Name: Anonymous 2015-06-04 10:21
Taken from a comment found in response to this article:
http://www.returnofkings.com/39218/the-deadly-consequences-of-feminist-propaganda-in-the-us-navy
Great comment.
I agree that women are pushed in to these postions when they have neither the skill nor the desire to commit themselves to these positions and perform at the level required over a sustained period of time.
Example for those interested.
I am reminded that in 1986 I started at IBM as one of 69 graduate intakes to IBM Australia in IT that year. Of course, to get a job at IBM as a fresh grad was a HUGE challenge and a BIG opportunity.
IBM, in 1986, bestrode the world like a colossus. The US Guvmint had just spent 10 years trying to prove that IBM was too big and too monopolistic and needed to be broken up. The USG failed and IBM continued.
E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E wanted a job at IBM. It was THE place to work in IT.
I was lucky enough to get a job in the Australian International Development Center. At the time it was 70 people and we had two projects to work on to develop software for IBM Corp to be used in 21 countries. This was internal systems development. These were the 70 BEST IT jobs in the country.
IBM had two mantras at that time.
1. Respect the Individual.
2. Pay for performance.
These appealed to me because at BHP (Australias largest company) I had seen "quota women" be rife. The "quota women" would do no work at all. Indeed, they disrupted the work of the men in such a male dominated place as a steel works. Funny how feminists did not want to work on coke ovens or blast furnaces.
But the changes were already in the wind, little to my knowledge. In 1986 the 69 intake included some very bright women. Not ONE of them has gone on to any significant level of success in the IT industry. Not even ONE. They had the same opportunities as me. IBM made sure of that. But not ONE of them took those opportunities. Sure, to get ahead in IBM you had to work your arse off. No question. You wanted that next promotion? You had to EARN it if you were a man and the people you were competing with to get that promotion were the top 1% in the country. No small task to be the best in that sort of company. We had a lot of friendly rivalry for promotions and awards.
But just think about that. The most prestigious company in the world, that had it's pick of graduates, took on 69 grads in 1986 in IT, an evolving area. And 30 years later not ONE of the women distinguished herself. Not....even...one.
In 1988/9 I saw a precipitous decline in the quality of our work as more and more women were put on to our projects. I could not fathom what was going on. Women who were CLEARLY not capable were being hired over men I KNEW were far more capable. As a young whiper snapper I had faith in IBM managers and I was at a total loss to understand what could possibly be going on.
At christmas 1989 an incident happened where a woman was given an award where she had FAILED to fix a problem that cost IBM multiple millions of dollars in TWO WEEKS. I know what the problem was because after her two weeks of failure I was selected as the "best and brightest" to fix the problem. Indeed, by then the two week outage of the system had created problems so bad that the GM of Asia Pacific, George Conrades, had told the MD of IBM Australia, Brian Finn, that if anyone missed their quotas because of the problem at hand he would be fired from his job and kicked out of IBM. The problem was so bad that it threatened George Conrades Quota and the Quota of many of the Managing Directors in Asia Pacific Countries. If the problem was not solved, some of them would lose their jobs, and they were not going down alone.
So the MD of IBM Australia issued the order to find the "best and brightest" person in IBM Australia to solve this problem because his job was on the line. That call came to my desk. I was the "best and brighest" to find this problem and solve it...and so I did. I found it in about 4 hours and fixed it in about another 4 horus.....by midday the next day we were starting to resolve the backlogs caused by the 2 week system outage. No one lost their jobs. All quotas were made. Luckily.
What surprised me was this womans citation for her award was "Helen tried very hard to solve this problem, she put in the effort, the hours and we recognise her for her efforts."
I went to have a quiet chat with the manager responsible. He was my hiring manager so we had a great relationship. I asked him why it was that a woman was given an award for failure. I noted I did not expect any award. That I had saved the job of the MD was going to be a chip I would trade many times. That was reward enough. The manager confessed that he had "women quotas". They had quotas for hires, for pay rises, promotions, awards. The lot.
I looked at him hard in the eye and said "that is contradictory to respect for the individual and pay for performance."
He shook his head and simply said "We are told we have to do this."
I thought about this for about 10-15 seconds and then I said.
"Ok. I guess I have to leave then."
Remember, I was a rising star. I was the youngest System Architect in IBM Australia by about 10 years. I had earned my way up with some exemplary efforts. I had a BIG future in software development in IBM. I was only 26 when I made this decision to leave my profession of 8 years. A profession I had totally committed myself to to be "the best of the best". But in those 10-15 seconds I decided I had to leave. I had been considering leaving software development because of the issues I was seeing but this was the nail in the coffin.
