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French politics

J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
It's pretty mild here in SF this week. I'm at work and I'm actually
running the a/c. It's 84F here right now, downtown, which is pretty
radical for this time of year. The wind is from the NNE, so we're not
getting the usual cold sea breeze and fog this afternoon.

A few days ago it was normal, namely beastly cold being out in a
sweatshirt.

Here it's the first warm day but really windy. Have to watch the
barbeque carefully. Steak tonight, then back to work as well. Wrapping
up a layout with a guy in Vermont so we had to move dinner up in time.
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
I didn't find it to be difficult to start a company and hire (or fire)
workers. If they do something terrible, you say "you're fired: leave."
If they're merely incompetent, you say "you're laid off: leave."

Oh yeah, the "at will" clause is something Europeans would cringe at.
But here in CA there are all those workers comp, ADA and other rules.
Stories like Stephanie Nishikawa (a former local news anchor) getting
busted by bureaucrats because a few relatives were re-arranging flowers
or something didn't exactly increase the biz-friendliness level. I think
Arnold should crack down on such over-reaching.
 
M

Mike Monett

Jan 1, 1970
0
John Larkin said:
Pitiful, isn't it? Climatology is now being done by politicians and
journalism majors.
Whenever this many morons believe that something unproven is true,
it's a decent bet that it's not.

John

Without a doubt John, your contribution to the turmoil will have an effect.

We would expect a studied response, such as Win might make. Your answer
serves none.

Regards,

Mike Monett
 
J

Jeff L

Jan 1, 1970
0
I didn't find it to be difficult to start a company and hire (or fire)
workers. If they do something terrible, you say "you're fired: leave."
If they're merely incompetent, you say "you're laid off: leave."

Do your laws allow lay offs without repercussions on the company? Here it
makes the company look bad...
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Without a doubt John, your contribution to the turmoil will have an effect.

We would expect a studied response, such as Win might make. Your answer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bwahahahahahaha! Another fucking Gore "consensus thinker".
serves none.

Regards,

Mike Monett

It always amazes me how "independent thinking" the "engineers" who
lurk here pretend to be.

Sad.

...Jim Thompson
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Do your laws allow lay offs without repercussions on the company? Here it
makes the company look bad...

We can discharge an employee for any reason or no reason. If it's not
"for cause", namely a severe act, it's considered to be a layoff, and
the employee is entitled to state-funded unemployment compensation.
And the more an employer lays off people, the higher his unemployment
insurance rates.

But "look bad" is sort of meaningless. Who is going to know?

We had one guy who took paid time off for "jury duty" but didn't
actually have to show up for it, so we fired him. The firing was
sustained as "for cause." When we cleaned out his desk, we found out
why he hadn't been very productive and why our DSL was so slow: he had
spent all his time downloading porn.

John
 
M

Mike Monett

Jan 1, 1970
0
John Larkin said:
We can discharge an employee for any reason or no reason. If it's not
"for cause", namely a severe act, it's considered to be a layoff, and
the employee is entitled to state-funded unemployment compensation.
And the more an employer lays off people, the higher his unemployment
insurance rates.

But "look bad" is sort of meaningless. Who is going to know?

We had one guy who took paid time off for "jury duty" but didn't
actually have to show up for it, so we fired him. The firing was
sustained as "for cause." When we cleaned out his desk, we found out
why he hadn't been very productive and why our DSL was so slow: he had
spent all his time downloading porn.

John

So who hired him?

Regards,

Mike Monett
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
So who hired him?

We did of course. He sounded good, interviewed good, but wasn't. The
sad fact is that you never really know much about a person until you
work with them. The great advantage of employment-at-will is that you
can try them out and get rid of them if they are not productive.

If you keep hiring people and firing the bad ones, you wind up with a
lot of good people. It's simple.

John
 
M

Mike Monett

Jan 1, 1970
0
We did of course. He sounded good, interviewed good, but wasn't. The
sad fact is that you never really know much about a person until you
work with them. The great advantage of employment-at-will is that you
can try them out and get rid of them if they are not productive.
If you keep hiring people and firing the bad ones, you wind up with a
lot of good people. It's simple.

