Conference 7.286::digital

My group asked about this change when a personnel representative
was talking to our group about the reduced rate of pay increases
in the coming year.

We were told that the time period would be ignored if you transfer
into a group and discover that you do not fit in with the new group.
In this situation it is not in DECs interest to have you stay there.
But if a person can work with a group and do the job then DEC does
not want to pay that person to learn a new job every year.  Reducing
the time spent teaching new jobs saves DEC money.

The effect that the increased period would have on me would be to
make sure that I liked a job before I took it.  I don't think that
people looking for a better opportunity would be affected very much,
but people looking for a different opportunity each year would be.

It is not necessary for everyone to learn about this change, but
when a person thinks about changing jobs they should be able to
easily find out all DEC policies on changing jobs.  The real
question is how should people know to look in P&P when they want
to change jobs.  For that matter, how should people find out that
P&P exists in the first place?  My only exposure to this book has
been the two time that people have mentioned this change in my
presence.

						B.J.

Re: 38.0

Three questions, since I did not even know that there was an orange book (what 
we have here is "Digital and you" on Videotex):

1: Is the orange book specific to the US?

2: If not, is it possible to get a copy somewhere?

3: What do you mean by 12 months (non-exempt) and 24 months (exempt)?
   Exempt of what?


Stephane Rousset
Application Development Group
Information Services
EHQ - Geneva, Switzerland

  re .2

  1.  The policy manual in question is for U.S. only.  Although there are
      sections of that manual specifically marked "SCOPE: WORLDWIDE", the
      employment policy in question is not so marked.  This change in policy
      may or may not affect employees outside U.S.  Please check with your
      local Personnel department.

  2.  If you are a U.S. employee and are interested in getting the manual,
      see information in the next note (39.0).

  3.  "Wage Class 4, Salaried (exempt) - Employees who are compensated on
      an annual salaried basis.  Salaried employees do not record hours
      worked and are not compensated for overtime hours."

      Wage Classes 1, 2, and 3 are not exempt from U.S. laws regarding
      overtime pay.

Glad to read that one! (.0) I've been snooping around the east
coast for a new challenge, and had assumed that it would be for one
years commitment.  The last prospect that I met fell through, but
I would have had no qualms about staying for two years, and guaranteeing
it up front.   I think it would make me look mVERY closely at
who I was posting to work for.

Any good manager will spell out what he/she expects for a committment in a new 
job. In the past the group I work in always asked for a 24 month committment.
I believe that 24 months is a reasonable  amount of time for a WC-4, 
especially considering the training (both formal and informal) that is given 
to an employee in a new job.

				Joe

<FLAME ON>
Every job I have ever undertaken I have accepted as if it were for the rest
of my career. So far none of them have been, but it rubs me the wrong way
when people worry about how long they will stick with a assignment before
they ever start. I believe the speed at which people move from job to job
at DEC is a major problem for two reasons.

One, many people feel if they mess up, they can get to a new job before they
are found out.

Two, many people are perpetually learning and never give back to the corporation
the full amount they could if they did a job for a while after learning it.

For what it's worth, I have been with DEC 7 years as a sales rep and sales
manager in the same office.

<FLAME OFF>

<flame on>
If asked for a two year committment to a job, I'd do it under the proviso 
that the manager asking me gave me a committment that he/she would be my 
manager for the same two years!
Namely, if managers change, bets are off. Why not? A new manager is a whole 
new ballgame.

-Joe.

    RE: .7

	No need to light that flame, your comment sounds like the cold
	truth.  A different manager (usually) makes it a different group.
	Given that a person gives the new manager a chance to get acquainted
	(and see if they are that different) I would not expect the two
	year commitment to hold.

		Bob L.

    Re .7, .8:

    Right, that's not a flame, in my book.  If the manager perchance
    leaves, all bets are off.  To a lesser extent, the new manager also
    may feel a certain liberty that the old one did not to 'encourage'
    some people to move on.

    Dave

I am copying a note from another notefile, that may (or may not) belong here.
Any thoughts?


