the human race. :-)… Read more

Report: Even more cash for Facebook?

Looks like the "$240 million poke"--also known as the high-profile stake in Facebook that Microsoft acquired on Wednesday--may not have been the only deal-making. Forbes' Elizabeth Corcoran posted a quick blog entry saying that she'd heard two New York-based hedge funds had each handed over about $250 million to the cash-fueled social network. The Silicon Alley Insider notes that this makes sense, as rumors had pointed to a $750 million goal for the financing round in the first place.

Facebook representatives declined to comment on the matter.

Additionally, Fake Steve Jobs (who is really a Forbes reporter … Read more

Why you need to take risks

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 4 of the top 10 and 9 of the top 25 in-demand jobs over the next ten years are in technology fields. We're talking software engineers, engineering managers, IT managers, network and systems analysts and administrators, all kinds of technology jobs.

It's hard to argue with the fed's data. Bubble and burst cycles aside, technology fields have been good to us all, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. That means that a good chunk of CNET's audience probably won't be hurting for employment for … Read more