The manager was shocked. He was my hiring manager and I was considered one of the best hires at graduate level in a long time. He asked me why. I said words to the effect.
"IBM Corp gave us these contracts to build great software. You gave 10 years of your life to win these contacts. But if you pander to women you will piss the men off and the quality of the work will go down. We are already seeing this. I have told you about this.
IBM Corp will take the contracts off us and give them to someone else because you can get bad software developed anywhere. Only in places like Australia can you get software developed that is great quality for the price we can do it.
I have to leave because this International Development Center will be shut down by IBM and the work will go elsewhere. When that happens? I do not want to be kicked out and looking for a job. The marketplace is too small. It will be too hard to find a good job when this development centre is shut down. I give you about 5 years.
I have to leave because these jobs are going away. And I do not want to be here when they do."
The development center won some more bids. By 1993 there were 500 people in it. I was out by a year. It was pretty much shut down by 1996. The work being sent elsewhere as I predicted. Many of my former colleagues lost their houses.
I always wonder...what do the wives of the men who lost their job and their house feel about how women were forced in to the development center and ruined it? Do the wives of these men say "Yah for feminism?" when it cost them their home?
The performance of IBM from 1990 to 2014 shows you what happens when you add "quota women" to the mix. For 25 years IBM has missed EVERY "big opportunity" in the world of IT.
Every...single....one.
Sure, there was a lot of other things happening at IBM. But "quota women" did not help the situation at all. And how a company like IBM can miss EVERY wave that is going on is astounding. I think the most damning indictment of IBM and how it was managed was the fact that in 2010 IBM paid USD1.8 million to buy Netezza. A company that was 8 years old and built a fast database machine. Netezaa is great. I have used it. But the fact that the worlds leading database software company had to BUY a startup to get a decent database machine shows you just how badly IBM failed. And the woman who presided over the failures of DB2 was one Janet Perna. If Janet Perna had not made the mistakes she had made? Oracle would not exist. Oracle only exists because Janet Perna and her pals made the decision in 1993 that "there is no market for unix databases". Well done Janet!
PAN.
http://www.returnofkings.com/39218/the-deadly-consequences-of-feminist-propaganda-in-the-us-navy
Great comment.
I agree that women are pushed in to these postions when they have neither the skill nor the desire to commit themselves to these positions and perform at the level required over a sustained period of time.
Example for those interested.
I am reminded that in 1986 I started at IBM as one of 69 graduate intakes to IBM Australia in IT that year. Of course, to get a job at IBM as a fresh grad was a HUGE challenge and a BIG opportunity.
IBM, in 1986, bestrode the world like a colossus. The US Guvmint had just spent 10 years trying to prove that IBM was too big and too monopolistic and needed to be broken up. The USG failed and IBM continued.
E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E wanted a job at IBM. It was THE place to work in IT.
I was lucky enough to get a job in the Australian International Development Center. At the time it was 70 people and we had two projects to work on to develop software for IBM Corp to be used in 21 countries. This was internal systems development. These were the 70 BEST IT jobs in the country.
IBM had two mantras at that time.
1. Respect the Individual.
2. Pay for performance.
These appealed to me because at BHP (Australias largest company) I had seen "quota women" be rife. The "quota women" would do no work at all. Indeed, they disrupted the work of the men in such a male dominated place as a steel works. Funny how feminists did not want to work on coke ovens or blast furnaces.
But the changes were already in the wind, little to my knowledge. In 1986 the 69 intake included some very bright women. Not ONE of them has gone on to any significant level of success in the IT industry. Not even ONE. They had the same opportunities as me. IBM made sure of that. But not ONE of them took those opportunities. Sure, to get ahead in IBM you had to work your arse off. No question. You wanted that next promotion? You had to EARN it if you were a man and the people you were competing with to get that promotion were the top 1% in the country. No small task to be the best in that sort of company. We had a lot of friendly rivalry for promotions and awards.
But just think about that. The most prestigious company in the world, that had it's pick of graduates, took on 69 grads in 1986 in IT, an evolving area. And 30 years later not ONE of the women distinguished herself. Not....even...one.