================================================================================
  SNICKR::BLIUDNIKAS            SOAPBOX, PART II             17-JUL-1985 07:31  
  Note #17.2                -{ No Picnic, No Fun }-                     2 of 7  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There will be memos flying around regarding new rules and regulations
to this effect.

a.  Q1 travel costs will be cut by 75% over Q4 FY'85 travel,
b.  Mileage reimbursement will be stopped for exempt employees
c.  No international travel
d.  No external training
e.  All outside consultants will be phased out
f.  No agency contract employees
g.  No company food/drink at meetings
h.  Relocation benefits will be granted on an exception basis
i.  No offsite meetings
j.  No company sponsored activities
k.  No temporary secretaries . . . .

And there will be more.

The old bag

    This is a pretty reasonable note, for the SOAPBOX.

    However, there is a problem with copying a note from the SOAPBOX
    to another file, in general.  The SOAPBOX has no rules, and some
    of its contributors suspend some of their inhibitions concerning
    NOTES, when writing in the box.  Specifically, the author of this
    note might have done considerably less research to verify the
    veracity of what she was reporting than she would have done
    if she had been about to post the same note in DIGITAL.

    I have no evidence that this is so in this case, and I'm not trying
    to start trouble between you and Gail(?).  I'm just saying that
    copying a note from one notesfile to another is generally accepted,
    but might not be if the source is SOAPBOX and the destination is 
    a more trustworthy file.

    Dave

I heard that the list referenced was a set of cost-saving measures under
consideration, but that no decision has been made to implement any of them.
 
FWIW

Re: .10 through .13   The axe has fallen (not everyone may have seen
          it yet...as usual rumours fly through electrons, but far
          reaching decisions come down the chain of command on paper)

I've started a new note on this subject

tim

    The following text has been sent today to: Bob Palmer, cc: Rando,
    Copperman, Mullarkey, Dirkmann
    
        
    Open letter to Robert B. Palmer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, 
    Digital Equipment Corporation
    
    Dear Bob, 
    
    We learned from an article in the Financial Times of January 27 that 
    you blame the "inflexibility" of the European work force for problems 
    at Digital Equipment. You cite France and Germany as examples of 
    countries where it is particularly difficult to do business. On the 
    other hand, you mention the UK as the country where "the workforce is a 
    lot more flexible".
    
    But obviously the present woes of Digital Equipment have nothing to do 
    with the "inflexible" European workforce. Digital's problems are not 
    limited to Europe. The IT market in Europe is expanding, and our 
    competitors' revenues and profits are increasing both in Europe and in 
    Germany, Europe's largest IT market. Digital Equipment, however, has 
    lost momentum with its letal downsizing and is loosing market share 
    every day. This is happening all over Europe, in the UK and in the US. 
    As the examples of HP, SGI and SUN, and even IBM Europe, clearly 
    demonstrate, it is not difficult to do business in Europe. But it is 
    difficult to do business with Digital. 
    
    We therefore ask you to refrain from resorting to excuses such as 
    "inflexible workforce", and ask you instead to concentrate on improving 
    the management of the corporation.
    
    Finally, there are further facts which clearly contradict your 
    argument: The workforce in Germany is so "inflexible" that Digital has 
    managed to downsize it from 9,000 to 3,000 since 1992. That is a hard 
    blow. Of course Digital had to pay a high price for these cuts. But in 
    view of the social impact of corporate downsizing, this is only a small 
    comfort. 
    
    We strongly invite you to present your argument to our colleagues in 
    Germany.
    
    Regards
    
    Christian Brunkhorst
    
    Chairman General Works Council
    Digital Equipment Germany    

>    lost momentum with its letal downsizing and is loosing market share 

Lethal.

Losing.

You really should spellcheck before you send a letter to the CEO of a
company.

Letters with such errors should go right into the trash.  "English is
not my native tongue" is no excuse when something is important to you.

/john

    I think he might still get the jist of the message despite a few 
    typos.  I would have sent the letter in German.  I would also expect
    the CEO of a major corporation to be able to deal with that.

re .15 and at the risk of ratholing an important topic .....

What a load of bombastic twaddle!!

Next time I get a note with US spelling, I shall toss it straight in the bin - 
I suggest you try working with Europeans who can frequently express themselves 
in 3 or 4 different languages, rather than Americans who have problems 
most of the time with just the one.