So would you hire me? If not, why not?

Regards,

Mike Monett
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bwahahahahahaha! Another fucking Gore "consensus thinker".


It always amazes me how "independent thinking" the "engineers" who
lurk here pretend to be.

Sad.

Funny. Jim's "thinking" is reliably independent of reality - like
pretty much all right-wingers, he likes to think that what suits him
also happens to be true.
 
On Sun, 06 May 2007 18:24:28 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
First two paragraphs of my latest editor to the editor, published May
2 in the Ahwatukee Foothills News...
"Organized religion is the slickest method of "sheep control" ever
devised. Create a fear and demand some tribute to alleviate it...
control accomplished.
Now there's a new religion in town... it's called "Climate Change",
recently renamed from "Global Warming" [Big Grin]. The tribute here
is that YOU get to ride a bicycle while Al Gore drives an SUV and
lives in one of the biggest homes in Tennessee."
And I just had to laugh just now at Fox News' report, in spite of it
being bad news...
Greensburg, KS, was pretty much leveled by a tornado, most likely
caused by global warming.
Yep. It was the worst tornado to occur in this area in eight years
;-)
...Jim Thompson

Pitiful, isn't it? Climatology is now being done by politicians and
journalism majors.

Whenever this many morons believe that something unproven is true,
it's a decent bet that it's not.

http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html#1

The bet is good, but it seems that John hasn't realised that he is
part of the moronic majority who have fallen for for the anti-climate
change propaganda.

Politicians and journalism majors do jump on every passing bandwagon,
and their opinions aren't all that useful, but the scientific support
for anthropogenic global warming is pretty much overwhelming. There
are hold-outs - the 86-year-old in Wisconsin that John cites isn't
entirely representative, since he seems to be suffering from early-
stage Alzheimers rather than oil company bribes - but the large
majority of the people who know what they are talking about are
thoroughly convinced that global warming is real and largely caused by
our burning a lot of fossil fuel over the last hundred years or so.
 
Local labor board for one.

Here, we have strict labor rules. Stuff like after you have an employee for
3 months or more, then you have to give 3 written warnings (which may need
be given to the labor board - working slow does not often count) before
dismissal, unless it's something really bad that justifies immediate firing
(eg stealing). Not following that can qualify for a lawsuit (most people
don't bother, unless it was a reasonably high paid job). Generally the
employer wins in most situations if it happens, however there is the cost
and major lost time from the lawsuit. The good news is you have up to 3
months to say leave - don't come back without any need to explain or
justify. The bad news is some employees go down hill after a few months (the
really bad ones are ok for the first bit, then become next to useless after
several months - some just wanting to get enough hours for EI).

In the U.K. - at least when I was working there - you had six months
to detect the bad apples.

This is usually enough, but I can recall one particularly plausible
guy who lasted some 18 months at Cambridge Instruments. The engineers
had his number early on, but management remained bedazzled by the
verbal fireworks (aka bullshit) for a while longer.
 
R

Robert Latest

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
This is sort of stunning. After all the press propaganda about
Europeans hating America,

The only people I know who insist on Europeans hating America are on this
newsgroup.
Europe's economy, and the semiconductor industry in particular, sure
needs a kick in the butt.

Europe's economy is doing great at the moment. The semi industry isn't but
probably could if they changed their marketing (look at NXP and Infineon
websites to see what I mean). Who needs a kick in the butt is European semi
industry marketing dept (but while we're at it -- why don't we kick the
butts of marketing in all industries in all countries. 99% are in desperate
need).

robert
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
I know that type! How long did he last?

Close to a year, as I recall. He was a marketing manager, and it's
really hard to tell, at least in any decent time frame, how good they
are doing. The time constants are insane.
Then there's the opposite - the ones were the interview goes ok, but within
the first week they blow your expectations out of the water!