In 1988/9 I saw a precipitous decline in the quality of our work as more and more women were put on to our projects. I could not fathom what was going on. Women who were CLEARLY not capable were being hired over men I KNEW were far more capable. As a young whiper snapper I had faith in IBM managers and I was at a total loss to understand what could possibly be going on.
At christmas 1989 an incident happened where a woman was given an award where she had FAILED to fix a problem that cost IBM multiple millions of dollars in TWO WEEKS. I know what the problem was because after her two weeks of failure I was selected as the "best and brightest" to fix the problem. Indeed, by then the two week outage of the system had created problems so bad that the GM of Asia Pacific, George Conrades, had told the MD of IBM Australia, Brian Finn, that if anyone missed their quotas because of the problem at hand he would be fired from his job and kicked out of IBM. The problem was so bad that it threatened George Conrades Quota and the Quota of many of the Managing Directors in Asia Pacific Countries. If the problem was not solved, some of them would lose their jobs, and they were not going down alone.
So the MD of IBM Australia issued the order to find the "best and brightest" person in IBM Australia to solve this problem because his job was on the line. That call came to my desk. I was the "best and brighest" to find this problem and solve it...and so I did. I found it in about 4 hours and fixed it in about another 4 horus.....by midday the next day we were starting to resolve the backlogs caused by the 2 week system outage. No one lost their jobs. All quotas were made. Luckily.
What surprised me was this womans citation for her award was "Helen tried very hard to solve this problem, she put in the effort, the hours and we recognise her for her efforts."
I went to have a quiet chat with the manager responsible. He was my hiring manager so we had a great relationship. I asked him why it was that a woman was given an award for failure. I noted I did not expect any award. That I had saved the job of the MD was going to be a chip I would trade many times. That was reward enough. The manager confessed that he had "women quotas". They had quotas for hires, for pay rises, promotions, awards. The lot.
I looked at him hard in the eye and said "that is contradictory to respect for the individual and pay for performance."
He shook his head and simply said "We are told we have to do this."
I thought about this for about 10-15 seconds and then I said.
"Ok. I guess I have to leave then."
Remember, I was a rising star. I was the youngest System Architect in IBM Australia by about 10 years. I had earned my way up with some exemplary efforts. I had a BIG future in software development in IBM. I was only 26 when I made this decision to leave my profession of 8 years. A profession I had totally committed myself to to be "the best of the best". But in those 10-15 seconds I decided I had to leave. I had been considering leaving software development because of the issues I was seeing but this was the nail in the coffin.
The manager was shocked. He was my hiring manager and I was considered one of the best hires at graduate level in a long time. He asked me why. I said words to the effect.
"IBM Corp gave us these contracts to build great software. You gave 10 years of your life to win these contacts. But if you pander to women you will piss the men off and the quality of the work will go down. We are already seeing this. I have told you about this.
IBM Corp will take the contracts off us and give them to someone else because you can get bad software developed anywhere. Only in places like Australia can you get software developed that is great quality for the price we can do it.
I have to leave because this International Development Center will be shut down by IBM and the work will go elsewhere. When that happens? I do not want to be kicked out and looking for a job. The marketplace is too small. It will be too hard to find a good job when this development centre is shut down. I give you about 5 years.
I have to leave because these jobs are going away. And I do not want to be here when they do."
The development center won some more bids. By 1993 there were 500 people in it. I was out by a year. It was pretty much shut down by 1996. The work being sent elsewhere as I predicted. Many of my former colleagues lost their houses.
I always wonder...what do the wives of the men who lost their job and their house feel about how women were forced in to the development center and ruined it? Do the wives of these men say "Yah for feminism?" when it cost them their home?
The performance of IBM from 1990 to 2014 shows you what happens when you add "quota women" to the mix. For 25 years IBM has missed EVERY "big opportunity" in the world of IT.
Every...single....one.
Sure, there was a lot of other things happening at IBM. But "quota women" did not help the situation at all. And how a company like IBM can miss EVERY wave that is going on is astounding. I think the most damning indictment of IBM and how it was managed was the fact that in 2010 IBM paid USD1.8 million to buy Netezza. A company that was 8 years old and built a fast database machine. Netezaa is great. I have used it. But the fact that the worlds leading database software company had to BUY a startup to get a decent database machine shows you just how badly IBM failed. And the woman who presided over the failures of DB2 was one Janet Perna. If Janet Perna had not made the mistakes she had made? Oracle would not exist. Oracle only exists because Janet Perna and her pals made the decision in 1993 that "there is no market for unix databases". Well done Janet!
PAN.