    Well, John is at least bilingual and fluent in German and English.
    
    I understand his position, but, on this occcasion, disagree.
    
    The letter seemed to the point and not particulalrly confrontational.
    
    I'll be interested if there is any response at all.

    John didn't say anything about English versus non-English.  His
    comments on the letter were about correct versus incorrect.  I don't
    care what language a letter is in, when I write an important letter, I
    take the time to make sure it is done right.  If it were done in a
    foreign language I were less than certain about, I would have it
    carefully checked by somebody who knew the language.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

I am noting in my journal that I am in complete agreement with Eric.
Now anything is possible! ;^)

Pete

In dealing with foreign entities, it is often a frequent occurrence that 
the people tend to, occasionally, misspell words or swap word positioning.  
I have often heard heads of state make these errors on national television.

I do not look upon these individuals as uneducated as some of you, 
obviously, are.  They have taken the time to make a point and, maybe, their 
spellchecker offered that particular spelling as a valid word and never 
even flagged it as a misspelling.

How often have YOU typed something like tow when you meant to type two?  Do 
you think your spellchecker will pick that one up?

..and who wrote that it should have been written in German.  An open letter 
written in German.  Now THAT makes a lot of sense in a company where 
English it the recognized corporate language.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

FWIW - I think more empathy is called for, and less emphasis on perfection
of orthography and cryptography.  Get a humane life!

	Dick

Sorry, but there is no excuse for misspelling such an easy word as LOSING,
especially in an important message.  I have seen similar spelling errors in
Digital documentation and presentations over the years, and it always reflects
badly on the writer or presenter.

And I understand nobody's perfect.

Paul

    
    	USA's CNET program used "it's" last night when they should have
    	used "its".
    
    	It was horrible.
    

    On the other hand you never know when a correctly spilled message might
    be poofed read. 
    
    Gun (to avoid a spelling erra)

    And "loosing" is not a misspelled word, just a (greatly) misused one.

    Re: .16 
    
    hear hear....;^)
    
    Claudio R. was here in Holland to speak publicly. I have never heard
    so many times the words, "You know" inbetween centences before as he
    did. Mannnnn!? these are the 90's........."as* ifffff!"
    
    Jan. ;)

re.14:

Well done for addressing this back to Bob Palmer directly. Add my name to 
the growing masses who are fed up with comments about the European 
workforce. I wonder if Mr Palmer knows that the actions of his management 
in the UK are driving up union membership? This in turn will lead to a less 
flexible workforce. If he is so in favour of a flexible workforce then 
should he not ask the UK management to stop?

Dave.

    Dave,
    
    Does anything lead you to believe that union membership of itself leads
    to a less flexible workforce ? Look at it another way: management
    behaviours such as have been seen in parts of Digital UK (and,
    apparently, Europe) for the last n years *will inevitably* lead to a
    less flexible (less motivated) workforce *and may* lead to increased
    union membership (if the workforce perceive that as a possible solution
    to the management problem). Increased union membership is a *symptom*
    of the problem, not the *cause*. 
    
    Palmer would do well to spend more time *delivering* on his
    "re-engineering the customer value chain" stuff, (remember that?)
    whether his VPs like it or not, and less time p*ssing off the folks in
    the field who actually deal with customers day after day, and are
    constantly acting as apologists for our corporate organisational
    incompetence.
    
    regards
    john

    re .30
    
    >Mr Palmer knows that the actions of his management
    >in the UK are driving up union membership?
    
    Well more power to the trade union members in the UK. It is certainly
    one of Mr P's main acheivements, getting thousands of computer industry
    employees who are traditionally very sceptical of unions and their
    bureaucracies to get a membership card.
    
    ..Kevin..
    
    [Member of the Irish Services, Industrial, Professional, and Technical
    Union (SIPTU)]

    Can I add a bit of fuel to both sides of the fire, this is dying down a 
    bit.
    
    USA today had an article in the Money Section.  The article concerned 
    a statement made by a few other computer companies.  They stated that 
    Europe is behind the technology curve, and the employees are not as 
    up to date.
    