Our current marketing guy is a college dropout who started part-time
setting up and fixing pc's. After a couple of years, his hours
gradually increased as we discovered that he has an instinct for
marketing and especially sales; he *loves* to get purchase orders.
Best marketing guy we ever had.
It's not what the company can do for you, which seems to be what the
expectation is for a lot of people, especially the younger ones (schools
tend to pump the students full of things to make them believe that,
especially the trade schools). It is what can you do for the company. If you
are a valuable asset to the company, then the company will reward you
appropriately. It is surprising how many people don't understand that
concept, or don't want to.

I look on employment just line most human relationships: people make
voluntary deals that are mutually advantageous. And either can walk
away at any time.
Ex union workers are often horrible. They tend not to want to do anything,
especially if it is slightly different then the job description. We look for
that on resumes as a filter for the don't hire pile.

Yes. Unions are evil, especially in the electronics biz.
The big problem we are having is finding the good ones - in our area,

Where's that?
there
is little electronics experience that's free to hire, especially electronics
manufacturing. To put it into perspective - we likely own 1/3 of the pick
and place machines in the province and we are a new fairly small company.
When the employment ads go out, usually less then 3, sometimes none out of
about 60 to 100 resumes that arrive are worth bringing in the candidate for
an interview.

Same ratio here, roughly. It's hard to find good people anywhere, I
think.

John
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jeff said:
Local labor board for one.

Here, we have strict labor rules. Stuff like after you have an employee for
3 months or more, then you have to give 3 written warnings (which may need
be given to the labor board - working slow does not often count) before
dismissal, unless it's something really bad that justifies immediate firing
(eg stealing). Not following that can qualify for a lawsuit (most people
don't bother, unless it was a reasonably high paid job). ...


Ouch! I definitely don't want to live there, let alone start a business.
Makes me wonder why people in your area don't move their business ideas
to a more entrepreneur-friendly region. Or maybe they already do...

[...]
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
On Mon, 07 May 2007 10:32:30 -0500, Spehro Pefhany

[snip]
Wishful thinking and exaggeration is one thing, but it's interesting
how some people have resumes that are complete fabrications.



Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Like our recently dismissed (after 31 years) Director of Admissions at
MIT... her resume was a total fabrication... she had NO degrees at all
;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
Close to a year, as I recall. He was a marketing manager, and it's
really hard to tell, at least in any decent time frame, how good they
are doing. The time constants are insane.


Our current marketing guy is a college dropout who started part-time
setting up and fixing pc's. After a couple of years, his hours
gradually increased as we discovered that he has an instinct for
marketing and especially sales; he *loves* to get purchase orders.
Best marketing guy we ever had.


I look on employment just line most human relationships: people make
voluntary deals that are mutually advantageous. And either can walk
away at any time.

My engineer friend from China was required to sign a 10-year contract
before a Japan-based company would hire her. When she left to emigrate
with her husband and kid to Canada after "only" 6 years she had to pay
them a fair chunk of cash to get out of the deal. Training in Japan
costs a lot of money, after all.
Yes. Unions are evil, especially in the electronics biz.


Where's that?


Same ratio here, roughly. It's hard to find good people anywhere, I
think.

John

Wishful thinking and exaggeration is one thing, but it's interesting
how some people have resumes that are complete fabrications.



Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
Joerg wrote:




We're doing fine here.

In the UK maybe. Isn't it around 6%? That would be ok but not exactly
"fine" IMHO. However, John was talking about Europe and not just the UK.
AFAIK the unemployment numbers in many continental European countries
are hovering above 10%. That's quite worrisome.

Chart 6 in this study might also cause quite a bit of concern for the UK
if I understand it right:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~blnchflr/papers/speeches/qb070118.pdf

Where is the hope for your kids?
 
J

James Arthur

Jan 1, 1970
0
Curious. These days, the French are notorious for getting most of
their electricity from nuclear power stations - 76% - which is a lot
more than anybody else.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3177360.stm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/frenc...

Modern photochemical smog depends more on car exhausts than on smoke
from coal-fired power stations and household coal fires - but Jim
won't have been to France since the turn of the century, so his
observations are more like ancient history, though granting Jim's
rather feeble grasp on reality, ancient myth is probably closer to the
mark.

Bill, if you don't mind, how much electricity did you use last month?

Best,
James Arthur
 
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