    My input on this, having taught in Munich and Frankfurt for Digital, is
    that the Europeans are probably equal, they work hard, take more time 
    off, and enjoy life, but I think that they get the job done just the
    same.  
    
    Probably a perception thing, and I believe that they can not set the
    entire situtation.
    
    Dave

    Maybe an excellent example for the way Digital works: Take completely
    irrelevant things serious, miss everything else.
    
    I am not an admirer of Mr. Palmer, but I strongly believe he is not
    that stupid to think only one second about lingual errors, if he reads
    the letter at all.
    
    Hung
    Ps. Surely, tons of mistakes can be found in this reply. So?

    
    	RE: .34
    
    	The only obvious error is the missing "ly" that I would have added
    	to "serious".  The rest is fine.
    

    I think that anyone who wants to criticize a noter's English spelling
    and/or grammar should be free to do so -- in the noter's native
    language!
    
    \dave

> Given that most of the people making serious errors in spelling and 
> grammar are
> in these conferences are native English speakers, that should not be a 
> problem.

Excellent demonstration!

>>    I think that anyone who wants to criticize a noter's English spelling
>>    and/or grammar should be free to do so -- in the noter's native
>>    language!

Given that most of the people making serious errors in spelling and grammar in
these conferences are native English speakers, that should not be a problem.

I'd venture a hypothesis that there are more English spelling or grammar errors
per 1000 characters committed by native English speakers than by non-native
speakers.  And I'm not even counting British versus American spelling and
usage conflicts.

						Brian

>> Excellent demonstration!

I don't know what you're talking about!  :-) Go back and read the note again...

						Brian

    re.37
    
    
    I presume I should always use U.S. (note: not "American" - since I am one 
    also) spelling for all my Co. correspondence then..... gimme a break!
    
    Reminds me of that U.S. woman on the tour bus in Canada:
    
    "You all speak American up here?" :)
    
    Your NeighboUr up north,
    Pete ;)
                                                  

    Interesting comments (on spell checking) from the chairman, president, 
    founder of Sun Microsystems. 
    
    Taken from his speech to the Australian National Press Club.
    Printed in 'The Australian' Tuesday Ocotber 22, 1996.
    
    
    "...and probably another message I should share with you all is go ASCII. 
    ASCII is basically the most simple format for formatting characters.  
    It's just what your keyboard does. 
    
    And, I don't want people to send me a Word document on an e-mail. 
    I want them to send me in ASCII, with typos, not right hand
    justified, no special fonts and no colours, any information they want
    me to get, because I don't have the time to wait for them to format it
    and then use up network bandwidth to send it to me. 
    
    And then I've got to de-crypt it.  I mean Word is like encryption 
    to me.  And then I've got to de-crypt it somehow. 
    If you've got something to say to me send it to me with typos.  
    By the way, people said you can't communicate with your customers without
    formatting and right hand justifying and spell checking.  
    And I say, yes I do.  
    I say, I don't have the time.  I do a couple of hundred e-mails a day.  
    And, oh by the way, when it has a typo they know it came from me.  
    I don't have a spell checker, I have a spell wrecker. 
    It's a personalised e-mail from me every time."

    
            

    RE: .42 (Scott McNealy's comments on e-mail)
    
    McNealy also has nice things to say about PowerPoint. From the Jan. '97
    Byte:
    
    "When the anthropologists dust off the 1980s and 1990s and look at the
    productivity dip, they're going to blame [Microsoft] Office. I banned
    PowerPoint from my company and we've had the best two quarters we've
    ever had in the history of the company. I want to give everybody
    plastic Mylar sheets and all the pens they need to scribble on them.
    And I said use what I call the [Sun cofounder] Bill Joy font. You
    can see where he licked his thumb and erases; it's so much faster."
    
    Hmmm... now that I think about it, maybe that's what's happened to
    our marketing dollars. We do get a lot of PowerPoint presentations,
    don't we? Must take a lot of effort to get all those IR documents
    in Word...

Ah, but if you don't have anything to say, then you can say it *much* better
with fonts and graphics and colo(u)rs.  :-)

Reminds me of a customer I ran into at DECUS several years ago.  He had just
obtained our premier markup-based document formatting software and was
marveling at his power to make pretty marks on paper.  His comment:

	I love VAX DOCUMENT.  It's the only thing I know where you can
	put garbage in and get great stuff out!

Since he was a customer, I didn't bother to point out that what he was
getting out what just nicely-formatted garbage.  :-)

Three cheers for Scott McNealy and the "make it simple and real" movement.

-Mark

	Methinks that Scott McNealy is expounding on ASCII because he
	hasn't solved the bandwith problem of a Network Computer 
	environment. Also funny that he calls Word "encryption" yet
	is on a high horse about HTML. Scott only does what is good
	for Scott.


	Ok, did anyone catch any spelling errors in John and Ora's
	replies??

								mike

>    I say, I don't have the time.  I do a couple of hundred e-mails a day.  
>    And, oh by the way, when it has a typo they know it came from me.  
>    I don't have a spell checker, I have a spell wrecker. 
>    It's a personalised e-mail from me every time.

Yes, if got an e-mail from Scott McNealy, I would take the time to try to
figure out what he was trying to say despite any spelling, usage, or grammar
errors. But when I get one from Joe Blow, or look at his notes post, I'm not
going to make the same effort to decode it.

He doesn't have the time indeed. His minions can put in some extra time in
reading/re-reading so he can save time in writing. For less lofty mortals, it's
just rude to the reader not to take the time to be as clear and easy to read as
possible. And it's that much less likely your message will be understood or 
consideration given to your ideas.

(Naturally, non-native speakers can only be admired for their efforts to
communicate in a foreign language. I do agree, however, that a native-language
editor should be consulted on so important an effort as a letter to the CEO.)

    I doubt those 2 spelling errors will cause the company to lose any
    money.  Some people cant seem to grasp the content of the message.
    Reminds me of some of our processes we have around here.
    
    Keep trying till you get it spelled right, then we might read it.
    
    Sorry customer you have to call back the same number you just dialed
    and press 4-2-7-3-8-4-1.  No, I cant transfer you.  You have to do it
    our way.
    
    
    I cant understand why we get caught up in how someone spelled a word
    and not just try to understand what they are trying to say.
    
    Later,
    RJ

    Speaking only for myself (something my wife says I can do :-) 
    I consider bad grammar and spelling to be indicative of the general
    "dumbing" of society in general. Maybe it's just the Beavis and
    Butthead factor, but I really hate it when things aren't "right".
    
    Now your definition of what's "right" may vary from mine, but I was
    taught a certain way, and generally try to achieve "correct" syntax,
    grammar and spelling. In an informal setting such as Notes> typos
    occur, and go uncorrected and it's no big deal, but for "formal"
    letters to "important" people, I feel that content should be letter
    perfect.
    
    There, I feel better now...
    
    .mike.

            from note 38.46 
     
    >>	Methinks that Scott McNealy is expounding on ASCII because he
    >>	hasn't solved the bandwith problem of a Network Computer 
    >>	environment. Also funny that he calls Word "encryption" yet
    >>	is on a high horse about HTML. Scott only does what is good
    >>	for Scott.


    While I don't disagree that what Scott is proposing isn't good for 
    Scott the point seems to be is that if it's in Microsoft Word format,
    rather than HTML or ASCII, you're pretty well locked into having to 
    have Microsoft Word running on a Microsoft OS to do much with it.
    That's with the understanding that viewers and converters are available in 
    other products such as TeamLinks.  

    Use of correct spelling and grammar is important, it allows us to
    reduce confusion and to achieve clarity of expression. I don't think
    that correct spelling and grammar are more important than the 
    content of the message though. 

    I found Scott's opinion interesting in comparison to the idea of 
    'throw it in the trash if there is a spelling error', expressed
    earlier in this string.

    Regards,

    Angela




    

    Years back there was a discussion in the German weekly magazin "Spiegel"
    about correct spelling in German.
    
    The journalists did a test with the bavarian minister for culture, with
    a solid background of course in german, greek and latin. They testet
    this really well educated guy with maybe 10 sentences in German. Guess
    what happened: there were about ten spelling errors (capital letters,
    colons and so on ...) in these few sentences.
    
    Conclusion to me: some gurus fool millions of people - mistrust
    everybody who tells you he/she is correct in spelling ! And be
    tolerant.  

I bet the real reason Scott McNealy doesn't like Powerpoint are all the PC's
on peoples desks that are needed to write them. He's getting a glimpse into
the future irrelevance of his own probucts!. HTML JAVA etc. do run so they
are ok.

Preparing a presentation on Powerpoint can be as quick drawing on foils, you
have to spend hours getting it all perfect.


M

    re .51
    
    Also years back there was a meeting between chinese students and Dr.
    Bernhard Vogel, former governor of Germany's federal state
    Rheinland-Pfalz. Dr. Vogel was corrected several times by the Chineses
    because he wasn't even able to pronounce the word "China" in german(!)
    correctly. Nethertheless, he is one of the most respected politicians
    in Germany, not only by chinese students.
    
    Care about correct spelling. Care much more about contents.
    Care about people whoever he is. Why care more about CEOs? They send
    you mails with correct spelling, but the mails say nothing.
    
    Hung
    

    RE: .49
    
    Well said, Mike!
    
    Cheers, Laurie.

>                     <<< Note 38.48 by AIMTEC::JOHNSON_R >>>
>                            -< look at the message >-
>
>    I doubt those 2 spelling errors will cause the company to lose any
>    money.  Some people cant seem to grasp the content of the message.
> .....
>    I cant understand why we get caught up in how someone spelled a word
>    and not just try to understand what they are trying to say.

I'll grant that it's sometimes silly how people can get carried away
when we're talking about grammar and spelling.  But if the point
is communication, then you have to understand that the message
is carried in the medium of written language, and that message 
must be extracted from the medium by the reader.
In fact, many of the most common errors found in this file and elsewhere
change the content of the intended message.

  "Loose" and "lose" are two different verbs, one much more active 
  than the other.

  "Than" and "then" are two different parts of speech. ("More clouds than sun"
  and "more clouds, then sun" are two different weather forecasts.)

  "Formerly" and "formally" sound much alike, but modify their contexts
  in very different ways.

  The confusion between the personal pronouns (whose/its/theirs/your)
  with the contractions (who's/it's/there's/you're) makes sentences
  unparsable or ambiguous.

Spell checkers have little to do with it.
You can construct innumerable sentences that play with sound-alikes
and demonstrate that spell checkers are silly.
What matters is understanding the language you are writing in and using
its conventions to clearly communicate your intent.

It's the writer's message.  Shouldn't the writer care whether the message
can be extracted in a comprehensible way?
Is making hundreds of readers spend extra time reading a message to make
sense out of it better than a writer taking the extra time once to make
it clear in the first place?

They were right in junior high school when they told you good writing
skills were important.

- tom]

    Re .48:
    
    > I cant understand why we get caught up in how someone spelled a word
    > and not just try to understand what they are trying to say.
    
    The spelling errors will not cause any trouble understanding what the
    author intends to say.  They will affect the perception of the author.
    
    A well-written letter is evidence of a thoughtful person putting effort
    into communication.  A poor letter is evidence of an upset person
    ranting for a moment.
    
    
    				-- edp
    
    
Public key fingerprint:  8e ad 63 61 ba 0c 26 86  32 0a 7d 28 db e7 6f 75
To find PGP, read note 2688.4 in Humane::IBMPC_Shareware.

    Come on, folks.  We're talking, for the most part, about words
    we learn in "grammar" school.  It's not that hard to learn the
    difference between its & it's, there & their, lose & loose, etc.

    Of course, typos happen.

    Tom

re: .60

>    A poor letter is evidence of an upset person ranting for a moment.

Unless it's evidence of a perfectly calm, rational person attempting to
communicate in a non-native language, or a person who has some perceptual
or communicative disorder such as dyslexia, or some other syndrome...


re: .61

>    typos happen

Gee, that oughta (sic) be a bumper sticker!  Tho (sic) I spose (sic) it
would be more effective and demonstrative of the problem if it said

			TYPOES HAPPEN

or maybe

			TYPOS HAPEPN

-Mark

These problems would be much less frequent if people just spent a 
little more time proffreading.